Can Capitalism and Democracy Coexist?

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Deficits do not matter to the politicians who make them THEY ARE NOT GOING TO PAY FOR IT. Most think the other guy is going to pay for it, guess what you all pay for it even the very poor. Use your so called High IQ to figure that one out.

agreed; now try to convince a liberal that the above makes sense.
A liberal feels no need to think and no shame at being stupid. They simply know they are right exactly like those who followed Hitler Stalin and Mao. Is it a surprise they spied for Stalin, gave him the bomb, and elected Obama?

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

Of course regulated capitalism can co-exist with democracy.

I think the argument Wolin and Hedges are making is that regulation falls victim to corporate bribes, so it becomes essentially useless as far as democratic control of an economy is concerned.

Which is why capitalism and democracy flourish in the context of our Constitutional Republic, where both are subject solely to the rule of law.

Citizens are at liberty to enact regulatory measures via the political/democratic process as authorized by the Commerce Clause, corporations are at liberty to challenge regulatory measures in Federal court to determine if indeed those measures comport with Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Of course regulated capitalism can co-exist with democracy.

I think the argument Wolin and Hedges are making is that regulation falls victim to corporate bribes, so it becomes essentially useless as far as democratic control of an economy is concerned.

Which is why capitalism and democracy flourish in the context of our Constitutional Republic, where both are subject solely to the rule of law.

Citizens are at liberty to enact regulatory measures via the political/democratic process as authorized by the Commerce Clause, corporations are at liberty to challenge regulatory measures in Federal court to determine if indeed those measures comport with Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

of course thats rubbish. The Commerce Clause was intending to support free trade between states and countries. The idea that libcommies in Washington can regulate trade better than millions of consumers using their buying power is insane and liberal.

 

[georgephillip]

Of course regulated capitalism can co-exist with democracy.

I think the argument Wolin and Hedges are making is that regulation falls victim to corporate bribes, so it becomes essentially useless as far as democratic control of an economy is concerned.

Which is why capitalism and democracy flourish in the context of our Constitutional Republic, where both are subject solely to the rule of law.

Citizens are at liberty to enact regulatory measures via the political/democratic process as authorized by the Commerce Clause, corporations are at liberty to challenge regulatory measures in Federal court to determine if indeed those measures comport with Commerce Clause jurisprudence.

of course thats rubbish. The Commerce Clause was intending to support free trade between states and countries. The idea that libcommies in Washington can regulate trade better than millions of consumers using their buying power is insane and liberal.

Why did government switch to command economies during WWI and WWII, greater efficiency, perhaps?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Why did government switch to command economies during WWI and WWII, greater efficiency, perhaps?

dear, a capitalist economy would not be designed for war in any way. For example, there are no consumers shopping with their own money during war so your attempt at an anology is 100% insane or idiotic.

Does the libcommie understand?

 

[georgephillip]

dear, a capitalist economy would not be designed for war in any way. For example, there are no consumers shopping with their own money during war so your attempt at an anology is 100% insane or idiotic.

Does the libcommie understand?

Not entirely.
Why does capitalism generate so much profit from war if it isn't designed for killing innocent human beings? One would almost get the impression capitalism functions like the Crusades with blame taking the place of repenting?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Why does capitalism generate so much profit from war

too stupid. Same reason it generates so much profit from from selling ice cream.

 

[CAPTCHATHIS]

Why does capitalism generate so much profit from war

too stupid. Same reason it generates so much profit from from selling ice cream.

That would be the tremendous consumer demand for Ben and Jerry's classic flavor:

Vanillitary Mintdustrial Complex

 

[georgephillip]

too stupid. Same reason it generates so much profit from from selling ice cream.

Capitalism profits from the mass murder of children AFTER first fattening them up? Would you call that value neutral economics?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Capitalism profits from the mass murder of children AFTER first fattening them up?

perrfect example of retarded liberalism: no examples just retarded assertions.

 

[Londoner]

One of the primary achievements of Reaganomics was not merely to insulate the market from Democratic controls, but to convince a generation of Americans that those controls destroyed the incentive system and efficiencies that gave us jobs, life-saving technology, etc.

The ideology of post managed-capitalism is this: free markets can only be hurt by Democratic controls or any externality that intervenes between buyers/sellers. Under this utopian version of capitalism, the free market is the most evolved mechanism for expressing the free will of The People. Meaning: the free market IS the locus of freedom once expressed by democracy.

