Can capitalism be reformed?

[mix]

Are you optimistic or pessimistic that our current economic system can be transformed into a humane and just one that values human life and the environment?

Or do we need a new paradigm?

[notesdev]

1. First we would have to have capitalism

which we don't, we have corporatism, which also goes by another name... fascism.

[mix]

2. Explain, if you would, why this is not capitalism?

Also, how is corporatism different from capitalism?

And where is your evidence of that our present political/economic state is fascism?

peace

[notesdev]

9. Capitalism has specific requirements

Namely free markets and the rule of law.

The only truly free market we have in this country right now is, ironically, the black market. But of course the rule of law does not apply there.

As far as the evidence of fascism, it's rather overwhelming - corporate campaign donations + legislative earmarks provide all the essential elements. Huge corporations paying zero taxes after having bought themselves a tax regime under which they can send all their profit centers abroad and thus not pay taxes on those profits. We got Goldman Sachs breaking the law twelve ways before breakfast, and no one enforces it. Which is what they expect, as the ranks of public officials are stuffed with their representatives and agents. We got a health care "reform" package which forces people to do business with a select group of companies, under penalty of law. And we are seeing it play out again live in the Gulf, as BP somehow manages to impose private laws and these are supported and enforced by the government. We even have private armies (Blackwater/"Xe").

None of those things are coherent with capitalism, and I could go on and on listing more (e.g. corporate liability shields, trade policy, etc. etc. etc.).

[mix]

12. Your "evidence" of fascism is just good old American capitalism, it seems to me. nt

[notesdev]

15. It's not

as I said, capitalism has specific requirements, which are not met and have not been met in this country in a century.

If you can explain to me how the Federal Reserve, for example, fits into a capitalist system, I will re-evaluate my opinion here - but I'm pretty sure no convincing explanation can be found.

[HughBeaumont]

22. "Good Old American Capitalism" didn't gut small towns to tumbleweeds in the early 50s-70s.

"Capitalism", with regulation, long term planning, a truly progressive tax structure and fairness, allows for free enterprise, sustainability and functional job churn (i.e. reasonable retirement for older workers to make way for the new crop of workers/college grads).

Once Reagan attained office (or Nixon, depending on who you ask), "Unbridled Corporatism" started getting mistaken for "Capitalism". Instead of regulation, Reagan threw all that out the window, as did Clinton, as did Bewsh II. Instead of long term planning, we get "live in the NOW" quarterly-profit-driven decisions. Instead of a progressive tax structure, we just think giving everything to the rich will motivate them to "trickle down" all of that extra wealth; problem is, the exact opposite has been happening for the past decade. Instead of fairness, the worker is left to his/her own devices on just about everything: education, health care, retirement planning, how to make a wage that doesn't increase with inflation stretch to accommodate a soaring cost of living that never goes down . . .

Does "capitalism", as you see it, mean the worker has to live under a constant shroud of fear, go back to school almost perpetually and work until he/she dies because they cannot save a dime?

One COULD argue that the amorality of capitalism itself could inevitably produce the zero-sum result were seeing as we speak prior to vaulting into the greed-mongering ruthlessness and destruction of Corporatism, as its exploitative nature combined with the inherent greed of humans (some obviously having more than others) ultimately leads to Corporatism at it's ugliest. Do we accept profit or profiteering, and should there be an adequate safety net for those that DO lose, and for which class of people? So far, the only ones getting bailed out are, by and large, the wealthiest, and that's the same "built-from-the-top-down" fallacy these idiots keep pushing.

As it is now, what we have in place just does not work. How these jerkoff CNBC pundits and economists can laughably think this crapcake of horridity that is Unbridled Corporatism needs to be given more time and it's markets "more freedom" is beyond me completely. How they can stupefyingly sit there and deny the troublesome trend of small businesses failing and closing, entire towns getting boarded up, plants leaving for cheaper shores, wages not keeping up with the cost of living and college degrees getting devalued by the month absolutely defies description.

If what we have, right here and now, is being called "Capitalism" . . . well, it's failed.

