Capitalism: Explain how it creates "wealth and prosperity"?

[Little-Acorn]

What barriers to entry?

Little crusader is just quoting the socialist talking points without understanding them. I wouldn’t waste much time explaining to him.

 

[OKTexas]

Simply:

No person should be allowed to own the labor of another person.

But when a business owner or stock-holder buys ownership of a company what the majority of them are doing is buying rights to work, and then they rent that job to employees at a fee (called profit).

Unless the 1% billionaires who own 50% of America's wealth make 50% of America's Gross Domestic Product, then this is completely true.

Those billionaires make their money by siphoning the fruit of "non-owner's" labor, of worker's labor.

Tell us how this is just, fair, or righteous?

If an employee can't make the employer money, why have the employee? You don't hire people to break even.

If we restructured how ownership is legally supported we could have a break-even society. Why should one person gain from the productivity of everyone else?

If that's the case, why should you gain from your own work? BTW one person doesn't gain from the work of everyone else.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Rather than capitalism (whatever that is), I advocate for liberty and secure property rights. When people are secure in their property rights and have liberty, they have an incentive to invest in capital goods, which increase production and prosperity.

Should a person be allowed to own the labor of another person? ANSWER THIS DIRECTLY.

If the person or corp pays for the labor they own it

I didn't ask you to say what happens, but SHOULD it happen?

Why should someone be able to buy and own the labor of someone else?

It's called employment

Are Employees paid 100% of what they produce? If not, by what justification are they not paid for all the work they did?

Are Employees paid 100% of what they produce?

Did the employees buy all the inputs needed to make the product?
If not, by what justification should they be paid for all the work they did?

 

[initforme]

Ohhh Randall did I hit a nerve? Sorry.

 

[initforme]

Why should a worker give all for his employee?

 

[Centinel]

Cost to own other essential property such as floor space, tools, you know, CAPITAL.

There is a cost to owning CAPITAL, one that most LABOR cannot afford because CAPITALIST pay LABOR less than they are WORTH.

Dog walking. Lawn mowing. Leaf raking. House cleaning. Tutoring. Driving. Shopping services. Cooking services. Childcare. Teaching.

That took me about 30 seconds. None of those require any substantial capital.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Agreed!!! I can never understand these little "Fidels"..

in a word they are stupid and so imagine the govt can magically run things best. Mankind has always believed this. Our Founders were the only exception and oddly they created the greatest country in human history by far.

 

[initforme]

Some founders may have owned slaves. They were far from great.

 

[Centinel]

The kind that vested interests create by colluding with the regulatory regime. Erecting barriers to entry is the primary functional impact of state regulation on business.

State prohibitions against capitalism are not capitalism.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Same topic. Threads merged

 

[dblack]

The kind that vested interests create by colluding with the regulatory regime. Erecting barriers to entry is the primary functional impact of state regulation on business.

State prohibitions against capitalism are not capitalism.

I didn't say they were.

 

[westwall]

Wow you are very naive.

Your name-calling doesn't explain why a person can't operate his own business rather than opt to be employed by someone else.

How can a person who is poor open their own business when the barriers to entry are high and the only way to make money is to compete in a labor market controlled by the owners who have no vested interest in competition or seeing you succeed?

Yes you are Naive.

There are only 6 million businesses in the united states.

0.03% of them employ 50% of America.

But no no, the solution is to let ALL the 154 million Americans open their OWN business using the current system?

Naive? Yes, you sound like a new college student who just discovered Marx. Communism is a very wonderful concept (utopian societies always sound nice don't they) but it fails once a particular ingredient is added and that ingredient is people. They screw the whole concept up.

People being people some like to work. Some hate to work. Those who work though will stop working once they see the fruits of their labor being given to people who refuse to work. It's called human nature. Now don't get me wrong those very same people (most of them at least) are willing to give away some of their fruit to those who CAN'T work because of illness or handicap. But they get real pissed off when lazy pricks want them to take care of them and they won't do it.

That's why every socialist system ALWAYS fails in the end. Eventually you run out of other peoples money and the whole system collapses.

 

[Centinel]

The kind that vested interests create by colluding with the regulatory regime. Erecting barriers to entry is the primary functional impact of state regulation on business.

State prohibitions against capitalism are not capitalism.

I didn't say they were.

Sorry. I was agreeing with you. I should have made that more clear.

 

[ScienceRocks]

I think capitalism as long as it is regulated to make the market place fair for smaller businesses and good for the worker is by far the best system humanity has.

Sorry, but I don't believe it sucks. But I do disagree with the loserterians wish to make it pure.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Capitalism: Explain how it creates "wealth and prosperity"?


It doesn't.

People working their rear ends off at useful and beneficial things, create wealth and prosperity.

