Iâm a left-winger, thereâs no hiding it. But at the same time, I canât deny that Capitalism has created a high quality of life in the Western world. Our life expectancy is through the roof, and ever increasing. We have enough food and water to feed the planet 3 times over. We are spoiled beyond belief with our electronics, leisure time, big houses, etc. But does this high quality of life justify Capitalismâs existence?
Capitalism is basically where the means of production are privately controlled, rather than owned by the state, commune, workers, etc. Most people credit Adam Smith with being the first Capitalist thinker. Compared to Feudalism, Capitalism was a liberal economic system. Let me say that again: Capitalism was liberal! It may sound odd, considering that itâs conservatives who champion this system. It was a great system compared to what people in the past had to suffer. Slavery, serfdom, feudalism were all terrible economic systems. The development of Capitalism allowed the poor to have a chance. The rise of Capitalism coincided with the rise of Parliamentary Democracy and a more powerful middle class.
But just like Karl Marxâs Communism, people misinterpret Adam Smithâs ideals. Adam Smith was the first to warn people against Corporations. He said, âThe directors of such companies (corporations) ... being the managers rather of other people's money rather than of their own, it cannot well be expected that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which [they would] watch over their own⦠Negligence and profusion, therefore, must always prevail, more or less, in the management of the affairs of such a company."1 In other words, Corporations are wasteful. He believed that Corporations were against free market principles. Smith even said that perfect liberty could only be achieved with perfect markets and with perfect competition. Obviously, Smith even knew that perfect Capitalism was a fairy tale.
Capitalism is a fairy tale because people are not perfect. Capitalism teaches people to be individualistic and self-centered. People in Capitalistic societies are breed to love money, and hate others. âFurthermore, Smith did not advocate a market system based on unrestrained greed. He was talking about small farmers and artisans trying to get the best price for their products to provide for themselves and their families. That is self-interestâ"but it is not greed. Greed is a high paid corporate executive firing 10,000 employees and then rewarding himself with a multimillion dollar bonus for having saved the company so much money. Greed is what the economic system being constructed by the corporate libertarians encourages and rewards.â2 A Capitalistic system causes people to think about themselves, rather than the overall good of society.
The âfree marketâ has turned into a corporate elite system. A very small percentage owns the vast majority of the means of production. Is this real Capitalism? Not at all. Orthodox Capitalism, in theory, rewards people for their work. But in this age of elite corporate oligarchs, people are not rewarded for the work they do. Hereâs a couple examples of what I mean. When we look at music artists, over 90% of the money earned on CD sales goes straight to the record company, not the music artist. Inventors rarely get the money they are due either. Their profits usually go to the corporation who they are employed by. Videogame developers get very little, because publishers like EA Games get most of the profit, despite the fact that the developer made the game.
Capitalism also employs the idea of profits before people. Now a Capitalist would argue that profits drive people to do better, thus, it helps the people in the end. But can a Capitalist explain why 50 million Americans do not have Health Insurance? Why did the world Health Organization rank the US 72nd/191st in the world for overall health, and 37th in the world overall in health care performance?3 Why are countries like Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Britain ranked higher? They have national health care, rather than privately owned health care. Countries in Europe (as well as some others) believe in people before profits. This has given them a much better, and more equal health care system. People cannot be turned away, or rejected a surgery because they are poor. People have thrown away their individualism and turned to equality and the betterment of society, even if it means they pay more taxes.
Letâs turn away from the Western world for a minute. Ask someone from Mexico if Corporate America has made their world better. Ask someone from Indonesia or Bangladesh who works in a Nike sweatshop if Corporate America has made their life better. Definitely not. Conservatives talk about how illegal immigration is at an all time high in America. Of course, they blame the âlazy Mexicans and Latinosâ who are just too lazy to get jobs in their native countries. They are just here to commit crime and take our jobs, Republicans and Democrats say. (I call Democrats âconservativesâ too. They support this Capitalist, elitist, imperialist, society just as much as Republicans do).
But has any mainstream American politician asked themselves âwhy do illegal immigrants come here?â They would never dare ask that question. Because the answer is that Corporate America has invaded their nation. Most Mexicans make less than a dollar a day because corporate America has invaded their nation, set up shop, and forced honest workers out of business. Deals like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) allow Corporate America into poor nations to exploit the people. The only way for an average Mexican (or Latin American) to make a decent living is to move to the US and hope that they can land a job.
If you look at the disparity between rich and poor throughout the world, it has increased the most in Latin America.4 That is because American corporate elites, in the name of Capitalism and âfree trade,â are allowed to invade these nations and exploit the people.
