The evils of Capitalism,just got lectured at work. lol
Submitted by kidbquick on Mon, 01/25/2010 - 12:40From my boss=
"Capitalism in its context -huge businesses- runs by the wealthy business men whose only gain is to maximize profits , and to do this businesses they lower wages and charge higher prices- wages will eventually decrease to subsistence levels and then hardly anyone will be able to buy these products, the wages that people earn will only be enough to let them stay alive and work" And this is from an mba.I can not argue with this person due to frustration.Lol. this is what we are up against. www.mises.org would be a great start for this person but when someone knows it all it is futile. Jeez.
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As an employer
I can tell you that in a way he is right,I have found that people in America are lazy.and will only work for as much as they need at the current time.so if you pay them too much they quit coming to work!Serious!
"You go and carry off the enemy's land; the enemy comes and carries off your land"-Ancient Sumerian tablet
I just had it happen a few weeks ago
This one was the worst ever; Dude stole our van and cashed his paycheck in the town he dropped it in.
Explore Orthodox Christianity
Did you do a background check on this idiot?
Most employers do not, I sure hope you did.
He wasn't arguing against capitalism, he was arguing against
empirical corporatism. Corporations are a hold out from Mercantile policy of government. When we finally abandon the corporation and adhere to strict laissez faire, then we can start to claim what we see is capitalism.
Mises does answer this guys objections because Mises operated from a consumerist view rather than a propertarian one. Anyone sticking to the propertarian view such as Rothbard, will eventually end up with Keynes as a best friend. (and then on to other really bad guys like Marx)
Well Said -- Hear Hear!
..
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
propertarian
What's your opinion of the homesteading principle?
I was getting the same message from my economics
professors over 40 years ago. To a great extent, the Keynesians parked themselves on college campuses and have remained there for generations. If you want the grade in school, for the most part, you are expected to regurgitate on exams that to which you've been exposed in the classroom. That's no excuse for your MBA friend not to have learned the truth in the real world.
_________________________________________
"An economy built on fiat money is a society on its way to ashes."
I Guess I Was Lucky
I took Econ 101 in 1973-74. Maybe because it was a "liberal arts" college with an emphasis on "the Great Books" we had two textbooks, one by Paul Samuelson and one by Milton Friedman.
I'll never forget their portraits: Samuelson was sour-looking and his theories mistrustful and Friedman's face was of a young Santa Claus, smiling and happy, and his theory was full of love for human nature's wisdom.
It was obvious that Friedman was the wise one, and that his description of the laws of economics were founded in reality.
What do you think? http://consequeries.com/
I wouldn't blame his education per se
Just where he gets his news and business news from. Maybe you need to intercept his Forbes and Newsweek...
+...Pray for Your Enemies and Moral Courage for Righteous Leaders, so that Justice Will Be Delivered to the Innocent...+
Capitalism
There will come a time when an international community of people, connected in friendly ways, will lead reasonably free, creative, humane, lives where they do not have to split life from work, where a society based on a war of all on all seems a distant memory, and where love, labor, and rational knowledge are seen as centerpieces of the key idea of a new way of governing, all for all, equally, inclusively, and democratically.
That time will be born from social conditions that exist today, and the choices we make. US rulers promise citizens a perpetual pre-emptive world war, wrapped in tricky language that equates battles for cheap labor, raw materials, and markets with freedom and democracy. Our true social condition must be named: Capitalism.
This is a partial list of places where US troops (and CIA) are now active: Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakstan, Georgia (USSR), Turkey, Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, India, Pakistan, Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Palestine, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Brazil, Argentina, Iraq, Iran, Paraguay, Mexico. At issue is the survival of US capitalism, mainly in the form of cheap labor, but also in the battle for key raw materials like oil, as well as the battle of ideasthey key weapon being the idea that there is no other way to live. US leaders no longer bother to tell troops they are fighting for democracy. The only motivator: fight or you and your buddy will get killed. Only despair, rooted in no clear alternatives,makes that believable.
So where so we go from here?
Exterminate All the Brutes or
Organize to Comprehend and Change the World?
. @ @ . Power to the People!
@ O @ -----> PEOPLE
. @ @ . NOT Corporate Entities!
