Posted on 02/17/2012 8:05:14 AM PST by pinochet
The leader of the Russian Communist Revolution, Vladmir Lenin, once declared that: "The capitalists will give us the rope, which we shall use to hang them".
For most of American history, capitalism has been a force for good, because most of America's leading capitalists were patriotic citizens, who were also devout Christians. So long as American capitalism is in the hands of patriotic Christians, the forces of capitalism can be harnessed to do a lot of good for America and the world. J. D. Rockefeller's fortune built the University of Chicago and other useful projects during his lifetime. American capitalist funds converted Harvard, Princeton, and Yale - which were founded as Christian seminaries to train clergymen, into world class universities. But the Rockefeller Foundation, Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, have been hijacked by anti-Christian forces, and been used as tools to undermine American culture.
But we have to consider the possibility that a capitalist system can be very dangerous, if it is in the hands of people who hate America and hate Christianity. Do you remember when the Clinton administration was bribed by defence contractors, into permitting the transfer of US missile technology to China? China may attack America one day, with American missile technology. I am also opposed to selling US arms technology to Islamic regimes such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Egypt. These regimes have turned virulently anti-Israel, and may one day attack Israel using American technology. Israel is the only Middle Eastern nation, that should receive advanced weapons from America, because they are America's only true ally. American national security depends on putting the interests of Americans first, ahead of the corporate profits of defence contractors, who are notorious for bribing administration officials and congressmen.
Question Assumptions.
Question Premises.
If I’m not mistaken, the very word “capitalism” was coined by Marx. Someone correct me if I’m wrong.
Even by using the word, you are accepting Marx’s premises.
To me Liberty and Freedom (which are much older words and concepts) are the points to be debated. If you are not free to buy and sell goods and services then you are not truly free. Or so it seems to me.
That does not change the principles upon which Capitalism is based; it merely acknowledges the fact that Capitalism w/o moral and ethical leadership is dangerous to our Republic and our system of governance.
The problem is; moral and ethical leadership cannot be legislated or enforced by SEC rules and regulations; it must come from within ...from the character that should be instilled within ourselves and our leaders. The lack of these qualities is merely an example of the rot that permeates our entire culture.
Of course any attempt to discuss this within Republican “circles” will be immediately shouted down by the GOP-E, their media minions and a host of unwitting acolytes. They are not w/o blame; thus they protest most vociferously in order to obfuscate the issue.
Planned Parenthood is an organization which exists in a semi-capitalist country. Do you want to debate capitalism or abortion? The two have nothing whatsoever to do with each other.
According to what you've posted, you misstated your thread's title. This isn't about capitalism, it's about the government-dominated, mixed welfare-state economy we've been allowing to grow since the thirties.
Capitalism is another word for freedom and, no, you can't criticize it without being labeled a socialist.
Thanks to Rush, multi-national corporations are holy, while Main Street should move over for the big box stores. Shame on Rush.
Main Street is free enterprise = good.
Multi-nationals are our dictators = evil
There is nothing wrong with Capitalism. Everything you state as a downside of “Capitalism” isn’t the fault of Capitalism, but of those seeking to subvert it.
Methinks Wikipedia doth protest to much on the etymology of the word capitalism.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism#Etymology_and_early_usage
They seem to go to lots of trouble to find citings of the word before Marx and Engels and then go on to say that Marx and Engels used the word and leave it at that.
Maybe Marx and Engels weren’t the very first to use some word that had “Capital” in it - but then algore wasn’t the first to think about the internet either - but we all know he gets credit for its invention. ;)
Excerpt:
. . . capitalism - the word and the concept - was the brainchild of Karl Marx. As well as offering an “-ism” opposite his own -ism, it describes a rigid class society in which one class possesses the means of production, the other nothing except its labor. The latter class is called “The Proletariat” who, as Lenin declared, can lose nothing but its chains when it rises against the oppressor.
This is not the place to argue whether capitalism was the appropriate way to describe certain European societies. The point is that owning things has always been open to Americans. The moment you buy one share of stock, you part-own “means of production,” not to mention owning your home and arriving at your place of work in your own automobile - a very American image.
America never had a proletariat.
In that case, America could not have been a capitalist country.
To the best of my knowledge, no one has redefined capitalism after Marx, and it is inappropriate to use a word whose meaning is different from what the speaker has in mind.
