Capitalism: fixing a broken system.

[Blaggard]

Now don't get me wrong I am not going to post a communist manifesto demanding those who should be first against the wall.

But clearly capitalism is broken, we go through these endless cycles of boom and bust, when it seems to me they are unnecessary, we keep the developing world in chains, to our trade, we keep our own subjects seemingly in a sort of non mobility cycle. Ie we don't let people move up the ladder any more, we seem to have kept the elite at the top, who have then presevred the elites sanctity. What's worse is we see fair trade as a dirty word. So I ask how can we fix this broken system, it clearly would be better if everyone was allowed equal means to trade, freely and without institutionalised rape of others. To let if you will an actually free market reign (and no I don't mean that libertarian bullshit where wolves are allowed to run free amongst the kine, because those idiots would tear them and their own so called system apart in weeks, because of human nature), we are clearly not ready to be that free, hell I wouldn't trust us to hold up a goal post without moving it to let more goals in when we felt the need.

What I mean is how do we actually go about fixing it. How do we make it so there is fairness without subjugation, without unequal trading laws, without a dim idea that one country growing rich is great because you live in it and then leaving other countries poor, because of an overwhelming greed that creates inequity is somehow by magic going to make everyone play ball? Any ideas, because frankly I am all out of them.

I think the only suggestion I have is to first admit we have a problem. I think the rest may well follow from there, I think no one will listen who is in a position to do so, because power is awfully enticing.

It's not about me though, what are your views on this failed experiment?

[cladking]

Capitalism can't be repaired because it no longer exists.

It no longer exists because the wealthy found that the most effective use of their money was to buy government and they use it to erect barriers to competition.

[Skip]

What happens to failed experiments in nature? They explode, collapse, submerge, cave in, break up, get eaten, become extinct.

The central idea of capitalism is growth (getting out more than we put in; essentially, a pyramid scheme) and indefinite growth is impossible. A couple of years ago, I read a book written by - if I recall correctly - a theologian, in the 19th century, explaining with practical examples carried through their logical devolution, exactly what's wrong with the concept and why it's unsustainable. I wish I'd kept that book. People who can see through wool have always been uncommon, and they always run afoul of hemlock-vendors.

Capitalism can't be fixed and shouldn't be saved. It's a bad idea raised to the second power. The invention of money was a bad idea; turning money from medium of exchange to investment capital compounded the mistake; giving venture capital access to world at the speed of light compounded a compound mistake.

Having consumed all the nutrients of its habitat and that of its neighbours, and then the habitat itself, and then its offspring, and needing yet more to keep growing, it will eat its own tail and die.....
....horribly..... thrashing, screaming and convulsing...... for years..... decades... all over the peoples of the world.....

And when it's finally done, something else will take its place. What that is depends on who's left, in what circumstances.

On the other hand, if you want to know what could be done to transit from a dying capitalist society to one that might work for people, there is Zeitgeist http://thezeitgeistmovementforum.org and if you'd consider a compromise, there is new social contract http://onlinephilosophyclub.com/forums/ ... f=5&t=7667 and all the while, underground and alternate local economies have been operating all along.

[Blaggard]

Capitalism can't be repaired because it no longer exists.

It no longer exists because the wealthy found that the most effective use of their money was to buy government and they use it to erect barriers to competition.

Indeed.

I will peruse the links given by the last post later, don't have time atm.

So we are living in a failing system, that will continue to put up barriers between the wealthiest people and the ability of people to make it into the higher echelons. Seems a hopelessly misguided system. I can't help thinking that there should be a way out but as you have both said I can't see it any more than any one else can, we seemed doomed to continuously shuffle through booms and busts, to hamstring social mobility by eltist machination. Depressing, as always though those with power will hang onto it until someone pries it from their cold dead fingers...

[cladking]

There are ways out. It's getting late in the game for people to wake up but at least in theory we can quit voting for republocrats. Government goes so cheap that the 99% could still easily outbid the 1% if we had a taxpayers union or something of the sort. There's still an outside shot at reforming the system from within as Indiana's push for a "constitutional convention" is attempting. The problem isn't so much with capitalism per se as it is with the fact that it has been usurped and we now have a cronyocracy or as some pundits have suggested an idiocracy.

[Skip]

I have a sneaking suspicion that the only hope of the US is 1. martial law when (not if) the government reaches a total gridlock of interests, and 2. formalizes the acrimonious disunity of states by reconfiguring into four or six or eight independent republics. Of course both outcomes hinge on the sanity of the leaders who take over: first the generals who oversee the dissolution process and then the officials who must form new governments - and pry the crown from iron fists of dynastic state governors.

[Blaggard]

There are ways out. It's getting late in the game for people to wake up but at least in theory we can quit voting for republocrats. Government goes so cheap that the 99% could still easily outbid the 1% if we had a taxpayers union or something of the sort. There's still an outside shot at reforming the system from within as Indiana's push for a "constitutional convention" is attempting. The problem isn't so much with capitalism per se as it is with the fact that it has been usurped and we now have a cronyocracy or as some pundits have suggested an idiocracy.

