[bhamlaxy]

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Thanks. It's pretty easy to argue why capitalism is so bad, because well, it is! It's the alternatives that I haven't gotten to yet, which will take some heavy reading. Socialist literature composes some of the most advanced scholarly work out there.

Great example. Teachers, who provide a service that is required based on its use get paid shit, while dozens of other occupations (sports stars, corporate execs, movie stars) get paid exponentially more, because their job is to make money. The accumulation of wealth of a few individuals has become more important than education.

[whiteriot]

yeah I agree I mean, how can a psychiatrist get paid millions to tell people depressed when the people who taught them that knowledge gets paid 5% of what they do. I mean its not hard to tell if someone is depressed or if they have a problem. Heck if you give me 20 bucks, I'll listen to your life story and tell you if you are depressed or not. Its really not that hard to do. Yet they get paid all of that money because they had enough money to get them through undergrad, graduate, and medical school. Its just bullshit

[Moshineko]

Originally Posted by whiteriot

yeah I agree I mean, how can a psychiatrist get paid millions to tell people depressed when the people who taught them that knowledge gets paid 5% of what they do. I mean its not hard to tell if someone is depressed or if they have a problem. Heck if you give me 20 bucks, I'll listen to your life story and tell you if you are depressed or not. Its really not that hard to do. Yet they get paid all of that money because they had enough money to get them through undergrad, graduate, and medical school. Its just bullshit

On this topic, remember that psychiatrists and psychologists aren't paid primarily for diagnostics, which can also be done by your PCP, but for having to listen to people tell them their depressing stories all day, and keeping quiet and professional about it. I'm sure most psychiatrists and psychologists would be ecstatic if they only had to deal with depressed folks. They're more likely to get people who are molested, abused, in a relationship with an alcoholic, or any one of a hundred different things we might not recognize or be able to deal with. I mean, they have to listen to people talk about their most horrible thoughts and not judge them unfavorably. That's most of the work, not really the technical angle of it.

Okay, back on topic.

All false applications of communism/socialism. And sure, "progress" comes, along with huge environmental degradation, consumption of resources, military intervention, and human rights abuses.

All bad applications of socialism. Just because no one has gotten it right yet doesn't mean capitalism is good. It's true, a lot of crazy, ruthless dictators like to give socialism a shot, and they fuck it up. And although I grew up in an extremely rich city, attend a damn good college, and live a pretty high standard of living, I'm far from being rich. My family walks a damn thin tight rope, and we barely make it happen.

We don't use capitalism? Um, yea we do? And what does your argument about government corruption in other countries refer to? Capitalism has very far reaching implications, especially through colonialism. If you just look at the disgusting over consumptive mindset people have today, the endless drive for profit at the cost of literally anything (be it war, human rights violations, or the environment), and the disgusting state of American culture, capitalism really sucks ass.

It seems most of your arguments, as mine, don't deal with the actual economic systems of the world, but the governing systems. No one has gotten capitalism right, by the standards of true free-market economics. We don't get things right, we're human. We'll never get communism or libertarianism, or any other economic/political/philosophical system right, because most of the really good ones depend on everyone playing fair. So, when one person mucks it up, or a group of them, be it socialism, capitalism, hell, even we-came-from-a-UFO-ism, it all fails.

We don't actually use a pure form of capitalism any more than communist countries use a pure form of communism.
Capitalism: n. An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

It should immediately become obvious why I maintain we don't have a purely capitalist system. Government sticks its paws in all over the place. For instance, in the state where I live, the northern part of the state has been undergoing some economic hardship. It was dependent, as many places were at one time, on a single industry, namely paper mills, to keep its economy going. Well, the paper mill has gone under, and the economy is in shambles.

In a purely capitalist society, what would happen? Well, firstly, there wouldn't be the "all the eggs in one basket" mentality, as part of free-market economics is diversification and education. But, leaving that aside, the economy would go bad, people would leave. Property values would go down, the land would look more attractive, people would move businesses up, more people would go up to work, property values rise, and the economy booms again.