[mix]

26. Corporatism as you are using it simply means monopoly capitalism and the

concentration of economic (and political) power in corporations, which in turn use the state as an instrument in the pursuit of profit.

I would not romanticize the history of good old American capitalism in the 50s, 60s, and 70s...a period of rabid economic imperialism in places like Iran, Vietnam, Guatemala, Chile, etc. etc.

[Oregone]

32. You mention regulation...

How can capitalism have regulation in the long run? A system that disproportionally rewards capital over labor will create egregiously wealthy owners. Such owners will have vast political influence. Such influence will tear down any regulations that will impede on the owners ability to profit. Capitalism contributes to the conditions that unravel the stability of the very system.

Are you sure the 50s-70s weren't merely a cocoon period in which the owners were amassing their capital, power, and influence, prior to infiltrating the political system?

[HughBeaumont]

53. So are we asking whether Capitalism can be reformed . . . or humans?

I'm to surmise that neither entity can be reformed or "corrected", right?

We can likely note that greed exists no matter WHAT economic system you have . . . it's just a matter of "how great". If the lust for greed is beyond repair, then yes, so is Capitalism. The pre-Reagan tax structure did keep businesses and the wealthy that ran them in check, but one wonders if much of Asia wasn't either a Totalitarian isolate or a third-world backwater would the offshoring phenomenon have started sooner.

Whether the 50s and 70s were a cocoon anomaly or not, it's also not by coincidence that when the corporate/government risk-shifting began from the capital to the worker in the 80s, we ALL started doing much worse. If capital amassed capital and power back then, why did they not quash unions and give their workers pensions? You would think the declawing of the working/middle would have started much sooner.

[Oregone]

58. Don't put the cart before the horse

"The pre-Reagan tax structure did keep businesses and the wealthy that ran them in check"

"when the corporate/government risk-shifting began from the capital to the worker in the 80s"

Of course they were in "check". They were hibernating until they amassed enough power to infiltrate the political spectrum completely, to tear back regulation and taxation. It is through capitalism that such wealth was amassed, even in this "checked" stage. Because capitalism allowed this to happen, it made the actions of the 80's possible.

It seems like you are claiming the 80's allowed disaster capitalism to come alive. But, isn't it capitalism that enabled the rise of the politics of the 80s (big business conservatism/corporatism)? Do you see where I am going here? This is merely the natural course of the capitalistic structure. There is nothing alien happening here to pervert what is supposed to happen.

The rich get richer. The richer get more powerful. The more powerful influence government. Government enables the rich to be abusive. The rich create a disastrous, corrupt bubble. Everyone gets poorer except the richest. Government gets reactionary.....and "pure" capitalism is born again. Full circle.


"If capital amassed capital and power back then, why did they not quash unions and give their workers pensions"

You must break threshold prior to being able to sufficiently influence government. Otherwise, attempts will merely be thwarted and not supported by the government itself, which may answer to other interest groups like organized labor.

If these powers were not growing prior to the political revolution, I would suggest the political revolution would never happen.

[luxoid]

43. But Margaret Thatcher did

We once had a mixed economy here in the UK,once upon a time.That fails too,as it becomes subject to market forces,and the never ending cycle of boom and bust once caused primarily by overproduction (but now the banks have got in on the act,and both US and UK taxpayers are footing the bill for the world's banking system) - thus capitalism cannot be reformed,it can only be overthrown and should be
to gain an equitable distribution of the profits of labour of the working classes.
Here in the UK after the colossal strikes of the 1980's(miners,printers health workers to name a few) we ended up after losing everyone of those disputes due to the lack of labour movement leadership,with wastelands in south yorkshire,a largely steel and mining area,the decimation of all industry as the working class faced it's bitterest defeats since the 1926 general strike.What were we left with - noting north of watford,cities such as Manchester(the birth place of modern industrial capitalism and the industrial revolution)Birmingham,Glasgow,Liverpool,Newcastle have no industry that produces any wealth,it's all service or finance economy - which bodes badly for the UK.This is what capitalisn will do when it is allowed to chase short term profits,bonds and shares being more profitable than real wealth creation.
Overthrow it now!