Yeah I agree capitalism would be a much more consistent thing, it would break up monopolies, because they are bad for everyone except the few. It would encourage more liberal trade, it would try to mitigate cronyism. I quite agree this is not really a capitalist system as such, I never meant to say it was an idealistic capitalist system, it is still one though, albeit a diseased one. What it is is what you have said more an idiocracy of the elite, and that is I think the most dangerous and influential and powerful of foes.

I have a sneaking suspicion that the only hope of the US is 1. martial law when (not if) the government reaches a total gridlock of interests, and 2. formalizes the acrimonious disunity of states by reconfiguring into four or six or eight independent republics. Of course both outcomes hinge on the sanity of the leaders who take over: first the generals who oversee the dissolution process and then the officials who must form new governments - and pry the crown from iron fists of dynastic state governors.

I think that's a little extreme, replacing one system of control with an even more repressive one wont work, dictatorships like that simply become corrupt at a faster rate, because there is no way to challenge authority, it's a sword of Damocles situation. At least now we have limited means, it is democracy and it is flawed, but we still have means. People are dumb I think is the overriding message, and people who crave power want to keep it by any means necessary, and those who seek power are usually those least able to wield it in a utilitarian manner. It seems like a catch-22.

I do acknowledge there are countries that are doing well without the more deficient cronyist, and capitalist style governments by the way although the reasons are complicated, and usually such countries had advantages of having large resource capabilities and having a relatively small population, or not being lumbered with a huge military or so on, Germany for example has thrived comparatively without the ability to build up a large military (and the fallout that comes from stomping around the world like the world police) but that is another subject. It's not my country though that is like the more depression immune ones, and it's a little hard for a country to accept that sometimes shooting yourself in the foot, time and time again, and not accepting change, is stupid. But then who is stopping such change from happening, the people with the power... we're back at a catch-22 situation again.

I am by no means an expert on this sort of subject, in fact quite the opposite, an interested bystander maybe. Which is why I posted this thread, kinda concerned about idiots.

[Skip]

I think that's a little extreme, replacing one system of control with an even more repressive one

Yes, it's extreme, as I'm envisioning an extreme situation. Remember, I said US. Their army brass is pretty clean, compared to many others, because it's the product of a youngish democracy, rather than a long-established dictatorship. Even in some of those, the army has shown less corrupt and vicious than the political police. With increasingly crowd-control oriented equipment and training of urban and state police forces, I wouldn't trust them with public safety in an economic or physical (superstorm, superbug, infrastructure failure) breakdown.

wont work,

Nothing else has. At least the military has decent intelligence-gathering and contingency planning capability. And is pragmatic.

dictatorships like that simply become corrupt at a faster rate, because there is no way to challenge authority,

There isn't now. The supreme court has caved and no other recourse is available.

... People are dumb I think is the overriding message, and people who crave power want to keep it by any means necessary, and those who seek power are usually those least able to wield it in a utilitarian manner.

Obviously. That's why the only hope is either in massive reform - which I don't see anytime soon - or in people who have been trained to making fast, practical decisions, but have not sought to rule. The military may be the least corrupt and most loyal to the constitution.

It won't be pretty, in any case.

[Blaggard]

Can you name any country that has overthrown power and installed a military junta and then going forward kept it's military basis of government, that has succeeded though? You expect a system with ultimate authority that is not corrupt now, when it has it, to remain so? Seems naïve to me...

[cladking]

The military may be the least corrupt and most loyal to the constitution.

It won't be pretty, in any case.

Yes. I'd agree that the army is our 3rd or 4th best hope.

They rarely step in until the government has become so bad that they can't run the country or protect the borders.

[Melchior]

Now don't get me wrong I am not going to post a communist manifesto demanding those who should be first against the wall.

But clearly capitalism is broken, we go through these endless cycles of boom and bust, when it seems to me they are unnecessary, we keep the developing world in chains, to our trade, we keep our own subjects seemingly in a sort of non mobility cycle. Ie we don't let people move up the ladder any more, we seem to have kept the elite at the top, who have then presevred the elites sanctity. What's worse is we see fair trade as a dirty word. So I ask how can we fix this broken system, it clearly would be better if everyone was allowed equal means to trade, freely and without institutionalised rape of others. To let if you will an actually free market reign (and no I don't mean that libertarian bullshit where wolves are allowed to run free amongst the kine, because those idiots would tear them and their own so called system apart in weeks, because of human nature), we are clearly not ready to be that free, hell I wouldn't trust us to hold up a goal post without moving it to let more goals in when we felt the need.

What I mean is how do we actually go about fixing it. How do we make it so there is fairness without subjugation, without unequal trading laws, without a dim idea that one country growing rich is great because you live in it and then leaving other countries poor, because of an overwhelming greed that creates inequity is somehow by magic going to make everyone play ball? Any ideas, because frankly I am all out of them.

I think the only suggestion I have is to first admit we have a problem. I think the rest may well follow from there, I think no one will listen who is in a position to do so, because power is awfully enticing.

It's not about me though, what are your views on this failed experiment?

Since you don't have the faintest idea what "Capitalism" means, your post is worthless.

