Why Capitalism Will Never Work. Ever.
January 4, 2012
Capitalism is Collapsing:
11 Reasons Why it’s About Time
In a lengthy Facebook debate recently, I was told that I was using capitalism as a ‘strawman’ to boost my anarchic Venus Project ideas. I replied that I didn’t make capitalism a strawman, it simply is a strawman – easy to destroy.
As the masses shake off their shackles of financial oppression, capitalists such as former IMF chief economist, Kenneth Rogoff, try to spin the epidemic by agreeing that: sure there are some problems but no real imminent revolution, trying to minimize the international uprising. But the Occupy movement is part of the slow waking up of human consciousness – people are finally realizing that they’re being used.
In this post, I’m going to break down why capitalism is inherently flawed by listing its false premises.
1) Capitalism is Not Barter
Barter implies the exchange of commodities of EQUAL value. Capitalism often tries to ride the coattails of barter as ‘a free market exchange system’, but while barter aims for a trade that equally benefits both parties, capitalism is based on profit, which means that one party must always exploit the other party in some way to get ahead, whether it’s an employer exploiting their employees by paying them just enough to get them to stay, or a merchant charging a customer as much as they possibly can without the customer spending their money elsewhere. Capitalism strives not for sustainability, but for gaining the ‘little bit more’ than the other party, ie. profit. Capitalism ensures that there will always be a winner, and as a result, not only the other half, but 99% loses.
Should we also talk about how capitalism has morphed beyond goods and services to trading abstract concepts such as derivatives that most people don’t even understand? I would, if I understood more about it.
2) Capitalism Breeds Sociopathy
Some argue that capitalism, while not ‘fair’, does reward those who work the hardest. But by now we know that those who come out on top of the capitalist game not necessarily those who work the hardest, but are actually:
a) those who are most interested in financial gain
Excelling at financial gain is just one strength of many other equal strengths – those who excel at science, math, writing, raising children, etc. are just as important to the quality of life of our society.
b) those who are already in a position of financial privilege
Should businesses necessarily be started only by those who have the funds? This just leads to more financial imbalance of the rich getting richer.
Or what about growing up in a wealthy family? This leads to segregation among classes, elitism, and resentment. And politicians like Newt Gingrich suggesting that poor kids work as janitors at lunch to make money.
c) those who are most physically and/or mentally endowed
Many financially successful people feel as though they deserve their monetary gain because they have worked hard for it. But what other traits led them to their financial gain? Many people don’t realize how brilliant they actually are and how many other people don’t have the same intellectual or physical capability. Sure, a businessman who works 8-5 for 40 years has worked hard, but hasn’t a person with physical or mental disabilities perhaps worked just as hard at tackling their own obstacles?
What we essentially live in is a meritocracy. When we are not born equal, capitalism only exacerbates our individual weaknesses.
e) those who are the most ruthless
Capitalism is the economic system of ‘survival of the fittest’. This is a vicious and often violent mindset, when ‘fittest’ becomes interchangeable with ‘most ruthless’.
Going further down this mental mindset could lead all the way to eugenics – a valid concept to explore, but loaded with potential for genocide and other types of oppression.
3) Capitalism Trumps Community
Capitalism is in direct competition with community, which is why it’s illegal to have a bake sale on the streets of Vancouver, it’s illegal for homeless people to congregate in tent cities, and it’s illegal to exercise free speech in many places unless that space has already been determined a ‘free speech zone’ or unless one purchases a permit.
Canada’s media is among the most consolidated in the world – why? Because a few individuals managed to purchase it. So the community does not talk amongst itself in mainstream media, it is talked to by the voices of its paying customers. How is Canwest owning the media any different from Monsanto purchasing patents on organic life?
Instead of having places of true ‘free space’, capitalism dictates what activities can be held in what zones. For example: in Wal*Mart – you shop. You don’t sit and relax, or play cards with friends. Wal*Mart owns that space and while you’re there Wal*Mart tells you what to do, the same as in any private property.
When we go out to socialize, we rent a portion of space and are expected to get in and get out, buying enough to justify our presence there. Capitalism frowns upon simply giving things away because then it’s more difficult to control what’s being exchanged. Capitalism wants to track, measure, rate, evaluate, classify… which brings me to my next point.
*(To digress, non-profits such as Liberation BC can’t be considered charities because they actually strive to change laws. This is how charities can get tax breaks while activist groups can’t – a blatant policy to stifle activism or anything that opposes capitalist reign.)
4) Capitalism is a Control Freak
Capitalism aims to dissect and package what we have to work with until everything has been claimed and assigned a dollar value in a bloody race to the finish. It is so fearful of scarcity that it mutates into a complex knot of rules and regulations until they make no sense anymore and can be interpreted about as clearly as the bible.
Capitalism has so much fine print that entire sectors must be devoted to defining its rules and policing the rules. These sectors are made up of anal people policing each other. I’ve worked with them. They are so pressured to ‘fit in’, that they will call you out if you don’t fit in to ease their own pressure, the corps. don’t even need to get involved – it’s a self-cleaning system.
And have you heard the one about the fat cop spraying the cross legged activists like an exterminator? (Don’t worry he was fired reprimanded.) What exactly do you think he’s trying to protect? I doubt he knows, but his heavy-handed training taught him to protect the current dominant economic system that employs him.