It's collectivism
His example can only be true when government allows businesses to create a monopolistic situation devoid of competition. Collectivism is the best term for this situation, because a small group of people have formed a "collective" to gang up on the rest of society. It's no different than the mob saying "pay for my protection, or suffer the consequences". All other "isms" ultimately boil down to collectivism vs. individualism.
What he said!
http://www.tragedyandhope.com
http://www.im2moro.com
Hear Hear Vince!! Well Said
If you follow your own logic then you will arrive at Consumer-Individualism and not Anarcho-Capitalism.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Where do you plan on finding
these angels?
"You underestimate the character of man." | "So be off now, and set about it."
MBA from what country ?
As I have always said , send low IQ's to school & you still get low IQ's out of school ..
Tell the person to please sent other country's funds to HAITI or anywhere else the USA has shipped it's richness to ..When the Capitalist gravy train is finally wrecked we will learn which system is truely the best ..The World will no longer have a patsy from which to bail itself out..The NWO will only then learn a hard lesson in economics ..Where are all the past profits from the communists & socialists who never sent help in times of trouble ..If their system has been the best, why then is America still footing the bill around the World ..IMF should be helping the USA, not the other way around..
European ideas have been influencing our system for years , which is why our wages have gone down ..Their system requires people to live poorer than a people under Capitalism ..Get it clear , they are looking to the USA to bail out their failed Healthcare systems by eventually joining the USA with their failed systems..That's part of the NWO agenda..Our businessmen have abandoned sound economics for togetherness...The World cannot stand having a superior system to theirs..Their systems only tear down & do not build up..They are failures & their failures are going to be the Worlds take down..Tell the socialist systems to foot the bill for IRAQ , because it was for their failed UN policy we in the USA have to pay for their war.. Their war to dicipline IRAQ...It was for the UN that America is now engaged in WAR..It is UN sanctions that no one else has the funds to support,to approach an effective dicipline campagn...Where are the rest of theses great systems? If these other systems are SO, SO, profitable where is the contributions..
NO, it is the USA's money that is being spent..Tell these other systems to take over our debts because they caused the USA to spend on their WAR...Some friends we have in the NWO of things ..What a joke the rest of the World plays on the USA..
Sounds like he's making an argument for *COMMUNISM*
Your boss doesn't understand, we don't have capitalism we have corporatism or monopolism.
Capitalism is free markets and open competition, with minimal regulation to prevent monopolies.
____
"Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you." -- Patrick Dixon
Your MB is confused. He is
Your MB is confused. He is confusing responsible capitalism with out of control corporatism. He could do well to read "The Wild Wheel" about Henry Ford.
http://www.svpwiki.com/
from nyc
boss from............... chicago! should of known.lol
When a "greedy" businessman
When a "greedy" businessman lowers the wages and charges higher prices, he is creating opportunities for others to out-compete him.
Other businesses who are willing to pay higher wages will have all the skilled workers who will leave the other company and join them instead.
Additionally, other businesses who charge fairer prices will get all the consumers. The greedy businessman will go out of business. Greed is always kept in check in a free market.
Capitalism is the root cause of dollar destruction / joblessness
That is plain fact.
Marx coined the phrase "capitalism" -- He created the word.
He defined capitalism as that model of gov't in power during his time -- he called it "economic-fuedalism" and he was accurate.
The mistake he made was to associate economic-fuedalism with Adam Smith who was talking about economic-individualism; so the Austrians tried to hijack the phrase (based on this error in reasoning) and make capitalism about Smith's "free-markets"
Marx was correct -- during his day it was economic-feudalism and not economic-individualism that was in power.
Mises should agree (though he had to fight the "ramifications and solutions" of Marxians, Keynesians, and Socialists) -- agree in the sense that only under economic-fuedalism can there be "giants" of industry -- that natural monopolies can form but a very short-lived in a truly free-society. Rothbard would disagree (slightly).
Marx was also right to say that owing to this "fuedalism" there was an in-accurate and un-fair distribution of power.
Voting is always: Perpetual War (Capitalists vs Communist or Owners vs Workers) -- all subsidized by gov't.
Marx was additionally correct when he argued that left un-checked economic-fuedalism would turn into "imperialism" which we call economic-fascism (or as Mussolini coined "corporatism").
Marx too simply assessed that if we apply the opposite of "owners-sovereignty" and instill "workers-sovereignty" we'd swing back in the opposite direction.