Most Americans could care less about the exploitation throughout this world. But guess what!? That inequality is going to hit home very soon. It is pathetic that an issue has to hit home before Americans actually care, but that is the sad nature of our society. The United States is already extremely unequal in income equality. How much longer will it be before the average American cannot afford to eat? But most Americans will not care until it actually becomes an issue.
Now let me ask, where has Conservatism got us in this world? I donât just mean recent history. I mean all of world history. No one right now would justify slavery or feudalism. But back when these systems existed, conservative thinkers would justify these systems. It took liberal, left thinking minds to take down these systems. It took extreme liberals to tear down serfdom in Russia, slavery in the US, and Feudalism in Europe. These extreme liberals made the world a better place. They provided us with the Capitalist, democratic system we live in. But now we need more liberal minded people to change the world again. We can no longer survive in a corporate system where the gap between rich and poor is staggering. We cannot stand by while half of the people in the world make less than two dollars a day. It is time for a change.
Capitalists back during the Industrial Revolution were not afraid of change. They believed in a more equal society where everyone could make it. Now that Capitalism has failed the world, people need to be more open to a new system. Be like those Capitalists hundreds of years ago. They rejected the conservative banter to create a better society. Now it is time for Capitalists to reject the conservative mindset and to move to the left for a more equal society.
To use a familiar example, when slaves were freed after the American Civil War, they did not just accept the current system as it was. African Americans continued to fight for change. They didnât sit back and say âHEY! Weâre free! Our quality of life is better than it has ever been! Letâs keep it this way!â Despite having more freedom (according to law) they did not end their struggle there. They continued to fight for equality. I guess what Iâm trying to say is that we can always strive for a better life. We shouldnât stop here and keep things the way they are just because things are good. There is always room for improvement, even if that means dismantling the Capitalist system we live under.
1 Forbes.com (I forgot to get the exact link, but it was on the Forbes website) 2 http://deoxy.org/korten_betrayal.htm 3http://www.who.int/whr/2000/en/annex01_en.pdf 4http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/aa/Gini_Coefficient_World_Human_Development_Report_2007-2008.png (the higher the number, the higher the gap between rich and poor).
Crap. I forgot this doesn't copy well from Microsoft Word to AG. Hopefully you can understand most of it.
Also, I did not write this for a class or anything, so it may be a bit disorganized. Nor does it have primary sources or tons of footnotes. But it's just one of those political ramblings I wrote in my free time.
And the footnotes don't translate from Microsoft Word to Facebook. So when you see a number in the article after a sentence, that's the footnote. But I just used a few internet sources to quote Adam Smith, and to get a map of income equality.
Corporations are wasteful. He believed that Corporations were against free market principles. Smith even said that perfect liberty could only be achieved with perfect markets and with perfect competition. Obviously, Smith even knew that perfect Capitalism was a fairy tale.
What Smith also assumed, and in light of the development of capitalism, wrongly, was that the free market would iron out the imperfections caused by corporations. If monopolies were created, others would step in and undercut said monopoly. What Smith didn't take into account was the rise of economies of scale and entrance barriers, which didn't really come into play until the 1900s. Whilst I think Smith is great, and a good starting point for people learning economics, his words should not be taken as gospel, as history has proven many of his ideas to be wrong.
Let me say that again: Capitalism was liberal! It may sound odd, considering that it�s conservatives who champion this system.
Not that surprising when you consider that personal freedom and equality of oppurtunity are fundamental liberal concepts. The reason most people dissassociate liberalism with capitalism is because they don't truly know what the terms mean.
That inequality is going to hit home very soon. It is pathetic that an issue has to hit home before Americans actually care, but that is the sad nature of our society. The United States is already extremely unequal in income equality. How much longer will it be before the average American cannot afford to eat? But most Americans will not care until it actually becomes an issue.
There is and probably will bea growing wealth gap in the US at the moment, but in terms of social mobility, the US is one of the best countries in the world.
If you look at the disparity between rich and poor throughout the world, it has increased the most in Latin America.4 That is because American corporate elites, in the name of Capitalism and �free trade,� are allowed to invade these nations and exploit the people.
I tend to disagree. Globalisation and capitalism has on the hole, had a positive effect on the 3rd world. [url=http://www.slate.com/id/1918]Here's[/ur] a great article on the subject I highly recommend you read. One should always be careful when using emotive language like 'exploitation' when discussing economics. Smith himself said: ''It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but their regard to their own self interest'', the point being emotion plays no role in economics, nor should it.