Capitalism merely lets them do it without undeserved interference.

 

[saveliberty]

No one will make you work TheCrusdaer, feel free to go to prison or die on the streets if labor is too repugnant for you.

 

[SuperDemocrat]

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Abraham Lincoln
Read more at Abraham Lincoln Quotes at BrainyQuote.com

Definition: Capitalism -
Capital is owned by a class called the "Capitalist" class, and power rests with them and theoretically the middle class which is co-opted.

An example of a purely Capitalist society would be the Slave South, In the SLAVE SOUTH all the means of production were privately owned, governments were small and non-interfering into the all powerful plantation owner and his personal law over his property, a small few owned all the means of production.

No one would confuse the Slave South with a prosperous country:

90% of all antebellum Southerners were poor, and unable to find gainful employment.

Conservatives have a hard time actually explaining anything, but I won't put words in their mouth, I'll start the discussion by giving a short explanation of where "wealth and prosperity actually comes from".

Historians call it "effluence", political theorists have written thousands of pages on country's "take-offs". One thing is certain, it doesn't matter what socio-economic model you have, wealth and prosperity is possible in any of them.

The Soviet Union was the world's 2nd largest economy, and had the world's 2nd highest per-capita between 1950-1973, after which declining oil prices, and rising demands of an arms race began to degrade their civil-sector economic growth. Chernobyl's destruction of 25% of all USSR Wheat production and $4 Trillion dollar clean-up price tag (in 2015 dollars) didn't help things either.

China is still Communist with state-owned enterprises still leading an economy experiencing 6.9% growth and the largest growth of middle class the world has ever seen.

Where does "wealth and prosperity" actually come from?

Well in short, it comes from monetizing goods and services.

If you can convert a bushel of wheat into money, you've effectively monetized a commodity, which increases the amount of capital in circulation. It doesn't matter if a society is capitalist or communist. If you can monetize a commodity you can convert it into Capital.

What is capital?

Capital is various things, in the 1800s and early 1900s it would have been easily defined as "Means of Production" so factories, tools, mines, farms, things of that nature. But today we've been able to liquidate capital (Monetize the means of production) so in the modern world Capital is largely "money".

Money allows you to represent the means of production, or other things less productive like consumer goods.

Conclusion:

So now that we have established some examples of wealthy non-Capitalist societies, now that we have a working definition of Capital and Capitalism, and a basic illustration of how wealth is created (it is goods and services monetized and therefore liquid and portable to anyone who can accumulate it), I challenge conservatives or anyone else to explain how "Capitalism" is responsible for wealth and prosperity?

What causes wealth and prosperity?

Efficient means of monetizing goods and services, and a broad mechanism for distributing that money to the masses of all society.

A capitalist society is TERRIBLE at accomplishing this task.

Rather than capitalism (whatever that is), I advocate for liberty and secure property rights. When people are secure in their property rights and have liberty, they have an incentive to invest in capital goods, which increase production and prosperity.

Should a person be allowed to own the labor of another person? ANSWER THIS DIRECTLY.

I guess we are going to whip out with the communsit manifesto...

 

[dblack]

I think capitalism as long as it is regulated to make the market place fair for smaller businesses and good for the worker is by far the best system humanity has.

Sorry, but I don't believe it sucks. But I do disagree with the loserterians wish to make it pure.

The kind of capitalism you advocate isn't really capitalism, so much as corporatism. And it does suck. It favors vested interests and authoritarian regimes.

 

[SuperDemocrat]

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Abraham Lincoln
Read more at Abraham Lincoln Quotes at BrainyQuote.com

Definition: Capitalism -
Capital is owned by a class called the "Capitalist" class, and power rests with them and theoretically the middle class which is co-opted.

An example of a purely Capitalist society would be the Slave South, In the SLAVE SOUTH all the means of production were privately owned, governments were small and non-interfering into the all powerful plantation owner and his personal law over his property, a small few owned all the means of production.

No one would confuse the Slave South with a prosperous country:

90% of all antebellum Southerners were poor, and unable to find gainful employment.

Conservatives have a hard time actually explaining anything, but I won't put words in their mouth, I'll start the discussion by giving a short explanation of where "wealth and prosperity actually comes from".

Historians call it "effluence", political theorists have written thousands of pages on country's "take-offs". One thing is certain, it doesn't matter what socio-economic model you have, wealth and prosperity is possible in any of them.

The Soviet Union was the world's 2nd largest economy, and had the world's 2nd highest per-capita between 1950-1973, after which declining oil prices, and rising demands of an arms race began to degrade their civil-sector economic growth. Chernobyl's destruction of 25% of all USSR Wheat production and $4 Trillion dollar clean-up price tag (in 2015 dollars) didn't help things either.

