Philosophy Now Forum

spike wrote:Capitalism is about free market principles. Communism was not. People like freedom to choose and determine their own course. Under communism people could not. People have needs and aspirations. In a free market system people can strife to fulfill them. Under communism they could not.

spike wrote:As one may notice countries that practice capitalism, where the majority participate in it, are quite stable. Stability is at the core of democracy. Without economic stability democracy is not possible. Capitalism generates and causes stability. Haiti and Iraq are examples of counties that lack stability because of the lack of genuine free market principles.

Haiti is capitalist all the way to the poverty stricken crisis. Saying a country does not practice capitalism is like saying it does not practice buying and selling.
The only distinction is that between countries that use democracy to control their capitalism like the USA, and those that do not like Brazil and Argentina.
Where capitalism is modified and controlled the state takes resources from the profiteers to buy infrastructure and education, and those that allow the capitalist free reign. Where democracy controls capitalism , capitalism benefits from stuff like security, roads and an educated work force.
Countries that do not rein in the worst excesses of capitalism find that the ruling minority are super rich and the populace are poor; a perfect example of unfettered capitalism is Saudi Arabia.




China practices capitalism and is stable but politically it is not democratic. Nevertheless, I think China is heading towards democracy in the same way that Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Portugal, Spain, Taiwan and South Korea did, countries that first got their economic houses in order in anticipation of democracy. Also, China wants to be a leader in scientific research. Such an endeavor requires democracy because it only can facilitates the free exchange of ideas, which bona fide scientific research demands.

You can't even see the idiotic contradictions on your own observations.


"Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property — resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state — provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom."

After the attacks of 9/11 there was an insecurity and chaos in the world. Nevertheless, in a matter of a few weeks and months the world reverted to a stability. Civilization did not fly off in different direction as some had predicted. What kept things together and helped bring back a normalcy was the world's engagement in capitalism and free trade. Capitalism and free trade was the gel that kept the world together and stable. Capitalism and free trade has brought a resilience and stability to the world.

spike wrote:When people come together voluntarily and of their own volition to engage in economic activity it is called free market capitalism. When people are forced to come together against their will to engage in economic activity it is called communism. These two systems were devised to facilitate and realize humankind's common needs and aspirations. Free market capitalism has been the successful one because in reaching human goals it has gone with the flow and done it naturally, unlike communism which manipulated, suffocated and almost killed the patient.

"Democracy is impossible without private ownership because private property — resources beyond the arbitrary reach of the state — provides the only secure basis for political opposition and intellectual freedom."

Private property also includes an intangible, one's own labor. Under communism one's labor wasn't one's own. It belongs to the state. The same was true for intellectual property; it was owned by the communist state. This state of affairs thwarted development and advancement because under communism people didn't have the incentive or will to think originally or come up with alternatives or solutions to inevitable socioeconomic problems, like pollution (under true communism pollution was hidden and a crime to discuss). Communist China has been an anomaly since it now recognizes private ownership, tangible and intangible, but still remains politically undemocratic.

More than 40 years ago China recognized that under communism economic wellbeing was unattainable. The State realized, after many years of tinkering with all kinds of economic gimmicks, it alone did not have the wherewithal to provide for its citizens. In comparing itself to the West, which was far more productive and healthier, it further realized that economic wellbeing also depends on individual responsibility and ingenuity, and that the chains that stifled vitality had to be removed. The proof, as they say, is in the pudding. Today the Chinese are more advanced and less dependent of crushing state welfare than ever before, so much so that China has become the second largest economy in the world, plus a more responsible global participant.

Communism, like Islam, is a one theory system. Thus, all means of human governance and activity fall under a single umbrella, whether it be religious, political or economic. There is no clear separation or variation between those activities. That is what makes those systems authoritarian. It is the single theory of human governance what makes authoritarianism. In contrast, we in the West reside in multiple and conflicting theories of human governance, like capitalism, democracy and secularism, which counterbalance each other and keep authoritarianism at bay.

Because in the West capitalism and democracy have paralleled, cohabited and competed with each other the question was raised, Do capitalism and democracy together constitute the DNA of the modern world? I would say so. Communism did not have such a DNA, which every organic, fluid system needs to exist. Communism was a one trick pony, hence its collapse.

spike wrote:I have had this theory that we develop and advance through perversity, meaning that from our bad, irrational nature comes our good behavior and rational, from our immorality comes morality. Well, the other day I was quite surprised to learn of the Perversity Theses introduced by Albert O. Hirschman in his book The rhetoric of reaction, which posits very much the same thing.

