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Has capitalism failed, if so why?

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Has capitalism failed, if so why?

iceman2
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Posted 10/06/09 - 09:11 AM: Subject: Has capitalism failed, if so why?	#1
Being as the global economic situation is effecting just about everyone, is now reasonable to argue capitalism has failed. As Marx would have us all believe was doomed from the start, if why? Interested in hearing some views on this area!

jsidelko
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Posted 10/06/09 - 11:07 AM:	#2
Both capitalism and socialism (Marxism) have failed. They are both Ponzi schemes. They both try to extract excess profits from the workers who also happen to be the consummers. In the case of capitalism it is the owners of the means of production that do the exploitation. In the case of Marxism it is the vanguard controllers (like the pigs in Animal Farm) who exploit the worker operators. If we continue the dialectic process, eventually all workers will be controllers while the machines become self-operators. The process will continue with the machines becoming controller-operators and humans becoming useless parasites. The process will end when machines become humans.
thanatos

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Posted 10/06/09 - 11:53 AM:	#3
You may be able to argue that the particular form of capitalism we had has failed but capitalism has not failed and nor will it - it may evolve but it won't fail as such. In fact since the start of capitalism the system has cycled like global temperatures, the history is littered with crashes, from the Dutch tulip crisis to the present day - but also has outstanding periods of growth. Capitalism will not go away easily because it is not an ideological system. We didn't think of it and then implement it - it just fell into place. It has become a reflection of the times and the way we moved into it makes it very hard to get out kind of like the potential wells in physics. Communism failed because it was an ideal that in practice failed. Capitalism in practice succeeds (believe me in time when growth returns America will be just as market based again) and was never an ideal. I'm afraid to say its here to stay.
"An honest religious thinker is like a tightrope walker. He almost looks as though he were walking on nothing but air. His support is the slenderest imaginable. And yet it really is possible to walk on it." - Ludwig Wittgenstein 'It is the duty of the human understanding to understand that there are things which it cannot understand...' - Søren Kierkegaard

magnusmay
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1 of 1 people found this post helpful Posted 10/06/09 - 12:22 PM: Subject: Has capitalism failed, if so why?	#4
The responses to the original question imply that capitalism is being evaluated merely as an economic 'system'. I would assert that for many it has become a way of life, almost a religion, and that money and the latest 'product' have taken over the lives of many consumers, and the amassing of wealth and belongings has become the aim of many. Are we any happier for it? Do we live better lives? Add to this the greed, aggressive marketing and governmental lobbying by multinational companies and it seems fairly clear that capitalism is a paternalistic system which gives power to the very rich who continue to manipulate their power to gain more and more from the consumer.

unrealist42
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Posted 10/06/09 - 02:25 PM:	#5
Whether capitalism has failed or not depends on whether or not you believe that capitalism is supposed to make life better for everyone. If you believe that capitalism is supposed to make life better for everyone then it has failed miserably. If you believe that capitalism need not concern itself with making life better for everyone as long as it makes your life better, and it has or you believe it will, then capitalism is still a great success.

Odin
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Posted 10/06/09 - 07:29 PM:	#6
iceman2 wrote: Being as the global economic situation is effecting just about everyone, is now reasonable to argue capitalism has failed. As Marx would have us all believe was doomed from the start, if why? Interested in hearing some views on this area! Let me try to explain something. In capitalism, recessions always happen as a self-correcting function of capitalism. That is, every recession or depression happens because there was an inbalance (commonly called 'bubble'), and the recession is the cure to correct it. Now every bubble or boom is caused first and foremost by the federal reserve's monetary policy. When savings are very high, you can have low interest rates, but the Fed has tried to create low interest rates without having high savings. If interest is based on the supply and demand of money, then the availability or supply of money in banks has to be high for them to lend at low interest rates. Now this economic crisis has been caused by many factors piling up on top of each other. The cheap money from the fed got the banks lending cheap money much more than they should have. People took loans to buy houses, and the banks gave the loans that would never be paid back because the piled the mortgages up in securities and sold them to Freddie Mac and fannie mae, basically government institutions that are supposed to back mortgages because the government for decades has had an agenda to create more "homeowners." Now on top of all that, there should have been a recession in 2001 to correct the stock market boom that took place in the 90's that Clinton helped to create. Since Bush was just elected and he wanted to get reelected, he and Alan Greenspan pushed the interest rates way down to actually make the bubble bigger. That pushed a recession that should have been quite big back until now, and since it's gotten much worse and we have more to pay for, we should have had a depression this year. The stimulus and bank bailouts kept the depression from happening immediately by growing the bubble further. The best analogy I can think of is that we've seen that letting go of the balloon deflates it, so instead we are blowing even more air into it. Now instead of just a short recession (the balloon sputtering the air out), the balloon is going to explode and we're probably going to go through one of the worst depressions ever seen in history. So a couple points. First, you should know that this is not what a free market looks like. All these problems have arisen out of our refusal to allow the market to correct itself. Second, within the next months to year, the US economy is going to collapse under hyper inflation and huge double digit unemployment. So if you think we've been in a bad recession so far, you ain't seen nothing yet!

