: Ten years ago, I would have been alarmed at these posts...Today, you're all a bunch of laughing stocks, clinging to such a bankrupt ideology. Why? I don't understand and need to know why intelligent idividuals can hate capitalism, a proven recipe for prosperity for most of the nations that have embraced it.(By the way, I'm not a socialist per se. I'm a Leftist anarchist. There are many different schools of thought.)
: I issue you a challenge...try and convince me to give up capitalism.
I don't have to. At some point, you'll give it up, no matter what you or anyone else wants. Your concerns aren't terribly material when you're immaterial, as it were.
: I'm 37 years old, HS grad with some college. I've been employed (enslaved?) with a large air express company for 16 years. During this time, I have purchased two homes and through my 401k, investments in the stock market and shrewd timing as regards to my real estate purchases, my wife and I now have a net worth of over a quarter of a million dollars (in case this is confusing to you 5-year planners, net worth is asset value minus debt).
So, under capitalism, you're a winner. It's perhaps not surprising that you advocate capitalism. However, what you're not addressing is that capitalism produces a few winners (who end up better off than average) and a lot of losers (who end up a) worse off and b) exploited by the winners). For there to be people richer than the average, there must also be those poorer than average. Would you accept the above as an obvious truth?
(In case the term "wealth creation" should spring to mind, I would point out that everything we know of as "wealth" ultimately comes from the Earth, and the Earth's resources are finite. Wealth creation does not exist as such. What you think of as "wealth creation" is merely the redistribution of wealth.)
: My retirement is not yet assured, but a college education for my children is. So far, so good.
(And if the stock markets should collapse?)
: The big test for you socialists: Tell me why I should forsake a system that rewards risk, hard work and perseverence for one that punishes individuals who succeed.
(well, capitalism only rewards risk, hard work and perseverance in some cases. It's a lottery. But that's beside the point.)
Well, for one thing, your children's future.
Would you say that Western-style capitalism is something the whole world should emulate? Our rate of wastage (of resources) in the Western world is such that the world cannot sustain it. If everyone tried to live like Westerners, there simply wouldn't be enough to go around.
As increasingly large areas of the world try to become like the West, so the pollution and depletion of natural resources are becoming critical.
Take, for example Indonesia in the past year. That particular regime has been trying to Westernize as fast as possible for the last 20 years, with the result that their forest reserves have been depleted. The fires that have burned during the past year would not have spread so far or burned so long if the government hadn't turned a blind eye to the activities of the loggers.
Of course, they did, as cheap wood meant they could remain competetive in the global fight. It fuelled the "tiger economy". Similarly, low labour costs and a welcoming attitude to foreign investors provided an influx of cash.
When the fires started, Indonesia suddenly got bitten by the downside of capitalism. The populace suddenly started to lose their confidence in the Government and the economy (not being able to see the sun for smoke does do things like that).
Added to the general pan-Asian malaise (as they find out it's impossible to keep prices permanently low) and Indonesia's currency starts slipping. Foreign investors start getting cold feet about the economical and environmental conditions of Indonesia, leading to a big fall in foreign investment, leading to the Indonesian economy getting more unstable. In come the IMF, they now have a large debt as well as a damaged environment. The only crumb of comfort they can salvage is that they're still (nominally) solvent.
But you can see the weaknesses of capitalism in this example;
Capitalism is a short-termist policy
The government was quite clearly on a mission to make as much money as fast as possible. Long-term sustainability, both of lifestyle and the environment, took a back seat in the rush for profit. It's not a huge leap of imagination to apply this to the world in general.
Capitalism is too susceptible to human emotions.
The world economic markets appear to be a non-linear dynamic system. In common parlance, they are "chaotic". The effects of a small event can make massive waves in unpredictable places, and classical (capitalist) economics just can't cope with this. Given a winners-and-losers system like capitalism, a stock-market glitch can cause widespread misery to millions of 'innocent' people, irrespective of how hard they work. Indeed, people tend to work harder in recession times, yet still get poorer on average.
If your investments suddenly crash, your hard work will be set at nothing, through no particular fault of your own. You'll just become one of the losers.
Capitalism holds nothing sacred.
In the increased atmosphere of "commodity", there is nothing that cannot be bought and sold. In the classic case of recent years, the UN concluded that a Western life was worth five times as much to the global economy than a Third World life. In my opinion, that's a fairly sick thing to say.
And if you read the evidence on climate change, you realize that the gambling stakes in the capitalist game include our lives. Our governments are betting in the full knowledge that people will die as a direct result of their bets.
A report published in the UK a couple of days ago find that 12 to 24 thousand people have their health damaged (and die earlier) as a result of pollution. In the UK alone. The Government and the country view that as an 'acceptable loss' (or there would be mass unrest). Which is a pretty rough deal, but is more likely to affect the poor and infirm than the rich and/or healthy.
As to the future, the current predictions are that the global climate will change in a way harmful to humans in the next 50 years _as a direct result of current human activity_. So your children and grandchildren will suffer as a result of your current lifestyle.
In short, you're living off their future.
Now to the second part. If you accept that a Western lifestyle _cannot_ be enjoyed by all of the world (due to finite resources), then you are accepting that those who can't live a Western lifestyle will be treated on a global scale as second-class citizens, forced to support the rich world, without enjoying the same benefits as the rich world.
In short, if you accept that not everyone can have a slice of the pie, you are accepting the slavery of the poor. I'd like to see anyone defend slavery as a good thing.
Yet that's what capitalism with limited resources entails.
(Now, as a computer user living in the UK, I'm living in a glass house and throwing stones to a certain extent. I'm aware of that. However, I'm trying to make things better and consume as little as possible, rather than just digging my snout deeper in the trough.)
None.