Perhaps what we have in America is best described as a free-enterprise system.
(snip)
- Balint Vazsonyi -
http://balintvazsonyi.org/shns/shns100202.html
Bribery, in the form of campaign contributions, and likely other emoluments in the form of steering jobs and work to friends of politicians, is not capitalism.
It’s actually socialism, in that market forces have been replaced by poltical forces. The entire economy is subsidizing a bad choice of goods and services. This choice, in fair and free market competition, would never have been made.
In its role as provider of the common defense, the USG allowing the Chinese solid-rocket booster secrets was treason, and again, a crime, and not something that is an economic question.
The USG, as customer, can direct a defense contractor to keep secrets and market their technology only to them, since what the USG is ordering is essentially custom engineering. ‘Allowing’ the Chinese to buy it from willing sellers, again, isn’t an economic question, since what was offered to the Chinese was custom work, not a product intended for authorized purchase on a retail defense arms market.
Clinton committed a crime, and he’s going to skate on it.
This has ZERO to do with economics.
All of the great economic crises in the last 20 years were touched off by the USG changing a regulation that was put in place because of the economic crises that came before it.
What is completely stupid about it was that the Long Term Capital Management collapse happened a year before Clinton signed the Glass-Steagall act repeal. He’s not completely to blame, in fact, it was Phil Gramm and Jim Leach that floated the bill in the first place.
The Glass-Steagall repeal was just the beginning of the ‘unlearning of hard historical lessons’.
Another boneheaded move by the USG was the ‘Mark to Market Ruling’. This allowed Enron to realize a capital gain on a major industrial development at the time the deal was booked, not at the time the development came on line.
This removed any motivation at all by Enron to actually ensure the development saw the light of day. “That was last year’s sale - I’ve already been compensated for it.”
Add some world class accounting fraud, faulty audits, and poor management and you had Enron.
And let’s not forget all the simple math that got thrown out the window at about that time with Fannie and Freddy.
The USG held a gun to the banks heads and said, “We want you to make more loans to minorities and the poor.”
Banks: “They can’t pay it back. We’ll be holding those loans on our books.”
USG: “We’ll back the loans with taxpayer dollars.”
Banks: “We have a plan - we’ll bundle it and sell it like we sold junk bonds in the 1980’s - high yield stuff - people will know what they are getting into.”
USG: “That’s no good, people are going to know that the average taxpayer is basically making loans to people who can’t pay it back.”
Banks: “Well, if you’re backing them, then wouldn’t those bonds carry the same rating as the USG, even if the loans in the package aren’t worth a dime?”
USG: “Warren, what say you? Willing to rate this crap as golden if the schmuck taxpayer is floating the tab? . . . “
Warren: (in the background) “ Easy Liz!! It’s viagra, not coke! (in the call) “Uuuh, yeah, sure. Let’s make some money and help some poor people out at the same time.”
USG: “You know, there’s just no end to doing good for the people of this great country.”
Lenin has NOTHING to do with it. This is all the USG. All of it. You ought to hear what they tell freshmen congressmen and senators when they get it:
“You can’t be on top of it all. You have to pick an area you are going to be as expert on as you can, and then you’re going to be our guy on it, and what you say about it is essentially going to influence in large member how the whole party is going to vote on it. It’s a team effort, and you’ll have to trust your teammates on the issues you aren’t an expert in.”
That’s how you get here. The blind leading the stupid, who in tern lead us. Mark Twain said this over a 100 years ago. All these guys were ever really good at was getting elected. What makes anyone think that just because they could get elected, they could also lead?
Defense contractors selling secrets to the Chinese? Is that the best example you have? Do you mean to say that socialist regimes have no traitors?
“While I oppose the military-industrial complex...”
Yeah, Eisenhower warned us about that, and yet he was CiC of the military and the top general against Hitler in WWII. He even had to contemplate the Nazis on the verge of atom bomb technology; imagine that. Even before he became president, Truman and FDR had messed up with the greatest intelligence failure in the history of the world — Stalin had already stolen our atom bomb secrets.
So obviously, we had a greater need than ever for strong military during Ike’s “industrial military complex” warning. The CIA was so infiltrated, as I understand it, that they wanted JFK to ignore warnings about nuclear missiles in Cuba. The most dangerous complex back then was a mommy complex by our academe to nurture the USSR and marxism.
