# Capitalism... Do you agree?



## Lucky AcidStar (Apr 23, 2012)

When "capitalism" was first proposed, it wasn't described as "hey this system might work"; it was described as "hey, this is what happens". At its most basic level, capitalism is the movement of valuable things for the sake of self promotion or survival. My understanding of capitalism is that it is the basic nature of the economy, and politics/authority manipulates the basic nature of human interaction.
Also, these topics are difficult to discuss when the premises and definitions are not very clearly defined. Even more difficult when the underlying nature of human interaction and the economy are... unthouroughly thought out.


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## OrdinarinessIsAFWTD (Jun 28, 2011)

Capitalism on its own is fine; the inequality it creates can be mitigated with a sound educational system, minimizing asymmetry of information as much as possible. What has fucked everything up is the influence of moneyed interests on the government (tech bubble, subprime bubble, bailouts, etc.). They need to be rooted out.


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## Serrucho (Jun 11, 2012)

Meritocrat said:


> What has fucked everything up is the influence of moneyed interests on the government (tech bubble, subprime bubble, bailouts, etc.). They need to be rooted out.


I'd sorta disagree with you there. I think the main problem we have right now is the massive ability that private entities have to contribute to the campaign funds of politicians. When a lobbyist can give hundreds of thousands of dollars to a particular politician do you really think that the politician is going to be unbiased? If this was going on in any other country we'd call it corruption. If we get private money out of campaigns then we'll get politicians that run for office because they actually care about the issues, not the politics.


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## redmanXNTP (May 17, 2011)

I posted this in a similar thread in the [INTP] forum last year:

Economic growth is best obtained with capitalism as its fundamental basis, although regulation and oversight by governments are needed to help check capitalism's worst offshoots, which consist generally of anticompetitive activities (monopolies and oligopolies, bribery in obtaining contracts, etc.); licensing and enforcement of business ethics (e.g. conflicts of interest); protection of copyrights and trademarks; fraudulent claims and advertising; cutting corners on quality of products and safety of the consumer due to profit motive (e.g. China currently), and fraudulent accounting and transactions in the case of publicly traded corporations (Enron, et al). 

Capitalism is really the only good and reliable way over time to ensure that new ideas are brought forth given that people simply need to be incentivized to put their time and creative efforts toward bringing a new way of doing things to the world. I would tend to define it as the "least worst". There is no perfect way, but there are a hell of a lot of bad ones.


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## nujabes (May 18, 2012)

Any rational person should join an anti-capitalist group at this point in history. The argument "well its the best we've got and communism won't create any new ideas!" is uninformed and laughable at best.

Bout to drop some knowledge on this bitch.











Watch these, do some research, and _then_ try to tell me that modern capitalism is a feasible economic theory at this point in history.


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## wiarumas (Aug 27, 2010)

At this point in time, it makes sense. Just like democracy. Is it the best solution? Nothing better has come along yet.

We'll evolve as a society when the time comes. In the meantime, do what you have to in order to survive which is the only constant across all time periods and cultural shifts.


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## heron (Sep 14, 2011)

Unrepentantly pro-capitalist and free-market fundamentalism.


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## Alarox (Jun 12, 2012)

To each his own. I think many of us (certainly myself) could write pages about what we think.

The only interjection I'll make for the moment is [selfishness =/= greed].

Selfishness is the act of doing something for your own gain. Greed is the act of taking from/harming others for your own gain.

Selfishness is good. Greed is bad. 

Selfishness is the driving force of progress. Selfishness is what fuels capitalism. Selfishness is the reason we don't live in the stone age.

Capitalism is the system that allows selfishness to help other people. If you look at socialism and communism, your drive to help yourself doesn't help others. In those systems it's all about doing things for the state, because the state tells you to under the guise of helping others. That is why socialism and communism will always fail.

In capitalism, if you want to go make money selfishly, you're helping someone else along the way since only other people can give you money.

----------------

Note: If you think you're not 100% selfish, you're wrong. Even when you help other people with "self-sacrifice" you're still doing it for yourself, or because you think you _should_. In the latter case it's because you have a *desire* (aka, for yourself) to conform to that ideology that tells you self-sacrifice is a virtue.


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## Polymaniac (Apr 8, 2012)

Capitalism itself is a mode of production, so I fail to see how it can be supported to various _extents_. What exactly does the OP mean by _capitalism_?


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## Roi (Apr 27, 2012)

BeauGarcon said:


> Talking about idealized images of economic ideologies is useless for the reality we live in, *they need (the decision-makers) to look at every case on itself and take pragmatic decisions (that benefit as much as possible as many people long-term, so some 'capitalist' ideas/methods/rules/... will also be used).* But at the end the people come before the property, no matter what, that's what I think. Economic ideologies tend to look more at the desired methods than the desired results, first you look at the desired results then you look at the fitting method, not the other way around.


