What is the goal of capitalism?

[TruthNotBS]

No it was not

Politics and war in general was the cause. There never was a capitalist genocide.

Within the twentieth century MArxism in various forms in several nations was in fact the single greatest cause of murder.

That is undeniable truth

European colonialism was heavily influenced by capitalism, in its pursuit of profits and raw materials, including gold. The pursuit of profits through the sale of commodified human beings i.e. slaves, was an extremely lucrative business. You and Todd are confused and self-deluded. Many wars are fought by the US and its Western allies, for $$$$$$$$$$$. The illegal war in Iraq, all of the trillions of dollars spent chasing after goat herders in Afghanistan. It's all a racket.

Brigadier General Smedley Darlington Butler
The antiwar classic by America's most decorated general,

War Is a Racket - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

https://ia801004.us.archive.org/6/items/warisaracketelectronicresourcetheantiwarclassicbyam/War%20is%20a%20racket%20%5Belectronic%20resource%5D%20%20the%20antiwar%20classic%20by%20Am.pdf

​

The tens of billions of dollars that we've recently spent in Ukraine, filling the coffers of the military-industrial complex i.e. war profiteers, keeping that war HOT & PROFITABLE. It's all due to the private pursuit of profits (capitalism). Add the billions that we've already spent in weapons in Ukraine since 2014, to feed the war between the Kyiv government and the Russo Ukrainians of the Donbas.

​

When one factors in all of the lives that have been lost as a result of government policies purchased by capitalists to protect and serve their vested interests. It amounts to hundreds of millions of people.

What is the death count of capitalism?
222,500,000+ Deaths due to certain events:

• 100,000,000: Extermination of native Americans (1492–1890)
• 15,000,000: Atlantic slave trade (1500–1870)
• 150,000: French repression of Haiti slave revolt (1792–1803)
• 300,000: French conquest of Algeria (1830–1847)
• 50,000: Opium Wars (1839–1842 & 1856–1860)
• 1,000,000: Irish Potato Famine (1845–1849)
• 100,000: British supression of the Sepoy Mutiny (1857–1858)
• 20,000: Paris Commune Massacre (1871)
• 29,000,000: Famine in British Colonized India (1876–1879 & 1897–1902)
• 3,445: Black people lynched in the US (1882–1964)
• 10,000,000: Belgian Congo Atrocities: (1885–1908)
• 250,000: US conquest of the Philipines (1898–1913)
• 28,000: British concentration camps in South Africa (1899–1902)
• 800,000: French exploitation of Equitorial Africans (1900–1940)
• 65,000: German genocide of the Herero and Namaqua (1904–1907)
• 10,000,000: First World War (1914–1918)
• 100,000: White army pogroms against Jews (1917–1920)
• 600,000: Fascist Italian conquest in Africa (1922–1943)
• 10,000,000: Japanese Imperialism in East Asia (1931–1945)
• 200,000: White Terror in Spain (1936–1945)
• 25,000,000: Nazi oppression in Europe: (1938–1945)
• 30,000: Kuomintang Massacre in Taiwan (1947)
• 80,000: French suppression of Madagascar revolt (1947)
• 30,000: Israeli colonization of Palastine (1948-present)
• 100,000: South Korean Massacres (1948–1950)
• 50,000: British suppression of the Mau-Mau revolt (1952-1960)
• 16,000: Shah of Iran regime (1953–1979)
• 1,000,000: Algerian war of independence (1954–1962)
• 200,000: Juntas in Guatemala (1954–1962)
• 50,000: Papa & Baby Doc regimes in Haiti (1957–1971)
• 3,000,000: Vietnamese killed by US military (1963–1975)
• 1,000,000: Indonesian mass killings (1965–1966)
• 1,000,000: Biafran War (1967–1970)
• 400: Tlatelolco massacre (1968)
• 700,000: US bombing of Laos & Cambodia (1967–1973)
• 50,000: Somoza regime in Nicaragua (1972–1979)
• 3,200: Pinochet regime in Chile: (1973–1990)
• 1,500,000: Angola Civil War (1974–1992)
• 200,000: East Timor massacre (1975–1998)
• 1,000,000: Mozambique Civil War (1975–1990)
• 30,000: US-backed state terrorism in Argentina (1975–1990)
• 70,000: El Salvador military dictatorships (1977–1991)
• 30,000: Contra proxy war in Nicaragua: (1979–1990)
• 16,000: Bhopal Carbide disaster (1984)
• 3,000: US invasion of Panama (1989)
• 1,000,000: US embargo on Iraq (1991–2003)
• 400,000: Mujahideen faction conflict in Afghanistan (1992–1996)
• 200,000: Destruction of Yugoslavia (1992–1995)
• 6,000,000: Congolese Civil War (1997–2008)
• 30,000: NATO occupation of Afghanistan (2001-present)

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

/----/ Both. Capitalism has improved the lives of more people than Communism ever could hope to do.