[ProgressiveVictory]

14. i have to agree with you and also that we dont have true capitalism in this country.

So should we throw the parts of capitalism we have away and put in something else?

Or should we take out the parts that are not capitalism and become a capitalism country?

[mix]

16. What is this "true capitalism" that everyone's talking about, but never existed? nt

[Oregone]

21. Its something the capitalism apologist like to reminisce about

Yeah, it never existed out of a text book, but its pure, holy, and not besmirched by this corruption. Oh, if only we had that!

These people seem to fail to reason how terrible pure and holy capitalism is in itself by exploiting workers and infinitely rewarding capital. They also cannot understand how such a system would inevitably create the elite class that has no rule of law that constrains their activities.

That white buffalo they are chasing is merely what we have today before it jumped into a shit pond. It will, no matter what you do, no matter how much you pray, no matter how much you caress it, always jump into that shit pond.

[mix]

23. I also think that claiming that everything odious about our political and economic system

is "fascist", this is apologist thinking as well, since it fails to see American history and capitalism for what they are.

[Oregone]

25. Spot on

And a good deal childish....going out of you way to invoke Nazism to make your point is absurd.

No, corporatism is not fascism at all. Its a result of, and very much congruent with, American capitalism.

By pretending its not they are doing a great disservice to any necessary debate that needs to take place on capitalism. They are erecting a fake facade to attack which will hide and protect capitalism

[mix]

28. exactly nt

[luxoid]

27. True capitalism

This is when a capitalist owns the means of production,employs workers to work for them,and pays them less than the true value of their labour,which is the source of surplus value and profit.This happens under corporate systems too and so therefore they are capitalist too.Hitler's Germany was just such a corporatist-fascist state and still one had capitalists and capitalism.You only get corporatism as a last ditched attempt to save capitalism from an onslaught by the labour movement,this is what history shows us.As a Brit I find it hard to equate either UK or US governments and systems with fascism,they simply arent,nor are they corporatist,but capitalist they certainly are.

[Catherina]

37. Welcome. Great post n/t

[Oregone]

17. Thats a fat bullshit sandwich

All capitalism requires is that capital and labor are separated, and the means of production are privately owned (by the owners of capital). That is entirely what we have today. Much of what you are referring to (free markets, rule of law) is directly incompatible with private ownership of the means of production after a long period of time. All those lofty concepts are about selling capitalism, but not really about the core of capitalism.

Capitalism is nothing more than a wealth distribution mechanism, which disproportionally distributes wealth created in production to the owners at the cost of the laborers. It is obvious that such a system would inevitably lead to mass wealth disparity (and power disparity). Capitalistic disparity enables the owners to start influencing politics and tear down the walls of regulations. As time becomes arbitrarily close to infinity, law ceases to impact the owners, free markets cease to exist, monopolies begin to control industry, and private industry begins to take over politics. Capitalism is a direct predecessor to corporatism due to its fundamental structure; I argue that they are one in the same, and merely different stages of a fallible, corrupt system.

[luxoid]

38. moreorless what Marx said

and you're right.Capitalism always tends to monopoly as smaller or unsuccessful firms are eaten by bigger better and more competitive one's......nice post.

[Catherina]

61. I'm flabbergasted you even need to explain that. n/t

[Catherina]

36. Naw, you got capitalism at its finest

- the means of production are privately owned
- supply, demand, price, distribution, and investments are determined mainly by private decisions and market forces rather than through a planned economy
- profit is distributed to owners who invest in businesses
- capital accumulation




Couldn't be anything but a duck.

[notesdev]

41. The second and third points do not hold true

Supply and demand are restricted or enhanced by regulation or mandate in most industries.

Control of the money supply, the most important element in any economic system, is determined by fiat by the representatives of a banking cartel.

Profit goes as much to the banking cartel as anybody, and outsized portions of it go to executives - not shareholders - as bonuses.