We in the West tend to attack 'greedy' corporations like Nike who employ people in terrible living and working conditions. Yet what about before globalisation? We in the West didn't give a toss about letting millions in Africa starve due to rural poverty, yet as soon as Western companies build factories and employ people, and enable them to survive albeit in very nasty conditions, we are up in arms. Which I ask is the lesser of the two evils? That is the message that the article tries to get across.
every couple of years, the population of every democratic, and statisticlly then also capitalistic country does elect their leaders. the party you elect mostly represents a system it wants implemented. as far as i know about politics most countries that have a capitalistic system, do keep it. ure there are differences between the countries about how much cpitalism you have. but rarely there is a big change, that makes a former capitalistic country a sociallist or comunistic country. therefore yes capitalism is legitimated and it is not only by a standard of life it provides to a group of people, but by millions of votes, that are given for that system every election.
But can a Capitalist explain why 50 million Americans do not have Health Insurance?
They don't pay for it.
Why are countries like Spain, Sweden, Norway, and Britain ranked higher? They have national health care, rather than privately owned health care.
People don't have to pay for it, but it also isn't as good. You have to wait months just to see a physicuian. You have to wait months to get surgery. That is why the prince of Saudi Arabia comes to America to have surgery done (I think it was his appendex or something).
Deals like NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) allow Corporate America into poor nations to exploit the people.
If those people had good paying jobs, then they don't have to work in the American factory. They don't have to quit. I haven't read NAFTA but I don't think a certain amount of people are required to work in the factories.
Capitalism has its flaws, but there isn't anything out there that is better. You could say that socialism is great because everyone has healthcare, but what good is healthcare if you can't really use it. There is also the fact that there is more welfare. If you look at most European countries you will see extremely high unemployment, about 9%. Under Bush we were at 4% which is considered total employment because a certain amount of people will always be in between jobs and some won't be able to work. While our unemployment rate is high right now, keep in mind that we are in a depression that Obama isn't helping.
You realize that 30 million of those without health care are children. How are they supposed to pay for it?
People don't have to pay for it, but it also isn't as good. You have to wait months just to see a physicuian. You have to wait months to get surgery. That is why the prince of Saudi Arabia comes to America to have surgery done (I think it was his appendex or something).
Over exaggerated lies. There are rare cases where someone waits months for a surgery then the US media takes the story and claims that these delays are normal. It's just false.
If those people had good paying jobs, then they don't have to work in the American factory.
The corporate factories drive all the jobs out. Thus the people have to work in the American factory whether they want to or not.
Over exaggerated lies. There are rare cases where someone waits months for a surgery then the US media takes the story and claims that these delays are normal. It's just false.
That's actually incorrect. If you have lived in Britain and have had the number of ops I've had, you'd realise how poor the care can be. I've waited over 4 weeks to have cancerous tissue removed. It's pretty common-place.
The corporate factories drive all the jobs out. Thus the people have to work in the American factory whether they want to or not.
There's always a choice. They can choose to enter the informal labour market, as millions do in 3rd world countries.
If you ever read Nectar in a Sieve, you'll know that that's the truth. What basically happens is that a skinning factory opens shop in a rural Indian village, and those people who were originally working as skilled tradesmen now go t work in the factory because the company, which was opened by a foreign investor, promises steady, if meager, pay. Thus, all forms of local profession are wiped off the map in favor of big industry.
I'm uncertain. There's certainly a massive gap between the rich & the poor, but really, that's how things have been for a very long time. The quality of life of the 'serf' or peasant has improved dramatically however. Now, is that Capitalism, or is that merely the sign of an industrialized society? And does an industrialized and modern society *require* some form of capitalism?
Keep leaning my friend because it's the right direction.
To answer your question, no an industrialized society does need capitalism. However they are much better off with it and they quality of life is generally much better. If you look at America, you can see the difference between the adults that work hard and become succesful and the ones who work their 9-5 at a fast food place and are content with paying the bills. You can see that through their quality of life. One will have their nice house with 2 kids, a dog and a yard, while the other will have their wrecked apartment with fast food bags all over it.
Now in China, who has a communist economic system, there is not a difference between the hard working and the not. Under a communist system the very succesful person would have the majority of their paycheck taxed away so that the money could be shared with the lazy fast food worker, or even the person who doesn't work at all. They all have the same, poor, quality of life.
Capitalism is not required or necessary, but it is the way to go to have a happy and succesful nation. I'm not saying China is not succesful, but America was, before the deppression, too with capitalism.
China is an odd specimen. It has aspects of capitalism, especially in means of production, but as it's domestic market is pretty much non-existent, I think it's a stretch to say it's on a par with America. I'd say it's definitely more capitalist than it is communist though. Fo' sho.