Homo Sapiens Enslaved by Homo Erectus

Capitalism shouldn't take any credit for what it does, which is throwing money at some activity and making sure that when the investors get lucky, they take such a huge cut that it makes up for all their bad guesses.

The real source of economic growth was practical science, such as from Edison and Watt. Give the employee-inventors half the profits of corporate patents and they'll make far fewer bad investments than the mentally inferior plutocrats.

 

[Mexicano]

Your scenario is somewhat flawed, and a little bit overstated. Let's tone it down a bit and take a longer view, because production is NOT necessarily time-dependent. First of all, people tend to look at the largest corporations as the drivers of the whole shebang, which they ain't. Something like 70% of all businesses out there are small ones that are not going to invest their profits in crypto and such. They're going to invest it whatever it takes to improve their profitability, no? As in right effing now. And if Big Biz doesn't see the immediate value in expansion or upgrades then they'll find other non-productive ways to make more money until the situation changes.

That said, there is a lot of money going into investments that do not increase productivity today, I think it's fair to say that. It seems to me that big money investors are going to put their money into situations that they think will return the biggest bang for the buck, which may or may not be immediately productive but will be whenever they eventually realize whatever profit they make on a currently non-productive avenue. So, now a few years down the road when the economy changes and expansion/upgrades make financial sense, now they got more money than before to put it to work. My point is that some investments may not be productive now but over time will be or could be. Capitalism is like that, IF gov't gets out of the way.

Production and income are always measured in a timeframe.
GDP - The output of a country ( or the world ) in one year.
Per capita income - The average income of the population of one nation in one year
Land productivity - Tons of x food produced per acre in one year.

There is always a time frame. Even small businesses have to measure their productivity in a time-frame: eg hamburgers sold per day.

You seem to be confusing profitability with productivity. Many companies are not profitable because their income and expenses are equal, that doesn't mean they aren't productive They are simply not profitable.

 

[Mac-7]

WOW! Brute force, slavery..etc:





"According to the New Russia Barometer (NRB) polls by the Centre for the Study of Public Policy, 50% of Russian respondents reported a positive impression of the Soviet Union in 1991. This increased to about 75% of NRB respondents in 2000, dropping slightly to 71% in 2009." Source:

Nostalgia for the Soviet Union - Wikipedia​

We're not a free society, we're under a capitalist plutocracy and imperialism. All of that is coming to an end soon thanks to advanced technology, which will replace wage-labor and markets with democratic, high-tech, fully computerized socialist central planning.

You like pictures with your politics

Here are some of the communist gulags in Soviet russia

Inside The Gulags, The Soviet Prison Camps Where Men Were Literally Worked To Death

Regardless of the reason why victims were sent to gulags, they were almost guaranteed to have a miserably long sentence.

allthatsinteresting.com

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The golden era of our economy was when we had the most regulations and the highest tax rate was at 93%. Back in the 1950s, until the late 70s, the highest-paid CEOs in the country, didn't make more than 40 times the lowest wage in their companies. Today Fortune 500 CEOs make 400+ times the average salary of their workers. The inequality is astronomical. Only 40% of the US population is of the middle class, with over half of America living paycheck to paycheck, hand to mouth. Most Americans can't afford a $500 emergency.

Most Americans are going to be living in abject poverty if we don't adopt a non-profit system of production,

​

Both Capitalism and Socialism Mandate Absentee Ownership

What's this about "non-profit"? In a co-op, the employees of each company divide up the profits. Except for taxes, the individual company's profits don't go to some centralized collective and back to the employees of all businesses.

The co-op's employees get equal dividend-paying shares, which can't be traded, with unequal salaries based on how much the employees value what each employee contributes to the shared profits.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

You haven't addressed my argument. You ignored it. If the Soviet Union were as bad as you and your friend Mac-7 claim, those people wouldn't be so "nostalgic" about the USSR. They would tell the interviewer " I don't even want to talk about it. We were slaves, living in horrible conditions. My life in Soviet Russia was an absolute nightmare". They didn't say that, not even close. Many of them were saying good things about their life in Soviet Russia. You and your other capitalist apologist buddy, Mac-7 are full of poo-poo.

I don't respond to you, for your sake, because I know you're braindead. I respond to you ignorant, lying sacks of guano, for the sake of others, who are genuinely interested in this topic and are seeking the truth. Not you.

