Firstly, I'm going to say that I don't know a great deal about capitalism. From what I do know... People who support and praise capitalism say that it is good because it is based around the idea that one works hard is is rewarded for that hard work. Fair enough. But it's clear that hard work alone is rarely enough to bring these awards. In a capitalist society, if a child was born into a family were the childs parents did not work hard and therefore were not well off, this child would clearly be disadvantaged from a child born into a family family where the parents did work hard and was therefore very well off. Now if we assume that all four parents had an equal start in life, the resulting life circumstances for the PARENTS is basically understandable. But now, there are two new members of the society who do not have an equal start. Clearly, the child of the unsuccessful parents will have to work much harder and have a lot more luck than the other child to reach equal levels of success. That isn't fair enough. From my understanding, in a capitalistic society every child should be given exactly the same start to life and exatcly the same oppotunities. If this isn't the case, then the whole idea that hard work will reward you is thrown down the drain.
It sounds to me like you have a better grasp of it than most. There are inherent contradictions between supposedly "american" ideals and capitalism. Capitalism is completely incompatible with the idea that all people are created equal, as some people are born into poverty and then discriminated against, whereas others are born into great wealth and have everything made easy for them. Capitalism is also incompatible with democracy. You can't win an election without running a campaign. You can't run a campaign without money. If you want money for a campaign, you have to make it in the interest of those with money to support you. This ensures that those in charge will always serve the interests of the wealthy, which, contrary to popular opinion, are not the same as the interests of the poor and middle class. This is evidenced by the federal reserves efforts to maintain a "healthy" level of unemployment so as to ensure workers do not gain too much power, and by the fact that the US economy is considered to be recovering now, while jobless rates are still incredibly high Now some will argue that people born into wealth, because their forebearers must have somehow made the money, whereas people born into povertys forebeares didn't are just people of better breeding. This of course does not take into account discrimination, luck, and willingness to brutalize others for ones own benefit as factors in how that money was made. In any case, the argument that rich people deserve to be rich even if it was inherited, because someone at some time earned the money for them, is an argument that would be right at home defending a monarchy "Well, yes, the king didn't earn his power, but somewhere way back one of his ancestors did, and who are we to say his ancestor can't pass down the rulership of his land to whoever he wants?"
Its all about money, those little pieces of paper. http://www.xat.org/xat/history1.html (history of money)
Yes! The way I see it, a capitalistic society may even be in someway a fair society if each and every earning person put the MAJORITY of their earnings into a public schooling system. If education, from primary to tertiary, in fact all systems of education, were free then capitalism may make some sense. The bottom line is that the status of ones parents should have absolutely no influence on ones opportunities in a capitalistic society however this is not the case anywhere!
That would certainly be a big improvement, but if you still had capitalism, in which people's primary objective is to make and keep money, how would you set it up so that they would give significant sums of that money to pay for poor people's schooling? How would anyone who cared more about higher education for impoverished people than making and keeping money ever get elected to office at all?
That sounds more like socialism! In capitalism every millionaire started with a single dollar and with hard work and honesty, made his fortune. In capitalism, the only thing you should avoid in the path to your wealth its murder, otherwise everything else go. In capitalism, money makes money. So when making money make sure payout as less as possible so that it could grow fast. Ethics and morals are too costly in capitalism and should be ignored at all cost,… they are just too expensive! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
hmmm, I have a way different idea on capitalism. I wouldn't say capitalism is about greed. Its basis is mostly using the flexible price system to create efficient market outcome. i.e. an equilibrium between supply and demand. However, you may ask what about if an efficient outcome for the market does not neccessarily create an efficient outcome for society. Then the government can step in and regulate, tax, or subsidise those industries. EG. cigerettes are bad for peoples health. Even though supply may equal demand, society's well being is diminished. So you tax cigerettes so as people pay a higher price for them above the market equilibrium. The tax will increase the price of cigerettes and mean there are less buyers. Hence, society is less worser off. If you wanted to get rid of cigerettes totally, you would just tax them until basically no one will buy them legally. The same applies to alcohol. Secondly, since the market changes so that supply = demand, the government doesn't have to worry as much about setting prices. So there is less red tape and less taxes are used in administration. However, capitalism still has poor people, but the government can help with welfare through our taxes. In the end, I think it's a lot better than communism. However, I'm not pretending to know everything about economics either.
I don't know if we have really discovered the best compromise for human economic/social systems. I think that a regulated capitalist (mixed) economy may be the best that we can do for most people most of the time. There may be a sociobiological component to human behavior that we have been unaware of, and therefore have not taken into account so far in economic theories. But I do sometimes wonder if in the future people won't wonder why the super wealthy were tolerated, much in the same way we wonder why monarchies and feudalism were tolerated in ages past. As the saying goes, some people are born on third base, and go through life thinking they hit a home run.
Difference between capitalism and communism Capitalism is the exploitation of man by man. Communism is the opposite Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
so Communism is also the exploitation of man by man Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Capitalism is the pursuit of Profit at any cost. A true capitalistic society would be one with no government but a oligrahic society of big multi-nationals. And in the pursuit of all profit these companies merge and create new companies until eventually we are left with one HUGE corporation and the system then eventually cannibalizes itself. Now that is the eventuallity of capitalism in her purest form. Capitalism dosen't really exist, as long as there are regulations and tariffs, taxes, et al we would be living in a pseudo-capitalist, pseudo-socialist system. We are living in the abyss of economic systems. Capitalism is very much the exploitation of the lower classes, and communism is the non-existance of class. So really those who "praise" capitalism are the ones who are really unaware of it, or prospering from it.
