The hive contemplates the flaw in capitalism.
ProfessorPlum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Mon Feb-09-09 09:26 AM
Original message
The Wicked Witch of the West's Hourglass: The flaw in Capitalism. Part I Updated at 3:01 PM
There is a huge problem with capitalism, and it is this: like the Wicked Witch of the West’s hourglass, the money in capitalism flows up, from the people who don’t have much of it to the people who already have a lot of it. This suits the “haves†just fine, of course, because they become richer and more powerful over time, but it isn’t good for the system overall because of two negative consequences: first, people with little money run out of it quickly, and people with no money are a huge problem. Secondly, the money soon stops flowing and you have economic collapse. When the music stops you are left with a feudalistic society; money and power concentrated in the hands of a few overlords, with serfdom for the rest of us.
So, unfettered capitalism leads to people with no money and economic collapse. That unhappy outcome is as old as capitalism itself, and so humans, being clever little monkeys, have put on our thinking caps and devised ways to avoid it.
What do we do about people with no money? For one thing, we promote the social virtue of people living within their means. People running themselves into penury do nobody much good, and so we encourage people to save, to budget, to scrimp, to be careful, to plan for education and retirement costs, to earn, and to take care of themselves. When people run out of money or are in danger of doing so, we have set up systems to provide it for them so they can take care of their basic needs: aid to widows and orphans, Social Security, unemployment benefits, bankruptcy, Medicare and Medicaid, disability, food stamps. All of these systems provide a safety net for people who are unable to exchange their labor for money sufficiently, including but not limited to people who cannot do so because of their age or illness or sudden loss of employment.
The other thing that we do to keep economic collapse at bay is to slow down the rate at which money flows upward by making sure that it goes from the haves to the have-nots at a sufficient rate. So the government enforces things like the 40-hour work week, overtime rules, the minimum wage, and other labor laws including support for unions, which ensure that the captains of industry reward work enough to get money back down to the bottom, to keep the system flowing.
In a capitalistic society, therefore, one of the government’s most important jobs is to take money from the top of the hourglass and put it back on the bottom, either directly through progressive taxation to support the safety net, or indirectly by forcing capital to exchange enough money for labor. It takes from the rich to give to the poor (where have I heard that before?), but the upside is that people aren’t rioting in the streets, we have a generally good standard of living, and (most) people don’t live in economic slavery.
Rich people hate that. A fair chunk of their income (and in some cases their wealth) is taken by the government to give to needy people, and many of them are forced – horrors – to pay living wages to their employees. Shortsightedly, many of them don’t see the benefit of living in a society where the government intermediates on behalf of the have-nots. What is worse is that we have designed our corporations to behave like sociopathic rich people on steroids. And as corporate power has grown, the rich have been eying and opting for feudalism and economic collapse. We are in another Gilded Age, and they just might get it.
For corporations and some rich people (for convenience, let’s call this mindset “corporatistâ€), feudalism and economic collapse aren’t bad things to be avoided, but rather features. The government can be starved into impotence, the safety net can be taken apart, and the less wealthy will then have to rely on the largess and good will of the rich. Of course, the great unwashed won’t be happy about this, but the corporatists will also have private armies and crowd-controlling weapons, so there is nothing to worry about. And what’s left of the government can be used to serve them as well.
Next: implementing the plan so far
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x5014162
They should put the bong down before attempting contemplations in the future if they want to be taken seriously.
Possumpoint (459 posts) Mon Feb-09-09 09:43 AM
Response to Original message
1. Flaw In The Logic
Government imposition of Income tax is theft. Taking one person's property to give to another.
Abolish income tax and impose a value added tax on everything purchased.
ProfessorPlum Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Feb-09-09 09:50 AM
Response to Reply #1
3. ? Did you forget your sarcasm tag? Updated at 3:01 PM
Otherwise, take that regressive libertarian pie-in-the-sky bullshit elsewhere and serve it to someone who just fell off the melon truck. I hear there is an Ayn Rand study group down at the local high school!
The income tax (and don't forget about sales, gas, payroll, and every other tax - why is it this argument always focuses exclusively on income tax?) is the only thing that keeps the capitalist economy churning, and is a small price to pay to live in a society with the level of economic freedom that we enjoy.
Otherwise, again, welcome to feudalism and stagnation! Enjoy!
He's new, and hasn't been fully assimilated into the hivemind.
Tsiyu Donating Member (1000+ posts) Thu Feb-12-09 09:48 AM
Response to Reply #64
91. Your Analysis is flawed
To classify income tax as "unfairly burdening the rich with the problems of the poor," to act as if this is merely stealing from one class to give to another, must be the greatest myth Western culture ever sold to itself.
Suppose your vast wealth comes from creating a product. People buy and use your product. You make money.
But I'm a poor person currently paying close to 10% (TN) tax on many things I buy, including my animal feed.
Now. Why should I care if the highways are smooth and orderly so that raw materials can flow to your plant? I don't give a damn about those highways as I'm too poor to use them. Find road improvement money somewhere else.
Why should I care if your employees can't read or write or do simple math? Educate them yourself! No more school taxes (and I have paid my share on other farms) for me!
Why would I worry if a plague wipes out your entire workforce right before a huge order - the one that will float your business all year - goes out? Screw public health care! I probably won't catch that bug since I don't get out much.
And why on earth would I care if some other company is stealing your ideas and your logos and your reputation? I'm not paying for laws or courts to hear your silly problems.
People stealing from your business? Hire your own detectives. I don't need law enforcement up here. None of us has anything to steal!
Did you get "The Myth" yet or shall I go on.....
The point they were making seems to have eluded me.
pinqy (167 posts) Mon Feb-09-09 11:44 AM
Response to Original message
23. Shouldn't claims be supported?
I'd like to see the logic, reasoning, and preferably the math behind "the money in capitalism flows up, from the people who don’t have much of it to the people who already have a lot of it. "
Quiet you ! We'll have none of your logic or facts here.
Greyhound Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Feb-09-09 01:38 PM
Response to Reply #23
37. Just how many times, in how many ways would you like it supported?
We have about 30 years of evidence that this idiotic strategy is and has always been an abject failure.
Is your Google broken? There are literally millions of pages of data that clearly show how this failure has come about.
Clearly the dummie has been using ReverseGoogleDUâ„¢ for some time to have missed all the juicy bits about how well socialism and communism work in the real world - long term.
Ikonoklast Donating Member (1000+ posts) Journal Click to send private message to this author Click to view this author's profile Click to add this author to your buddy list Click to add this author to your Ignore list Mon Feb-09-09 01:51 PM
Response to Reply #23
38. Are you deliberately obtuse? Really?
Ignore the evidence in front of your nose, let alone economic theory regarding unfettered capitalism and its results.
The end game is a feudalism.
The DUmmies often pine about going back to a feudalistic type lifestyle or advocate economic, social and environmental policies that there is ample historical evidence will yield one.
I think they want to destroy capitalism because they have some romantic notion of what life will be like in a world without the opportunity to ever be better than someone else at something.
