The USA isnt capitalist

[Tammuz]

When a corporation goes out of business it opens up the market to the possibility of many small businesses taking its place.

This means more choice,more competition etc.

Corporate welfare artificially keeps corporations afloat which helps monopolies form, then the government goes after the corporations for anti-trust violations.

When a corporation goes out of business many jobs will be lost but only in the short term. In the long term the businesses that take advantage of the new gap in the market will probably employ many more people than the one corporation.

There is absolutely no advantage to corporate welfare.

[gmoney]

1. "There's no advantage..."

"There is absolutely no advantage to corporate welfare."

Unless, of course, you're on the receiving end. Where would WalMart be without tax abatements, publicly funded infrastructure, and non-enforcement of regulations?

[littlejoe]

11. It won't be long beforeWalMart puts

its corporate logo on the American flag.

[saigon68]

26. They have already

[Terry_M]

2. Yup

I like to call the current system leechism. The economy is full of inefficient leeching corporations that do nothing but sit around until there's financial difficulties at which point they seek bankrupcy protection which helps them leech some more.

[mikehiggins]

3. Of course not

A absolutely pure capitalist system, a la Rand or the Libertarians, would have NO defenses built into the system for inefficiencies and incompetence. The endeavor would stand or fall on its own terms, and there would be no state interference to protect the favored or punish those in poor favor.

Similarly, there is no absolutely pure socialist system, a la more theorists than you can shake a manifesto at.

Both pure theories fall apart when exposed to basic human nature, and both attempt to overcome this by either emphasising one aspect of human nature over the others (capitalism) or by molding all aspects of human nature into one form (socialism).

Fortunately (or un- so depending on your point of view) both methods fail because children are born, grow up, grow old and die with regularity, and people often rebel against what they see as the "old order" simply because it is the "old" order.

Times change, as Harry Van Arsdale Jr used to say before he died, but people don't. (I'm sure others made the point; Harry was just the guy who made it real to me) Change is constant, even if you are faced with a perfect system. Ironically, one of the most clear expositions of this point was the overhyped, overrated Matrix movies, which got that one point right at least. Even in their perfectly monitored, perfectly controlled environment, the machines could not prevent the human mind from rebelling.

So, no perfect capitalism, no perfect socialism (though I'd like to see us try a little harder in that direction) and conflict as the natural state of human affairs (not Hobbesian, just realistic).

The best we can hope for, IMHO, is some form of corporate welfare, but one weighted much more towards the good of the people than to the faceless masses of corporations.

Discuss...

[Must Win 2004]

5. You are correct.

However, I fear we have tilted so far toward fascism with this administration, we are really in for a fight to swing left enough to hit actual capitalism.

What you refer to as the best we can hope for is what I hope for, but it will not occur under Bush.

[newyawker99]

19. Hi Must Win 2004!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[FG9942]

7. What are the remedies in Randism against monopolies?

Your view of libertarianism is as much utopian as Marxism.
Any kind of unchecked capitlism becomes a monopoly and loses all
advantages of competition.

[newyawker99]

20. Hi FG9942!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Tansy_Gold]

24. Rand and monopolies

I always believed Rand didn't know what to do with monopolies, or even that she knew where they would lead and didn't want to get into that quagmire.

Certainly she believed in intellectual property rights -- as with Rearden Metal in "Atlas Shrugged." And the natural extension of that would be monopoly. In her perfect world, the monopolists would probably not have been greedy, but they could not have been altruistic either, and that was irreconcilable to her, I think.

Libertarians, being only a twinge different from Anarchists :grin:, would probably have no problem with monopolies either, so long as they didn't infringe on anyone's property rights. Anarchists, being different from Libertarians by only a twinge but a very important twinge, can't abide monopolies of any kind.

[HEyHEY]

4. Best example of that is Air Canada

Always getting bailed out by the Canadian government. THen they go ahead and fuck up some more, lay off everyone, and get bailed out again. Becuase of this they have shit service, but besides Westjet there is no other choice for cross Canada flying.

[DuctapeFatwa]

6. No, it is feudalist

Capitalism not only encourages and rewards competition and individual entrepreneurship, but contains principles of incentives for labor to work harder, and thus increase the profits of management.

The idea is that workers will work harder in order for the company in order to obtain more benefits, e.g., pay, for themselves.

Now that the price of a day's labor is below the cost of a day's survival, and working harder for the company no longer produces more pay, the incentive principles of capital are now removed, and the worker works as a serf, not in the hope that he will earn enough for survival, but that the lord will spare his life.

[Bonobo]

18. Just read your Feb. 18 article: Beating Bush: The Democrats' Weakest Link,

I thought it was fantastic and I mean it.
You are a great writer and a great mind.

I think you really don't mean feudalistic, but were rather making the ironic point that the workers are dramatically underpaid to the point that their lives are very much dependant on striking some luck along the way...witness the popularity of the state lottery.

[DuctapeFatwa]

21. Thanks for your kind words, I regret that I do mean feudalistic

You can see the transition most starkly in microcosm: A Wal-Mart opens in XTown. Within a few months, the only employer in XTown is Wal-Mart. XTown residents who prefer not to work for the wage offered by Wal-Mart are free to move somewhere else and work for the Wal-Mart there, or starve.