iceman2
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Posted 10/07/09 - 01:08 AM: Subject: corrupt	#7
I don’t’ see capitalism rectifying it’s self in the manner you refer to! Your view appears to be the ups and downs of a global capitalist economic system are somehow driven and self controlled almost without significant influence from a few individuals or groups. I feel the system has been skillfully manipulated and controlled by a small number of banksters and megalomaniacs who have manipulated the global governments and economic structures to place themselves in a position of almost absolute and total control of the entire global economy. To me this indicates the existing system as become so corrupt and unreasonable it has to be torn down and replaced with something else. How that would be achieved is another question but it’s effectively beyond repair or salvage!

iceman2
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Posted 10/07/09 - 01:15 AM:	#8
magnusmay wrote: The responses to the original question imply that capitalism is being evaluated merely as an economic 'system'. I would assert that for many it has become a way of life, almost a religion, and that money and the latest 'product' have taken over the lives of many consumers, and the amassing of wealth and belongings has become the aim of many. Are we any happier for it? Do we live better lives? Add to this the greed, aggressive marketing and governmental lobbying by multinational companies and it seems fairly clear that capitalism is a paternalistic system which gives power to the very rich who continue to manipulate their power to gain more and more from the consumer. I agree with much of the above and I would say we not happier for it! This philosophy of living within Modern western life has evolved though manipulation, into an almost solely materialistic economic endeavor, with society judging individual success by what they acquire materialistically. How shallow is that!

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Posted 10/07/09 - 02:14 AM:	#9
This is not going to help very much as it is non-specific and based in an "ethical" perspective, but as I see it ALL ecomonic systems are doomed to fail. The goal of an economic system is the "success" of its members. No subjective system can guarentee this for all, that are within the system; let alone those outside the system. There is and cannot be a "universal consensious" on what is the meaning of "success". Until this is achieved, there can be no "universal economic system" and thus; the pending failure. As long as an economic system operates within a "closed system" (a local playing field), that is within a single cultural grouping sharing the same goals and perspective upon what "success" means, the system will be fine. When exposed to multi-cultural demands(a universal playing field) and the more differing cultural groupings are involved, the subjective nature of what is "success" becomes less defined. The dualism of an economic system, definition of "success" and "not success", will be exposed for being to narrow in scope and people will begin to work FOR or AGAINST a given system, rather than WITH a system. It becomes "Tribalism". "Success" will be expressed in terms of Dogmatic Connotations and will be a rally cry for supporters of the institution and rebels alike. If the rebel wins, he will in turn be the new institution and the object for the next protest by the next rebel. Welcome to the "MÖBIUS"! There are no "Objective" systems of economy, thus no "Universal" answers. Result: conflict and failure Meow! GREG
I am not one to attribute that which I cannot understand immediately to be god(s)-perhaps I will never understand, but god(s) are not defined by my lack of understanding-this is the foundation of dogmas, the pressing of connotative values into the realm of dennotative meaning. - MOS http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIYJERcdHb0 Jerry Sings!

iceman2
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Posted 10/07/09 - 02:25 AM:	#10
I agree!

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