What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sat Aug 06, 2011 3:32 am
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What is the sound of capitalism
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Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Thu Aug 18, 2011 11:16 pm
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sun Sep 11, 2011 3:59 am
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 9:58 pm
Capitalism is the sound of the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Mon Sep 12, 2011 11:32 pm
It is the weep of the grieving mother, the sigh of the starving child, and the despair of the needy.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 8:17 pm
Dynamism is the distinct sound of capitalism. Perhaps, though, we can also use the other senses to appreciate it, such as what it looks, feels, tastes and smells like.
One thing that capitalism has given the world is an abundance of food. I know, I know, there will be many saying that a sizable portion of the world's population goes to bed hungry. But that doesn't diminish the fact that capitalism has made food more available to more people over the years. Not only has capitalism made food more plentiful but also more tasty. With capitalism has come the expansion of our imaginations and improved aesthetics.
Granted, capitalism has also made some people fatter and less healthier. It's not a perfect world. But under a system that thought it could make the world perfect, communism, there was the opposite, shortages of food. In communist countries people had to line up just for the basics. In Chine millions of people starved to death. Agriculture in communist countries was extremely inefficient. Not only that, prepared foods under communism was not very interesting or palatable.
Anybody who has been to Havana Cuba can see that it is a crumbling city, because it is still under communist rule. People in Cuba can't own their property so there is no personal incentive or money to maintain them. Apart from that the government can't afford to maintain buildings because it doesn't generate the cash flow that capitalist countries do. Cuba could use a little capitalism to make things looked better. Ironically, and hypocritically, Cuba uses capitalism when building resorts to attract tourists from elsewhere, but not for its citizens.
Admittedly, capitalism has created environmental problems. But surprisingly the environment in capitalistic countries is much cleaner, smells, looks, tastes and feels better than it did even forty years ago. That's because under capitalism people can complain and be motivated to clean the environment. In contrast, under communism environmental problems were hidden from view and forbidden public scrutiny.
Some will say that oink, oink is the sound of capitalism, as in capitalist pig. But not all capitalists are pigs. Most are just ordinary folks like you and me who enjoy the freedoms capitalist affords us, like owning property and having an abundance of choices as to what we can buy, where we can live, where we can go and how we work. It also allows and encourages us to be more creative and inventive than if we didn't live in it.
It is perverse that we've had to rely on capitalism to improve the lot of the world. But it would have been more perverse if we hadn't.
One thing that capitalism has given the world is an abundance of food. I know, I know, there will be many saying that a sizable portion of the world's population goes to bed hungry. But that doesn't diminish the fact that capitalism has made food more available to more people over the years. Not only has capitalism made food more plentiful but also more tasty. With capitalism has come the expansion of our imaginations and improved aesthetics.
Granted, capitalism has also made some people fatter and less healthier. It's not a perfect world. But under a system that thought it could make the world perfect, communism, there was the opposite, shortages of food. In communist countries people had to line up just for the basics. In Chine millions of people starved to death. Agriculture in communist countries was extremely inefficient. Not only that, prepared foods under communism was not very interesting or palatable.
Anybody who has been to Havana Cuba can see that it is a crumbling city, because it is still under communist rule. People in Cuba can't own their property so there is no personal incentive or money to maintain them. Apart from that the government can't afford to maintain buildings because it doesn't generate the cash flow that capitalist countries do. Cuba could use a little capitalism to make things looked better. Ironically, and hypocritically, Cuba uses capitalism when building resorts to attract tourists from elsewhere, but not for its citizens.
Admittedly, capitalism has created environmental problems. But surprisingly the environment in capitalistic countries is much cleaner, smells, looks, tastes and feels better than it did even forty years ago. That's because under capitalism people can complain and be motivated to clean the environment. In contrast, under communism environmental problems were hidden from view and forbidden public scrutiny.
Some will say that oink, oink is the sound of capitalism, as in capitalist pig. But not all capitalists are pigs. Most are just ordinary folks like you and me who enjoy the freedoms capitalist affords us, like owning property and having an abundance of choices as to what we can buy, where we can live, where we can go and how we work. It also allows and encourages us to be more creative and inventive than if we didn't live in it.
