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Pseudo-free market economists are interested in filling their own wallets like everyone else, and are just as corruptible as anyone else. Name a single pseudo-free market economist not lobbying congress for the green aka deregulation or lower taxes for their own companies.Economists and politicians however are not interested in making everyone rich, instead keeping a small minority rich,
Economists are interested in how the economy works. Politicians are interested, at the end of the day, in retaining their power status. That may involve voting in the interests of a small minority of rich people to obtain funding, whose interests are in keeping said small minority rich.
And how do you imagine that would happen?Capitalism needs to be reformed, so the focus is on eliminating the lower and middle class, and bringing everyone into wealth
Corporatism is fairly interchangeable with State Capitalism.Capitalism
Definition of CAPITALISM
: an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market
Free Market
: an economic market operating by free competition
In order to have capitalism, there must be a free market. We don't have a free market. The market is controlled by govt. at almost every intersection. Banking, finance, energy, infrastructure, pricing, industry, etc...etc...
What we have is corporatism. Where govt. designates favoritism in industries that build up large monopolies that control their sectors, seek govt. intrusion to set controls they favor to kill off competition.
I'm waiting to read a 'true' definition of capitalism. So far the only statements made assert what we have today is not capitalism. How about defining what is capitalism.
Pseudo-free market economists are interested in filling their own wallets like everyone else, and are just as corruptible as anyone else. Name a single pseudo-free market economist not lobbying congress for the green aka deregulation or lower taxes for their own companies.
Some possible steps to move forward: Stop corporate welfare and subsidies, open the door to trade with all nations, put money into education not war and welfare.
Arguments by definition are a way of dodging an issue. Unless the subject is linguistics and nothing else, they are always fallacious. At most, they make the point "you are using the wrong word," which is a nit-pick, not a real criticism.
Look, here is what I'm saying, avoiding the word "capitalism" altogether.
The economic system we have today is dependent on full employment to work. That's what allows wealth to be distributed to the people, and (sometimes with help from things like labor unions and government regulations) creates rising standards of living for most people as productivity improves.
However, advances in automation and information technology are decreasing the need for labor to produce wealth. We are entering an economic situation characterized by persistent and intractable high unemployment. This breaks the implicit social compact. Without full employment, we cannot (under the present economic system) see rising standards of living for most people. Instead, we will see (and are seeing) great riches flowing to a very few, while most people's standards of living decline.
For that reason, the economic system we have now is failing, and will be replaced with something that will generate rising standards of living for most people.
It will not be replaced by an ideal free market, either, as that would not solve the problem of production of wealth without much labor.
That's what I'm saying, expressed without using the word "capitalism" at all, thus illustrating that what that word means is quite irrelevant here. Now, if we could discuss the idea itself instead of engaging in linguistic cheese-paring, I'd appreciate it.
Wealth is not created without labor, even in automation and information technology.
The wealth you're referring to is mainly hinged on the monetary system in place. Where "money" is printed out of thin air and passed out to the corporations, banks, etc favored by govt. that wealth is largely an illusion.
The answer is capitalism and anchoring run away monetary inflation (a gold standard/return to or a serious fed reserve policy change), govt. collusion with corporation/industry and allow people to pursue their passions in true market competition.
I'm waiting to read a 'true' definition of capitalism. So far the only statements made assert what we have today is not capitalism. How about defining what is capitalism.
Well, as I know you can use a dictionary or encyclopedia as well as any of the rest of us, I'll assume you're looking for the reasons apologists are saying that what we have today isn't "real" capitalism. I can take as stab at that.
Exactly
From my perspective, the most important redeeming feature of capitalism is its ability to decentralize power in society. It does this by keeping political power and economic power separate. That's the whole point of 'laissez faire'. That doesn't mean the government has no part to play - they set the basic ground rules and protect property rights - but otherwise they don't get involved in our economic decisions.
Got it
It's the fact that modern "capitalist" states have largely failed to honor laissez faire that leads me to say that what we have isn't capitalism. More and more we are merging economic and political power - with the state becoming more and more involved in managing our economic affairs, and corporations becoming more and more involved in politics. I think this is a very dangerous centralization of power.
Interesting. At first read I agree with all but your first sentence
That's why it's so frustrating to hear pronouncements that 'capitalism' has failed. We've failed to maintain the separation of political and economic power that is required for capitalism to even exist, so it's sort of hard to see how it's failed.
There are numbers larger than zero but less than infinity. Creating wealth with increasingly less and less labor creates high and intractable unemployment; creating it literally with NO labor would mean that nobody is employed at all. Which one of those situations am I saying we're in?