As far as the first and fourth points, they only partially hold true. GM and Chrysler are not privately owned. Nor are Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which together account for a significant percentage of the economy. Health care is a sixth of the economy and many health care operations are publicly owned. With regards to capital accumulation, that works for the folks at the top, but for everyone else the present system actively works to destroy capital accumulation - that is what the century-old "managed inflation" policy does, devaluing savings.

In a capitalist system, the rules, if not the distribution of wealth, apply equally to everyone. In our present system the rules apply almost exclusively to the middle class and small business.

[Catherina]

59. You're trying to put lipstick on a pig and call it a stallion n/t

[luxoid]

70. corporatism and capitalism are esentially the same

there is no difference between the two - corporatism comes about under fascism as alast ditch attempt to protect the capitalist system from the advance of socialism.Fascism is used in that way by the ruling elites/classes.As long as there are owners of the means of production and wage slaves(workers who constitute the coolective property of the capitalist class) and profit derived from th eunpaid labour of the working class then you have capitalism,no matter what clothes it's wearing -it's capitalism.

[grantcart]

52. good point

[tomg]

3. I like the poll, but there are two questions:

"Can capitalism be reformed" and "can our current economic system can be transformed into a humane and just one that values human life and the environment."

To the first, of course not. It's capitalism.

To the second: I only hope so. Sometimes I am optimistic;other times I am pessimistic. I guess since sometimes I am optimistic, that trumps the pessimism. Last night I saw a documentary on Pete Seeger. Today, I am pessimistic.

[mix]

4. Capitalism is reformable...the New Deal for example. nt

[tomg]

33. I don't know. I sort of think,

particularly after the recent SCOTUS rulings, that they have pretty much ended that possibility, if it was ever there. In fact, I am awaiting the day that politicans dress like NASCAR drivers emblazoned with their corporate logos. Seriously,for it to reform, it would have to turn into something else.

As far as FDR (one of my family's heroes) is concerned, I don't really view that as reforming capitalism, so much as it was an attempt to restrain it and prevent it from destroying us ( and the country and probably itself). In our elections, we think in 4 and 8 years terms. The corporations think in far longer terms, it seems. In the 20s, capitalism goes nuts leading to the crash. FDR and other progressives lock in reforms that restrain them, at least for awhile. The corporations - working in very long terms - slowly co opt the political system, wiping out, for example, Glass-Steagall.

The only real institutional opposition to corporations - outside of government - were once unions. Okay, so the corporations buy legislation to undercut unions ( not surprising that the last truly strong unions - teachers and other civil servants - are in areas that are now being "privatized:" schools, prisons, security services).

Once people could have stood against this by being informed and voting: so they wipeout the Fairness Doctrine (b. 1949 d. 1987).
Once corporations had limits on their "free speech:" we get Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission.

If Corporations are "persons," well then they live a damn sight longer than the rest of us.

I am still optimistic that we can develop a "fair and humane system," just not capitalism, although from what I wrote, I am starting to bum myself out. Think I need to listen to Pete Seeger again.

[guitar man]

5. I'm beginning to think it's not the system

It's the people. As long as we as a society keep making heroes out of certain classes of criminals we're going to have a problem. Change the system, they'll figure out how to game that one too. Until we decide that we are all equal in the eyes of the law, no matter how much or how little wealth we have, nothing will really change.

[safeinOhio]

7. The tree of capitalism needs to be replenshed with

the blood of CEOs and boards of directors.

[libmom74]

29. +1

[rrneck]

30. Heh.

I like it. :thumbsup:

[Oregone]

13. A system vulnerable to fools is no great system at all.

[guitar man]

39. Agreed

Any reform of the current system or change of system must include a strong regulatory backbone, airtight accountability and consequences for those who break the rules and the transparency to allow us to see that it is working.

If "We The People" are to be stewards of our economic system through our representative government we have to make sure we can act with the collective will to do so. But, it's not likely to happen as long as a great many of us think it's a good idea to "shrink it down small enough to drown in a bathtub". :(

[rrneck]

6. Capitalism is designed to

manage surplus resources. When resources run short, we'll have to think of something else.

The way we're going it will probably involve throwing virgins into volcanoes.