(Marx would call this "false consciousness" - an ideology that serves the owners of capital, which ideology went into overdrive with Movement Conservatism, a system that converted the wealth of profit makers into opinion control, starting with the think tank revolution in the 70s and ending with today's rightwing media empire)

The regulated capitalism of the postwar years was an anomaly. With Reagan, those regulations became a target, something to be captured and put into the service of the narrow, anti-Democratic accumulation of wealth and political assets. That is to say, if you create a regulatory apparatus - i.e., centralized levers over markets - you are merely giving profit makers a bullseye, something insanely valuable to be co-opted and pulled into the service of profit making, which profit making is omnivorous, and powerful enough to bulldoze everything in its path like so many rain forests. The cynic in me says we are at the point where we can only watch this urge play itself out. The cancer has spread to our very bone marrow (the environment, i.e., our life-giving systems). We had a good run.

[Postscript: IMO, Marx underestimated the power of the proletariat, whose revolutionary rage has merely become another asset of those who control our political and economic machinery. File this under "Tea Party"]

 

[georgephillip]

The cynic in me says we are at the point where we can only watch this urge play itself out. The cancer has spread to our very bone marrow (the environment, i.e., our life-giving systems). We had a good run.

I suspect you are correct, but I think it's worth wondering how our Cossacks will respond when their Petrograd moment arrives?
"March 9th, large crowds of women marched to the Kazan Cathedral (opposite the Consulate) with bared heads, still crying for bread and shouting to the police 'Give us bread and we will go to work.'

"This crowd was peaceable and was dispersed.

Saturday morning the crowds, composed of working men and students visibly with a serious purpose, came from all districts to the center of the city. Besides calling for bread, these crowds shouted 'Down with the Government,' 'Down with the Romanoffs, ' and occasionally 'Down with the War.'

"The mounted police endeavored to drive the mobs from the Nevsky, the main street, but resistence was made and barracades built on the side streets. The police withdrew after firing on and charging the crowds with whips without success.

"Their place was taken by infantry who fraternized with the people.

"Announcement was made by the police that after 6o'clock that day, all groups of persons would be fired upon. The crowds did not disperse, and street battles took place, especially on the Nevsky, resulting in great loss or life.

"At this time the infantry and cossacks refused to fire on the crowds or to charge them. Towards evening a detachment of cossacks actually charged and dispersed a body of mounted police."

Revolutionary Movement in Petrograd 20 Mar. 1917

 

[Londoner]

Yeah - I think the downslope of the human experiment will be marked by massive social convulsions. This is where Althusser's repressive state apparatus will become painfully apparent.

I was really hoping that the great recession would produce the kinds of democratic controls that came out of the Great Depression, but the Right, anticipating this, very successfully defended itself against any kind of democratic movement. Worse: they convinced a very vocal minority that the larger infrastructure of democratic controls that came out of the Great Depression was part of the problem. This is scary.

Until there is a true democratic balance in the media - i.e., until Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hedges get as much exposure as George Will and Rush Limbaugh, I think any revolutionary energies are going to suffer from a severe information deficit. I'm not sure what that means or how everything is going to play out, but you have to marvel at the current ideological and repressive apparatus that this movement has assembled.

 

[georgephillip]

I was really hoping that the great recession would produce the kinds of democratic controls that came out of the Great Depression, but the Right, anticipating this, very successfully defended itself against any kind of democratic movement. Worse: they convinced a very vocal minority that the larger infrastructure of democratic controls that came out of the Great Depression was part of the problem. This is scary.

Now we know why Goldman Sachs gave Obama's campaign over $900,000 in 2008. I agree progressives had a chance to roll back four decades of conservative gains that November. Unfortunately, the rich had their black knight waiting in the wings. Had Obama prosecuted the control accounting fraud on Wall Street that created the Great Recession, thousands of bankers would have faced jail time. Instead, we got Obamacare; that's scary.(ready for Hillary?)

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

I was really hoping that the great recession would produce the kinds of democratic controls that came out of the Great Depression,

yes, the libcommies want soviet controls having no idea it would result in a soviet standard of living.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

, until Noam Chomsky and Christopher Hedges get as much exposure as George Will and Rush Limbaugh.

why advertise how stupid and liberal you are? The USSR and Red China failed. China instantly eliminated 40% of the world's poverty when it switched to capitalism. A child would know America should move in the same direction to experience the same growth as China.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

(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?

 

[georgephillip]

yes, the libcommies want soviet controls having no idea it would result in a soviet standard of living.

"a Marxist theory that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation,oppression,and social relations,as they really are; the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances."
False consciousness Define False consciousness at Dictionary.com

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

yes, the libcommies want soviet controls having no idea it would result in a soviet standard of living.

"a Marxist theory that people are unable to see things, especially exploitation,oppression,and social relations,as they really are; the hypothesized inability of the human mind to develop a sophisticated awareness of how it is developed and shaped by circumstances."
False consciousness Define False consciousness at Dictionary.com

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

 

[georgephillip]

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?