Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

[EdwardBaiamonte]

yes too bad Marx was unable to see how his idea would slowly starve 125 million human beings to death. Please tell us why you picked Marx rather than Hitler

For the same reason Hitler murdered Jews and communists instead of capitalists?

dear the question was why did you pick Marx over Hitler?

 

[georgephillip]

dear the question was why did you pick Marx over Hitler?

Marx didn't kill any Jews.

 

[Londoner]

(Marx would call this "false consciousness" -

Marx got 125 million people killed and he is the liberal GOD to the insane. You have to wonder why they didn't pick Hitler rather than Marx?

Your response is a little off point.

I did not advocate for communism, either in its textual form or its corrupt execution. I made reference to Marx's concept of false consciousness. [If you want my opinion on Marx; I think many of his criticisms of capitalism are cogent, but I literally don't understand how communism could possibly work]

Marx is not a liberal God. Most liberals I know are closer to Keynes. They believe in private property and markets but they want to see oversight and regulatory controls circa 1945-1975. They side with Adam Smith and Karl Marx, who had identical fears over monopolies and anti-trust collusion. But you wouldn't know any of this since you seem to see the world in terms of talk radio caricatures.

Finally, your comments on China are a little simplistic. China practices state controlled capitalism, which is far more brutal and centralized than the managed capitalism that the U.S. practiced during the postwar years, the era of our greatest economic growth (which was fed by manufacturing, rising wages and robust consumption. This is in contrast to the kind of growth seen from 1980 to the present, which was marked by austerity for the lower classes coupled with wild accumulation on top, driven largely by credit (debt) and finacialization, to fill the hole left by the shift of capitalist production to more profitable labor markets in tyrannical countries that hate freedom. Irony or ironies).

 

[Freemason9]

Capitalism without democracy evolves into fascism.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Marx is not a liberal God. Most liberals I know are closer to Keynes. .

As Communist Party General Secretary William Z. Foster commented, "The Nazi fascists were especially enthusiastic supporters of Keynes."[65] Former Trotskyite[66] Dobbs recounted that Harvard economist Joseph Schumpeter observed that in Nazi Germany, "A work like Keynes’ General Theory could have appeared unmolested—and did." In the introduction to the 1936 German edition of his treatise, Keynes himself suggested that the total state that the National Socialists were then building was perfectly suited for the implementation of his investment schemes:

“

The theory of aggregate production that is the goal of the following book can be much more easily applied to the conditions of a totalitarian state than the theory of production and distribution of a given output turned out under the conditions of free competition and a considerable degree of laissez-faire.[67]

[TBODY] [/TBODY]

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Finally, your comments on China are a little simplistic..

dear if they have averaged 10% growth and eliminated 40% of the world's poverty the world should copy them to eliminate the remaining poverty still caused by soviet liberalism.

 

[georgephillip]

dear if they have averaged 10% growth and eliminated 40% of the world's poverty the world should copy them to eliminate the remaining poverty still caused by soviet liberalism.

Future wage levels will be decided in Peking not in DC, Sweetie?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear if they have averaged 10% growth and eliminated 40% of the world's poverty the world should copy them to eliminate the remaining poverty still caused by soviet liberalism.

Future wage levels will be decided in Peking not in DC, Sweetie?

dear, as long as China is pursuing a capitalist policy that so far has eliminated 40% of the worlds poverty we should all pray liberals die so capitalists can eliminate the rest of world poverty. FYI poverty is considered a bad thing not a good thing.

 

[georgephillip]

dear, as long as China is pursuing a capitalist policy that so far has eliminated 40% of the worlds poverty we should all pray liberals die so capitalists can eliminate the rest of world poverty. FYI poverty is considered a bad thing not a good thing.

"Growing U.S. trade deficits with China—due, in part, to the Chinese government’s manipulation of its currency—caused 2.4 million U.S. jobs to be lost or displaced in manufacturing and other trade-related industries between 2001 and 2008 alone,1 and 100 million workers experienced lower wages due to competition with imports from low-wage countries (Scott 2010b).

"Ending China’s currency manipulation could help create at least 1 million U.S. jobs in the next few years, but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner delayed a semiannual report on currency manipulation, scheduled for release on April 15, in which the Treasury would have been forced to name China as a manipulator. There may have been sound reasons for delaying the report, but there is no reason why Secretary Geithner needs to wait another day to simply identify China—as well as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan—as currency manipulators and then to immediately begin formal negotiations with those countries.

