Capitalism is the Crisis

Hello, i did a search and i didn't find this documentary here and i think it covers some important topics about our modern day capitalist-economic-system.

Capitalism Is The Crisis: Radical Politics in the Age of Austerity examines the ideological roots of the "austerity" agenda and proposes revolutionary paths out of the current crisis. The film features original interviews with Chris Hedges, Derrick Jensen, Michael Hardt, Peter Gelderloos, Leo Panitch, David McNally, Richard J.F. Day, Imre Szeman, Wayne Price, and many more! The 2008 "financial crisis" in the United States was a systemic fraud in which the wealthy finance capitalists stole trillions of public dollars. No one was jailed for this crime, the largest theft of public money in history. Instead, the rich forced working people across the globe to pay for their "crisis" through punitive "austerity" programs that gutted public services and repealed workers' rights. Austerity was named "Word of the Year" for 2010. This documentary explains the nature of capitalist crisis, visits the protests against austerity measures, and recommends revolutionary paths for the future. Special attention is devoted to the crisis in Greece, the 2010 G20 Summit protest in Toronto, Canada, and the remarkable surge of solidarity in Madison, Wisconsin. It may be their crisis, but it's our problem.

Capitalism is the Crisis

reply to post by AlexIR


Coupled with the scheme you'll find here:

Capitalism is not the problem as such, its "crony capitalism" which is a different kettle of fish.

Originally posted by TheMindWar
Capitalism is not the problem as such, its "crony capitalism" which is a different kettle of fish.

Not really... It's prison rules with gangs consisting of monopolies and lowest bidders. Eventually any new competitors are knifed in the kidneys to prevent strength being shown in their own yard.

reply to post by TheMindWar


Capitalism creates more problems than it solves. Just think about it, today we put much more value on money than on human life, and this is the fault of capitalism.

The problem with capitalism is that someone ALWAYS loses. For there to be a winner
there HAS to be a loser. If you want more you'll have to take it from someone else,
leaving them with less...
People will look back and say "capitalism doesn't work, just look what happened to
Amerika.", same way they do now when they talk about Russia and communism or
Germany and socialism or the fall of Rome.

reply to post by AlexIR


Thats not the fauot of capitalism, thats greed, plain and simple.

Consider the facts, if you get rid of capitalism for say communism it wont solve our problems, greed will still exist, period.

Greed is the root of the problem and its greed that leads people to push for monopolies. If someone has a monopoly on something thier wealth is not at risk.

In every society its always greed and the lust for power that feeds the problems.

Capitalism have many faces, facets, flavors, development stages. Basic description of capitalism is: accumulation of capital in private hands. So now we need to coin the term "capital". Financial capital is latter stage of accumulation, while accumulation of means of production is primary stage. This accumulation leads (not only) to diversion of means of production from labour - actual workers who add through their work value to otherwise dead means of production.
Output of this flow is known: means of production are during time accumulated in fewer and fewer hands. From medieval situation (and here I'm not talking about agriculture) when every craftsman directly owned his means of production (it is more complicated, I know), we are heading toward world where no actual worker owns his means of production because its accumulated in few hands - proverbial 1%. In fact even today it is less than 1%. While early stages of accumulation boosts development - because of effective allocation of capital - later stages loose efficacy because of rising complexity of operation. In early stages of capitalism was private capital more effective than state capital, because state was too complex. In current time, when majority of capital is in hands of giant corporations, state do not look as so bad player. Accumulation simply choked itself in complexity. State owned corporations have POTENTIAL to be more effective than "private" corporations because POSSIBILITY of public supervision.
Why is public supervision important? Because one of facets of capitalism is: privatisation of profit, socialisation of loses. Every production have externalities - positive and negative. Positive externality is for example supply of (good) goods while typical negative externality is environmental pollution. It should be matter of public scrutiny if externalities of this or that production are in interest of many or few.
This trouble with externalities may be solved by functioning regulatory institutions. But as we can see it do not work well because capital is power and now we reached stage of development when power of capital grossly outweighed the power of traditional institutions (res-publica).
For those who argue that "this is not capitalism, but crony capitalism": we are living in one of stages of capitalism. It could not ended nowhere else. Also at any point in history, there was no ideal form of capitalism. Pure capitalism can not exist because capitalism is still developing.