In the U.S., anyone who upsets business trade can now be labeled a terrorist, and (even more recently) detained and tortured (some articles say assassinated) on the grounds of suspicion without legal process (!)
When we have demonstrations against fur stores in Vancouver, which side do the cops stand on? The side of the store, of course.
Now… what makes people become control freaks?
Oh, right. Insecurity.
5) Capitalism has Nothing to do with Democracy
Those who wave the flag of capitalism believe that it provides them with the freedom to prosper. By now we know that 1% of the people own 99% of the world’s wealth. So ok, let’s lower our expectations of financial prosperity to simply the freedom to have guaranteed income and a home. Not so easy – inflation soars, interest rates waver at the hands of the major banks, minimum wage drags its feet to keep up, social programs are snipped to pay off national debts, and your worth as an employee declines as technology leaves your skills behind. Sorry, pal.
So what does this leave us with? Freedom to choose. How we want to spend our 8 hour work days, sort of. Consumer freedom – well, based on the declining selection of monopolized corps. And freedom of our small slices of free time. As long as you stay leashed to your designated areas of habitation and employment and don’t break any laws or get caught looking bad on Facebook or make your co-workers feel uncomfortable by being too different from them or….
This is a rather vast point to explore, but for me, true freedom comes with knowing that as I flourish, others do not suffer. Capitalism creates a world of winners and losers, employers and employees. For one to win, others must lose.
6) Capitalism is Drama
Capitalism has us chasing our tails to fill arbitrary 8 hour days, celebrating and grieving stock market crashes and bail outs – such unnecessary drama. Wouldn’t it be nice if the busy work was automated and those who wanted to play the money game could in some virtual reality scenario? And those who didn’t want to play wouldn’t starve their families because of that?
Wouldn’t it be nice if we could create our own drama instead of being a slave to the hormonal capitalist outbursts?
7) Capitalism Wastes Time
In Tim Ferris’s book 4 Hour Work Week, he describes the perfect job as ‘one that takes the least amount of time.’ Most people would rather be doing something else rather than what they’re doing. Do people have the insight to imagine what that might be after being indoctrinated by the media and public education their entire lives? Perhaps not. They have forgotten how to imagine a more satisfying life. Could these people learn to live by their gifts and not their jobs? Sure, quickly.
People spend so much energy simply surviving. Shouldn’t we be past worrying about survival by now? We’re not cavemen – it’s 2012. There are more than enough resources to ensure that every single person on this planet could prosper. So, as Foster Gamble points out: why aren’t we thriving?
How much time do we waste re-writing the rules, translating the rules, establishing bureaucracy around the rules, enforcing the rules, punishing people for not adhering to the rules? How much free time and resources would we have without all this excess?
Sure, transitions can be messy, but once new systems are established, how many redundant, boring jobs could be eliminated? How many wasted lives could be resurrected?
8) Capitalism is Addictive
Or rather, capital is. Money is and always be a virus in the human mind because we can never get enough. Money is (well, really it’s debt) but in our society it represents potential power and potential power is never something that you can achieve and put aside – its obtainment is a lifestyle. Two words: dangling carrot.
In Zeitgeist III when I saw pictures of people throwing away their money, I wanted to go and pick it up. I have the addiction, too. We place all our power in this external structure of money, and therefore the worth of humanity lessens. This is why factories and factory farms exist. Sentient beings becomes products. Human welfare becomes secondary.
Those who are the closest to the money will always have a Gollum type relationship to it, which calls for surveillance, which calls for a need for surveillance of those who are surveilling, etc. (See 7)
9) Capitalism Disempowers Personal Will
The world is in debt to itself. When we are born into countries in debt, it creates a mindset as though we owe something, even if it’s not personally us who’s acquired the debt. When we owe, we are indentured to work. When we are indentured to work, we have less time to think for ourselves.
Profit incentives in social experiments have only been shown to raise productivity level with tasks such as factory line assembly, or other mindless work. However, people are more innovative in creative ingenuity when left to their own devices with the reward of freedom instead of money. The natural human state radiates genius and if we rid ourselves of the stress of needless competition, human potential would flourish exponentially.
Technological breakthroughs exist not because of capitalism but despite capitalism. The internet exists not because a corporation forced it into existence, but because of the human need for global inter-communication. Inevitable human expansion at its finest. It is not regulated and taxed to its fullest capacity only because of the non-physical nature of intellectual property.
10) Capitalism Promises Uniformity
In other words – booo-ring. How many times have you gone on vacation only to see the same effing KenTacoHut franchises littering the landscape? How many times have you gone out shopping for something unique… and found every store to carry the same knock off fashions? How many times have you tried something new at work and been told to: just stick to the protocol?
Sure, the world’s financial crisis has become exacerbated since WW1, since the derivatives spiraled out of control, etc. But going back even as far as the industrial revolution, people were made to involuntarily witness a transformation of their landscapes and lifestyles as mass production turned them into machines (I recommend reading the American classic: The Jungle), and even when gold was the currency fractional reserve lending was being practiced. Capitalism turns people into consumers, but worse it turns people into products. We are so much more complex than this.
Ok, so on the plus side, it’s nice sometimes that Starbucks has your favourite drink at every location on the planet. But are we willing to sacrifice variety, adventure, selection, and creativity for consistency? Maybe we are until we see the repercussions.