For this to be possible, the decision makers must be somewhat remotely able - as well as incentiviced - to do so. If you understand how many variables (of whom a large portion depend on induviduals subjective value sets) has to be managed and how little incentive there is for both politicians and voters to do the gathering, processing and "altruistic" implementation, you realize the state can only be defended by locking into fallacies.


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## Grunfur (Oct 23, 2011)

I had this debate on a Ron Paul thread. Lets face it, government is crap, but its the right idea. Not like these big businesses who don't have the right intentions for the public. If not set out to make money, capitalism lacks the necessities established upon society. This includes the resources and intentions of businesses. While some capitalists are ahead of the game, but when it comes down to it you can't count on them. 

Also the idea of private property is not only deluded, but detrimental. Property in the first place has no true owner. You don't own resources that serve your business, products, infrastructure etc. It all comes from something else. And I'd say privatization seperates society to a certain extent. Caring is sharing.


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## nujabes (May 18, 2012)

Alarox said:


> To each his own. I think many of us (certainly myself) could write pages about what we think.
> 
> The only interjection I'll make for the moment is [selfishness =/= greed].
> 
> ...


This is disgustingly biased, assuming a collectivist economy has to be state-run.

In a zero-sum world, which we live in, selfishness must always be at the expense of the other. In order that you possess a certain amount of resources, someone else (in fact, all others) must not possess those resources. It is therefore _impossible_ to act selfishly and not expect exponentially escalating levels of conflict as scarcity increases.

Collectivism is the realization that selfishness, if seen as a virtue, can only be fully realized and utilized through *cooperation*. 

Eliminate currency, you eliminate the basis for almost all power struggles. Nobody can use currency to control resources, people, etc, thus they *must* be *cooperative* to achieve their goals.

The "nothing better has come about yet" and "look at the USSR" arguments against collectivist economies are ignorant and point to a resistance to change.


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## Ovi (Jul 5, 2012)

I'm not an NT, so I didn't vote. However, I'll add my own thoughts. I consider myself an anti-capitalist (an anarchist to be more precise).


Alarox said:


> The only interjection I'll make for the moment is [selfishness =/= greed].
> 
> Selfishness is the act of doing something for your own gain.


_selfish: caring only about yourself and not about other people_



Alarox said:


> Greed is the act of taking from/harming others for your own gain.
> 
> Selfishness is good. Greed is bad.


_greed: a strong desire for more food, money, power, possessions etc than you need_
You got both definitions wrong.


Alarox said:


> Selfishness is the driving force of progress. Selfishness is what fuels capitalism. Selfishness is the reason we don't live in the stone age.


What makes you think selfishness did not exist in the stone age? Selfishness is not a modern invention, it's just that the modern society promotes it. Progress exists not because of selfishness, but because of reason. I can also argue that capitalism (more accurately, competition) is inherently against progress due to trade secrets and intellectual property.


Alarox said:


> Capitalism is the system that allows selfishness to help other people.


People helping each other implies altruism. If you only allow someone to benefit from you if you benefit from them, then it doesn't have anything to do with that.


Alarox said:


> If you look at socialism and communism, your drive to help yourself doesn't help others. In those systems it's all about doing things for the state, because the state tells you to under the guise of helping others. That is why socialism and communism will always fail.


You're going to have a heart attack once you find out that according to Marxist theory, socialism and communism are stateless societies :shocked:


Alarox said:


> Note: If you think you're not 100% selfish, you're wrong. Even when you help other people with "self-sacrifice" you're still doing it for yourself, or because you think you _should_. In the latter case it's because you have a *desire* (aka, for yourself) to conform to that ideology that tells you self-sacrifice is a virtue.


That by *definition* makes everyone selfish and altruism can't exist. It's not an argument, but a definition skewed to serve your purpose. Altruism is helping others without expecting to gain anything in return. The fact that altruists are this way because they empathize with others or feel good in helping others doesn't matter.

You got all your premises wrong. Selfishness and competition don't define capitalism, property rights do. Property rights don't exist as something natural, instead they're a construct created and imposed with force, by the state. I don't oppose capitalism because it's _evil_, but because its hierarchical nature is authoritarian and not at all compatible with my notions of freedom, it is inherently unjust, it relies on the exploitation of men by men, it's inefficient and outright obsolete.

Socialism doesn't need people to be altruistic. In fact, there are mutualists and individual anarchists (the real kind), who are completely anti-capitalist, but view the market economy as useful. They are a very small minority though. Almost all anarchists are of the collectivist type because the market is seen as inefficient, wasteful and unfair. See the prisoner's dilemma, tragedy of the commons and similar situations where everyone acting in their own self interest leads to an inefficient outcome and everyone would be better of if they would all cooperate instead.