I see the basic problem of capitalism in divide between ownership of means of production and labour. Let develop forms of public ownership of means of production. It is way out of this every day worsening doom.

reply to post by JanAmosComenius


In the form of a graphic:

reply to post by Americanist


Yes, Chomsky is one of best contemporary US thinkers. There are some signs that he is "double agent" or in better terms gatekeeper or directed opposition, still he was and is eye opener for many people. You know, even Alex Jones have some positive impact

The problem is capitalism gone into the extremes of using corporate tax shelters to retain huge wealth and then use that wealth to buy the politicians of their choosing. Such a process ends the Freedom of the People of America and places their Government out of their control.

Such Oligarchic capitalism needs to be prevented, such that corporate structures don't set up an economic power greater than the Govt. itself. This ugly game takes the form of the Federal Reserve and the Bilderberg system for world domination via Corportatism, which formed from the ashes of Germany's IG Farben successes.

The US banking system needs to return the wealth to the benefits of the people and not the benefits of private foreign bankers, their corporation shelters, and those that foist wars upon the world for want for more greed and gain of NWO oligarchic control.

Caps need to be installed on corporations and excess wealth returned to the people, not the foreign investors that care not for the wellbeing of the peoples. US Banking needs to be returned to the concepts for the First Bank of the US that appeared alongside the US Constitution.

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webofdebt.wordpress.com...

Philadelphia Freedom: Birthplace of the Constitution Takes Center Stage
Posted on April 8, 2012 by Ellen Brown
‘Cause I live and breathe this Philadelphia freedom
From the day that I was born I’ve waved the flag
Philadelphia freedom took me knee-high to a man
Yeah, gave me peace of mind my daddy never had.

– Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Philadelphia Freedom”

It is well known that Philadelphia was the birthplace of the U.S. Constitution and American democracy. Less well known is that it was also the birthplace of public banking in America. The Philadelphia Quakers originated a banking model involving government-issued money lent to farmers. The profits returned to the government and the people in a sustainable feedback loop that nourished and supported the local economy.

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It has come time for loyal Americans, such as those Mason and Diests that wrote the Constitution, to stand up against those that seek outrageous fortune and exploitation of Americans. America has been taken over from within via those that started the Income Tax, and then the Federal Reserve, so that America could finance the first world war. This pattern has not become any different today, as the wealth taken from America is being used to advance wars and power for these Foreign Interests and even works to the detriment of the US and its peoples.

It is time to take America back from these extremes of capitalism that make up part of the uncaring Beasts of the End-Times that cares not for American's Economic Freedoms.

reply to post by MagnumOpus


The same folks you refer to have let this sham play out for nearly a century. It's either going to take a miracle or guns to their heads. I'd prefer the former, but infrastructure banking seems to take a back seat to privatization and profit margins.

On second thought, perhaps a car-jacking is in order!

Wrong OP.
Capitalism is not the crisis.
There is a crisis in Capitalism.

The Crisis is the collusion of government with business. When segments of business can purchase such a high level of influence they will use that infulence to secure their business position. Only the government can keep a monopoly in place. Only the government can use the power of force to strangle competition and only government can mitigate the fluctuations of true market forces. Entrenched business does not like competition and uncontroled innovation. Capitalism functions on market forces and continued innovation. Only private ownership of resources and production allow market forces to truely function.

For the record Chomsky is a dolt and could not last a single round with Ludwig Van Mises.

No, not capitalism, CORPORATISM.

They are two different things.

The corporations of today have way too much power on their hands and they can do just about anything they want to and get away with anything they want to.