11) Capitalism is Delusional
Capitalism is not based on reality because it never started from a place of assessing our collective resources in total. It is based on ideas, not solid resources. Might we prosper from the resources of other planets one day? Yes, but not yet.
How does a capitalist system measure the total of its resources if it’s measuring with old systems? Capitalism measures energy in money – a concept. A resource based economy relinquishes the game tokens and aims to preserve and equally distribute resources, releasing human innovation from the confines of lifetime enslavement so that we can function to our fullest capacity (a resource that capitalism does not even perceive and so therefore has not been able to exploit).
Capitalism does not see the world as an inseparable entity, it divides and conquers: and this is why it creates a war machine. War is the use of force, which is why capitalism and constant struggle are lovers.
So, can we reform capitalism? Tweak it into something more functional. Absolutely not. There is no from of renovation that can make capitalism habitable because it was never intended as a long term sustainable system, and therefore we must lay a new foundation.
The point of a resource based economic system is abundance, where people don’t have to steal because they do not lack. It is not lack of resources that prevent widespread wealth – it is closed minds. Only when we diminish the power of money to zero will it be impossible for a small group of people to gain control over it. Only when we eliminate poverty will people no longer feel compelled to fearfully hoard and preemptively strike each other down for land and wealth. Only when we distribute widespread elective education can people become mentally sound enough to make better decisions.
When asked on a university exam which was more important: the needs of the individual or the needs of the collective, I argued that the needs of the individual ARE the needs of the collective. The systems ARE the people. When the people are secure, the systems will be, too.
I won’t try to address your comments in detail, but just some of the high points I see. First, and perhaps most important, is how you seem to be defining capitalism. You’re taking the existing political-economic status quo and saying that’s capitalism, apparently, instead of recognizing that the current system is a mixed system that is only partially capitalistic.
As I see it, capitalism is a system of voluntary exchanges where capital is accumulated to increase productivity.
Any voluntary exchange is not an exchange of commodities of equal value. First, value is subjective, not objective. Each individual decides the value of a commodity for themselves, and cannot determine its value to someone else. An exchange is made between two parties because they each value what the other party has more than they value what they are willing to give up. If they thought the items were of equal value, then there’d be little reason to make the exchange. Thus in an voluntary exchange, there is no exploitation–both parties benefit, or else there is no exchange.
Also, money is simply the most commonly traded commodity, the medium of exchange. Indirect exchange with money instead of direct exchange in barter is essentially no different, except that indirect exchange solves the problems of handling difficult barter exchanges, especially the problem of the coincidence of wants. Money came about in society naturally because of these problems with barter, and was not a creation of governments, who merely came along later and monopolized the production and control of money.
In a system of voluntary exchanges, profit or financial gain only occurs when one party offers a product or service that enough people value enough to willingly buy the product, and thus coverning the costs of producing the good or service and then some. Thus profit only occurs by satisfying the needs and desires of the consumers. This can hardly be considered evil, and thus, the profit motive is not *in itself* evil.
Admittedly, as I said above, we do not have a pure capitalistic system, but a system strongly controlled and regulated by poltical interests through government. This interventionism is what has led to many of our problems that our economy faces, but to cover that would require many more words.
Given what you’ve posted, I’m sure my comments may sound strange and bizarre, but I hope you will at least try to see things from this point of view and see what you discover.
I don’t find your comments strange. I’ve been having this discussion with capitalist fundamentalists such as yourself a lot recently. I don’t believe in a pure, on-paper form of capitalism. Capitalism is what is has become. What I’m critiquing is what Adam’s Smith experiment actually turned out looking like – his hypothesis was a little off.
Your definition of capitalism: “Capitalism is a system of voluntary exchanges where capital is accumulated to increase productivity.” I see faulty premises: a) voluntary exchanges – if it’s a predominant system with legal ramifications, it is not voluntary, b) capital is accumulated… why do we need this byproduct that causes perpetual imbalance again?, and c) so it’s capital that increases productivity? Why do we need the capital to do this? Isn’t our natural human motivation enough? Capital is only a means to an end, and it’s actually the ends that motivate us.
Profit can only occur when satisfying the customer? Le huh? How about corps. who charge people more for bottled water than Coke? Are they only making money because people are satisfied with their products? Hell no. They have monopolized areas of extreme poverty with scarce clean water where people have no choice but to rely on them. That sounds pretty evil to me.
Another point you make that doesn’t ring true is suggesting that people only trade commodities because they think what they are getting is of more value than what they are giving away. People have plenty of motivation to trade with each other simply based on trading for different things. I don’t spend money on dance classes because I think it’s better than keeping the money, I am willing to take a fair amount of time I spend working and compensate my dance teachers. Both parties can benefit without one party benefiting more.
What is the point of imagining an idealistic version capitalism where no one is exploited when you know that today, right now those with less capital are continually kept down in our society? Hard work, in capitalism, does not necessarily equate growing one’s wealth. See point 2).
In terms of blaming the impurity of capitalism on the government, I think you might agree that government is the bitch of corporations these days, beginning with lobbying and ending with international giants who are more powerful than countries rewriting laws to benefit themselves. The point of this post was not to push for more government intervention, it was to suggest wiping the whole system out and beginning from scratch, first tallying what we actually have to work with (resources – real stuff, not money). Why waste time blaming the governments when they’re not the ones in control anyway?