[mix]

8. I thought capitalism was "designed" to maximize profit...

I bet people would pay good money to see that Virgin/Volcano act.

[rrneck]

18. Remember the movie

Heist?

"Everybody wants money, that's why they call it money."

There are lots of ways to maximize profit from coin clipping to outright theft. I think Capitalism is a method of profit from the use of investment capital and ownership of the means of production. Without surplus resources there is nothing to invest with. Just ask any wage slave that can't afford to invest in "the market".

You're right about the media potential of virgin sacrifice.

[luxoid]

50. Resoures are already getting scarce

and the climate is changing - implement socialism now and save the planet!

[rrneck]

51. Yep.

Just once I'd like to see us right the ship before the butchery.

[luxoid]

55. couldn't agree more

but guess it wont happen as our societies are geared towards acquisition and consumerism!

[dionysus]

10. can, or will? of course it CAN, but WILL it ever be?

[Oregone]

11. Temporarily at best, but its not "broken"

No more than a butterfly is a broken caterpillar. Its the same animal, just in a different stage.

You may be able to set back time, but time tends to flow forward, and this will come again. And if its worth it to you to preserve your precious jewel of a system, despite the pain, reform away.

[luxoid]

19. No it can only be overthrown

Capitalism cannot be reformed.This lesson should be learnt from the history of the British Labour movement,who really did try rather more than the US democrats to do just that,and miserably failed.Various half hearted attempts to render it humane have all failed,and I guess the same is true across the pond.Capitalism can only be overthrown and hopefully replaced with a Socialist mode of production,which socialises surplus;this surely is the way for a so called civilised and evolved
intelligent species to proceed.Personal wealth and it's pursuit is what is killing the planet whether it masquerades as corporate greed or shareholder avarice,it makes no difference.A system of democratic workers control and management would allow us to plan our production,deal with global warming/climate change,and feed the billions yet to be born.Personally I can't see this happening until people start to realise that I am in fact my brother's keeper,until we evolve some deeper sense of compassion and understanding of others instead of constantly responding to our African plains self survival instincts.
workers of the world unite you have nothing to loose but your chains!

[Starry Messenger]

49. Welcome to DU.

Great posts.

[Catherina]

63. +1 n/t

[Warpy]

20. Pessimistic short term, optimistic long term

Remember, the New Deal, a set of programs that strictly regulated capitalism, taxed extreme wealth, and supported wages while giving working people the best deal they ever had, didn't happen overnight. Even FDR spent his first two years doing things like destroying farm produce in front of starving people in an attempt to get prices up, not realizing that people were starving because they had no money to buy it at any price.

Likely that is the same thing that will happen now, austerity forced on people who can't afford it in an attempt to preserve obscene wealth at the top. It won't work and that obscene wealth will continue to evaporate as companies without customers go under, and at that point, perhaps we can get another period of strictly regulated capitalism with enough socialism to mitigate capitalism's worst effects on workers.

Unfortunately, given Obama's preference for corrupt Goldman Sachs hacks over academics, we're likely to see a protracted period of doing the wrong thing before anything starts to improve.

Robber Baron ages never last long. Either they're legislated and taxed out of existence or revolution comes again. Let's hope it's the former.

[tom_paine]

24. Other: I just don't know anymore. Plus isn't the REAL question something else?

Can human beings, particularly in larger groups/nations EVER create a world in which the Very Rich don't prey on everyone else?

Communism, as it has shown repeatedly, is far worse than capitalism in it's brutality to force people to conform, and winds up being the same kind of "workers serving the elite" that capitalism produces, anyway.

From Mao's China to Stalin's Russia, the same template of a Few Elites lording over the Unwashed Masses was repeated again and again. Khmer Rouge anyone?

That's the confusion. Thus I remain an FDR Democrat who believes that Capitalism is the best of a bad set of choices and that we must police and regulate it so that it works differently than Feudalism or, in the end, Communism.

A decent life for anyone who works hard and plays by the rules. Is that too much to ask? Wealth for those who excel and take risks, but not so much everyone else is strangled or has no political power.