But, since we live in a mixed economy, they're now giving tax breaks out, which encourages no economic growth, and does nothing to actually help what's happening.

What you're railing against isn't actually capitalism, it's consumerism. Capitalism no more calls for a constant, fast-pace growth of the economy any more than communism calls for killing off a majority of people and leaving a political dynasty. It just works out that way due to human frailty.

When I asked you to come back with "non rich person" answers, you actually replied with something that unwittingly shows that we're not in a capitalist economy. You maintained that you're not rich, but that you live in a decent neighborhood. Well, when I say rich, I'm sure about 85% of humanity thinks you are rich. You eat every day, you have a home, you probably don't go cold in the winter, you've likely never had anyone in your family die from an easily preventable disease. Communism vs. Capitalism is an easy thing for us to argue over, because we have all this.
For almost everyone else, the argument is moot, because they are both just names and frameworks around what amounts to a Feudalistic form of government. Communism won't look as bad as Capitalism because there isn't as much of it. Big countries will use capitalism because in people's minds, capitalism is tied to being a big country, with lots of power. Communism, in turn, is tied in with the connotation of a small group of mutually-supporting people, thus it's favored in small countries. In reality, the government that always occurs is an oiligarchy. Rich people control what we need, or think we need, to live, and poor people struggle to become rich.

[Fipherion]

You think teachers a paid too little? I absolutely agree! Free education run by the government is a socialist institution and there is absolutely no means in this institution to provide the teachers with better pay. Get rid of teachers unions who fight for the "rights" of bad teachers and let teachers and schools compete in the capitalist market and their situations will improve. University professors get paid very well because universities (whether private or public) must compete for the best professors by offering higher salaries and better research facilities. Capitalist competition benefits university education as a whole because of this. Claiming that teachers make too little is only damning for the socialist system, not the capitalist one.

Another note: High taxes, tariffs, embargos, agricultural subsidies, and unfair environmental restrictions are violations of free market capitalism, not features of it. These policies are results of corrupt politicians in washington and throughout the world, not capitalism. Communism and socialism allow for these very same abuses just as much.

[AidanRyuko]

Well all I can reply with is that whether it be the fault of Capitalism or Corrupt Government, America might need a few changes soon.

I refuse to quote the huge, OMG sized walls of text, but I'll try to reply anyways.

@Fipherion:

Sure, Competition leads to advancement, and things like Laser Eye Surgery went from "Very risky" to "99% Safe" in a very short amount of time. However, the main thing that drives any inventions or innovations in America, is the military. Why were televisions made? So in the event of an emergency, there would be a way to get information out very quickly. Also for entertainment, but that was an underlying reason.

And again, why was the Radio made? Same reason. Internet? Same reason. Satelites? Pretty much the same reason. Why did we advance from Modern to Pre-Atomic in a few decades? Military purposes.

So yeah, hardly any of today's inventions didn't somehow originate from the military, which has nothing to do with capitalism.

@ Moshi -

I think what destroys America the most is well, TOO much personal property. Women gettings $6,000 of Makeup and cosmetics, Men getting $30,000 trucks when they never use them. Children wanting the latest and greatest fads, the list goes on! Now, it doesn't hurt to get something enjoyable every now and then, but there are people who buy buy buy buy BUY everything they THINK they need. Our stupid consumers are what drives the companies to think they don't need to do much else to make profit.

Also, Quality of food? In Southern America? You're fucking me. Are we forced to buy it? Almost. Why? Because nobody makes enough money down here to pay their bills, AND eat expensive food. Did you know the cheapest housing down here is close to $800/mo for a 1 bed 1 bath appt. Yeah, you think it's about average? Then go look it up, I at least know South Mississippi has an alarming unemployment rate, at least more than 10-15% of the people here don't have jobs. The salaries and hours SUCK. Everywhere. Granted yes, it's affordable, but what if someone's tire blows out? It's Ramen noodles for a month.

The thing I think America could use is a Semi-Socialist system. As owl pointed with his numbers, Everyone should be helped to be made equal....To a degree. +20 people got lucky, or worked hard, and -20 people either had bad luck, or just a shitty family. The -20 should be helped up to -5 or 0, so they have a chance to work harder to get up to +20 one day.