Whatever concerns Ike had at the time were nothing compared to our current crisis.
Year of the Rat exposed Clinton’s nuclear treason reg. Chinagate.
If you are too stupid to make a fair deal for yourself you are too stupid to be wandering around without your keeper.
The socialist notion that the government has the right to legislate equality of outcome, to redistribute wealth, to pick winners and losers in the marketplace, is the root cause of our current financial disaster.
Both branches of the BIG GOVERNMENT PARTY are guilty and should be outlawed and disbanded. They are nothing more than organized criminal enterprises.
Individuals responsible for passing or implementing unconstitutional “feel good” socialist laws and policies should be prosecuted for violating their oath of office, given a fair trial and sentenced to imprisonment for life in hard-time penitentiaries.
Replace “Capitalism” with “Free Markets”. Free markets do not mean that there are no restraints on behavior. For instance, throwing a bomb into a competitor’s business might be good “business”, but it has nothing to do with Free Markets, since it involves a “transaction” to which your competitor did not agree. And we if we do not restrain you, who is going to restrain your other competitors?
Almost *any* interference with free markets does harm, in principle. In the very few instances where there may be a case for government intervention in free markets, in principle, in practice the government regulations tend to do (much) more harm than good.
I do not see environmental law as a case where government interfers with free markets, rather it can be a reason restraint on behavior, regardless of whether the behavior is commercially motivated or not. Of course, special interests have abused common sense environmental law and turned it into bludgeon with which to throttle industry, leaving us all poorer.
Milton Friedman does a better job of defending free markets than I ever could. To paraphrase him, the free market is the most remarkable invention for lifting people out of poverty that has ever been invented.
“Everything you state as a downside of “Capitalism” isn’t the fault of Capitalism, but of those seeking to subvert it.”
Thought-provoking.
You almost hit the nail on the head. So close!
All large scale corruption that seems to be due to capitalism is indeed due to subversion [as you say], but petty corruption is in all forms of government.
“Capitalism is neither good nor evil. It is a system that, when combined with individual liberty, harnesses man’s inherent greed and unleashes man’s inherent creativity.”
Say this again. Say it loud. Say it clear. Then say it yet again and again.
“Capitalism” is a pejorative word invented by Marxists; I have no idea why those of us who support economic freedom should adopt our opponents’ terminology to describe ourselves.
The concept of anyone claiming to be pro-capitalism is bizarre. Are they really claiming to support everything that every businessman has ever done? Really? I don’t support capitalism, I support freedom, and one component of freedom is economic freedom, which means that the individual has the right to order his business activity as he sees fit - regardless of whether I approve or disapprove. It seems we understand other types of freedom better. Most of us support freedom of speech (or at least claim to), certainly that doesn’t mean we agree with everything that anyone has to say. Further, we can agree with the concept of freedom of religion without adopting the theology of every disperate religion on the planet. Yet when it comes to the economic realm there seems to be no shortage of those eager to enforce their will upon others.
You can’t criticize capitalism without being called a socialist. It’s called demonizing.
I disagree.
The term "capitalistic production" was in widespread use long before Marx and referred simply to any process that employed capital (tools) to enhance the raw labor of man.
And "Capitalism" is a perfectly valid description of a system where individuals own those tools -- the means of production, i.e., capital. Capital is not just big gobs of money, it is a farmer's barn and his tractor. It's his seed corn and his cows. Everything he uses to produce the goods which we buy.
Capital is also the money saved up by the entrepreneur (or borrowed from funds others have saved) to purchase raw materials and pay his employees' wages while waiting for production to be completed and his products sold.
Marx's premises were completely wrong, illogical, and unworkable. Without private ownership, trade, profits, and prices, economic calculation is impossible and a socialist system must eventually collapse under its own mounting inefficiencies.
It's also important to remember that Marx admired capitalism and credited it with the amazing increases in production and living standards already seen by the mid-19th century. He believed it would end naturally and be replaced by socialism simply as a result of new production methods which would render it obsolete.
At any rate, I think we should explain capitalism and revel in it. Not try to paper it over with other less-loaded terms. We're just caving to the socialists if we do.
Private sector ponzi schemes can be pretty large scale though [though not as dangerous as government ponzi schemes].
Tricky, but generally speaking, we are right.
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