Hirschman refers to Adam Smith's notion of self-interest as perversity, perversity being the opposite or unintended consequence. The notion of self-interest seems to be backwards, that from it come the broader social good. One would think that it would be the other way around, the striving for the social good would be promoted first for best results, before the striving for self-interest. Not so, as seen in the comparison between capitalism and communism, the former promoting self-interest first and the latter promoting the social good. Under communism individual self-interest was shunned but surprisingly (an unintended consequence) social existence was drab, full of shortages, inefficient and dreadfully corrupt. In contrast, capitalism, which promoted self-interest, societies thrive, are reasonably efficient, corruption is kept to a minimum and they have an abundance of everything, all due to individual self-interest being paramount. The world does works in perverse, mysterious ways.

Another thing that developed in this so called backwardness is trust. Surprisingly under the socialism of communism people rarely trusted each other, while trust between individuals and institutions flourished under 'selfish capitalism'. The reason I think trustworthiness developed under capitalism and not communism is that capitalism engage people to come together, openly, whereas communism didn't allow such things. Experience creates trust. Under communism people rarely experience each other on an honest level. Obviously, and from experience, open society foster trust on a broad scale while closed societies don't.

Something else I learned from Hirschman's book is that Adam Smith introduced the Invisible Hand as a secular concept, substituting it for Divine Providence which had been hitherto used to explain the teleological order of society. He substituted it because the latter had a flighty faith-ism about it that rarely explained reality.

chaz wyman wrote:

spike wrote:I have had this theory that we develop and advance through perversity, meaning that from our bad, irrational nature comes our good behavior and rational, from our immorality comes morality. Well, the other day I was quite surprised to learn of the Perversity Theses introduced by Albert O. Hirschman in his book The rhetoric of reaction, which posits very much the same thing.

Hirschman refers to Adam Smith's notion of self-interest as perversity, perversity being the opposite or unintended consequence. The notion of self-interest seems to be backwards, that from it come the broader social good. One would think that it would be the other way around, the striving for the social good would be promoted first for best results, before the striving for self-interest. Not so, as seen in the comparison between capitalism and communism, the former promoting self-interest first and the latter promoting the social good. Under communism individual self-interest was shunned but surprisingly (an unintended consequence) social existence was drab, full of shortages, inefficient and dreadfully corrupt. In contrast, capitalism, which promoted self-interest, societies thrive, are reasonably efficient, corruption is kept to a minimum and they have an abundance of everything, all due to individual self-interest being paramount. The world does works in perverse, mysterious ways.

Another thing that developed in this so called backwardness is trust. Surprisingly under the socialism of communism people rarely trusted each other, while trust between individuals and institutions flourished under 'selfish capitalism'. The reason I think trustworthiness developed under capitalism and not communism is that capitalism engage people to come together, openly, whereas communism didn't allow such things. Experience creates trust. Under communism people rarely experience each other on an honest level. Obviously, and from experience, open society foster trust on a broad scale while closed societies don't.

Something else I learned from Hirschman's book is that Adam Smith introduced the Invisible Hand as a secular concept, substituting it for Divine Providence which had been hitherto used to explain the teleological order of society. He substituted it because the latter had a flighty faith-ism about it that rarely explained reality.

You are on your own matey.

spike wrote:Going back to theperversity thesis, which entails a perverse argument. Adam Smith did not intentionally make a perverse argument when he made his most famous statement "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” But he made a counterintuitive argument, which amounts to the same thing. That statement is counterintuitive and has a perverse sense to it because it was contrary to human intuition and to common-sense expectations.

Next I would like to explore capitalism and the complementarity principle. For instance, capitalism and democracy complement each other. Most probably neither could exist without the other. In sensing that Francis Fukuyama paired them together in his most famous book "The End Of History" and called the duo liberal democracy.

Fukuyama's The End Of History was spurred by the discrediting of communism in the late 1980s as a governing system, coupled with the simultaneous ascendancy of liberal democracy, a.k.a capitalism/democracy. He was certainly interested in why it happened and wanted to get to the bottom of it. One of his conclusions was that liberal democracy represented "the only viable alternative for technologically advance societies". It seemed clear that communism couldn't keep up with the modern world and its advances. It also had to do with the fact that communism was a one theory system, the state, which by practice became authoritarian and reviled. Liberal democracy on the other hand is of two theories, the free market and the state coexisting side by side, each counterbalancing the other so that neither would or could become authoritarian. The complementarity of liberal democracy keeps society open and vital, as is the way of the complementarity principle.

Capitalism was responsible for slavery, destruction of the planet, war, animal cruelty, poverty, starvation, death.

dawnmathieson wrote:For example the NHS was originally started by the Church

spike wrote:

Capitalism was responsible for slavery, destruction of the planet, war, animal cruelty, poverty, starvation, death.

Get real! People was responsible for that. Why, they did that without capitalism.