If the Soviet Union were as bad as you and your friend Mac-7 claim, those people wouldn't be so "nostalgic" about the USSR.

Old people with no money miss the good old days. Do they miss the gulag too?

 

[sjay]

Competition is natural, but only to a very slight degree with it comes to spouses.
Otherwise human, (and all primates), have so much inherent empathy, that they will self sacrifice for the good of others.
For example, with lifeboats, women and children first.

Wrong rigby, spent 4 years in Africa were I witnessed 17-18 instances of tribal warfare and not once did the black warriors stick around to protect their women or children.

 

[Mexicano]

Both Capitalism and Socialism Mandate Absentee Ownership

What's this about "non-profit"? In a co-op, the employees of each company divide up the profits. Except for taxes, the individual company's profits don't go to some centralized collective and back to the employees of all businesses.

The co-op's employees get equal dividend-paying shares, which can't be traded, with unequal salaries based on how much the employees value what each employee contributes to the shared profits.

Indeed, although employees have voting rights so they get to decide how much inequality they will have within the company.
This, of course, is subject to market constraints. The number of coops is quite low so I am not sure if the cases I've seen are representative of inequality reduction or not in a larger scale.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Efficiency isn't the be-all and end-all. The private sector, left unchecked, is efficient at one thing – seeking profit. Often at the expense of workers, the environment, and even the economy as a whole. Remember the housing bubble? That was the efficient private sector in action. And where did that efficiency land us? In the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Who gets to run the government? The people, through democratic processes. Yes, it's not perfect, but it’s a lot better than letting corporations run the show.

The private sector efficient? Tell that to the victims of predatory lending or workers getting paid peanuts while the executives get millions. The government, while not always efficient in a narrow economic sense, plays a role in safeguarding public interest, something the private sector often blatantly ignores.

And let's not even start with the "only what MUST be done" rhetoric. By whose standard? Public schools, highways, fire departments, the military – all government-run or funded. Oh, and let’s not forget the internet, which began as a government project.

Who has the moral standing? We’re not talking about sainthood here. But there are experts in fields, economists, scientists, educators - who have an understanding of the issues and are often more aligned with public interest than a CEO whose primary concern is the bottom line.

You speak of the Constitution as if it’s a holy scripture. It’s a living document, meant to be interpreted and adapted. The Founding Fathers were no fortune tellers; they couldn’t predict the complexities of the modern world.

So, before extolling the virtues of small government and the efficiency of the private sector, maybe take a look at the broader picture. Efficiency is not synonymous with what’s best for society. We need government as an active player in ensuring that the race for profit doesn’t trample over everything else.

Blueprints Become Tissue Paper If Run by Bluebloods

It's the same hereditary ruling class and its no-talent brown-nosing flunkies operating both the public and private systems. So it is useless to talk about structures when the framework of those structures is of inferior quality.

 

[TruthNotBS]

If the Soviet Union were as bad as you and your friend Mac-7 claim, those people wouldn't be so "nostalgic" about the USSR.

Old people with no money miss the good old days. Do they miss the gulag too?

The USSR supposedly tortured and enslaved its people, it was an absolute nightmare. You hardly find even one person in any of these types of interviews that agree with your polemic against Soviet Russia. In 2009 70% of the Russian population expressed that they missed the USSR. Your horror stories and rhetoric against the USSR are nothing more than Cold War bullshit propaganda.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The word comes from "capitale," which means head. It refers to heads of cattle. You engage in husbandry, i.e., take care of livestock and let it increase while selling the surplus.

As technology advanced, people could go beyond that, using machinery to produce, which is the point I gave.

What about communism, etc? They actually all practice capitalism, but the differences lie in ownership of the means of production. That is,

If private individuals own machines, etc., and hire workers to produce, then that's bourgeois capitalism. The bourgeois was the middle class that earned from rent or from others they hired to do the work.

If workers themselves own the machines, etc., then that's a cooperative system.

If the state owns the machines, etc., then that's state capitalism, and businesses are usually referred to as public corporations.

Beyond all that is capitalism involving financial speculation, where people don't produce things using machines but bet on companies, the weather, etc., and earn if they win.

Socialism refers to a range of regulations involving social ownership or responsibility.

Communists don't support bourgeois capitalism because it leads to concentration of wealth among a few, which not surprisingly is what happened. For example, 10 pct of Americans own 70 pct of total wealth of the U.S., and worldwide only a few corporations control the global economy, and most of them are in financing:

Revealed – the capitalist network that runs the world

As anti-capitalist protesters take to the streets, mathematics has teased apart the global economic network to show who's really pulling the strings

www.newscientist.com

Communists also argue that the richest will obviously take control of the government, which is also what happened in countries like the U.S., where Washington essentially works for Wall Street.