Capitalism is what it has become? That’s rather disingenuous. One might as well say that the works of John Williams and Danny Elfman are no different from those of J.S. Bach and W.A. Mozart. Things evolve and change, and sometimes only retain a connection with their progenitors via historical footnotes.
You are taking as given what we see today and calling it capitalism. But no ideologically pure economic system has existed anywhere in the memory of anyone alive today. You’re taking several disparate elements of the modern world-system, unifying them all under the same name, and criticizing them as one entity.
It appears to me as though many of the criticisms you have are actually against the political systems that influence the economy, rather than consequences from a system built on privately-owned capital. And some are against people who would act similarly regardless of the environment they find themselves in, rather than that environment. And some are against the ongoing consequences of the industrial revolution and increased international trade. These things are only tangentially related to capitalism, in the sense that they coexist in the same world with it.
The system we have now in the US and Europe is primarily fascist-mercantilist, not capitalist. In capitalism, the carpenter owns his hammer. In fascist-mercantilism, the carpenter “owns” his hammer, but has to register it with the government, pay an annual tool tax on it, it shocks his hand if he tries to use it on unlicensed wood, and he could be imprisoned for making, using, or trading in unauthorized, unregistered, shock-free hammers.
So essentially, the straw man criticism is correct. Your arguments may have traction against the correct targets, but they are not all just one big thing.
Thanks for the civil reply.
What we have today is a mixture of capitalism, corporatism, socialism, fascism, anarchy, and who knows what else. It’s a mistake to call it capitalism. If you were to mix yellow paint with blue paint, you would have the color we call green, and not “what blue has become”. More blue than yellow will create a shade of blue-green or teal, while more yellow than blue will create a much lighter and brighter shade of green. If you fail to distinguish the separate elements that make up the current mix, then you can never understand how and why they are mixed up the way they are.
In today’s system, corporate interests are able to use the power of government to limit competition. Even so, even the biggest corporate juggernaut would quickly shut down without customers. Wal-Mart is the largest retail store in the world, but still cannot force people to shop there, as long as there remains plenty of competition: Target, K-Mart, Sears, Family Dollar, Dollar General, etc.
Why blame government? Because government created the power structure to be corrupted and abused. Without government, the corps would be less powerful, not more powerful, because the costs of using force could not be socialized onto the taxpayers, but would instead be fully-born by the corps, affecting their profit margin. Citizens are also responsible in large part for “enabling” this situation, because most people grant the government legitimacy that it doesn’t deserve, legitimacy that they would never grant to any other criminal organization. The government power structure is the main reason that capitalism has been diminished, and not allowed to work as well as it should for our society.
The rest of your comments show problems with your economic understanding. You’re right that hard work does not necessarily equate growing one’s wealth, but do you really understand why? Your actual income is irrelevant without comparing it to your expenses. You can make $10,000 a year or $100,000 a year and still be broke and in debt if you spend more than you make. Your wealth only increases if you spend less than you make. Related to that is productivity increases. Only capital increases productivity. “Capital” is the standard classical term, but Austrian economics explains it more simply. Savings occur when people spend less than they make, or to put it another way, when people defer present consumption for future consumption. Generally savings are invested in some way, a savings account, a certificate of deposit, or some other investment vehicle, where people expect to earn interest on their savings. These savings are used by businesses to increase their productivity, and these productivity increases result in lower prices and/or higher incomes. This is all economics, not political dogma. As above, you must separate the economics from the politics to properly understand how they mix.
At the more basic level, you still misunderstand voluntary exchange. There would be no exchange if *both* parties did not think they benefited from the exchange. It matters not who benefits more, merely that they both are better off from the exchange than from not making the exchange. And by being willing to pay for the dance classes, you prove that you value the classes more than the money, or actually, more than anything else you might spend the money on. Your actions are the proof. It matters not how much the dance teachers benefit, only that they are willing to provide the classes at a price you are willing to pay.
It’s not a contest to see who benefits more. And when people trade for different things, they aren’t trading simply because those things are different, but obviously because they see these things as useful or beneficial in some way and they don’t currently have these things. Or, as said before, because they benefit more from these different things than what they are willing to trade for them.
I’m not familiar with these areas of extreme poverty where people are forced to buy bottled water, nor how the corps have managed to monopolize these areas. But I would be willing to bet that some form of coercion is being used, perhaps with the cooperation of the local government, to achieve this monopoly. Perhaps you can provide some details or references on this. However, I do know that plenty of middle-class and wealth people willingly spend more on bottled water than on Coke, even though they do have many options, including their local city water supply. How can you explain that except that these people *are* satisfied by the product? There may be various reasons as to why they are satisfied, such as the convenience of it being bottled, or getting pure water without impurities or other elements, but whatever the reasons, they are satisfied and make the purchases willingly.
As for your comments about resources, production doesn’t occur in a vacuum, but very much in a give-and-take with consumption, more familarly known as supply and demand. By their purchases, consumers make known to producers what products they are willing to buy and at what prices or amounts. Producers then use that information to determine what resources they need, and how much of those resources they need, and bid with other producers for those resources. Some resources are harder or more expensive to utilize than other resources, but if people are willing to pay higher prices for the final consumer good, then it is worth it to extract and utilize those resources.
