In defense of Capitalism

[Insidious Von]

Austerity is the new catch-phrase of governments; fiscal responsibility is in order with deficits getting out of control. I've heard of of this before, it looks like another veiled assault on the standard of living of the middle class. How were these huge public deficits gained in the first place?

http://dailybail.com/home/what-if-the-bankers-gorged-on-a-record-144-billion-in-bonuse.html

 

[oldjones]

Not by taxing the wealthy. Nor by supporting the poor.

 

[toguy5252]

How were these huge public deficits gained in the first place?

http://dailybail.com/home/what-if-the-bankers-gorged-on-a-record-144-billion-in-bonuse.html

How about simultaneously cutting taxes and getting involved in two wars for a start.

 

[Eric Blair]

1) Paul Martin, by ruthless means had dumped the deficit on the provinces who dumped it on the cities who paid it with property taxes and new fees.

Harpo used Keynesian economics that he and Flaherty hate, to save the economy. The headache is a major deficit.

Deficits are composed of uncollected taxes from the rich.

 

[burt-oh-my!]

Capitalsim is clearly showing that it is the way to go in this downturn, despite what various apologists for state control might suggest.

Who are coming through with shining colours?

China.

And which country has a more capitalist system? By many measures, China.

 

[WoodPeckr]

Clip says it all

http://dailybail.com/home/what-if-the-bankers-gorged-on-a-record-144-billion-in-bonuse.html

You learn more from that clip than all the BS fuzzy math taught in business schools our Corporatist apologists carp about!

 

[Insidious Von]

Capitalsim is clearly showing that it is the way to go in this downturn, despite what various apologists for state control might suggest.

Who are coming through with shining colours?

China.

And which country has a more capitalist system? By many measures, China.

The PRC is a strange bird; a Communist dictatorship upheld by capitalism. Superficially everything looks amazing but never forget that Chairman Mao was a product of Western abuses and Japanese land grabs. His policies brought the nation to economic ruin and his dogma failed with murderous effect in Cambodia; and yet he unified the Chinese and made them a force to be respected.

Which direction China will go with it's economic clout remains unclear.

 

[rld]

Capitalsim is clearly showing that it is the way to go in this downturn, despite what various apologists for state control might suggest.

Who are coming through with shining colours?

China.

And which country has a more capitalist system? By many measures, China.

As long as you don't consider intellectual property and true freedom of currency and capital as part of capitalism...

 

[onthebottom]

Oh I don't know, when half the families in America pay no income tax (or negative income tax) it's hard to argue the top earners are not paying their fair share.... in fact a vast majority of income tax is already paid by top earners. What we have is an electorate who is happy to keep ordering new services/entitlements because they don't' pay the bills.

OTB

 

[burt-oh-my!]

Freedom of currency? Sorry, no country has 'freedom of currency': even if they have a fixed rate against the USD, if conditions go far enough that link will be broken.

China's capitalism is a more 'wild west' style of capitalism.

 

[landscaper]

Freedom of currency? Sorry, no country has 'freedom of currency': even if they have a fixed rate against the USD, if conditions go far enough that link will be broken.

China's capitalism is a more 'wild west' style of capitalism.

Chinas style of capitalism is what ever the powers that be decide it is.

 

[oldjones]

As long as you don't consider intellectual property and true freedom of currency and capital as part of capitalism...

Intellectual property is seriously changing the subject. Capitalism got along just fine (or not, depending on your view) for centuries without it, and then with copyrights, trademarks and patents, each of which has an obvious functional utility and definition.

'Intellectual property' is a catchall phrase invented to allow immortal coporate entities—which are incapable of intellect at all—to own ideas forever, and charge us for them. Didn't even exist as a phrase until today's media exposed the money-making possibilities of leasing expression. Best leave it for a topic of its own.

 

[schne327]

How does Bernanke keep his job?

http://dailybail.com/home/a-movement-by-the-people-to-prevent-the-reappointment-of-the.html

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTUY16CkS-k

 

[burt-oh-my!]

Chinas style of capitalism is what ever the powers that be decide it is.

Wrong. People used to say the same thing about Japan, that it was a controlled economy - 'Japan Inc.' I guess the idea that there is some kind of central overriding authority controlling al lthese things is appealing to conspiracy theorists, but it is utterly wrong.

China makes tens of thousands' of products, made in a huge percentage of cases by Taiwanese and Korean manaufacturers, as well as the Chinese themselves. The idea that there is somje kind of centralized bureacracy controlling all of this is dead wrong, just as it was in Japan.

Of course, you could just as easily say that our business is just as controlled by rthe government - environmental assessments, workplace rules/workers rights, financial reporeting requirements, etc etc, much of which the Chinese don't have. Whether that is a good thing or not is not the point.

 

[rld]

Intellectual property is seriously changing the subject. Capitalism got along just fine (or not, depending on your view) for centuries without it, and then with copyrights, trademarks and patents, each of which has an obvious functional utility and definition.