Apprently, yes, that is too much for we human beings to manage, no matter what we call the "system" that is used to justify any nation/group's "business as usual".

Can any paradigm work for us hairless hominids who just fell out of the trees or are we an evolutionary dead end?

[luxoid]

54. Early years of the Russian revolution

These were for me at least the best years of socialism - Russia had democracy all the way down to street level -alas Stalin exiled the left opposition and the bureaucracy took over giving us a deformed workers state or state capitalism(as some in the British SWP would argue),whichever,the end result was misery oppression exploitation.Only when socialism is coupled with democratic workers control and management can it work as well as it should.For that to happen according to Trotsky the revolution has to take place in an advanced economy,which has never actually happened(Russia mainly feudal economy,China - peasant based with no developed capitalism),unless there are advanced friendly socialist societies to help.If you're an FDR democratic capitalist I guess that aint too bad,way better than being a british tory!

[Kablooie]

31. Any system has to be primarily geared to directing greed.

Greed is the primary essence of humanity.
Capitalism is an attempt to direct greed into something that is productive.

The problem is that greed has found ways to override basic capitalism.

You can't change humanity's basic nature, you can only try to channel it.

[mix]

34. Is this true? "Greed" is the "primary essence of humanity"?

If so, this is great news to Chicago school economists, Republicans, and all lovers of the free market.

I hope you're wrong.

[Kablooie]

40. Of course it's not the only tendency but it's a force that's always there.

Not everyone is ruled by greed but those that are will rule everyone else unless they are part of a system that controls their tendencies.

Basically it is the underlying controlling factor of humanity, the desire for power and the desire for wealth. Both are aspects of greed.

[luxoid]

56. We evolved to survive

As a biological system evolves resulting in greater complexity,greed or self interest is no llonger the sole driving force in that evolution EG the symbiosis between mitochondria and the rest of the Eucaryotic cell,this is also true of social evolution in fact anything that is capable of evolution by natural selection,which societies are.There is no reality to the idea that there is a fundamental human nature,we are all different,thus there is a fundamental diversity,doubtless partly genetic partly conciously decided,this is the result of evolution,and capitalism too has and will continue to evolve,though in what direction is impossible to say,you cant direct evolution.
The other driving force evident in biological and social systems of increasing compexity is seen in those that survive to continue to exist - cooperation,so your thesis should be amended to include that.
The more immediate issue is that greed is killing the planet and we have to be rational about that,take some hard decisions in order to ensure there is a future for all our children!

[jeffrey_X]

35. I don't think so...not at this point...

If there was a time to control it, it would have been back in the 80's during the construction of K Street. The warning signs were there, but we didn't the ability to share information and learn about stuff so quickly like we do today.

The Ralph Nader piece on PBS does a really good job of explaining how consumer activists where squashed by corporations as we ended the 70's and moved towards the beginning of the 80's and the Reagan presidency.

[murdoch]

42. Marx's theory on why not

Marx's theory on why capitalism could not be reformed makes a lot of sense, although it is given zero serious discussion in the US outside of http://www.monthlyreview.org . Or why capitalism would inevitably collapse. The problem is not some liberal ideal of fairness, but a very logical, practical problem.

In early capitalism, a farmer would work eight hours harvesting wheat. A carpenter would spend eight hours banging a table together. The farmer and carpenter trade the wheat for the table.

Then money comes into play. A farmer sells the day's wheat for an ounce of gold to someone else. A week later, the farmer gives the bar of gold to the farmer for the table. Value can now be stored, allowing for disruptions in the system.

Nowadays you have a carpenter working in a factory. The modern tools (capital) he uses allows him to bang out a table every two hours. He bangs out three tables in six hours, and then another table in the next two hours. His labor adds value to the wood and nails and so forth for each table - $300 worth of wood, nails etc. becomes worth $400. So the $1200 worth of material became worth $1600 through his labor. The carpenter gets to keep the $300 he created in the first six hours, but the capitalist who owns the tools keeps the other $100. The carpenter was working for free for the last two hours of the day - all wealth he created during that time was expropriated by the capitalist. There are billions of other people like the carpenter, harvesting food, building light bulbs in a factory, whatever.