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## Entropic (Jun 15, 2012)

No. I got very strong values on this subject and I don't really feel like discussing them so I just do the tl;dr version: it doesn't work and it's bringing us towards a societal collapse.
@greco it may be true that Greece may be strongly socialist when it comes to its core values, but the truth remains that the reason why you experienced your economic collapse was because you changed to euro, and the reason why the euro collapsed had to do with the euro bubble bursting which is very much a capitalist thing. 

The current financial crises are caused by capitalism and irresponsible politics in general.


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## greco (Jul 10, 2010)

prior to joining the Euro Greece had experienced higher and higher inflation and poor economic performance too. I remember back when I was in my early teens, when inflation ran at almost 20% a year. 

I am not sure how you arrive to the conclusion that "the euro bubble bursting is a capitalist thing" but do describe your train of thought if you care to do so. At this point it seems a bit vague to me. 

We will all have the chance to observe once again what happens when the socialist re-distributionist "anti-capitalists" take over in a country: observe France and how its economy evolves under its new, socialist governmemt. 

The trick is of course that when socialists fail they blame the failure on capitalism again. So the problem, they maintain, is never too much socialism. It is always too little, too late, that brings about the inevitable decline


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## nujabes (May 18, 2012)

greco said:


> prior to joining the Euro Greece had experienced higher and higher inflation and poor economic performance too. I remember back when I was in my early teens, when inflation ran at almost 20% a year.
> 
> I am not sure how you arrive to the conclusion that "the euro bubble bursting is a capitalist thing" but do describe your train of thought if you care to do so. At this point it seems a bit vague to me.
> 
> ...


Ok buddy, I'll break it down for you.

The euro bubble burst because eurozone members like greece, spain, etc, were running a debt-fueled economy that catered to the population's every whim. Retire at 50 (or 55, or whatever it was. it doesn't matter, it was far too early to work) and enjoy a state-paid pension!

And then when real estate tanked, Greece discovered it could no longer pay for... anything. ECB/IMF didn't want to pay for it either.

The global crisis was caused by ultra-rich bankers masturbating outside the watchful eye of regulators, who were essentially useless anyway as the "regulations" had been changed to make such masturbation completely legal... and very profitable.


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## Ovi (Jul 5, 2012)

greco said:


> We will all have the chance to observe once again what happens when the socialist re-distributionist "anti-capitalists" take over in a country: observe France and how its economy evolves under its new, socialist governmemt.
> 
> The trick is of course that when socialists fail they blame the failure on capitalism again. So the problem, they maintain, is never too much socialism. It is always too little, too late, that brings about the inevitable decline


Not sure where you got the impression that Greece is anti-capitalist in any way. It's just a social model of capitalism. Funny thing, the Mediterranean social model has the lowest social expenditure of them all, at only 23%, so your argument is completely flawed. All evidence points to the contrary.


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## MadKeltoi (May 15, 2012)

Thank you gingertonic and Ovi for hitting the spot on selfishness NOT being the main factor of evolution and progress. Reason and cooperation on the other hand...

greco, I guess you mean the new social democratic French government right? Because they are socialists only in name. Many countries nowadays are social democrats or tend to walk in that path. They can bend to benefit a more powerful State or a State who is just the liquidator of private business, with no real political significance whatsoever. That people call being lefty or righty on these days. All full of crap, all social democrats.

But there is a thing going on this thread that I find really annoying. Specially with those who defend capitalism in a way.
Guys, do you really believe that capitalism is just economy and has nothing to do with political structure? That is idealism. I am not a marxist myself. I don't believe in his way of revolution, nor in collectivism. But he is damn right on explaining social and political structure as it was at his time and still is.

Saying that capitalism is just an economic system, not political is ignoring the structure of privileges we live in. Saying that with his own heroic efforts one can raise from the bottom to the top is pure fantasy. Capitalism keeps maintaining that illusion (capitalism as a political view) that even if you have been born in a poor family, of working class enviroment, with little access to the formal privileges of a good education you have the same chance to be successful as anybody else. If you fail, that is your fault.

As I use the classical definitions, politics should be the good handling of the Polis, the city. That said, capitalism can never escape his political influence. Even if capitalism does not have political ideals for itself, it is used to maintain the political structure, or the way the city (society) is ruled.

One can say I'm mixing capitalism with liberalism. And you are right. The way I see things, one cannot survive without the other. Capitalism without a liberal State gets in pure oligarchy. Liberalism... well, is biased on the free-market (on the condition of a liquidator State, of course).


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