"President Obama went one step further at the recent nuclear summit when he said 'China rightly sees the issue of currency as a sovereign issue.'

"But there is no need to give in to China on currency.

"While it may be literally true that the United States cannot 'force' China to revalue, the United States can make China’s policy of currency manipulation so expensive that China will have no choice but to revalue."
Sweetie...why do you consistently shill for commie manipulators? Are you proud to live in a Red State? Will you run for governor or commissar?
Currency Manipulation 8212 History Shows That Sanctions Are Needed Economic Policy Institute

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear, as long as China is pursuing a capitalist policy that so far has eliminated 40% of the worlds poverty we should all pray liberals die so capitalists can eliminate the rest of world poverty. FYI poverty is considered a bad thing not a good thing.

"Growing U.S. trade deficits with China—due, in part, to the Chinese government’s manipulation of its currency—caused 2.4 million U.S. jobs to be lost or displaced in manufacturing and other trade-related industries between 2001 and 2008 alone,1 and 100 million workers experienced lower wages due to competition with imports from low-wage countries (Scott 2010b).

"Ending China’s currency manipulation could help create at least 1 million U.S. jobs in the next few years, but Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner delayed a semiannual report on currency manipulation, scheduled for release on April 15, in which the Treasury would have been forced to name China as a manipulator. There may have been sound reasons for delaying the report, but there is no reason why Secretary Geithner needs to wait another day to simply identify China—as well as Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan—as currency manipulators and then to immediately begin formal negotiations with those countries.

"President Obama went one step further at the recent nuclear summit when he said 'China rightly sees the issue of currency as a sovereign issue.'

"But there is no need to give in to China on currency.

"While it may be literally true that the United States cannot 'force' China to revalue, the United States can make China’s policy of currency manipulation so expensive that China will have no choice but to revalue."
Sweetie...why do you consistently shill for commie manipulators? Are you proud to live in a Red State? Will you run for governor or commissar?
Currency Manipulation 8212 History Shows That Sanctions Are Needed Economic Policy Institute

Imagine the beauty of capitalism. By switching to capitalism they eliminated 40% of world poverty, and, saved American's about $200 billion dollars with lower prices that increased our standard of living too!!

Capitalism is a Republican miracle!

 

[Spare_change]

Chris Hedges interviews 92 year-old Sheldon Wolin, a political philosopher who witnessed the rise of the three great totalitarian movements of the early 20th Century: Bolshevism, Nazism, and Corporatism.

One one has survived, and it's due to the inverted nature of its totalitarian structure.

HEDGES begins by probing the significance of this inversion:

"So let's begin with this concept of inverted totalitarianism, which has antecedents. And in your great work Politics and Vision, you reach back all the way to the Greeks, up through the present age, to talk about the evolution of political philosophy. What do you mean by it?

SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. POLITICS EMERITUS, PRINCETON: Well, I mean by it that in the inverted idea, it's the idea that democracy has been, in effect, turned upside down.

"It's supposed to be a government by the people and for the people and all the rest of the sort of rhetoric we're used to, but it's become now so patently an organized form of government dominated by groups which are only vaguely, if at all, responsible or even responsive to popular needs and popular demands.

"But at the same time, it retains a kind of pattern of democracy, because we still have elections, they're still relatively free in any conventional sense.

"We have a relatively free media.

"But what's missing from it is a kind of crucial continuous opposition which has a coherent position, and is not just saying, no, no, no but has got an alternative, and above all has got an ongoing critique of what's wrong and what needs to be remedied.

HEDGES: You juxtapose inverted totalitarianism to classical totalitarianism--fascism, communism--and you say that there are very kind of distinct differences between these two types of totalitarianism. What are those differences?

Hedges Wolin 1 8 Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Chris Hedges interviews 92 year-old Sheldon Wolin, a political philosopher who witnessed the rise of the three great totalitarian movements of the early 20th Century: Bolshevism, Nazism, and Corporatism.

One one has survived, and it's due to the inverted nature of its totalitarian structure.

HEDGES begins by probing the significance of this inversion:

"So let's begin with this concept of inverted totalitarianism, which has antecedents. And in your great work Politics and Vision, you reach back all the way to the Greeks, up through the present age, to talk about the evolution of political philosophy. What do you mean by it?

SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. POLITICS EMERITUS, PRINCETON: Well, I mean by it that in the inverted idea, it's the idea that democracy has been, in effect, turned upside down.

"It's supposed to be a government by the people and for the people and all the rest of the sort of rhetoric we're used to, but it's become now so patently an organized form of government dominated by groups which are only vaguely, if at all, responsible or even responsive to popular needs and popular demands.

"But at the same time, it retains a kind of pattern of democracy, because we still have elections, they're still relatively free in any conventional sense.

"We have a relatively free media.

"But what's missing from it is a kind of crucial continuous opposition which has a coherent position, and is not just saying, no, no, no but has got an alternative, and above all has got an ongoing critique of what's wrong and what needs to be remedied.

HEDGES: You juxtapose inverted totalitarianism to classical totalitarianism--fascism, communism--and you say that there are very kind of distinct differences between these two types of totalitarianism. What are those differences?

Hedges Wolin 1 8 Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

China has demonstrated that they are not related.

 

[Spare_change]

Chris Hedges interviews 92 year-old Sheldon Wolin, a political philosopher who witnessed the rise of the three great totalitarian movements of the early 20th Century: Bolshevism, Nazism, and Corporatism.

One one has survived, and it's due to the inverted nature of its totalitarian structure.

HEDGES begins by probing the significance of this inversion:

"So let's begin with this concept of inverted totalitarianism, which has antecedents. And in your great work Politics and Vision, you reach back all the way to the Greeks, up through the present age, to talk about the evolution of political philosophy. What do you mean by it?

SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. POLITICS EMERITUS, PRINCETON: Well, I mean by it that in the inverted idea, it's the idea that democracy has been, in effect, turned upside down.

"It's supposed to be a government by the people and for the people and all the rest of the sort of rhetoric we're used to, but it's become now so patently an organized form of government dominated by groups which are only vaguely, if at all, responsible or even responsive to popular needs and popular demands.

"But at the same time, it retains a kind of pattern of democracy, because we still have elections, they're still relatively free in any conventional sense.

"We have a relatively free media.

"But what's missing from it is a kind of crucial continuous opposition which has a coherent position, and is not just saying, no, no, no but has got an alternative, and above all has got an ongoing critique of what's wrong and what needs to be remedied.

HEDGES: You juxtapose inverted totalitarianism to classical totalitarianism--fascism, communism--and you say that there are very kind of distinct differences between these two types of totalitarianism. What are those differences?

Hedges Wolin 1 8 Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

China has demonstrated that they are not related.

You are going to use 10 years of China to prove your point? Surely, you jest ... ask Hong Kong.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Chris Hedges interviews 92 year-old Sheldon Wolin, a political philosopher who witnessed the rise of the three great totalitarian movements of the early 20th Century: Bolshevism, Nazism, and Corporatism.

One one has survived, and it's due to the inverted nature of its totalitarian structure.

HEDGES begins by probing the significance of this inversion:

"So let's begin with this concept of inverted totalitarianism, which has antecedents. And in your great work Politics and Vision, you reach back all the way to the Greeks, up through the present age, to talk about the evolution of political philosophy. What do you mean by it?

SHELDON WOLIN, PROF. POLITICS EMERITUS, PRINCETON: Well, I mean by it that in the inverted idea, it's the idea that democracy has been, in effect, turned upside down.

"It's supposed to be a government by the people and for the people and all the rest of the sort of rhetoric we're used to, but it's become now so patently an organized form of government dominated by groups which are only vaguely, if at all, responsible or even responsive to popular needs and popular demands.

"But at the same time, it retains a kind of pattern of democracy, because we still have elections, they're still relatively free in any conventional sense.

"We have a relatively free media.

"But what's missing from it is a kind of crucial continuous opposition which has a coherent position, and is not just saying, no, no, no but has got an alternative, and above all has got an ongoing critique of what's wrong and what needs to be remedied.

HEDGES: You juxtapose inverted totalitarianism to classical totalitarianism--fascism, communism--and you say that there are very kind of distinct differences between these two types of totalitarianism. What are those differences?

Hedges Wolin 1 8 Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

China has demonstrated that they are not related.

You are going to use 10 years of China to prove your point? Surely, you jest ... ask Hong Kong.