But see, with the teacher thing, The worst states in education only get worse. Because there MUST be a ranking system, There has to be states on the bottom. See, Mississippi is like 48/50. As a conseqeuence, no one wants to teach here, the salaries and benefits suck, and as a result, the children and teenagers get half an education. The system we have is going to kill itself unless the government steps in..Oh wait! That'd be socialist!

The main concern I have with capitalism, is that while consumers might get better stuff, cheaper stuff, and more stuff in general, it doesn't give too much room for the poor people to work hard anymore. My dad worked almost every day of his life after the age of 16, and raised himself up from lower-middle class, to now Upper-Middle class. That's not possible anymore. It is, but find me someone who didn't profit a while back. (like Bill gates earned his money in what? the 70's?)

It just needs a little tweaking. Also, we need a government that knows how to budget it's money @_@. Put it this way, if the goverment passed it's debt to the citizens of America, we'd be in debt for a century.

[AidanRyuko]

Also, I just want to add that we're not advancing anymore. Remember how a while back, NASA was the highlight of the show? Now there are some people walking around that dunno wtf NASA is. We need some kind of catstrophic event in order to advance any farther.

Reminds me of a race of aliens in a game, Star Control. They were called the Spathi, and they advanced from Bronze age to Atomic is less than a century. The underlying need was because of a overpowering predator that resided on the same planet. The spathi left their homeworld and lived on their moon for a few eras.

[Moshineko]

We already have a semi-socialist system. That's why we have Unemployment and Welfare insurance. It's also why we can't get our defense departments to get together and work, why our education system is failing, and why no-one has learned how to save for retirement.

There are plenty of people progressing. You may not know names, but, they are. I'm doing much better than I did ten years ago. Simply because we don't have a major millionaire in the news right now doesn't mean it's not happening.

And NASA was only ever given enough money to build a half-assed space travel program because of our fear that the USSR and China would get to the moon first. They weren't given enough time or money to do a decent job, otherwise we'd have a fully-functioning moon base, rather than a shuttle exploding every few years and that tin-can in the sky that we call a space station. When the USSR collapsed, and China was no longer interested (at least obviously) in space travel, it got dropped. With no "space race", there was no interest from the population, and the whole thing fell apart.

The issue you're discussing in your aside to me is consumerism, which I agree, along with a failure to take the dark side of freedom with the good, is what is turning us more and more into children, rather than an adult society.

[Kamui4356]

Originally Posted by bhamlaxy

Generally the economic system and form of government are very similar, for example, laws in capitalist countries generally give very high importance to private property. I completely understand its an economic system, but the governments of capitalist countries are often the ones who cause the most harm, a violent extension of capitalism.

They're two different things. Sure a capalitist country will have laws promoting capitalism and a communist country will have laws promoting communism, but neither works very well if you have a leader who's skimming money of the top and letting the infrastructure rot. This is what's going on in South America and Africa. It would be going on either way.

To say capitalism is working ignores history, the current state of the world, and the hell hole we are headed towards.

I didn't say it was working, I said it was working better than communism. If you'll note, there are't exactly a lot of communist countries left, and those that remain are moving towards a free market. If communism works, why is this the case?

Communism failed everywhere it was attempted. This is an undeniable fact. Unless you can show why all these regimes failed and how to avoid it in a future communist regime, you will have to accept that communism doesn't work.

Okay, you have a few examples. I think the most damning example to capitalism is well, all of Africa. Countries, with the endless need to extract resources, came in and chopped the country up, investing as little as possible into the economy while sucking out as many resources as possible, prohibiting growth and development. When they decide to leave, they draw up some nice borders, cutting up ethnic groups, placing enemies in the same state, leading to a bad history of political oppression, civil war, and genocide.

This continues today under the guise of the world bank, who seeks to integrate these economies into the world capitalist system, although all it does is force countries into insurmountable debt.

The thing is, that's colonialism, not capitalism. Even if we were to attribute all of that to capitalism, there's nothing to suggest things wouldn't be worse under communism.