Given this, and the nature of resources, it is impossible to “tally” available resources to see what we have to work with. You can’t separate production from consumption and have it make any sense.
As an anarcho-capitalist, I’m all for doing away with the current system and starting over. However, I think it unlikely that most people would willingly abandon their culture and history wholesale to start a new system from scratch. Whether you like it or not, any society-wide changes will necessarily be made on a gradual basis. I also think that voluntary exchange is something that people naturally do, and that accumulated capital (or savings) are economically necessary for productivity increases. Thus, without government intervention, a purer form of capitalism, closer to my ideal, would naturally result. It wouldn’t be perfect, I don’t believe in perfection or utopia, but I do think it would be better than the current status quo.
MacSnafu and i would certainly agree with you that Governments are the bitch of corporations nowadays. Neither of us is in favor of governments. Corporations would probably prefer to do without governments too, but are realistic enough to recognize their existence and fully exploit their capacity to distort markets in their favor. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em.
About barter and exchange (trading) You say ” …if it’s a predominant system with legal ramifications, it is not voluntary,”. But the capitalists don’t legislate. Democratic governments do.
You ask; “capital is accumulated… why do we need this byproduct that causes perpetual imbalance again?”. But who are you to determine what is an imbalance or not? Are you not adopting a political position presuming to dictate to us all what is fair or not?
Then you ask and answer your own question ” so it’s capital that increases productivity? Why do we need the capital to do this? Isn’t our natural human motivation enough? Capital is only a means to an end, and it’s actually the ends that motivate us.” Whatever your point is here it escapes me. You seem to be arguing against yourself.
If people buy bottled water in Canada; of all places (where it sounds like you come from): then they deserve to be poor and die of their own stupidity – although it’s certainly healthier and less stupid than buying Coke.
Of course profit can only occur when satisfying the customer!!! If nobody wanted to buy crap, nobody – except a government diktat or monopoly – could sell it! Don’t blame the businessman for exploiting a reality that currently includes a State and government.
You explain the natural efficiency of free market capitalism in you last sentence: “I don’t spend money on dance classes because I think it’s better than keeping the money, I am willing to take a fair amount of time I spend working and compensate my dance teachers. Both parties can benefit without one party benefiting more.” That¡s pure capitalism at work!
You don’t charge money for your work? You don’t compensate your dance teachers with money? Who do you think you are kidding? I think you are kidding yourself because you’d like to earn more and accumulate a bit of capital.
C’mon admit it eh?
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Ah, but capitalists do legislate. They bend policies in their favour all the time. Politicians are brainwashed with the idea of keeping their hands out of the ‘free’ market and let horrible atrocities happen. Eg. Obama believes it’s none of his business to interfere.
Who am I to determine what imbalance is? What does it have to do with me? Balance is when all sides of an entity are equal. When one side is tipped with profit/exploits the other side to get a leg up, there is imbalance. This is basic math.
My point about motivation is that being human is enough. We don’t need capital to motivate us to reach our earthly goals and desires. If we lived in a system of abundance, there would be no need for capital because all the things that capital represents would be freely available to us.
My example of rewarding my dance teachers was to show that trading does not only occur properly when one party thinks it’s getting more. That trade can be entirely equal. Capitalism fucks the consumer in many ways to keep them down and I think the 99% number says it all on that topic.
…you do realize that you can live within a capitalistic system and argue against it and strive to create a new system from within it? I may see a better system, but I’m still trapped in this one like everyone else, for now. And I’m the first to admit that money is addictive. But humans are capable of rising beyond addictions.
I think you might be using disingenuous incorrectly. Because it means insincere, and I was most sincere. Perhaps you mean inaccurate.
Yes, I am taking the economic system that I live in today and defining its essence as capitalism. Does it matter what we call ‘it’, this horrible debt mess? This process of constantly living in the future with the idea of hoarding money as potential power? Words can be poor at capturing new phenomena, but I think capitalism works to describe a system in which 99% of the world’s wealth has fallen into the hands of 1%. Capitalism, take-advantage-of-the-other-guy-ism, hoard-ism… pick your fave.
Capitalism has given birth to a corporatocracy and therefore, these mutated descendants count as offspring of capitalism. If capitalism didn’t factor in the cancer of monopolies, then perhaps the initial equation needed to be tweaked. Just as modern day physics equations inject the filler of ‘dark matter’ to make sense, when there is probably missing puzzle pieces physicists aren’t able to grasp yet. Therefore criticisms against corporate-ments are valid – the govs and the corps are all having totally bad sex in a giant suit & tie orgy. They are cheerleading for capitalism so they are the ones most easily addressed.
Just as physical health requires balance within the body, a healthy economic system requires dispersed wealth (wealth meaning abundance of resources, not money.)
I like your example of the carpenter not even owning the hammer, but I believe it’s the whole process of ownership that gets us into this mess. When there is abundance, we don’t cling so desperately to those few things we can control.
To be as clear as possible, this blog discusses non-violence, and any system in which one party is meat to accumulate more capital than the other at the other’s expense is the seeding ground for great acts of violence because it pits people against each other. In another post, I will go more into the monetary system, which is the root problem of capitalism.