The capitalist takes that $100 he collected from all the carpenters working in his factory that day. He has 50 workers and makes $5000 a day. That is all profit, I've included the price of wages, materials and every other conceivable outlay in the price of the table. The capitalist can not spend all this money on trips to Monte Carlo, he invests most of it in new capitalist enterprises. So he builds another factory making tables.

The problem comes in this - that expropriated money keeps going into new enterprises building new commodities. But who is going to buy them? In the earliest two examples, there could be no problem - eight hours farming was traded for eight hours carpentry. Even in the second example, when money comes into play, while the value is stored in gold (or whatever form of money) temporarily, it is still used. But now you have people getting six hours worth of pay every day, but factories are producing what someone would need seven, then eight, then nine, then ten hours a day to ever use. The worker is not getting his full eight hours wage, and all of these factories can be built to create commodities which no one will ever have the money to buy.

This is why we have massive credit cards and debt, which just prolong the problem until a submortgage type credit squeeze and the system collapses. It is why factory utilization has been going down for years - people build factories and then don't even use them 10% then 15% then 20% etc. of the time. Why build new factories if existing ones are not being utilized due to lack of demand? It is why we need to spend $750 million a year on military hardware - no country in the world has more than one aircraft carrier except the USA which has a dozen if we count the one being built right now. We have dozens of submarines. Why? Why do companies have to spend so much money on advertising to get people to buy their products? When things like breakfast cereals are 90%+ controlled by four big corporations, or oil companies or phone companies or media companies are small monopolistic oligarchies? Why is there this tendency to monopoly, why was Standard Oil broken up in the early 20th century yet to a large extend recombined with ExxonMobil at the end of the 20th century? Why did the breakup of Bell only last about twenty years before Bell began recombining into a monopoly?

All of these topics are off the table with economists, who are all bought and paid for by the wealthy. Even someone like Paul Krugman is heavily under the influence of ridiculous ideas.

[luxoid]

48. Whilst i think Marx is not entirtely right he is the best we have

There are scientific problems with Marxist theory,and I fnd myself as an ex scientist unable to agree in entirety with Marx.Whilst he correctly analyses the origin of surplus value and profit as being the unpaid labour power of the wage slave,correctly explains how capitalism evolved,why it can't be reformed and many other aspects of this most pernicious inhumane social order,there are elements to social evolution and science(remember that Marx based his theory on a Victorian understanding of the universe and nature - I'm also thinking Darwin here) that were not known then;one such being chaos theory,which if we look at society as a complex phenomena,we have to start including such things inour reasoning about social evolution,and I'm afraid that I just don't see it as inevitable that capitalism will collapse because of it's inherent properties and the polarisation of wealth distruibution that it will create - it has to be made to happen.Societies like living organisms would seem to evolve in a semi chaotic manner,thus it's evolution is inherently unpredictable and not at all capable of being directed - it will always seek profit at whatever cost.
another aspect of science then currently unknown to Marx and Darwin,is the fact that as complexity in physical structure or social organisation increases more cooperation is required either between the parts of a cell ie mitochondria - nucleus of between members of a social group of animals -perhaps it is this cooperation that is keeping capitalism going?I don't know,but capitalism certainly has the ability to adapt to ever changing circumstances.Perhaps it will be deselected by climate change,though I'd rather it were a concious decision of humanity.

[chillspike]

44. Capitalism needs to be phased out

along with all other economic systems that require dependence from its participants. It needs to be phased out in favor of technologies that increase the individual's self sufficiency.

See:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/chillspike/7

[valerief]

45. The elite have the men with guns. nt

[mix]

47. a visual aid

[valerief]

78. Excellent! nt

[Starry Messenger]

46. I picked other: No

There is no reforming Capitalism. It's like saying you are going to reform herpes. You can try to control it I guess, but it is still herpes. Capitalism was never intended to be a system that values human life or the environment. Why not just dump it?