You can't just say capitalism is bad, therefore communism is better. Yes capitalism may be bad but communism has proven to be worse.

And don't get me started on US farm subsidies (government policy yes, but designed to increase profits for US farmers) and their effects on the rest of the world, especially Africa.

I'm against farm subsidies too, however, you have to understand that such a thing is not capitalism. In fact subsidies go against the very nature of capitalism. In a pure capitalist economy everything would be driven by the market, and if you can't compete, too bad. Subsidies are a product of protectionism, where the domestic industry must be preserved even if it's uncompetitive.

And North Korea after WWII? You are talking about the booming 2nd most industrialized country in Asia up until the 90's (screwed up because of the loss of the Soviet Union)? The loss of a trade partner, massive floods, and then years of drought forced Kim Jong Il to declare such harsh military rule. Bad representation of socialism.

So because the economy collapsed due to an inability to adapt to changes, it's a bad example? Ok then how about East and West Germany? Once again we have a nation with a shared history until after world war 2. Once again we have the capitalist side doing better than the communist side. Of course East Germany was doing fine until it's economy collapsed too, wasn't it?

All false applications of communism/socialism. And sure, "progress" comes, along with huge environmental degradation, consumption of resources, military intervention, and human rights abuses.

Communism and socialism say nothing about purification, mass murder, and destruction of ones own population. Some nut job leaders may do it, along with a socialist system, but they shouldn't be inextricably linked.

So communism would work, it's just that no one's been able to get it right? You have to accept that some things that look great on paper fail when actually applied. Communism requires too much central control. It invites abuse. Eventually you will get a Stalin or a Mao under such a system, it's just a matter of time.

Yep, most of it is disgusting and unnecessary. The amount of resources most of us Americans consume is disgusting. A good portion of the world is starving, but we still spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on fancy purses, exotic cars, and gigantic mansions.

True enough. However, it's not America's job to make sure kids in Africa have enough food. That's what they have governments for. If those governments fail to meet the needs of their people, there's nothing anyone else can do about it short of kicking them out and putting in someone who will. Even if the US were to annouce tomorrow that capitalism has failed and we're going communist it will do nothing to address those issues.

Capitalism seems to have worked so well at destroying a good portion of African countries, and creating a laundry list of problems for the US. And maybe Cuba wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the persisting embargo with the US.

Once again, that was colonialism, not capitalism. Let's not forget that the Soviets had a hand in shaping the current situation in Africa too. To attribute all the problems there to capitalism is either dishonest or ignorant.

I don't understand, this proves why capitalism is bad. A rich ruling class that can inflict human rights abuses against a powerless working class?

X is bad.
Y is not X.
Therefore Y is good.

That's basicly your arguement. However, it's flawed. The problem is Y has been tried and has proven to be worse than x. No one is going to dispute that capitalism has serious problems. However, supporters of communism refuse to acknowledge that it too has serious problems, which tend to be worse than those under capitalism.

Both systems have good points though. This is why a hybrid economy remains the best option. Of course there's always the risk of getting to worst of both rather than the best of both.

All bad applications of socialism. Just because no one has gotten it right yet doesn't mean capitalism is good. It's true, a lot of crazy, ruthless dictators like to give socialism a shot, and they fuck it up. And although I grew up in an extremely rich city, attend a damn good college, and live a pretty high standard of living, I'm far from being rich. My family walks a damn thin tight rope, and we barely make it happen.

No one is argueing capitalism is good. People are argueing that capilatism is better than socialism. History shows this to be largely true. If no one's gotten socialism to work, isn't that a good indicator that it doesn't work? Trying the same thing over and over while expecting different results is quite frankly a sign of insanity.

We don't use capitalism? Um, yea we do? And what does your argument about government corruption in other countries refer to? Capitalism has very far reaching implications, especially through colonialism. If you just look at the disgusting over consumptive mindset people have today, the endless drive for profit at the cost of literally anything (be it war, human rights violations, or the environment), and the disgusting state of American culture, capitalism really sucks ass.