It is perverse that we've had to rely on capitalism to improve the lot of the world. But it would have been more perverse if we hadn't.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2011 8:32 pm
What do you think you are doing here? You are just valorising a human practice whose proximate and contingent results happen to put food in the table for some people. This says nothing about the real processes which have nothing directly to do with capitalism that actually put food on the table. If you knew the first thing about human history you would know that the advent of the ability to capitalise in storable resources did not lead to more people being fed. It led to the literal slavery and wage-slavery os millions who overnight lost their leisure and freedom to roam, hunt and gather.zorro wrote:Dynamism is the distinct sound of capitalism. Perhaps, though, we can also use the other senses to appreciate it, such as what it looks, feels, tastes and smells like.
One thing that capitalism has given the world is an abundance of food. I know, I know, there will be many saying that a sizable portion of the world's population goes to bed hungry. But that doesn't diminish the fact that capitalism has made food more available to more people over the years. Not only has capitalism made food more plentiful but also more tasty. With capitalism has come the expansion of our imaginations and improved aesthetics.
Granted, capitalism has also made some people fatter and less healthier. It's not a perfect world. But under a system that thought it could make the world perfect, communism, there was the opposite, shortages of food. In communist countries people had to line up just for the basics. In Chine millions of people starved to death. Agriculture in communist countries was extremely inefficient. Not only that, prepared foods under communism was not very interesting or palatable.
Anybody who has been to Havana Cuba can see that it is a crumbling city, because it is still under communist rule. People in Cuba can't own their property so there is no personal incentive or money to maintain them. Apart from that the government can't afford to maintain buildings because it doesn't generate the cash flow that capitalist countries do. Cuba could use a little capitalism to make things looked better. Ironically, and hypocritically, Cuba uses capitalism when building resorts to attract tourists from elsewhere, but not for its citizens.
Admittedly, capitalism has created environmental problems. But surprisingly the environment in capitalistic countries is much cleaner, smells, looks, tastes and feels better than it did even forty years ago. That's because under capitalism people can complain and be motivated to clean the environment. In contrast, under communism environmental problems were hidden from view and forbidden public scrutiny.
Some will say that oink, oink is the sound of capitalism, as in capitalist pig. But not all capitalists are pigs. Most are just ordinary folks like you and me who enjoyed the freedoms capitalist affords us, like owning property and having an abundance of choices as to what we can buy, where we can live, where we can go and how we work. It also allows and encourages us to be more creative and inventive than if we didn't live in it.
It is perverse that we've had to rely on capitalism to improve the lot of the world. But it would have been more perverse if we hadn't.
Only a person with a distinct lack of imagination and an ignorance of history would attribute capitalism the quality of affording us freedom and choice. Most people are bound to their jobs, their towns and the contracts they have entered into for their homes and insurance policies. You must be very young or living on another planet.
Capitalism is broken, it sneed to be controlled and modified. Whatever you might want to call it after it is regulated it it is necessary to hold off on bending over and taking all it have to give as we have done in the last 30 years of de-regulation.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:20 am
Thanks zorro for your interesting post. And Chaz's also, 2 different sounds/views which are both true.zorro wrote:Dynamism is the distinct sound of capitalism. Perhaps, though, we can also use the other senses to appreciate it, such as what it looks, feels, tastes and smells like.
One thing that capitalism has given the world is an abundance of food. I know, I know, there will be many saying that a sizable portion of the world's population goes to bed hungry. But that doesn't diminish the fact that capitalism has made food more available to more people over the years. Not only has capitalism made food more plentiful but also more tasty. With capitalism has come the expansion of our imaginations and improved aesthetics.
Granted, capitalism has also made some people fatter and less healthier. It's not a perfect world. But under a system that thought it could make the world perfect, communism, there was the opposite, shortages of food. In communist countries people had to line up just for the basics. In Chine millions of people starved to death. Agriculture in communist countries was extremely inefficient. Not only that, prepared foods under communism was not very interesting or palatable.
Anybody who has been to Havana Cuba can see that it is a crumbling city, because it is still under communist rule. People in Cuba can't own their property so there is no personal incentive or money to maintain them. Apart from that the government can't afford to maintain buildings because it doesn't generate the cash flow that capitalist countries do. Cuba could use a little capitalism to make things looked better. Ironically, and hypocritically, Cuba uses capitalism when building resorts to attract tourists from elsewhere, but not for its citizens.
Admittedly, capitalism has created environmental problems. But surprisingly the environment in capitalistic countries is much cleaner, smells, looks, tastes and feels better than it did even forty years ago. That's because under capitalism people can complain and be motivated to clean the environment. In contrast, under communism environmental problems were hidden from view and forbidden public scrutiny.
