Is Capitalism Doomed?

[Toro]

No.

Capitalism is the greatest creator of wealth and higher living standards the world has ever seen. The world has been moving more capitalist over the past 30 years, not less. It will not be scrapped.

However, you might see more government interference and wealth distribution around the world over the next 10-20 years as people react to the fallout from the financial crisis.

 

[georgephillip]

If Capitalism is doomed then we're doomed. Capitalism in one form or another has been around since human being traded barter. Nothing else can really replace it as it plays into human nature that demands a reward for work.

Who's going to build your house,
pave your street
or farm the food

without something in return? Most of humanity won't do it for nothing and we all know that for a fact. This is why marxism failed so hard and went violent as the believers(leaders) gone nuts trying to force people to do things and to share everything with everyone.

Where did capitalism exist before the corporate concept of "limited liability"?

"Corporations are a great invention of government.

"They make it possible to raise vast amounts of capital for major business ventures like building car factories, laying telecommunications lines, or operating an airline. Corporations can raise capital far more effectively than business partnerships because the government gives them the privilege of limited liability.

"This means that the owners of the corporation, its shareholders, only stand to lose what they have invested in a company’s stock. They cannot be held personally liable for any debts of the company if the company ends up in bankruptcy.

"This means, for example, that if a company that engages in accounting fraud, like Enron or WorldCom, ends up owing its suppliers and creditors billions of dollars more than its assets can cover, the individual shareholders do not risk losing their homes or bank accounts. Their only loss is what they invested in Enron stock..."

The Conservative Nanny State

There Are Alternatives to Capitalism.

 

[georgephillip]

No.

Capitalism is the greatest creator of wealth and higher living standards the world has ever seen. The world has been moving more capitalist over the past 30 years, not less. It will not be scrapped.

However, you might see more government interference and wealth distribution around the world over the next 10-20 years as people react to the fallout from the financial crisis.

Do you see currency wars on the horizon?

Are Japan and Switzerland currently firing opening salvos others will soon imitate?

 

[rdean]

Is Capitalism Doomed?

It is as long as we keep being held hostage by Republicans. They don't understand "supply and demand". None of their leaders can even say the words. They live in a kind of "fantasy" where corporations are "charitable organizations" who "make jobs". All you have to do is transfer the wealth and control of the government over to them and like a kind of new "Big Brother" they will take care of us and "create jobs". I don't know where they got this fantasy but they are like an old pit bull. Once it has a hold of that dirty stick, it simply won't let go.

 

[BoycottTheday]

If capitalism is doomed why is the underground economy doing so well?

Because of the basic contradiction of real wage stagnation since the '70s and debts accumulated on the basis of those stagnant wages. In mid 2007 that credit bubble blew and nothing since then has relieved or alleviated the consequences for 90% of US workers and others except the underground economy.

 

[mudwhistle]

"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." John Kenneth Galbraith

I've never heard that quote before, but it's brilliant.

So is telling someone you'll ether pick them up at 7:45am or quarter to 8. Whichever they want.

 

[georgephillip]

Leftwingers laying the blame for their failed policies on capitalism is the oldest gamut they have, and it's been amazingly successful for them, most recently when the lib media got their boy obama elected by ascribing the blame for the financial collapse, a consequence of government meddling in the housing market, on "capitalism".

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

 

[Patrick2]

Capitalism like all isms works only if watered and feed correctly, it can work anywhere, anyplace, any amount of time, or none at all, you may not like it, you may like, you may love it, depends on which end of the stick you find yourself on.

"Moreover, if we give the matter a moment's thought, we can see that the 20th century morality tale of 'socialism vs. freedom' or 'communism vs. capitalism' is misleading. Capitalism is not a political system; it is a form of economic life, compatible in practice with right wing dictatorships (Chile under Pinochet), left-wing dictatorships (contemporary China), social-democratic monarchies (Sweden), and plutocratic republics (the United States), whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think." Tony Judt 'Ill fares the Land'


"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." John Kenneth Galbraith

It seems to me that workers in a capitalist system are required to check their democracy at the factory door. Virtually every decision affecting most of those workers is made by a small group of people for their own benefit, and, of course, the benefit of the shareholders.