Colonalism is not a feature unique to capitalism.

Why do you need television? To watch some good ol' glorified violence? Some classic exploitation and denigration of women? Sometimes, you have to think what the fuck are we watching? How has violence become such a positive message through the media on many levels? Because it is marketed and made for the sole reason of making a profit. If it's profitable, it gets done, regardless of morality.

Which is why there need to be some governemt controls. However, if you go too far you get government controlled media that would make fox news look like they're as fair and balanced as they claim to be.

TV's are unnecessary garbage, other than limited use like news and such. How much energy has to be consumed so we can waste our time getting indoctrinated with the same crap every night? How much oil or coal do we have to burn to power it all?

Television is misused, but to say it's garbage is missing the true potential of the medium. As an educational tool, it's potential can be rivaled only by the internet.

What about books though? The same arguement could be applied there. Except for text books and a few classic novels, it's all worthless trash that sacrifices millions of trees just to appease the ignorant masses.

This shows how you only perceive the world through you're (American I presume?) lens. 10% of the world population holds 50% of the wealth. Hell, even in the US the bottom 40% of the population hold only 1% of the wealth.

So "the world is better off", when such a tiny percent hold a majority of the resources and money, while over 500 million people live in what is defined as "absolute poverty", 15 million children die a year of hunger, the worlds 358 billionaires have more money than the annual incomes of countries containing 40% of the worlds population.

So yea, it may have made your life nice and shiny, but not for a majority of the world. And god forbid they ever duplicate the US capitalist system. Then the environment is going to be fucked even faster.

Considering the alternative has proven to be worse, yes the world is better off. However, one should remember that being better off doesn't mean things don't still suck. It only means they suck a bit less then they would otherwise.

[bhamlaxy]

They're two different things. Sure a capalitist country will have laws promoting capitalism and a communist country will have laws promoting communism, but neither works very well if you have a leader who's skimming money of the top and letting the infrastructure rot. This is what's going on in South America and Africa. It would be going on either way.

Form of government and economic system are inextricably linked. Capitalist governments do what they can to promote capitalism, whether it be through conquest of foreign countries to gain resources, the extreme link between the economy and the military, or just general laws regarding the economy.

I didn't say it was working, I said it was working better than communism. If you'll note, there are't exactly a lot of communist countries left, and those that remain are moving towards a free market. If communism works, why is this the case?

Communist countries are often mismanaged, or capitalist countries contribute to their demise. Cuba is located in a hotspot, right next to the most industrialized country in the world, yet they can't benefit at all because of a crippling embargo that continues to persist.

And they often don't work because it is impossible to compete with ruthless capitalist countries with no contempt for human rights, who subsidize goods making competition on the market nearly impossible.

Communism failed everywhere it was attempted. This is an undeniable fact. Unless you can show why all these regimes failed and how to avoid it in a future communist regime, you will have to accept that communism doesn't work.

First of all, capitalist forms of government WILL fail. We are fucked. Extreme environmental degradation for the sake of capital gains, destruction of human rights in lieu of making money, and a growing military industrial complex. Capitalism is only "working" for a minority of people, at the expense of the rest of the world. The way I see it, socialism is inevitable. The distribution of wealth will grow to an unsustainable level, and the degradation of the environment will crush the system. It's going to be a painful end, but hopefully what springs up will be much more thought out. Besides that, I haven't done much reading on socialism. I understand there are isolated places where socialism worked decently well, but besides that, most socialist systems have been hampered by opposing capitalist forces, or bad applications paired with bad systems of government.

The thing is, that's colonialism, not capitalism. Even if we were to attribute all of that to capitalism, there's nothing to suggest things wouldn't be worse under communism.

Capitalism stresses the commodification of goods and the endless drive for profit, no matter what it takes. Swoop into the low-tech country of your choice, invest as little resources into it, and extract the most amount of capital.

You can't just say capitalism is bad, therefore communism is better. Yes capitalism may be bad but communism has proven to be worse.

