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

[2aguy]

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.

Eee-gads! Most Soviet citizens were poor, lived in substandard housing, and depended on the government for everything. The Soviet middle class was small and consisted mainly of higher-paid government personnel and certain people in favored industries. Most Soviet citizens had little or no disposable income after basic expenses. Not to mention the fact that they lived in a police state, could not leave the country without permission, and lived in constant fear of running afoul of state spies and informants who were alert for any expression of criticism of the state.

China is not still "communist." China abandoned the very economic theories that American liberals are trying to foist on everybody else. China is still authoritarian and tyrannical, but Chinese leaders were smart enough to realize that socialism simply does not work because it ignores the human reality of profit incentive.

Eee-gads! Most Soviet citizens were poor, lived in substandard housing, and depended on the government for everything. The Soviet middle class was small and consisted mainly of higher-paid government personnel and certain people in favored industries. Most Soviet citizens had little or no disposable income after basic expenses. Not to mention the fact that they lived in a police state, could not leave the country without permission, and lived in constant fear of running afoul of state spies and informants who were alert for any expression of criticism of the state.

Wow.....you make that sound like a bad thing...............

 

[2aguy]

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

An employee is paid to perform a service. He is paid 100% of the agreed upon amount.

The agreed amount? People don't agree to work for slave wages, they are forced to work for them because a labor market that is controlled by owners, not by workers.

No...they get low wages because they dropped out of high school, or got pregnant and had kids and now live on government welfare, or have not aqcuired skills that pay more.....

Graduate from high school, get a skill or a degree in a field that is in great demand, and don't have kids until you are married and can afford them....and don't get a criminal record.....and you will be successful.......

All done freely without the government telling you what to do....

That is how you become wealthy......

I don't know if you become wealthy that way, but certainly put yourself in a much better position in life.

I think economist Dr. Walter Williams said it best when he explained the common way to get wealthy.

He said he used to get that question all the time from his students in college. "Dr. Williams, what is the key to wealth?"

He said the key to wealth is quite simple: make your fellow man happy. That's it.

If you operate a drill press, fill vending machines, dig ditches for a living, you make your fellow man happy by one, two or at most a dozen, and your pay will be reflective of that.

However, if you make a great hamburger, open up your own restaurant where you serve hundreds of people every week, your pay will be reflective of serving your fellow man by the hundreds.

If you decide to franchise your wonderful restaurant and serve people by the millions every week, your income will be reflective of that just like McDonald's, Burger King or Wendy's.

Whether you are talking about entertainment, products, or services. The wealthy are those who made their fellow man happy by the millions. That's why Bill Gates is the most wealthy man in America today.

There are plenty of people making money by building bombs and killing women and children in wars for oil.

Sorry, but your "Dr. Walter Williams" is a fucking idiot.

Rome was built by murdering people weaker than the Roman Legions.

Don't you fucking forget that.

I know you are probably a child in an adult body....and therefore cannot think like an adult......but wealth is created by doing lots of things, some good, some bad....the bombs created to end World War 2 were good things....the bombs dropped by the Germans, the Japanese, and the Italians were bad things...........

And if the wars were fought for oil.....then where is all this oil? The Japanese started a war for oil....and our bombs stopped them...saving millions of lives in the process....

Twit.

 

[WheelieAddict]

Capitalism has been the best in history and should remain. The argument should not be about abolishing capitalism. It should be about how much the government can regulate capitalism. Because even the best system in the world needs a check, it is imperfect and govt. is the only thing to keep it in check.

The problem we have today is massive corruption. That does not mean we scrap capitalism or government. We need to fix the problems of each. We the people can do it. The way the election is going so far gives me hope that the people are waking up.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

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.

The Soviet Union was the world's 2nd largest economy, and had the world's 2nd highest per-capita between 1950-1973,

OMG! Funniest thing I've heard all week.

China is still Communist with state-owned enterprises still leading an economy experiencing 6.9% growth

The bankrupt SOEs aren't leading anything. They're a huge, money losing pit that the Chinese keep alive to prevent riots.

You have to be a real idiot to believe any of the propaganda put out by the old USSR or the current Chinese regime. And boy do you fit the bill. Moron.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The problem we have today is massive corruption. .

and your best example of this corruption is?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The Soviet Union was the world's 2nd largest economy, and had the world's 2nd highest per-capita between 1950-1973

CIA estimated they had 20% of our per capita GDP. and it would have been far less had they not copied all our inventions. They produced no consumer innovations at all, and most of their military stuff was directly copied from us.

Ever heard of East/West Germany? another perfect example of freedom versus govt!!