There Are Alternatives...Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leftwingers can never get their heads around the idea that the welfare of workers doesn't depend on the presence or lack of some sort of benevolence of employers, but rather the value of employees to the employers.

 

[rdean]

Leftwingers laying the blame for their failed policies on capitalism is the oldest gamut they have, and it's been amazingly successful for them, most recently when the lib media got their boy obama elected by ascribing the blame for the financial collapse, a consequence of government meddling in the housing market, on "capitalism".

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

When you look at the housing collapse or Enron or Lehman Brothers or the banks or....well you get the picture.

With the right kind of government regulation these things never would have happened. That proves that if you get government "out of the way", you will see more of these disasters, not less.

 

[Patrick2]

Is Capitalism Doomed?

It is as long as we keep being held hostage by Republicans. They don't understand "supply and demand". None of their leaders can even say the words. They live in a kind of "fantasy" where corporations are "charitable organizations" who "make jobs".

No conservative I know of has ever called a corporation a "charitable organization", but in fact they DO give money to leftwing charities and causes, to buy peace with them.

You are a person who has NO CLUE about economics or free markets or how they work for the benefit of all - your ignorance has a crystalline perfection.

 

[Patrick2]

Leftwingers laying the blame for their failed policies on capitalism is the oldest gamut they have, and it's been amazingly successful for them, most recently when the lib media got their boy obama elected by ascribing the blame for the financial collapse, a consequence of government meddling in the housing market, on "capitalism".

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

No actually, it was a lot of minority clients took out loans they couldn't service because of Fanny Mae offering a secondary market for such loans.

As for the stagnation of wages, that has to do with the disappearance of a golden era in th 1950s and 60s, when europe and japan were ruined from WWII, and india and china were still shooting themselves in the foot with backward socialism. At that time, america had an absolute majority of world manufacturing. Those times, now correctly seen as a very unusual fluke in history, are long gone, with many international competitors who will do the same work as american workers for a tenth the salary or less.

 

[Patrick2]

Leftwingers laying the blame for their failed policies on capitalism is the oldest gamut they have, and it's been amazingly successful for them, most recently when the lib media got their boy obama elected by ascribing the blame for the financial collapse, a consequence of government meddling in the housing market, on "capitalism".

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

When you look at the housing collapse or Enron or Lehman Brothers or the banks or....well you get the picture.

With the right kind of government regulation these things never would have happened. That proves that if you get government "out of the way", you will see more of these disasters, not less.

Nonsense - it wasn't a lack of regulation but rather the opposite. You have no idea what you're talking about.

 

[LordBrownTrout]

No, but we can't subsist as a service nation. We have to produce.

 

[Contumacious]

Is Capitalism Doomed?

HUH?

Capitalism was stabbed in its heart circa 1913 when the US created a central bank and adopted a heavy graduated income tax.

Capitalism's tomb was sealed by FDR in 1935

So what the fucketh are you talking about?

.

 

[georgephillip]

Is Capitalism Doomed?

It is as long as we keep being held hostage by Republicans. They don't understand "supply and demand". None of their leaders can even say the words. They live in a kind of "fantasy" where corporations are "charitable organizations" who "make jobs". All you have to do is transfer the wealth and control of the government over to them and like a kind of new "Big Brother" they will take care of us and "create jobs". I don't know where they got this fantasy but they are like an old pit bull. Once it has a hold of that dirty stick, it simply won't let go.

I think we're all hostage to the idea that "choosing" between a Democrat OR Republican will change anything fundamental about the criminal nature of today's political economy. For the last 500 years the only thing worse for any politician than getting caught doing business with organized crime has been to lose control of the revenue streams that elite criminal activity creates.

Republicans AND Democrats depend on the richest 1% of voters to fund their campaigns.
Any individual legislator who tries to interrupt the transfer of wealth to the richest 1% won't survive her next primary challenge.

FLUSH the DC Toilet in 2012.
Vote against every incumbent (R&D) on your federal ballot.
Even if that means turning over control of the White House and Congress to Republicans 'till 2014.

 

[georgephillip]

Capitalism like all isms works only if watered and feed correctly, it can work anywhere, anyplace, any amount of time, or none at all, you may not like it, you may like, you may love it, depends on which end of the stick you find yourself on.