Some examples of communism have bad track records, but that doesn't mean you should throw it out the window. Correct application would be much better than capitalism. And I'm arguing that it is a try or die choice. Capitalism is at fault for a majority of the poverty in the world, massive amounts of death, extreme environmental degradation, and the sickening of our culture.

So because the economy collapsed due to an inability to adapt to changes, it's a bad example? Ok then how about East and West Germany? Once again we have a nation with a shared history until after world war 2. Once again we have the capitalist side doing better than the communist side. Of course East Germany was doing fine until it's economy collapsed too, wasn't it?

Not even a capitalist state could have dealt with the extreme flooding, then years of drought killing off the crops, plunging the country into disorder forcing military rule. Things were fine, they just got unlucky.

So communism would work, it's just that no one's been able to get it right? You have to accept that some things that look great on paper fail when actually applied. Communism requires too much central control. It invites abuse. Eventually you will get a Stalin or a Mao under such a system, it's just a matter of time.

Yep, no one has gotten it right, and external capitalist forces often force it into submission. Capitalism may look great on paper, but it has actually given an extreme minority a vast majority of the wealth, plunging a good half of the world into poverty.

True enough. However, it's not America's job to make sure kids in Africa have enough food. That's what they have governments for. If those governments fail to meet the needs of their people, there's nothing anyone else can do about it short of kicking them out and putting in someone who will. Even if the US were to annouce tomorrow that capitalism has failed and we're going communist it will do nothing to address those issues.

I'm arguing the unstable governments that rule these countries were caused by explicit imperialism focused on acquiring capital at the indigenous peoples expense. Unfortunately, sure, it may not be American's job to save them, but inevitably in capitalism, the drive for profit reigns supreme, and we have the US's global arm of capitalism, the world bank, which has only furthered poverty by inflicting massive amounts of debt.

Once again, that was colonialism, not capitalism. Let's not forget that the Soviets had a hand in shaping the current situation in Africa too. To attribute all the problems there to capitalism is either dishonest or ignorant.

Exactly which states did the Soviet Union come in, chop up, and drive into poverty while investing as little possible resources?

X is bad.
Y is not X.
Therefore Y is good.

I was simply stating that you seemed to admit yourself that capitalism will inevitably result in an extremely small and wealthy ruling elite, controlling a huge population stricken by poverty.

My argument is that X involves an unstoppable drive for capital, which results in imperialism, unsupportable use of resources, extreme focus on the military over other issues, and very uneven distribution of wealth, which will inevitably lead to economic collapse and destruction.

Y does not focus on imperialism, places value on the use of an item, rather than the profit it can make, thus decreasing the destruction of the environment, doesn't create a military industrial complex, and has even distribution of wealth. Even though there may be flaws, it's do or die, except for all those poor people, since many are already dead. Good job capitalism.

That's basicly your arguement. However, it's flawed. The problem is Y has been tried and has proven to be worse than x. No one is going to dispute that capitalism has serious problems. However, supporters of communism refuse to acknowledge that it too has serious problems, which tend to be worse than those under capitalism.

I already argued that North Korea failed because of extreme natural circumstances, leading to collapse and foreign rule.

Theres a few things that I'll argue about different aspects of success in the Soviet Union. First, after WWI industrial structure was in absolute shambles, there was nearly no modern infrastructure, and investments from abroad were extremely low due to fear of communist policies. Due to Stalin's policies (economic, not political), rapid industrialization happened. Life expectancy and standard of living shot up. Stalin did a damn good job when it came to the economy, it was only after his death that everything he stood for was put behind, the economy started swaying back to include some capitalist additions, not the communism of Stalin. This lead to the slow and steady destruction of the state. Things were fine until capitalism reared its ugly head. And listen, I know Stalin was a bit of a paranoid nut, and killed anyone who even thought about being a capitalist, but that is irrelevant to the state of the economy.

No one is argueing capitalism is good. People are argueing that capilatism is better than socialism. History shows this to be largely true. If no one's gotten socialism to work, isn't that a good indicator that it doesn't work? Trying the same thing over and over while expecting different results is quite frankly a sign of insanity.