Capitalism was not designed for this, it was designed to help people improve their lives, not have the wealthy and greedy elites erode our civil rights and liberties and turn us all into corporate slaves.

It's corporations that are the problem.

Please don't confuse the two.

Originally posted by Dragoon01
Wrong OP.
Capitalism is not the crisis.
There is a crisis in Capitalism.

The Crisis is the collusion of government with business. When segments of business can purchase such a high level of influence they will use that infulence to secure their business position. Only the government can keep a monopoly in place. Only the government can use the power of force to strangle competition and only government can mitigate the fluctuations of true market forces. Entrenched business does not like competition and uncontroled innovation. Capitalism functions on market forces and continued innovation. Only private ownership of resources and production allow market forces to truely function.

For the record Chomsky is a dolt and could not last a single round with Ludwig Van Mises.

Deregulation keeps monopolies in place... Politics and government out of business as I'm sure you've heard the pitch before. The power of purchase is victorious in such an environment. What you allude to is Keynesian economics. What we've witnessed is far from it. Capitalism is an illusion like the majority of other models designed to funnel wealth and hard assets to oligarchs. Their private ownership means you're forced to buy what they're selling until you can't borrow enough to afford basic necessities.

Hold up, I'll find you the number for T. Boone Pickens, so you can reserve your water ration before the big rush is near!

For the record, there's a sucker born every minute.

Originally posted by MagnumOpus
The problem is capitalism gone into the extremes of using corporate tax shelters to retain huge wealth and then use that wealth to buy the politicians of their choosing. Such a process ends the Freedom of the People of America and places their Government out of their control.

edit on 11-4-2012 by MagnumOpus because: Ending Economic Slavery against Americans

As I pointed earlier process of wealth accumulation in "single" hands is inevitable consequence of capitalism. If you try to "cap" this accumulation, you are heretic against only and Holly Truth and you should burn at stake

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
No, not capitalism, CORPORATISM.

They are two different things.

The corporations of today have way too much power on their hands and they can do just about anything they want to and get away with anything they want to.

Capitalism was not designed for this, it was designed to help people improve their lives, not have the wealthy and greedy elites erode our civil rights and liberties and turn us all into corporate slaves.

It's corporations that are the problem.

Please don't confuse the two.

Don't kid yourself... It was designed to install central banking and its debt based monetary system along with the corresponding free labor for elitist jerk-offs.

They've either signed something or key stroked themselves instant wealth while you've handled their coked up garbage.

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
No, not capitalism, CORPORATISM.

They are two different things.

If you are not satisfied with my definition of capitalism, please provide yours. In my blurry eyes is corporatism twin of capitalism. If I'm wrong, please enlighten us with your definition of capitalism and corporatism.

BTW capitalism is a) most natural (economic? social?) system, or b) was "designed" (by Whom?), hence is artificial.

If it is capitalism, anyone would be able to get bailed out in the billions, if it is capitalism anyone could get a military contract rivaling haliburton and blackwater, if it is capitalism the crooks wouldnt have been bailed out by tax payer dollars! As such its not capitalism that is the problem.

Originally posted by TheMindWar
Capitalism is not the problem as such, its "crony capitalism" which is a different kettle of fish.

Ohh come on. Capitlism is capitalism it is ego parasitic power pyramid scheme and the line will always go against being as parasitic as it can be. Please wake up and stop beliving the propaganda and your conditioning. Your like a good dog that have learned his behaviour from his masters. Well I will be peeing on the carpet all the time just to screw with them.

Apple a hightech company with increadable profits that are pushing people in China to the brink of suicide because of their parasitic behaviour to get the last % extra profit while treating the employes like slaves. Now when people are outraged and they are gonna loose a bit of the market since they are getting bad publicity they are changing not because of the suicides but because they do not want to lose their profit.

This is typical ego parasitic behaviour. Manipulate and create illussions like a skilled magician, but keep the dirty reality hidden.