Most people don't support communism because they dream of becoming like the 10 pct, even though concentration of wealth among the 10 pct won't allow for that. But they dream anyway, and they try to make that dream real by working hard and buying lots of "nice stuff".

Meanwhile, both people and companies want laws to protect themselves from each other or to make things more efficient, which is why there are legal systems to protect private property rights and to ensure limited liabilities. At the same time, there are services that are publicly funded, like road networks and security, because it doesn't make sense to put them in private hands.

Hence, most countries are mixed economies, i.e., with private and public corporations, follow socialist principles in one way or another, and follow up to half of the requirements for Communism given by Marx, including public education and progressive taxation.

Modern Thought Is an Assignment Meant to Throw Us Off Track

Communist Party membership is hereditary; Communism itself was invented at the university, which is designed for richkids living off trust funds. Avoiding condemnation of Birth-Class Supremacy means your interpretations are shallow and irrelevant.

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

Mostly the same question goes for college education. Correct me if I am wrong, but the price of tuition went up long before any government intervention. How can the government be the cause in this specific case?

Average Cost of College Over Time: Yearly Tuition Since 1970

The average cost of college by year, expressed in current dollars and adjusted for inflation, itemized and broken down by institution type.

educationdata.org

Tuition Is Bribery

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

I disagree.
Without strict regulation, capitalism, (the profit motive), has always resulted on invasion, imperialism, colonialism, etc.

Self-Determination for Races Determined to Destroy Civilization?

 

[The Sage of Main Street]

The claim that the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and mandates imposed on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac caused the 2008 financial crisis is not supported by a comprehensive analysis of the events leading up to the crisis. It is important to note that the causes of the crisis were complex and multifaceted, involving various actors and factors within the housing market and financial system. While it is true that the CRA and certain government policies played a role, attributing the entire crisis to these factors is an oversimplification.

If capitalism is left to itself, it creates extreme, gross inequality, leading to social unrest and a collapse of the system. That's why even Milton Friedman was for giving the poor a monthly income or "reverse tax". Without the government bailing out the capitalists, by subsidizing their businesses in one way or another, capitalism collapses.

Opinionists Are Puppets

As usual, you miss the point when no source is allowed to tell you what really happened. Sub-prime mortgages were flipper loans. The bankers lent to people they knew would default. Then they could take the property and replace the slum dwellings with highly profitable upscale apartment buildings. Because the huge increase in OPEC price-gouging suddenly sapped the economy, they misjudged their timing on when to get out of gentrification.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

The USSR supposedly tortured and enslaved its people, it was an absolute nightmare. You hardly find even one person in any of these types of interviews that agree with your polemic against Soviet Russia. In 2009 70% of the Russian population expressed that they missed the USSR. Your horror stories and rhetoric against the USSR are nothing more than Cold War bullshit propaganda.

The USSR supposedly tortured and enslaved its people, it was an absolute nightmare. You hardly find even one person in any of these types of interviews that agree with your polemic against Soviet Russia.

I know, not a single person killed by the regime gave a negative interview. Weird.

 

[TruthNotBS]

You like pictures with your politics

Here are some of the communist gulags in Soviet russia

Inside The Gulags, The Soviet Prison Camps Where Men Were Literally Worked To Death

Regardless of the reason why victims were sent to gulags, they were almost guaranteed to have a miserably long sentence.

allthatsinteresting.com

UUUUUuuuu, here are the American dungeons and gulags:



Wow, American prisons are so much better and more humane. The longest Gulag sentence was 10 years and much of what has been written about it is an exaggeration.

 

[Cougarbear]

There are no employees without employers and leadership. When people believe they own something when in debt to what they purchased is not capitalism. The right to own your own property is capitalism and freedom. Without capitalism there is no true freedom.

It's true news. And, it isn't news blockhead. It's the right to express your opinion.

 

[Toddsterpatriot]

Capitalism was the greatest cause of genocide in the 19th, 20th, and now in the 21st century.

Sounds awful!

Post some specifics.

 

[TruthNotBS]

The USSR supposedly tortured and enslaved its people, it was an absolute nightmare. You hardly find even one person in any of these types of interviews that agree with your polemic against Soviet Russia.

I know, not a single person killed by the regime gave a negative interview. Weird.

I know because none of those imaginary people in your mind had family members that would be alive today. Way too many people are for the Soviet Union in Russia, undermining your narrative that they were committing acts of genocide. Now if an asshole sociopath like you got thrown into the Gulag, I wouldn't miss a minute of sleep over it. Good riddance.

 

[TruthNotBS]

Sounds awful!

Post some specifics.

I already did, learn to scroll.