Harmony Blue (1,976 posts)
Why do people still defend capitalism?
I can see acknowledging some of the good things capitalism has done, but it appears that capitalism is on the decline. And yet people staunchly defend. Why? I am seeking serious input, because I have hard time fathoming this?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022448393Yeah capitalism sucks so bad.
Capitalism has only brought us every modern convenience known to man. Capitalism has only made us a prosperous country and once the most prosperous country in the world until just recently.
Logical (7,015 posts)
1. Has anyone proved any other method is better and can be successful forever? n-t
Nope they haven't.
Ron Green (6,771 posts)
3. Most people who've grown up being told the "Free Enterprise System" is the only way
for business to work have a hard time imagining a Worker-Directed Enterprise in which the people who create the surplus decide what to do with it. Democracy at work, in other words.
Private capitalism has never been seriously questioned in the United States. 'Course, there are some very good reasons for that.
Under capitalism the people who create the surplus, I'm guessing you mean profits decide what to do with it.
We call them the owners, since they put up the capital and the work into getting the company off the ground, and everyone who helped them along the way gets compensated for what they put in to it. Yes DUmmies they did build that and you are not owed a dime just because your mother decided not to abort you and you now exist.
pediatricmedic (109 posts)
8. Probably lack of a better system so far.
Communism was an utter failure. Maybe libertarian decentralized communism could work, doubtful though.
The jury is still out on socialism, give it another 50 years and see how well it works.
Capitalisms dark side is showing now, but may run for awhile longer thanks to the former communists embracing it with a gusto.
Nobody has really proposed a better system yet that is workable with human nature.
I think we will ultimately settle for a hybrid capitalism/limited socialism in the long run.
We are heading towards a hybrid limited capitalism/ socialism driven society.
RobertEarl (2,460 posts)
13. Capitalism would die in one year, if
If we took the roads and hiways from being the greatest socialistic program the world has ever seen, and turned it over to private businesses.
Any big truck that wanted down my toll road, I could charge them so much they would eventually go out of business. As owner, i could decide who trucks goods and who doesn't.
Yep, roads are socialism. Owned by the workers, and made available to everyone, pure socialism.
How is that different from what the government is doing?
California just raised the gas tax on top of all the other taxes so basically they are charging the trucks so much that a lot of them will probably end up going out of business.
Ron Green (6,771 posts)
15. Another point is that Soviet Communism was just another form of capitalism: State Capitalism.
It had more in common with Rockefeller than with Marx, in that the surplus created by workers was appropriated by a small group of elites.
I believe the Mondragon Company in Spain is the closest anyone's come to a real socialist operation.
That's right communism would only work if the right people are in charge.
This is sad these idiots were born in to a country that gave them freedoms that a lot of other countries could only dream of, and what are they trying to do with that freedom? That's right they are trying to take that freedom away.
The US is doomed within a generation if not sooner.