[Skip]

cladking: They rarely step in until the government has become so bad that they can't run the country or protect the borders.

It wouldn't be for a political reason; it would be for a physical emergency, human or natural in origin, with which the government couldn't cope. Hurricane, flood, major electrical blackout, pandemic - that sort of thing.

Can you name any country that has overthrown power and installed a military junta and then going forward kept it's military basis of government, that has succeeded though?

No, I can't, though there may have been some.

You expect a system with ultimate authority that is not corrupt now, when it has it, to remain so?

Not at all. I suspect that the military alone may be able to keep some kind of order and keep people from panicking, massacring one another and destroying what's left of the nation's real wealth when civil authority breaks down. It would have to be a temporary situation, until new representative government(s) can be established.

At the moment, I can't see anyone else (FEMA...? seriously?) with the capability to rescue people, set up field kitchens and hospitals, water purification plants, organize shelter and food delivery, calm everyone down, prevent crime and collect all those guns from the lunatics.

[Blaggard]

Now don't get me wrong I am not going to post a communist manifesto demanding those who should be first against the wall.

But clearly capitalism is broken, we go through these endless cycles of boom and bust, when it seems to me they are unnecessary, we keep the developing world in chains, to our trade, we keep our own subjects seemingly in a sort of non mobility cycle. Ie we don't let people move up the ladder any more, we seem to have kept the elite at the top, who have then presevred the elites sanctity. What's worse is we see fair trade as a dirty word. So I ask how can we fix this broken system, it clearly would be better if everyone was allowed equal means to trade, freely and without institutionalised rape of others. To let if you will an actually free market reign (and no I don't mean that libertarian bullshit where wolves are allowed to run free amongst the kine, because those idiots would tear them and their own so called system apart in weeks, because of human nature), we are clearly not ready to be that free, hell I wouldn't trust us to hold up a goal post without moving it to let more goals in when we felt the need.

What I mean is how do we actually go about fixing it. How do we make it so there is fairness without subjugation, without unequal trading laws, without a dim idea that one country growing rich is great because you live in it and then leaving other countries poor, because of an overwhelming greed that creates inequity is somehow by magic going to make everyone play ball? Any ideas, because frankly I am all out of them.

I think the only suggestion I have is to first admit we have a problem. I think the rest may well follow from there, I think no one will listen who is in a position to do so, because power is awfully enticing.

It's not about me though, what are your views on this failed experiment?

Since you don't have the faintest idea what "Capitalism" means, your post is worthless.

What a crap argument. That was just arrogant garbage, you could of at least explained where I was wrong, but no you just wanted to waste everyone's time with lazy insults. Well here's something in the same style: I did explain later on that I am not holding up this style of capitalism as real capitalism, but then you never read that far because you have a tree trunk wedged up your arse. If you don't want to have a discussion don't post, no one will have to give a fuck for all the right reasons.

[Conde Lucanor]

I really don't think the currently dominant social system is fixable, it certainly needs to be replaced. However, things don't happen overnight and any transformation will be gradual, even if we expect at one time a revolutionary movement that will tear down the system. We can work on some short-term and mid-term goals to help us set up the conditions for a progressive change in human society:

1) Fight against the totalitarian rule of mass culture (which contrary to common beliefs, doesn't come from the masses upwards, but from the top elites of corporations downwards), which means opening up more spaces for alternative views, not ruled entirely by the desire of profit. The rise of social networks has proved that this is technically feasible, but it has also proven that tools are just tools, and they can easily be used for making people more stupid, too. So it shouldn't be about forms of expression and content growing wild, spontaneously, without direction, as posmodernists would advocate, but strategically organized to seek for a balance of power in popular culture and influence public policies.

2) Fight for secularism and humanism. http://americanhumanist.org/humanism/Hu ... nifesto_II
https://humanism.org.uk/humanism/

3) Breaking the ties of economic and cultural dependency of peripheral countries from the central hegemonic powers, without going to the opposite extreme of right wing nationalisms. National independence should work only for acquiring enough autonomy to form strategic coalitions and protect common interests related to universal human progress. Independence and autonomy does not mean closed, self-centered cultural systems with relativistic values, as postmodernists will advocate. There may be a lot of good things peripheral countries can assimilate from hegemonic countries and viceversa.

These are just some that come to mind, but they are described in the broadest sense, meaning that they can be broken apart in many specific goals and actions, according to specific situations and problems in different societies. It seems obvious that the problems of the French working class are not the same as those of the people of Honduras, but in the broader sense, they are still connected by some common universal needs. I think it all comes down to rescuing the project of Enlightenment.

[Skip]

I don't disagree, but have a comment and a question.

However, things don't happen overnight and any transformation will be gradual,

I'm not at all sure there is time for a gradual political change. Events are coming, sudden and cataclysmic.

Fight against the totalitarian rule .....Fight for secularism and humanism.... Breaking the ties of economic and cultural dependency

I agree that these are desirable things to do, but who will do them? I see some organizations I respect, but I don't see them gaining numbers and influence nearly fast enough to affect the necessary change.