Some will say that oink, oink is the sound of capitalism, as in capitalist pig. But not all capitalists are pigs. Most are just ordinary folks like you and me who enjoy the freedoms capitalist affords us, like owning property and having an abundance of choices as to what we can buy, where we can live, where we can go and how we work. It also allows and encourages us to be more creative and inventive than if we didn't live in it.
It is perverse that we've had to rely on capitalism to improve the lot of the world. But it would have been more perverse if we hadn't.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 10:42 am
I would agree with most of what Zorro wrote if s/he had specified 'private enterprise' rather than capitalism. Private enterprise is often a very efficient mechanism for producing certain classes of goods and services. For some kinds of production and delivery, private enterprise may well be the best mechanism. But I have two distinct points of disagreement with Zorro's praise for capitalism.
1. Humans have other needs, some of which cannot be satisfied through exchange of goods and services for money. Entrepreneurs will try to move into such areas of need, selling unsatisfactory but marketable substitutes. And it is an inevitable aspect of market economics that the entrepreneur will see the non-profitable, real thing, as competition, to be pushed out of the market-place, using propaganda, scare stories, and consumerist 'culture'. An example is the provision of guided tours, package holidays, safari parks in tandem with pressure to ban the right to roam, to report every occasion when an adventurer has come to grief, to ramp up health & safety legislation, to make insurance virtually compulsory for anyone who wants to do anything exciting, and to discourage hitch-hiking.
2. There is a world of difference between the entrepreneurial, inventive, 'can-do' provider of things that people really want and need, and the spivs who do nothing but play about with the wealth others have created, occasionally crashing the entire system in the process of making themselves rich. I tend to call the practice of provision of goods and sevices 'private enterprise', and the practice of making money out of money 'capitalism'.
I think it is private enterprise that deserves much of Zorro's praise. S/he hasn't said anything yet about finance fiddling 'capitalism' yet. I await with interest. (pun intended.)
1. Humans have other needs, some of which cannot be satisfied through exchange of goods and services for money. Entrepreneurs will try to move into such areas of need, selling unsatisfactory but marketable substitutes. And it is an inevitable aspect of market economics that the entrepreneur will see the non-profitable, real thing, as competition, to be pushed out of the market-place, using propaganda, scare stories, and consumerist 'culture'. An example is the provision of guided tours, package holidays, safari parks in tandem with pressure to ban the right to roam, to report every occasion when an adventurer has come to grief, to ramp up health & safety legislation, to make insurance virtually compulsory for anyone who wants to do anything exciting, and to discourage hitch-hiking.
2. There is a world of difference between the entrepreneurial, inventive, 'can-do' provider of things that people really want and need, and the spivs who do nothing but play about with the wealth others have created, occasionally crashing the entire system in the process of making themselves rich. I tend to call the practice of provision of goods and sevices 'private enterprise', and the practice of making money out of money 'capitalism'.
I think it is private enterprise that deserves much of Zorro's praise. S/he hasn't said anything yet about finance fiddling 'capitalism' yet. I await with interest. (pun intended.)
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 3:14 pm
Thundril:
I agree with what you say about 'private enterprise'. But I would say that capitalism is the web that connects each person's private enterprise together. Private enterprise requires liquidity and markets (especially in our modern, technologically advanced society), which capitalism is all about, and supplies.
Financial fiddling capitalism fits into the categories of arrogance, hubris and delusion. It is an activity that made itself known after the fact, such as with the collapses of the financial firm Lehman Brothers. The sound it made was something like a 'bag piper' makes when he falls from the top of a building and hits the ground. It's kind of a deflationary sound — huuuuu. And what we see as a result doesn't look pretty either.
People hate capitalism because of its emphasis on profit. But profit is like 'recognition'. And we all like to be recognized. We need both to inspire and motivate.
What sound or other sense can we apply to that?S/he hasn't said anything yet about finance fiddling 'capitalism' yet
I agree with what you say about 'private enterprise'. But I would say that capitalism is the web that connects each person's private enterprise together. Private enterprise requires liquidity and markets (especially in our modern, technologically advanced society), which capitalism is all about, and supplies.