No they don’t. That’s false and you know it. Politicians legislate – albeit bribed by some capitalists. But that’s the capitalists playing in the field that exists; the one on which political power through armed force plays such a corrupting role. It’s the guy who takes the bribe who is the crook; not the guy who offers it to exploit the dishonesty instead of becoming a victim of it. As long as the politicians keep moving the goal posts you might as well bribe them to move the posts in your favor. No point in pissing against the wind.
Again you are telling falsehoods. Politicians never stop interfering with markets. Businesses have to meet an endless parade of new regulations all the time (mostly as a result of bribes and lobbying by big corporations, to keep new small ‘upstart’ competitors from undermining the big boy’s comfortable market dominance with better or cheaper products). Politicians also subsidize some companies with tax dollars to the detriment of competitive businesses and to get their cronies jobs.
Of course trading is equal! You and the dance teacher equally believed subjectively that you yourself would be getting more than you yourself already had by exchanging lessons for money! But in objective terms and in the long-term; one of you is getting richer than the other out of this deal.
‘It’s the guy who takes the bribe that’s the crook’… I’d argue that both parties have issues is bribery is going on.
You claim that politicians have interfered too much with markets, but the deregulation of derivatives is what spurred the recent Wall Street bail outs.
I prefer not to sort out which side is more evil – the corps or the government, because it’s a waste of time. When the foundation of the system is askew, anything built ontop of it will not be sturdy. The system is sick and it makes more sense to start anew than to try to bandaid the catastrophe.
Re: is trading is equal. I’m arguing that it can be, you’re arguing that one party always benefits more. Let me ask you this: in a potluck dinner, who comes out the winner? The person who contributed the least? The person who ate the most? Everyone contributes something and everyone benefits from the shared experience. In my mind, this is a perfect and simple economic model.
You can earn your sustenance honestly by producing and delivering goods or services or you can steal your sustenance with or without force; the productive way or the political way; host or parasite. These two methods exhaust the possibilities.
We cannot do without the productive classes but we can do without the political classes.
You are investing more into the word “capitalism” than I do. And that is the problem with it. To communicate effectively, we require a common lexicon, one where all the words have the same meaning. “Capitalism” is one of those Humpty Dumpty words, where it means just what *I* want it to mean, no more, no less. That makes it useful for rhetoric, but not so much for sincere communication.
In my opinion, capitalism means little more than the idea that private property exists, and extends to nearly anything with economic utility. And this ownership is not conditional or regulated ownership. Thus, when you tell me that capitalism is bad, you are telling me that unregulated private property ownership is bad. I own the computer I am using to type this, and you seem to be saying that I either should not be allowed to own a computer, or that I shouldn’t be able to do as I please with it.
But from context, this does not appear to be exactly the message you are trying to convey. You keep saying the word “capitalism”, but the idea you have in your head when you say it is definitely not the same idea I have in my head when I hear it. Actually, you seem to spend a lot of words trying to tell people that capitalism is much more than what the dictionary says it is, and wouldn’t it look nice on a protest sign?
No, thanks. There’s a lot that is broken about the world that we live in, but the root cause is not private property, in my opinion.
In terms of your position that what we have today is not primarily capitalism, I disagree. There may be elements of other systems, but its core is based on capitalist premises. Therefore, I aim to focus on the seed that sprouted the massive cancerous growth.
It seems like capitalistas such as yourself wish for a more pure version that can’t be corrupted by humanity, and then dance between shifting the blame from governments to corporations – my point is to focus on neither. It is the flawed system and its addictive end goal of profit that poses the unfixable problem; both sides are acting on fear-based, addictive compulsions and a skewed vision of wealth because capitalism plays up a small, specific part of the human – the ego.
This blog will never try to argue that more government intervention is needed. dawnofanewera goes past politics to see everyone as equally human and address needs from this point. It doesn’t matter if you’re left or right if you have no clean water or food.
Thank you so much for the basic math review: earning – spending = saving. You have BLOWN my mind. Capitalism is not simply about matching production to demand. It is about creating demand. This can occur in many oppressive forms, prime example: war.
Anarcho-capitalist – that’s rich! You and Gordon Gekko. Capitalism for anarchy is like… fucking for virginity. I mean, what does an anarcho-capitalist look like? I’m envisioning a plantation owner sitting on his porch with a gun. Privatizing the police and courts… that sounds like a great idea. The type of anarchy I resonate with is that of the ex-worker’s collective. Don’t just take over the factories – automate the factories. Anarcho-capitalism seems to me much like the phase a baby goes through when it declares everything as ‘mine’ and identifies this sense of ownership as its liberty. Equal distribution of wealth is not idealistic or far fetched when participatory.
This blog defines anarchism as the end of all oppressive systems. Capitalism – with its main focus being on capital/profit is at its core oppressive, placing competition over humanism. And although anarcho-capita-whatevers might argue that removing government from the ‘free’ market is liberating people, it is essentially creating a new system (actually regressing into an old chaotic system) of ‘survival of the
fittestmost ruthless’.Abandoning faulty economic systems doesn’t require forfeiting everything we remember and cherish (culture & history). Change can come gradually or it can come instantaneously, such as the Egyptian people spurring the resignation of Mubarak. Capitalism will never function as a long term economic system for the main reason that it’s not sustainable. It does not begin the equation with an actual tally of resources. It is a system of unlimited growth based on a planet with (currently) limited resources. We have more than enough accurate technology and mathematical knowledge to tally the world’s current resources. We have potential contact with extraterrestrial species if we can curb intervention from the military industrial complex.
