Is Capitalism Making Life Better?

What we have in the US now is not anything that I would call capitalism. It's mostly just rigged gambling and manipulation.

 

Capitalism is organized crime, rich get richer, poor get poorer

 

I'm not about to give up on America now, but we need to get a little more communized with our health care, especially when it comes to solving the problem of the mentally ill and the homeless. This is such an immense issue, and it's brushed aside and chalked up to everyday laziness.

No it isn't fair that anyone lives in a plush mansion while other people are losing it on the streets. I understand believing in karma and getting what you put in, but if you do, you should know that it's wrong to ignore the impoverished (financially or otherwise).

Maybe capitalism could work if there was somehow a "cap" to how much an individual could earn. I don't think everyone needs to make the exact same amount of money but does anyone need to bring in more than $200,000 a year?

Obviously implementing this idea would likely involve some very socialistic changes to our country, and I imagine there are some red blooded Americans reading this, getting...even more red blooded. I don't mean to offend anyone but we're only as wealthy as our poorest citizens. Any independent who works at McDonalds should be able to afford food, shelter, and some kind of health care package.

 

the current form of Capitalism is surely a kind of stealth slavery - i wouldn't call that freedom!!! This Capitalism is unsustainable...

 

Unfortunately in a free market, capitalism is the only way to guarantee success or allow failure. You must have both the freedom to succeed or fail. Capitalism even with its flaws and shortcomings is a better system than all of the others combined. It is the only system that even allows for freedom.

 

We don't have free markets and we have powerful corporations that are too big to fail. I'm having trouble seeing the freedom.

 

Then maybe you should open your eyes. Just look around. What you see in the US and other free market countries was not built without capitalism.

 

Yeah, but US is not exactly a democracy. It's basically a society based on the survival of the fittest. Not that Portugal doesn't follow the same premise, but at least it's to a smaller extent.

 

So,Mr Elkheart--what happens with the "failed". Allowed to die of starvation,disease or inclement weather? Roam the streets endlessly?How do they eat? Where do they live? Do the successfull have any moral obligation to help those less fortunate than themselves? Is Darwinism the answer? Does anyone remember that motherfucker reagan closing the mental homes in California to save "money"? Those "failed" wandered the streets in confusion and terror and I suppose that was OK--fuck 'em.They failed. The immorality is stupifying,especially from the right.

 

I know the answer to my own question,of course. Drive thru any of the festering ghettoes we have in this country,with the hopeless ,left behind "failed" ,much in evidence and the answer to the original question becomes crystal clear. For whom is capitalism making life better?

 

Shame that I'm unable to rep you cuz I've done it not so long ago, otherwise you'd be getting reped again

 

Thanks--I can't rep either -until?

 

Capitalism, the idea itself, is not as bad as a lot of the activist types make it out to be. Capitalism, in its raw form, is one of the best, if not the best, approaches in governing a nation. That being said, I voted No on the poll, because the capitalism the world is familiar with these days, is capitalism here in the US. The scumbag politicians, and on a smaller role, larger corporations, have taken advantage of the capitalist system to profit themselves while keeping everyone else down. They are continuing to create an America without a middle class as we speak. That is not true capitalism, but unfortunately, it is the capitalism of today. True capitalism let's a lowly dishwasher work his or her way up to owning a mansion with nothing but hard work and determination. that is not the capitalist society we live in today. so my vote goes to no.

 

Yeah so many people have said that socialism looks good on paper but is doomed to failure because of "human nature" issues, and yet how has capitalism been any different?

 

Has anyone actually thought about what the end result of present day capitalism and unchecked population control, will bring to those who happen to be alive in say--25-50-100-500 years? Take any economic or political system of which we know,take it to its logical conclusion relative to resources available on the earth and what happens? "Leaders" the world over are constantly blabbing about jobs--more and more jobs-while the universities keep churning out people that will need to have jobs to survive this or any other system of economics. Those jobs will entail "using" resources in one way or another.Extrapolate it on out and see what you come up with.

 

the very basis of capitalism,ownership, is an arrogant invention of the human mind.one part of the Whole cannot logically be said to own another part of the Whole.

 

You've obviously never seen an animal defend it's territory. We've just put it into written contracts where ownership is transferred through money vs animalistic fighting ideally.

 

Agree and disagree!

True, animals will defend what they consider theirs - so long as they think they can prevail. So it's not due exclusively, or even primarily, to arrogance (that's the agree part) but part of being human should entail going beyond what occurs in the rest of the animal kingdom. By this I mean that with a little more practiced empathy the idea that there is a unity of suffering would do away with the competition that capitalism depends on. That's the disagree part though I do notice now that what you wrote deoesn't necessarily disagree with anything I wrote. Anyway...

 

Yes but animals do that based on their need. They 'own' a piece of land they use for sleeping, eating and shitting and that's all. Plenty of room for everyone, especially since if there was no room natural selection would take care of the overpopulation. In capitalism you have one person owning 50 properties, and the person next to him owning nothing. In that sense the system is no different from feudalism with power resting with the ruling class who own all the land. The class system in capitalism is not written into it like it is in feudalism, but it is an inevitable consequence of the tyranny of the landowner.

 

no this system is (auto) destructive