Well, that describes some of what we refer to as "wealth," but not all. I agree that too much of the economic activity in this country consists of shuffling money around without actually producing anything of value, but that's not what I'm referring to here. I'm talking about the real economy that produces goods and services for market, which still exists even if the financial overlayer has grown too big relative to the whole.
How is that going to solve the problem of high and intractable unemployment? That is not a result of monetary policy, but of advancing technology (together with free trade and outsourcing, but an end to the latter would only increase use of the former).
Arguments by definition are a way of dodging an issue. Unless the subject is linguistics and nothing else, they are always fallacious. At most, they make the point "you are using the wrong word," which is a nit-pick, not a real criticism.
Look, here is what I'm saying, avoiding the word "capitalism" altogether.
The economic system we have today is dependent on full employment to work. That's what allows wealth to be distributed to the people, and (sometimes with help from things like labor unions and government regulations) creates rising standards of living for most people as productivity improves.
However, advances in automation and information technology are decreasing the need for labor to produce wealth. We are entering an economic situation characterized by persistent and intractable high unemployment. This breaks the implicit social compact. Without full employment, we cannot (under the present economic system) see rising standards of living for most people. Instead, we will see (and are seeing) great riches flowing to a very few, while most people's standards of living decline.
For that reason, the economic system we have now is failing, and will be replaced with something that will generate rising standards of living for most people.
It will not be replaced by an ideal free market, either, as that would not solve the problem of production of wealth without much labor.
That's what I'm saying, expressed without using the word "capitalism" at all, thus illustrating that what that word means is quite irrelevant here. Now, if we could discuss the idea itself instead of engaging in linguistic cheese-paring, I'd appreciate it.
It only frees labor up for other pursuits
There is no technology available to build, maintain and run itself
This is self answering. That "overly" as you call it, is the reason we see a vast of amount of "wealth" being concentrated in fewer hands.
Innovaiton for new ideas as one "fourth" category. You seem to be of the impression we have no where else to go but laterally here. That's short sighted. If it wouldn't cost me massive amounts of time, I would break down each case you provide categorically and show that govt. subsidies.regulatory measures is what causes the accumulation in an industry to push others out of corner a market. Agriculture is a good example of this. That concentrates the capital as well.What other pursuits? Economic productivity (that is, production of real wealth) falls into three categories: agriculture, manufacturing, and services. When only agriculture was automated, farm workers moved into the factories. When manufacturing became automated, factory workers moved into services. As services are now being automated, jobs are simply disappearing and not being replaced. There is no fourth category.
It is true. Computers are not set up and left to run independently indefinitely. Quite the opposite. the larger the formation, the more hands required to maintain a system in this instance. Softwares that write their own codecs still require labor hands to, the production of the hardware, the energy, set up, maintenance. There is never a zero sum in the labor pool regardless. Diminishing labor need in one area still frees it up for other pursuits. it does not cause intractable idle hands unless those hands have no ingenuity, no drive and most of all, no capital expenditure ability.That's actually not true. Software can now write software. Human input hasn't totally disappeared and may never completely disappear, but it is being reduced there just as in everything else.
I have the opposite opinion. It seems you are confusing cause and effect. You're right about consumer demand. So when the concentration becomes so great that very few can afford a product, even if it is in high demand, what is to happen from there with production? That wealth disparage will cause, under normal free market conditions failure in businesses that produce goods/services. Setting the stage for new production. The areas you speak of in throwing capital into "nonproductive" outlets does not exist. Even in the world of finance and stock exchange, shares are driven on true commodities, products, etc...the entire financial world comes to a siezing hault without production. So there will be no outlet in that regard if very little true production ever occurred.Frankly, I think you're reversing cause and effect here. The reason why we see so much financial game-playing is because of an excess of capital accumulation. Capital will be invested in production of real wealth only to the extent that consumer demand is believed to exist for the goods and services to be produced, which in turn is a function of income equality. As income becomes more unequal, the ratio of capital to consumer demand increases, and that means increasing amounts of capital will go into non-productive areas where a "return" can be achieved independent of consumer demand.
increasing amounts of capital will go into non-productive areas where a "return" can be achieved independent of consumer demand.
Regulations protect capitalism from the capitalists. To borrow a phrase, it's really that simple.
How is that going to solve the problem of high and intractable unemployment? That is not a result of monetary policy, but of advancing technology (together with free trade and outsourcing, but an end to the latter would only increase use of the former).