[Bonobo]

23. I would counter by saying that in most feudalistic states, there was

more loyalty from the master towards the servant than exists currently between employer (Walmart) and employee. Historically, the lord and master's powe was dependant on the support of his serfs they were the source of his strength since they worked the fields and payed the taxes -so he rewarded the work with loyalty/protection. That does not seem to be the case with Mac jobs.

[DuctapeFatwa]

25. Modern lords do not have to do that

In the old days, there were fewer people to begin with, and transportation took a long time.

That is not a concern today. If a modern lord becomes displeased with his serfs, he can easily dismiss them all and obtain others from the plentiful supply of poor, nearby, or far away.

In the case of unrest, he can have an armed force on site and shooting in a matter of minutes.

You can make the argument that this system is not sustainable in the long term, but the realities of peak oil do not require a long term.

[Zinfandel]

8. Imperialists, more and more is what we are becoming under Bush.

Imperialism though the centuries has never been positive for anyone, except the rich and sooner or later the people will not stand for the stealing and exploiting of their land and resources. They will rebel and kick the shit out of the imperialists for as long as it takes, because the people have nothing to lose. Imperialistic pigs are greedy and want it all.

[Tammuz]

9. .

Even with a smaller form of corporate welfare the huge amount of money involved will cause corruption

[littlejoe]

10. This is precisely why I was not in favor of the Chrysler

and savings and loan bailouts.

How did the consumer profit by the government's largesse?

How do entrepeneurs profit?

[billbuckhead]

28. Actually Chrysler came out with the minivan shortly after, moms loved them

Actually Chrysler came out with the minivan shortly after and changed automotive history. Chrysler also brought back convertibles, was the first to make airbags standard across their lineup and bought AMC from the French and revived the Jeep lineup. For some reason, customers got a lot more choices from this government cosigning of a loan. I wonder how many jobs and communities were saved?

[mouse7]

12. It's mercantilism.

The same system England had when Adam Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations to offer capitalism as an alternative progressive economic system.

Mercantilism was what the US was fighting against when it threw the tea in Boston Harbor. The British Crown protected certain large chartered trade companies, and the monopolies they had granted them. Corporations are chartered trade companies. The WTO's entire purpose of existance is to protect corporations just like the old crowns of Europe protected their charter trade companies.

[Jose Diablo]

13. Bingo!!!

Intellectual property rights.

[HFishbine]

14. For greater insight, read

"When Corporations Rule the World" by David Korten.

Korten goes into great detail about the ways in which corporations marginalize (get others to pay for) their operational and production costs. It's amazing the degree to which companies are subsidized in America, directly and indirectly.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1887208046/103-6374120-1089406?v=glance

[mouse7]

15. Excellent book.

I keep it in the little bookrack that's on my desk.

[cryofan]

16. our laws should inhibit corporation size, and favor very small businesses

Larger corporations use their size and clout to squeeze out smaller businesses and especially self-employed or family businesses.

If for some reason there is a vacuum where small businesses are no effective (such as manufacturing certain items), then investors could appeal to the govt to allow them to own a large business, but otherwise large corps just hurt more than help.

[sweetheart]

17. The US is federal reserve and wall street central planning

On top of "corporate welfare", the system is more secretive.

The open markets committee, of the federal reserve uses federal empowerment so a room of white men (and 1 token woman) define where
money is to be focused in the economy. Excellent details: www.wizardsofmoney.org

Also in that corporate welfare issue is the gross subsidy of the
taxpayer through military innovation, nasa, and the DOD and DOE.

The nuclear power profession for 20+ years was not economically viable, and was for decades the largest corporate subsidy of them
all.

Myself, i agree that the corps should get no aid from the state, and
rather, should be forced to pay the "real cost" of their toll on the
american citizen. Chevron, mobile and exxon should pay for the iraq
war, as they are the only beneficiaries. Better that petrol goes up
to 5 dollars per gallon, that the free market realize the cost and
can respond by investing in alternate energy sources.

These subsidies are the main reason the US economy is unsustainable, and when exported, destroys the sustainability of other nation states.

"corporate feudalism".. not capitalism.

[Deja Q]

22. It's far more likely that small businesses go out, after being taken over

ruthlessly by the big corporation.

Wal-Mart is a shining example of this new standard on urinating on fellow Americans.

Look at very small companies Microsoft bought out, just so it can meld a good product sloppily into its OS, if not to keep the software from going into competing platforms.

Sorry, corporations get larger and eat up everything in their path.

The larger a corporation gets, the more it spreads. Large corporations are viruses. And, oddly, the leaches they use (republicans and DFLers who sell themselves and their party out) heal nothing. (as if leaches helped cure illnesses in the 10th centuy anyway...)

[billbuckhead]

27. Most major advances and projects require Government assistance

Capitalism by itself couldn't go the moon, build all this infrastructure or even develop the internet. Most great developements are derived from government in some way. If pure capitalism could always solve problems, people wouldn't always be saying that we need a "ManhattanProject", A Marshall plan, an Apollo project, etc.