He was in error because regardless of worker-rights or owners-rights to force one or the other requires Gov't Power.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Octo: I've been following your
Counter-Economics argument for months and giving it serious thought. I disagree with your basic premise of "governing through purchasing" and that capitalists are all "bad". The free market automatically provides for "government". Capitalists are simply those who save to create the tools necessary to address a market.
In the end, we're all workers- some of us choose to spend our wages in near real-time. Others forego the instant gratification of material trinkets and instead save (stockpile our labor). The savers acrue capital toward some greater end. When they believe they've discovered that greater end, they RISK their stockpile of labor in pursuit of its successful outcome. If it does indeed become successful, then the "spenders" commonly claim they had an unfair advantage. This is simple envy.
Capitalism is about postponing pleasure in the pursuit of a higher goal. "Spenders" never seem to get that. Marx was simply envious of others who possessed a higher level of self-control.
Mises said the same thing
"The early industrialists were for the most part men who had their origin in the same social strata from which their workers came. They lived very modestly, spent only a fraction of their earnings for their households and put the rest back into the business." ~ Human Action, p. 617; p. 622
I found that quote here
LimeLemon: I think it should be noted
That Mises was an Austrian Economist and they were not just battling the philosophies of Keynesianism, Marxism, and Nazism; but the living regimes themselves.
Since - Marxist, Nazis, and Keynesians were all taking aim at the industrialists the Austrians "erroringly" decided to argue on their behalf.
Economic-Fuedalism is the predecessor to Imperialism (economic-fascism or corporatism).
Therefore as Corporatists are wholly wedded to gov't Capitalists (Eco-Fuedalists) are partially wedded to gov't.
A capitalist (according to Marx - who coined the phrase) was a "al dente" imperialist, hahahaha.
My belief is Mises would make my arguments if he did not have to battle the "realities" of those monstrous regimes -- he had to take a side.
Mises, the above being said, was not a popular economist during his day. No matter how he might of defended the industrialist at the end of the day he was a died in the wool consumer-individualist.
It's the latter that I focus on.
Good dig on that quote -- You been busy.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Gary: My argument is Mises argument (in a nutshell) -- which
is Ron Paul's (primary mentor and source of economic and social policy).
You are mixing terminology.
Marx coined the word "capitalism" therefore he gets to define it -- His definition was both correct and incorrect.
He was 100% correct that what he called capitalism (the industrialists) were in-deed economic-fuedalists (by definition).
His mistake was to attach the word capitalism to Adam Smith -- who would be more accurate to have argued economic-individualism.
Of course Adam Smith was in error because the theories of Consumer-Sovereignty that Mises put forward were un-know.
It was believed during Smith's time that economic-individualism could be had with a "pure" Founder's Propertarian Model (without the grotesqueries: slavery and native land theft / reservationism).
Marx was also right in saying that if capitalism went "un-checked" it would turn into imperialism; later defined as economic-fascism (Mussolini coining it "corporatism"
Economic-Fuedalism (capitalaism) means that businesses are "nearly" free, but they are seeking some level of govt protection (or contracts -- "tax theft") to grow their monopoly or oligarchy positions.
The Propertarians (like Rothbard, Rockwell, and Tom Woods) will all argue on behalf of the Industrialists (they even call them "entrepreneurs" as if they operated in the free-market). Especially arguing on behalf of Carnegie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rqqO7pKMxu0
Marx argued that economic-fuedalism must turn into economic-fascism (it must -- it's mathematical) and he was correct it did.
Of course Marx was advocating Worker-Sovereignty over Owner-Sovereignty because again there was no other alternative -- Consumer-Sovereignty had not been dreamed up yet. Of course Marx was wrong, it's non-sensical to give power to the workers when they are showing up to a job created by owners, who show up owing to "real" or "perceived" consumer demand.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
economic-feudalism
By government protection do you mean barriers to entry such as licensing?
Also, how does Rothbard’s propertarianism lead to corporatism if there is no central authority to guarantee property rights?
Limelemon: Yes and more
Gov't
--Licensure
--Contracts
--Regulations
--Taxes
--Penalties
--Fines
--Guaranteed Credit
--Ready-Made Money
--Foreign Business Intervension
--War
All the "economic-fuedalist" of Marx day had the above advantages (save Fed Bank credit and ready-made money).