'Intellectual property' is a catchall phrase invented to allow immortal coporate entities—which are incapable of intellect at all—to own ideas forever, and charge us for them. Didn't even exist as a phrase until today's media exposed the money-making possibilities of leasing expression. Best leave it for a topic of its own.

Actually, intellectual property has a history that goes back over a thousand years. Our old english ancestors would have called them "choses in action."

And in today's economy, it is critical to first world countries. Due to our standard of living expectations we cannot compete with places like China is making shoes, T-shirts or other labour intensive items. One of the key ways that the first world competes on the global stage is being able to leverage our capital and technology advantages in making drugs, movies, computer parts, new technologies etc. But if there is no way to "own" these things and profit from them, then there is no way, in a capitialist system, to motivate people to make them.

Part of a capitalist economy is a system that protects property rights. Whether they be land, or the chairs you just built or intellectual property. A capitialist economy needs those enforcement mechanisms.

I simply don't accept that China is a capitalist system or it is a more capitalist system than most first world nations. Or perhaps more accurately they chose not to be part of the international capitalist market.

And I hate to have to correct you again, but intellectual property protects and has always protected, writers, photographers, dancers etc, and is not simply the realm of big companies.

The other part of the argument that appears wrong becomes clear when we look at why China has done so well in the current economic crisis. It is the state owned part of the economy and the huge programs run by the government that have helped China weather the storm, not the capitalist part of the economy. They simply control various prices (ie fuel) and have spent "stimulous" money that has driven the economy. These are not market solutions, rather command economy solutions.

 

[oldjones]

That there has been a common-law right in creation of intellectual works, I do not dispute. But ask any of your dancer, actor, theatre technician friends "…how intellectual property has always " protected them. Time and again, it has been defined down to a state-enforced right for the entity selling what others created, not a right of the creator.

Thus copyright was invented when movable type made copying readily available and cheap, and the copiers wanted protection. The writers got… whatever they could bargain for. No intellectual property rights there. Copyright used to expire when the owner did. Today WED Enterprises has protected rights for years to come that Walt Disney and his cartoonists never enjoyed or dreamt of. Never mind that the DNA sequencing of an Amazonian Indian's blood is not her property, but must be purchased back from the corporation that will own it for almost a century. Or until that law's changed. Think it'll be for her benefit? That too is intellectual property as we now define it

And where is the right of a mind to knowledge protected? Who is served when a work becomes goes 'out of print', and it's 'owner' doesn't care to make it available? What we see today, in many aspects of this debate, is another Tragedy of the Commons. Only My interest, no thought for Us.

But that's another topic as I said.

 

[fuji]

I am hoping that the copyright problems are temporary and transient, a gap in technology. I am hoping that eventually content creators wind up selling their content directly to the public mostly eliminating the slimeballs in the middle. I can see this being both for small producers, like musicians, and for big producers, like film makers and video game production companies.

In the world of porn, which is often seen as cutting edge, we're rapidly moving from a world where you buy your porn from some porn studio, to a world in which you contract directly with the actress via a website.

In such a world there would still be distributors operating the websites on which people rendevouz with producers, but the margins would be significantly smaller, and the business model shifts to a payment most of which goes directly to the producers.

So a continuation of the trend of webcam models in porn, I see as being similar to steam for video games, netflix for movies, and the various music distribution websites for music.

 

[oldjones]

Like illegal drugs being an example of a free unregulated market, the sort that capitalism abhors, porn—as an underground sport—is a bit of a special case, but not unique. All technology in this area is a two-edges thing; the means of production and sale have been hugely democratized as you say, but at the same time the reach—and potential profit—of the copiers has been hugely extended. We could easily see pay-per-read books in our lifetimes. With commercials.

Unfortunately my dystopian vision is that the copiers will lock down control, and —as always—the real creators will be left with their crumbs, because the urge to create is so overwhelming they're in infinite supply. The Canadian approach to magnetic recording and photocopying, whiuch tried to get money back to the creators was a good try. Unfortunately, globalization's outstripped what we can do alone, and the creators seem to be losing to weight of capitalism and commerce.

Hey. We're back on topic, sorta.

 

[Cobster]

It's just a matter of time before we hear of some people snapping because the banks are taken their homes away from them and of course add to that the loss of jobs, wages, etc.
Just a matter of time before things get worse. Sickening.

 

[Eric Blair]

The best run nations on Earth are the Social-Democratic societies of northern Europe. Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Germany and the Benelux countries. They use a base of capitalism but, in areas of human need, health, education, environment, they either offer state systems, coop systems or highly regulated private systems in the public interest.

Somebody will come on and bellyache about high taxes but they vote for it decade after decade. It is not what you pay but what you get back in services that matters. Sometimes, like health and education, it is just far more efficient to use a state syste.