Being an honest worker can just as easily mean being a spineless worker and not demanding what you deserve. If a company produces something you need and produces it in a way you see unfit (eg.pharmaceuticals testing on animals) I’d say it’s braver to steal.
You forget a 3rd possibility: automate the working class. http://www.thevenusproject.com/en/technology/city-systems
In this post capitalism means the pursuit of capital. An exchange of commodities in which CAPITAL is the end goal. This is a universal understanding of capitalism, and the faulty premise that carries the short circuiting of the system due to the initial imbalance that it presents.
Ownership in itself is a fairly neutral concept, but capitalism creates a dependency on it because it breeds the concept of scarcity - a race to the finish to collect anything of value the Earth’s primary resources have to offer based on false entitlement. It also fuels materialism, defining ourselves by material goods. Thus encouraging hieararchies as we compare our collected acquisitions to that of our neighbours. And most importantly, presenting a direct contradiction of our actual transient human nature – we can’t own our bodies.
You’ve got a few things backwards, it seems to me. Nobody pursues “capital” as an end goal. Everyone wants goods and services for consumption. If it is consumed, then it’s not capital (or it’s no longer capital, if it was to start with). The only value capital has in an economy is to increase productivity, such as the start or expansion of a productive business.
Scarcity is a natural condition–poverty was the natural state of man until he learned to increase his productivity and create surplus commodities. Is there plenty of water to drink? Only if someone does the work necessary to get the water from its source and transport it to where it will be used. Resources are useless until they are actually utilized in some way, another reason “tallying resources” is an impossible and pointless task.
Sure, it’s possible to create an artificial scarcity (as opposed to natural scarcity), but that requires large-scale coercion that only the power structure of the government is really capable of doing, as in government-controlled monopolies, where all competition is eliminated.
Your vision of anarcho-capitalism is creative, but still misses the point. Imagine that we do get rid of the government and start from scratch. People will still voluntarily exchange with each other, they will still want the convenience of a medium of exchange (but sound, backed money as opposed to the fiat money that governments create), and they will still need capital (or savings, i.e. deferred comsumption) to increase their productivity. Presto! Anarchism and capitalism.
You want more automation of factories? That’s fine, I’m all for easing the drudgery of boring work, but you need capital in order to automate the factories. Some people, somewhere, will need to save some of their wealth, defer some of their present consumption, so that the resources are available for setting up and maintaining that automation. Frederich Hayek talked at length about the production process and the time it takes for production to occur.
Obviously, production must occur before consumption–you can’t consume a commodity before it has been produced. This time delay is the reason that capital is needed. It also explains why some people (not all, maybe not even most) might willingly prefer to work for a wage: so they don’t have to wait until after the commodity is produced and exchanged before they can benefit from their work. This doesn’t necessarily have to be viewed as a hierarchical situation–instead it is more properly viewed as complementary. I can easily imagine wage-earners as being considered independent contractors instead of employees, since that is my own current employment situation.
However, what *is* likely to create a hierarchy of sorts is the amount of skill a person has at doing his/her work. Natural talents differ, and people generally start with low skills and improve those skills over time.
You put yourself down linking to the Venus Project nonsense. Read some F.A.Hayek, Freidman (Milton &/or David), Rothbard, Hazlett, Von Mises so you know what you are arguing and complaining against.
Thanks for your reply.
Your definition of capitalism is meaningless unless you tell us what you mean by the word CAPITAL.
You have not told us what you mean by the word CAPITAL.
The fact is that scarcity exists, If it didn’t, it would mean we are living in the garden of eden, and people wouldn’t need capital to eliminate various discomforts they have.
Which part of “voluntary trade” do you want to end? That is all capitalism is. A means to and end.
Scarcity exists because humans make it so. The universe we live in is infinite and there exists enough resources today on Earth for every person to live a better lifestyle than the richest 1% have now with more advanced automated systems and sustainable free energy.
Sustainability is not utopia. We would still have a multitude of challenges both individually and collectively.
‘Voluntary trade’ as I mentioned is not capitalism – not what it was proposed and definitely not what it has become. Capitalism is a hierarchic system by definition, or workers and bosses.
Capital: cha ching
Capital: sweet moola
Capital: the concept of worth, accumulated by usurping others
Capital: the proper way to begin proper names
Capital: the biggest bestest city in a province or state
Capital: poisonous addictive crack-like substance
How’s that?
This astonishing drivel imagined by loony lefties; that everyone could have anything they wanted for zero effort from our Universe of infinite resources, would be risible were it not so appalling that there are those who can read and write and yet believe such a blatant fiction. All the cars, ships, planes, houses and computers are manna from heaven? How can anyone take that seriously?
Wealth is produced and supplied by the talents, skills, efforts and accumulated resources (capital) of individuals, driven by the market demands of individuals.
Wealth is destroyed and buried in an ever deepening pit of debt as the direct result of economically innumerate, corrupt, parasitical, profligate, political interference and manipulation of markets; to buy votes, to carry-out insane ideological experiments upon live people, to steal, to increase and consolidate dominance – to get more bribes – and/or in pursuit of personal glory.