China has had 35 years of state capitalism that eliminated 40% of the world's poverty. Yes its too bad the state won't let Hong Kong be even more capitalist than it has been!1

 

[georgephillip]

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally while capitalism is a system of economics known for consolidating money (political power) in fewer and fewer hands with each passing generation. Therefore, capitalism will destroy democracy if left to its own devices, i.e., elected Republicans AND Democrats in the US.

 

[priceless]

Capitalism only interferes with democracy insofar as people are unable to vote independently of their economic interests. If sufficient economic independence existed among the people, capitalism would just be a means of procuring economic trade instead of the basis for a way of life.

What's happened, however, is that people and agriculture have been separated by multiple degrees of income-dependency to the point where people can't simply choose to go work directly on a farm to get food when they have no means of income. Likewise, land-use has become capitalized to the point that people can't simply pick a spot to pitch a tent, build a cottage, or park a trailer, without significant investment and tax/fee burden. This doesn't even begin to address the income-dependency that comes with relying on energy-dependent transportation, mandatory insurance requirements, and other impediments to living without money.

As long as people are kept dependent on money and spending to live, they will not be free to participate independent of economic interests as true democracy would require. This why even the republican party, supposedly the party of freedom, resorts to promising jobs and growth to the masses. The government has been commandeered by capitalism in the interest of supporting flows of money and commerce and the only way to make democracy independent is to reduce commerce (income and spending) to a secondary aspect of economic activity.

Capitalism is hardly ready to accept freedom and independence, though. They have given up on that dream centuries, if not millennia ago.

 

[Spare_change]

I would suggest that democracy CAN'T exist without capitalism.

Democracy is a form of government in which all eligible citizens participate equally while capitalism is a system of economics known for consolidating money (political power) in fewer and fewer hands with each passing generation. Therefore, capitalism will destroy democracy if left to its own devices, i.e., elected Republicans AND Democrats in the US.

The problem, both with your analysis AND with our current situation, is that the voter has allowed money to equal political power. The two are not inherently intrinsic to each other.

However, when the people become dependent on the government to provide for them, they allow money to equal power. It is the dependence on the government that will destroy democracy, not money.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

. It is the dependence on the government that will destroy democracy, not money.

yes folks on welfare will always turn to the govt for more welfare! Most importantly capitalism is like democracy in the both depend on the individual. Liberalism is like communism in that both depend on the govt not the individual.

Therefore the more liberal socialism the less democracy

 

[georgephillip]

The problem, both with your analysis AND with our current situation, is that the voter has allowed money to equal political power

How has the voter allowed money to equal political power in the US when both major parties rely on the same 1% of voters to fund their election campaigns and retirements and voters have only two realistic choices on their ballots? Every government in history as served its richest citizens at the expense of its majority by socializing costs and privatizing profits, usually through generous application of war and debt.

If you believe "we the people" are the government of the US, why wouldn't we depend on government (ourselves) to provide for us? We depend on government to print the money. Government provides the infrastructure to regulate and protect money and contracts. It is only when government is corrupted by large concentrations of private money, which stem from gutting those formative cultures and institutions necessary for democracy to survive that democracy dies the kind of slow death we are seeing in the US today.

THE FUSION POLITICS RESPONSE TO 21ST CENTURY IMPERIALISM FROM ARAB SPRING TO MORAL MONDAYS - Online University of the Left

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The problem, both with your analysis AND with our current situation, is that the voter has allowed money to equal political power

How has the voter allowed money to equal political power in the US when both major parties rely on the same 1% of voters to fund their election campaigns and retirements and voters have only two realistic choices on their ballots? Every government in history as served its richest citizens at the expense of its majority by socializing costs and privatizing profits, usually through generous application of war and debt.

If you believe "we the people" are the government of the US, why wouldn't we depend on government (ourselves) to provide for us? We depend on government to print the money. Government provides the infrastructure to regulate and protect money and contracts. It is only when government is corrupted by large concentrations of private money, which stem from gutting those formative cultures and institutions necessary for democracy to survive that democracy dies the kind of slow death we are seeing in the US today.

THE FUSION POLITICS RESPONSE TO 21ST CENTURY IMPERIALISM FROM ARAB SPRING TO MORAL MONDAYS - Online University of the Left

george the communist cuts and pastes because he lacks the IQ to think for himself