China is still Communist with state-owned enterprises still leading an economy experiencing 6.9% growth and the largest growth of middle class the world has ever seen.

Where does "wealth and prosperity" actually come from?

Well in short, it comes from monetizing goods and services.

If you can convert a bushel of wheat into money, you've effectively monetized a commodity, which increases the amount of capital in circulation. It doesn't matter if a society is capitalist or communist. If you can monetize a commodity you can convert it into Capital.

What is capital?

Capital is various things, in the 1800s and early 1900s it would have been easily defined as "Means of Production" so factories, tools, mines, farms, things of that nature. But today we've been able to liquidate capital (Monetize the means of production) so in the modern world Capital is largely "money".

Money allows you to represent the means of production, or other things less productive like consumer goods.

Conclusion:

So now that we have established some examples of wealthy non-Capitalist societies, now that we have a working definition of Capital and Capitalism, and a basic illustration of how wealth is created (it is goods and services monetized and therefore liquid and portable to anyone who can accumulate it), I challenge conservatives or anyone else to explain how "Capitalism" is responsible for wealth and prosperity?

What causes wealth and prosperity?

Efficient means of monetizing goods and services, and a broad mechanism for distributing that money to the masses of all society.

A capitalist society is TERRIBLE at accomplishing this task.

Rather than capitalism (whatever that is), I advocate for liberty and secure property rights. When people are secure in their property rights and have liberty, they have an incentive to invest in capital goods, which increase production and prosperity.

Should a person be allowed to own the labor of another person? ANSWER THIS DIRECTLY.

If the person or corp pays for the labor they own it

I didn't ask you to say what happens, but SHOULD it happen?

Why should someone be able to buy and own the labor of someone else?

Is that like income taxes on the working class. That is taking a chunk out of someone's 'labor'. It goes right back to the government. Who owns who?

 

[bripat9643]

Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. - Abraham Lincoln
Read more at Abraham Lincoln Quotes at BrainyQuote.com

Definition: Capitalism -
Capital is owned by a class called the "Capitalist" class, and power rests with them and theoretically the middle class which is co-opted.

An example of a purely Capitalist society would be the Slave South, In the SLAVE SOUTH all the means of production were privately owned, governments were small and non-interfering into the all powerful plantation owner and his personal law over his property, a small few owned all the means of production.

No one would confuse the Slave South with a prosperous country:

90% of all antebellum Southerners were poor, and unable to find gainful employment.

Conservatives have a hard time actually explaining anything, but I won't put words in their mouth, I'll start the discussion by giving a short explanation of where "wealth and prosperity actually comes from".

Historians call it "effluence", political theorists have written thousands of pages on country's "take-offs". One thing is certain, it doesn't matter what socio-economic model you have, wealth and prosperity is possible in any of them.

The Soviet Union was the world's 2nd largest economy, and had the world's 2nd highest per-capita between 1950-1973, after which declining oil prices, and rising demands of an arms race began to degrade their civil-sector economic growth. Chernobyl's destruction of 25% of all USSR Wheat production and $4 Trillion dollar clean-up price tag (in 2015 dollars) didn't help things either.

China is still Communist with state-owned enterprises still leading an economy experiencing 6.9% growth and the largest growth of middle class the world has ever seen.

Where does "wealth and prosperity" actually come from?

Well in short, it comes from monetizing goods and services.

If you can convert a bushel of wheat into money, you've effectively monetized a commodity, which increases the amount of capital in circulation. It doesn't matter if a society is capitalist or communist. If you can monetize a commodity you can convert it into Capital.

What is capital?

Capital is various things, in the 1800s and early 1900s it would have been easily defined as "Means of Production" so factories, tools, mines, farms, things of that nature. But today we've been able to liquidate capital (Monetize the means of production) so in the modern world Capital is largely "money".

Money allows you to represent the means of production, or other things less productive like consumer goods.

Conclusion:

So now that we have established some examples of wealthy non-Capitalist societies, now that we have a working definition of Capital and Capitalism, and a basic illustration of how wealth is created (it is goods and services monetized and therefore liquid and portable to anyone who can accumulate it), I challenge conservatives or anyone else to explain how "Capitalism" is responsible for wealth and prosperity?

What causes wealth and prosperity?

Efficient means of monetizing goods and services, and a broad mechanism for distributing that money to the masses of all society.

A capitalist society is TERRIBLE at accomplishing this task.

Rather than capitalism (whatever that is), I advocate for liberty and secure property rights. When people are secure in their property rights and have liberty, they have an incentive to invest in capital goods, which increase production and prosperity.

Should a person be allowed to own the labor of another person? ANSWER THIS DIRECTLY.

No, that's called slavery. That's why the South wasn't an example of capitalism. Everyone owns their labor and they are free to sell it to whomever they want.