"Moreover, if we give the matter a moment's thought, we can see that the 20th century morality tale of 'socialism vs. freedom' or 'communism vs. capitalism' is misleading. Capitalism is not a political system; it is a form of economic life, compatible in practice with right wing dictatorships (Chile under Pinochet), left-wing dictatorships (contemporary China), social-democratic monarchies (Sweden), and plutocratic republics (the United States), whether capitalist economies thrive best under conditions of freedom is perhaps more of an open question than we like to think." Tony Judt 'Ill fares the Land'


"Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under communism, it's just the opposite." John Kenneth Galbraith

It seems to me that workers in a capitalist system are required to check their democracy at the factory door. Virtually every decision affecting most of those workers is made by a small group of people for their own benefit, and, of course, the benefit of the shareholders.

There Are Alternatives...Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leftwingers can never get their heads around the idea that the welfare of workers doesn't depend on the presence or lack of some sort of benevolence of employers, but rather the value of employees to the employers.

In the same way right wingers can't fathom what Marx meant when he argued that globalization, financial innovation run wild and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital would lead capitalism to self destruct.

 

[Patrick2]

It seems to me that workers in a capitalist system are required to check their democracy at the factory door. Virtually every decision affecting most of those workers is made by a small group of people for their own benefit, and, of course, the benefit of the shareholders.

There Are Alternatives...Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Leftwingers can never get their heads around the idea that the welfare of workers doesn't depend on the presence or lack of some sort of benevolence of employers, but rather the value of employees to the employers.

In the same way right wingers can't fathom what Marx meant when he argued that globalization, financial innovation run wild and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital would lead capitalism to self destruct.

Capitalism hasn't "self-destructed" so far, but is subject to setbacks due to government malfeasance. And the idea that the wealth created by capitalism came from a transfer from workers is pure fantasy land.

 

[Patrick2]

No, but we can't subsist as a service nation. We have to produce.

Why?

 

[georgephillip]

Leftwingers laying the blame for their failed policies on capitalism is the oldest gamut they have, and it's been amazingly successful for them, most recently when the lib media got their boy obama elected by ascribing the blame for the financial collapse, a consequence of government meddling in the housing market, on "capitalism".

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

When you look at the housing collapse or Enron or Lehman Brothers or the banks or....well you get the picture.

With the right kind of government regulation these things never would have happened. That proves that if you get government "out of the way", you will see more of these disasters, not less.

I agree with every word in your post; yet I can't see how we will ever get the right kind of government regulation by choosing between Republican or Democrat. Any government in service to the richest 1% of its citizens can't help but produce crimes like the housing collapse, Enron and Lehman Brothers.

And I don't think we've seen their "best" work yet.

 

[Patrick2]

Government meddling(Liberals and Conservatives) in the housing market played a small role in our current economic crisis which stemmed from households and financial enterprises running up excessive debts that their incomes and wealth could not pay off.

The key to that crisis was real wage stagnation since the mid-'70s.

Professor Richard Wolff explains it much better than I:

"Since the 1970s, banks, insurance companies and hedge funds invented new speculations on the rising debts of US households (asset-backed securities, credit default swaps etc.).

"Those financial speculations were even more profitable than the soaring profits of non-financial corporations that could keep their workers' real wages flat even as rising productivity delivered ever more product per worker to those corporations.

"Huge speculative profits prompted financiers to borrow in a self-reinforcing spiral ever further removed from the household debts on which it was based. When that base collapsed as millions of US workers could not longer sustain their debts, so, too, did the financial speculations built upon it."

Deficits, Debts and Deepening Crisis | Truthout

When you look at the housing collapse or Enron or Lehman Brothers or the banks or....well you get the picture.

With the right kind of government regulation these things never would have happened. That proves that if you get government "out of the way", you will see more of these disasters, not less.

I agree with every word in your post; yet I can't see how we will ever get the right kind of government regulation by choosing between Republican or Democrat. Any government in service to the richest 1% of its citizens can't help but produce crimes like the housing collapse, Enron and Lehman Brothers.

And I don't think we've seen their "best" work yet.

Lack of regulations had nothing to do with it.