The "capitalists" (economic-fuedalists) was not as an oppressive a system as the "corporatists" (economic-fascists) developed; however, I wouldn't want to give up the tech gains we have now to live back then. My argument is if we had an understanding of consumer-individualism and moved in that direction (circa 1830's) we'd be 100 years or more advanced tech-wise. Think of all the Einsteins we murderd in the last 150 years.
An-Cap is Left of Founders-Minarchism (F-M) which is Left of Economic-Captialism (E-C) which is Left of Economic-Fascism (E-F).
But An-Cap "points rightward" -- it's where workers begin to clash with owners.
(An-Cap) is an owners-rights model
(F-M) is an owners-rights model
(E-C) is an owners-rights model
(E-F) is an owners-rights model
They are all right-ward models on a number-line-graph.
(An-Cap)-->(F-M)-->(E-C)-->(E-F)
If we say Leftward is toward Liberty one might argue that we can reverse the above and arrive at An-Cap then "promise" (create a constitution) that forbids us from making the mistake again, we'll educate our kids yadda yadda. All the promises the Founders made. Time erodes "force-arangements"
You need a model that does not give permission to abdicate or grant-rights to anyone.
A Right-Less Society
A Zero-Abdication Society
(EI) Economic-Individualism
(CM) Consumer-Minarchism
(CE) Counter-Economics
(EI)<-(CM)<-(CE) v (An-Cap)->(F-M)->(E-C)->(E-F)
Move toward Individualism or move toward Worker-Owner Perpetual War.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
bump
You are balls on accurate about all of this but doesn't Marx seem incorrect about economic fuedalism. The whole problem is that Economic Feudalism can not be checked because it ultimately relies on central planning thus the delegation of such oversight to the state, which serves only the purpose of the state.
This seems impracticle and unsustainable so wouldn't economic fuedalism equate to economic fascism regardless making both words one in the same?
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
- Mayer Amschel Rothschild
"give me control of my own permaculture and I care a lot about what makes law"
-Permaculture Republican
Perma: Yes, that is why economic-fuedalism will fail
because Gov't must always grow -- to reign in more power and curtail consumer-sovereignty gov't budgets must grow; otherwise if you get to close to the event-horizon (a low enough direct and indirect tax rate) consumers will see that they absolutely don't need gov't and the collapse of the latter will happen exponentially.
Marx actually had it right -- his error was thinking worker-sovereignty was the answer.
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
Doesn't perpetual war happen
Doesn't perpetual war happen only because workers and owners abdicate to the same one authority that they both support?
Can there be a perpetual war if authorities are not centralized, like free market courts/dispute resolution orgnizations?
LimeLemon: Yes and No
You are mostly correct; predominately.
A "free-market" is economic-individualism -- so we must divine the individual (sovereign).
To be as fair as possible the individual should be as many people as possible -- in absolute-individualism (anarchy) individualism needs to be everyone.
The consumer is everyone -- there's no other title that captures everyone in it.
Therefore consumer-individualism is the only "free-market" model -- if the goal is to have all markets including self-protection to be "free"
Owners-Rights (even far left leaning Rothbardian owners-rights) gives power to the few and not the many.
Owners vs Workers (peasants) is an age-old fight.
So, if you mean consumer-individualist free-market then NO perpetual war cannot exist.
If you mean owner-individualist (which is a misnomer) the YES perpetual war exists (they must fight off peasant-rights or worker-rights).
*&^ Constitution --- Constitutional Rationality
No there can not be perpetual war in a free market.
Elite Socialists pretend to adhere to peaceful resolutions but behind close doors think War is inevitable because it is a crime out of necessity, that being whichever resource is needed by the invading force.
In a free market costs will be localized and the welfare of the individual as well as the nation will reflect the efficient education system a free market system produces. A free market will encourage the best ways to minimize those needs with practices like Permaculture, Agroforestry, Naturopathy, ect. So in essence, free market capitalists are highly agrarian in the end, and driven by cooperation and not war.
Much like the story of the mustard seed.
"Let me issue and control a nation's money and I care not who writes the laws."
- Mayer Amschel Rothschild
"give me control of my own permaculture and I care a lot about what makes law"
-Permaculture Republican