Not zero effort, minimal effort – putting humans first, not monetary gain. Simplifying. When you work voluntarily, it’s no longer work.
Wealth exists in many forms, not just money, and it is worth nothing if we are exploiting people, animals, and the environment to obtain it.
Money (not wealth) has made the world in debt to itself not because a few bad apples have screwed up, but because the system leaves room for error. The main error is that money is addictive, and people will compromise their human ethics to obtain it.
You may be tired of all this discussion, but this article was just published today at the Mises Institute: http://mises.org/daily/5903/The-Mystery-of-the-Marginal-Pairs
It doesn’t talk about capital, but it does talk about how the market directs production, which may be of interest to you, as it is about the inter-connectedness of consumption and production.
I take this article and observe that you are pro capitalism because it’s an interesting game and because the logic behind it ‘should’ work beautifully and is interesting to chew on. I don’t argue that it’s an interesting game. A game that could continue in an economy that is actually sustainable, just without paying with our souls. I don’t argue that it’s an interesting puzzle to play with. But in effect, it is a game.
I am looking behind scenarios such as this to: what do the buyers ACTUALLY need. In this little tableau, some of the bidders win while others lose. I am interested in helping EVERYONE win.
What I find even more hilarious is that you sent me an example based on a horse as property. In a veganarchic system, we end ALL oppressive systems. Including the breeding of horses as property. So actually horses are not a need, and are certainly not a commodity to be bargained for. Who knows wtf these people ‘need’ horses for, but I have a feeling there is actually another need behind this perceived need that they are trying to fulfill.
I was going to write another response to this, but once I got started on it, it started getting rather long, and I just decided it wasn’t worth it.
As long as you are going to persuade people towards your veganarchism and not resort to the initiation of force, then you and I are not in any serious conflict with each other, in spite of any misconceptions or misunderstandings between us.
Bingo – non-violent blog, non-violent methods. We are at peace.
In delayed response to this, as I didn’t have time before, you keep telling me I don’t get it, but I do get it, just on another level. I am looking past the system to the humans involved in the system (99% as byproducts).
Nobody pursues capital as an end goal? Money symbolizes so much in our society that we all really do. Money is our security blanket, our bread and butter, our pass to social acceptation. I once witnessed at a bar a pile of several thousand dollars dropped on the floor and watched it disappear within minutes. Money/capital is an addiction as strong as crack. To the point where we no longer know what we want it for, we just know that: the more we get, the better. There is no such thing as too rich.
Scarcity and poverty are not natural conditions for man. Man is part of his resource-rich environment. We have sustained life on this planet for at least 4000 years. There are many models of economies that have existed other than capitalism.
Re: working to get water… No one is saying that no work is required in a resourced-based economy, only that systems are simplified so we can cut out the BUSY work and spend more of our time as we wish to.
Tallying resources is impossible? Why is that? We know how to count pretty well as a species. We know what is valuable, and what could be valuable if we were able to bypass the military industrial complex. It’s really not that difficult. We already estimate tallies ALL the time.
Artificial scarcity is created not only by governments, but by corporations every day. ‘Call Now!’ ‘Going fast!’ ‘Oil is running out and it’s the only source of fuel on the planet so it has to be expensive, mmk?’ Humans are born in scarcity (paying off their countries’ debts, and spending their lives as wage slaves to pay for houses that don’t belong to them until old age, if they’re lucky.) If that’s not scarcity, I don’t know what is. In abundance, people could have homes that would not be taken away. They would have natural rights to food, water, and anything else they need to live, and would be able to afford to share their gifts/services for free.
I’m not interested in ‘anarcho-capitalism’ because there are simply better systems. There is technological genius out there that exists that we are not using because of our current global economic structure (which is run not by governments, but by those with the most capital). So once we disregard the power of their acquired ‘capital’, we will be able to use these brilliant new systems as we see fit as a collective. http://www.thevenusproject.com/
You are of the mindset that you need capital to do anything… But when capital/money is no longer considered of value in our society, all you’re left with is resources and the human drive to create. This is what is needed to create automated systems. Not numbers or paper symbolizing a dying thought system.
In terms of wage earners, this system places people in a very dependent relationship. They do the work THEN get paid. But the employer benefits from having the work done first. So the hierarchy exists because it favours those with the most capital, just as many other relationships in this system play out. Oh, you have money? Here are some more perks, here borrow a few more million. The landlord gets paid first, then the renters live out the term. Always at the expense of those with less. And what happens as a wage earner if you get hurt? You’re SOL.
Arguing that skills are appropriately rewarded in capitalism is inaccurate. There are so many types of talent that there is no point in pitting them against each other. And those with talent don’t need more compensation than those with less. Why are we rewarding the strong and punishing the weak? We have to take care of the disabled in our society – the old, the sick, the young. This is what makes us human. Plus, many talents are not rewarded monetarily anyways in our current system. How much do mothers make? Oh yeah, that’s a freebie.
I suggest the Zeitgeist films and a thorough exploration of the Venus Project. I admit, it’s uncomfortable at first to think of a world without money, but it’s actually very empowering when you realize how much more influence and free time we would all have, how much less violent competition would ensue, how far science could advance, and how much more we could enjoy our riches knowing that 6 million children a year were not starving to death to feed the wealthy. No need to try to renovate a broken system, just demolish and start fro the ground up.