We both agree that capitalism leads to increasingly more uneven distribution of wealth, ending with a poor majority and very small, very rich minority who leads. This is a recipe for death and disaster.

Colonalism is not a feature unique to capitalism.

Tell that to almost every country in Africa.

Television is misused, but to say it's garbage is missing the true potential of the medium. As an educational tool, it's potential can be rivaled only by the internet.

Television is misused because sex and violence sell. They make a profit, and whatever makes a profit is what goes in the world of capitalism. That's what the commodification of goods is all about- goods no longer matter because of what use they have, its only about if it can make money, regardless of morality.

What about books though? The same arguement could be applied there. Except for text books and a few classic novels, it's all worthless trash that sacrifices millions of trees just to appease the ignorant masses.

Hell no. Books can be used to focus on morality, philosophy, education, and entertainment. Disgusting acts of explicit sex, violence, and all that nasty shiz just go away. The only reason people crossed the line into immorality is because they want money.

Considering the alternative has proven to be worse, yes the world is better off. However, one should remember that being better off doesn't mean things don't still suck. It only means they suck a bit less then they would otherwise.

I don't understand how the alternative is worse. Capitalism works for the winners, and they are few and far between. The losers get a big "fuck you".

[Fipherion]

Yet again, every single point you have against capitalism is completely eliminated by proper government regulation. The solution is fighting to ensure fairness in the capitalist market to give everyone a fair chance to succeed.

In fact, I'm not so sure that anyone would dissagree that the world would be a better place under communism or socialism IF certain conditions were true: 1. humankind can abandon its selfish nature and 2. world leaders could resist corruption. The fact of the matter is that these conditions will never be satisfied. As I said before, capitalism works best because it embraces our selfish nature and the other systems don't work because they surpress ambition and innovation.

[AidanRyuko]

Fipherion makes a good point. Things won't change because human nature is to be selfish. It's down to survival and instinct, you're making X amount of money, but you could potentially make X amount more if you hurt X amount of people. Human nature doesn't care about others as long as you, yourself, survive.

[Avarion]

Originally Posted by AidanRyuko

Fipherion makes a good point. Things won't change because human nature is to be selfish. It's down to survival and instinct, you're making X amount of money, but you could potentially make X amount more if you hurt X amount of people. Human nature doesn't care about others as long as you, yourself, survive.

Ah, now that raises an interesting point which was first made by the political philosopher and economist Adam Smith, who observed that because of the inherent selfish nature of capitalism, there is, in effect, an altruistic outcome. A buyer gets what he/she wants from the seller, and the seller gets what he/she wants by selling to the buyer. Nobody can deny that when you find something you want and are willing to buy, you are happy when you get it. Similarly, if you're trying to sell something to make a bit of money, you are happy when the item is sold (and as before, the buyer is happy because they've got what they want).

I don't dispute that capitalism can be the cause of corruption, but it is a flawed system like all others. The position 'capitalism is bad, therefore communism is good' is one of a naive nature, because we all know communism can also cause corruption. Or, to be more accurate, people are the cause of the corruption of the system in place. It's important to remember that an economic system and a political agenda aren't the same thing, however.

[Fipherion]

Originally Posted by AidanRyuko

Fipherion makes a good point. Things won't change because human nature is to be selfish. It's down to survival and instinct, you're making X amount of money, but you could potentially make X amount more if you hurt X amount of people. Human nature doesn't care about others as long as you, yourself, survive.

While flattered that you like my point, I want to make sure my point is not misconstrued. I never meant to say that capitalism is good because it embraces our natural instincts to hurt other people. Thats not the reasoning behind capitalism at all. When it happens, its is because of corruption and abuse but proper regulation and control should alleviate that. My point about self interest was that capitalism, more than any other economic system, creates a reward system for working hard, taking risks, and innovating. If you want more money, all you have to do is work harder to get a better paying job or take more financial risks in hopes of higher returns on your investments. Communism provides no means of improving your life on your own. You have to wait for the government to decide that you can have a higher standard of living.

As the previous poster noted, capitalistic transactions between consenting people benefit both parties involved. Person A wanted money in exchange for a product. Person B