Boy you must have it good...I'm sorry I can't say the same for most people I know.I think capitalism is the main obstacle to people's freedom...here's why:
We have wealth, lots of it. In fact enough to feed the entire population of the world as it stands now. But why don't we? Because those who own the means to food production put profits before people. The virtues of business, greed, ambition and competitiveness rule on this world (for now). If capitalism is indeed the highest freedom humanity can attain, then why does it benefit such a small percentage of the world's people? Therefore, I conclude that capitalism fails miserably in "freeing" people.
I think I should attempt to address the question of what we define freedom as being. To me freedom is not the ability to leave a job for whatever reason since people still need money to meet the most basic needs. And considering the inability of capitalism to provide "good" jobs let alone living wages for the majority of people, freedom in this sense is denied to the poor and many working class people.
We step over the homeless and destitute everyday, yet at the same time, we burn a fifth of the food we produce just to keep inflation down. Is this freedom? To me it sounds like babarism.
But the denial of basic needs while workers produce literally mountains of food is only part of the barbarity capitalism creates.
Socialism: the answer to many of the problems of capitalism.
Most people think communism exists in this world. This is a lie. Geniune socialism that stands on the traditions of Marx Engels Lenin and Trotsky never fully materialized. Marxism is not a dead ideology. Marx said the "the emanicipation of the working class IS THE ACT OF THE WORKING CLASS ITSELF". Cuba, Russia, China...ARE NOT COMMUNIST NOR SOCIALIST. The working class had absolutely no involvement in setting up the so-called communist regimes. Citizens is suffer in those countries. Bigotry and oppression women still exist in those countries. THIS IS NOT COMMUNISM.
So what is communism/socialism? Simply put it is the disappearance of the pressures of economic necessity through workers (meaning whoever has to sell their labour for a living) seizing control of the ways of creating wealth (food, clothing, cars, etc.) Thus humanitarian aims would be the priority for all, not capitalist aims.
In the words of a guy named Chris Harman: We do not have to leave them to the blindcaprice of the market, to the mad rush of rival owners of wealth in their race to keep ahead of eachother. the new technologies that are available today, far from making our lives worse, have the potential to make this control easier. Automated work processes could provide us with more leisure, with more time for creativity and more chance to deliberate on where the world is going.
And remember friends, the ruling ideas in this society is alway the ideas of the ruling class.