[philly_bob]

57. What if prices included "social costs"? Environmental damage, etc. (nt)

[luxoid]

73. you cant pay for environmental danage

Once it's gone it's gone,there's no real point to doing it.A better way may be to make endeavours with the potential to screw the environment so cost prohibitive that an alternative technology or resource is found / used

[jgraz]

60. Agenda for a New Economy, by David Korten

http://www.davidkorten.org/NewEconomyBook

Everyone needs to read this book. Everyone.

[Taverner]

62. Well for starters, the government would have to nationalize the "too big to fail" banks

And from there, Congress' next five years would have to be spent creating new regulations for ALL industries.

I don't see it happening, so unfortunately Capitalism will have to crash hard.

[mix]

75. It has time and time again and keeps coming back...

[Taverner]

77. Well yeah, you gotta keep doing that

[AnArmyVeteran]

64. Only when CEOs face life in prison & loss of ALL wealth will capitalism be reformed

[luxoid]

66. we can live in hope!

[AnArmyVeteran]

69. Wouldn't it be something if CEOs were as accountable as we were?

Right now they are completely insulated from any personal liability. Hell, I wonder if I can incorporate myself, name myself CEO and go on a murder spree and get away with it. Right wingers would love me because I was a CEO and I hurt so many people.

[luxoid]

71. Yes it would

Two examples spring to mind - Bp and the gulf and Union carbide -Bhopal.Both need to be tried for their respective crimes

[moondust]

65. Is there a problem with small business capitalism?

The local diner and coffee shop? The family farm? The corner grocery store?

I think the main problem is rather with Wall Street Corporate Capitalism and large-scale institutionalized greed.

[luxoid]

68. not according to Lenin

Post revolytionary Russia initially permitted small private businesses employing a small number of workers - so long as they fit into a planned economy and pay a good wage then no there isn't.

[starroute]

67. Capitalism is based on the idea of profit -- that's its problem

Corporations were originally invented for enterprises that were highly speculative but might pay off big if they succeeded. That's why they were a useful way to raise money for canals and railroads and such.

But when you apply the profit model to a mature industry, the only way you can squeeze out a return to shareholders year after year is by exploiting somebody or something -- the workers, the environment, the customers, the quality of the product, or all of them at once.

This is bad enough when it's applied to something like the newspaper industry, which has been bought up by conglomerates and then run into the ground because it just doesn't sustain that kind of profit margin. It's even worse when it's applied to health care, where exploitation comes at the expense of people's lives.

New inventions and increases in efficiency will always allow for certain areas of actual economic growth -- but those will be rare and limited, nothing you can build an entire economic system on. It's only by living off our oil reserves that we've been able to maintain an illusion of unlimited growth for the last century, and the oil is rapidly running out. Whatever replaces the oil economy will have to be sustainable -- which is to say non-growth based, non-profit oriented, and thus by definition non-capitalistic.

This is not to say that private businesses will cease to exist. A business that treats everyone fairly, provides a decent living for its owners and workers, and doesn't abuse the environment is perfectly sustainable. But the model of out-of-control corporations that raise funds from stock offerings to get bigger and bigger, and then have to either pay dividends or keep growing so that the stock appreciates, is going to go the way of the dinosaurs.

No oil = no capitalism. It's that simple.

[blindpig]

72. No, it cannot be reformed.

Capitalism cannot be reform simply because the capitalists are the ruling class. They've got all the money which is power, when has a ruling class ever surrendered power? On the occasions that they have given in a little, Trust Busting and the New Deal, they have relented just a little bit until the heat was off, and then it is rapacious business as usual. Money power assures that they can do just about anything they want, when they want. Government is necessarily their servant, they could not tolerate or survive a superior power. The government will not press necessary reform that they oppose, just window dressing to keep us marks in line.

[Populist_Prole]

74. Not a chance

It will have to die by its own hand. Unfortunately it will take many good people with it.

[marmar]

76. We need a system where money does not have such primacy.....

A market system in which goods and services are exchanged for goods and services. Local, and not dependent on centralized, hierarchical corporate entities.