Financial fiddling capitalism fits into the categories of arrogance, hubris and delusion. It is an activity that made itself known after the fact, such as with the collapses of the financial firm Lehman Brothers. The sound it made was something like a 'bag piper' makes when he falls from the top of a building and hits the ground. It's kind of a deflationary sound — huuuuu. And what we see as a result doesn't look pretty either.
People hate capitalism because of its emphasis on profit. But profit is like 'recognition'. And we all like to be recognized. We need both to inspire and motivate.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Sun Sep 18, 2011 4:00 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_anbEJsr6szorro wrote:Thundril:What sound or other sense can we apply to that?S/he hasn't said anything yet about finance fiddling 'capitalism' yet
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 2:25 pm
chaz:
Capitalism is not broken. It is damaged. It damaged itself. But only it can repair itself. If capitalism is so broken it would have imploded like communism. People don't realize that an economic system is chiefly about sustenance and maintenance. Economics is about two imperatives, replacement and renewal. Capitalism is still the best at doing that, in cultivating and allocating resources, natural and human.
This is quite a rant. This person obviously wants things to be much easier for people so they don't have to work or struggle too much.What do you think you are doing here? You are just valorising a human practice whose proximate and contingent results happen to put food in the table for some people. This says nothing about the real processes which have nothing directly to do with capitalism that actually put food on the table. If you knew the first thing about human history you would know that the advent of the ability to capitalise in storable resources did not lead to more people being fed. It led to the literal slavery and wage-slavery os millions who overnight lost their leisure and freedom to roam, hunt and gather.
Only a person with a distinct lack of imagination and an ignorance of history would attribute capitalism the quality of affording us freedom and choice. Most people are bound to their jobs, their towns and the contracts they have entered into for their homes and insurance policies. You must be very young or living on another planet.
Capitalism is broken, it sneed to be controlled and modified. Whatever you might want to call it after it is regulated it it is necessary to hold off on bending over and taking all it have to give as we have done in the last 30 years of de-regulation.
Capitalism is not broken. It is damaged. It damaged itself. But only it can repair itself. If capitalism is so broken it would have imploded like communism. People don't realize that an economic system is chiefly about sustenance and maintenance. Economics is about two imperatives, replacement and renewal. Capitalism is still the best at doing that, in cultivating and allocating resources, natural and human.
Re: What is the sound of capitalism
Posted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:13 pm
"IT" is not an agent. IT is not broken. IT is not damaged. IT cannot fix itself. It does not exist as a force of nature. IT is comprised of people and their relationships and interactions.zorro wrote:chaz:This is quite a rant. This person obviously wants things to be much easier for people so they don't have to work or struggle too much.What do you think you are doing here? You are just valorising a human practice whose proximate and contingent results happen to put food in the table for some people. This says nothing about the real processes which have nothing directly to do with capitalism that actually put food on the table. If you knew the first thing about human history you would know that the advent of the ability to capitalise in storable resources did not lead to more people being fed. It led to the literal slavery and wage-slavery os millions who overnight lost their leisure and freedom to roam, hunt and gather.
Only a person with a distinct lack of imagination and an ignorance of history would attribute capitalism the quality of affording us freedom and choice. Most people are bound to their jobs, their towns and the contracts they have entered into for their homes and insurance policies. You must be very young or living on another planet.
Capitalism is broken, it sneed to be controlled and modified. Whatever you might want to call it after it is regulated it it is necessary to hold off on bending over and taking all it have to give as we have done in the last 30 years of de-regulation.
Capitalism is not broken. It is damaged. It damaged itself. But only it can repair itself. If capitalism is so broken it would have imploded like communism. People don't realize that an economic system is chiefly about sustenance and maintenance. Economics is about two imperatives, replacement and renewal. Capitalism is still the best at doing that, in cultivating and allocating resources, natural and human.
If you persist in turning this into some sort of thing with its own volition you are never going to understand the problem.
The financial crisis was caused by individuals that designed phoney financial products, enabled by deregulation, with the aim of making themselves very rich. To place the blame, responsibility and the cause into a marker called "capitalism" is missing the point. This is common enough though, and for sure the Machievellian schemers who are actually responsible are quite happy that people like you and I see the problem in terms of adjusting "capitalism" or pushing the myth that "capitalism will sort it self out". In reality we need to set aside the abstraction that is capitalism and focus on the real people that have engineered the recession for their own personal gain: Alan Greenspan is one such person. These monsters are still in control, and dear old Alan was the one that managed to get all that money for the bailout.