Capitalism has failed, let's consider other options

Here's a shift of consciousness...



The rich do not create jobs. They are part of cycle and only the consumers are able to make a real difference. Basically the middle class got cut consuming at all.

Watch the vid. the guy is really straight forward and easy to understand. Only 6 minutes of your time. It is a Ted talk by the way.

originally posted by: Puppylove
Capitalism is a failed system, it's the main problem as it has no limits on the gap in wealth distribution, capitalism is the biggest problem in our world today.

How can you quantify this?

Personally I believe in a perks system, one where jobs and positions within them are designated worth based on a calculation of difficulty, required education, physical toll on the body and or mind, benefit to society, needed number of bodies for the job, ect. And then perks are designated to the worker based on both these qualities, and their productivity, with each job having a minimum and maximum productivity worth with perks varying based upon hours worked x productivity.

Who does the calculating? What sort of perks do they get? How can they respond to changes in the market? How are you going to give them the ability to be able to respond to changes in the market better than the market itself? Are they going to be omniscient? How will they predict future market trends and natural disasters? How will you determine productivity?

What this means is, a minimal amount of productivity is required to gain the perks of the job, but one can only get the highest perks of the job by being productive at said job. Hard work is encouraged as the more productive a person is, the least amount of time is required to achieve the maximum perk level of the job.

Smarter people will gain better results with less work. And again, how can you determine productivity?

At the same time, it discourages not working, since each job has a minimum productivity, meaning to keep the perks of said job, one must meet the minimum quota of the job, otherwise perks are removed and they may be required to move to a job with less perks.

Capitalism already does this.

No one is incapable of working, even if the job is as simple as being a greeter. Everyone can be of some use to society. As such at minimum even if the job is so simple as to say hello to everyone that comes in to an establishment, everyone should have a job no matter how minor and in doing so be provided with food and shelter. Refusing to work at all in any capacity should be a crime. Exception existing for extreme disability, being paraplegic for example is an obvious exception. Lot's of details would need to be ironed out.

Those details are what make these systems fail.

Also to discourage excess children, each child reduces from the perks of the parents as the child receives their own separate perks, so until the child has reached the age of work, the parent's perks foot the bill so to speak, lowing the maximum and minimum worth of their job while they are caring for their children. Attempting to use perks designated for the children for one's self would be illegal and a crime designated as child abuse and neglect.

Who is to determine how many children are excess? Isn't that a human rights violation? Doesn't capitalism already do this?

No one should be without food or shelter, and no one needs 3 personal jets, 2000 acres, 5 pools, 20 cars... you get the idea. Wealth should have a cap and a minimum. No one deserves all those things, and even the least of us, as long as they are doing their part deserves food, shelter and medical care.

Why? If the upwards trend of wealth continues (people have been getting wealthier throughout history) we may all be able to own three personal jets, 2000 acres, 5 pools, 20 cars...
Besides, what's wrong with people having that sort of stuff? People like Bill Gates make everyone wealthier. Shouldn't they have their reward?

This is a rough draft ideology, tell me what you all think? Is such a system feasible? Is there potential to remove cash as incentive and replace it with standard of living instead? Ideas, suggestions? Criticisms?

This system seems like capitalism as envisioned by an evil overlord who wants to control everyone

originally posted by: Puppylove
This is a rough draft ideology, tell me what you all think? Is such a system feasible? Is there potential to remove cash as incentive and replace it with standard of living instead? Ideas, suggestions? Criticisms?

"The folly of mistaking a paradox for a discovery, a metaphor for a proof, a torrent of verbiage for a spring of capital truths, and oneself for an oracle, is inborn in us."

-Paul Valéry

a reply to: Puppylove

Can't refuse to work? Bitch I'd like to see you make me. take your day dream of a totalitarian regime out of my face. good day.

(you can ignore that name call, it's just their for dramatic flair )


that's the general sentiment you're going to find from those with a brain. also who decides what's worth what if not the free market? corruptable man, that's who. pretty rough idealogy indeed, it actually managed to offend me, very nice.

a reply to: intrptr


Free market enterprise has not failed at all. It is the only viable economic system known to man. What has failed is a debt expansion based central banking system and rampant cronyism in our political system.


If we went back to the gold standard and implemented publicly funded and capped elections together with reforms to our lobbying system, we would be able to gradually work our way out of this mess.

The world as it is a by product of the free market not a subversion of it.

That aside it now possible for abundance, which means trade is unnecessary, and thus along with machine automation, money is no longer necessary.

Capitalism is a failed system, it's the main problem as it has no limits on the gap in wealth distribution

It is failing and there are two reasons for it: 1. It's based mostly on exploitation, and 2. Our version of it is based on the impossible ideal of infinite growth.

Your perk idea is basically the living wage ideal- that people should be paid enough for them to pay for a basic quality of life, instead of paying them far less than they need in order to boost profits (minimum wage jobs).

Our current system is unsustainable. We are getting by just because our country is so vast it hasn't been totally destroyed yet, and because we can take advantage of cheap foreign labor, resources and commodities.

oh no.. not another "rich people are evil thread" sigh..

If you cannot stand to work for somebody else, then start your own business. There is NOBODY stopping you. The only person stopping you is YOU yourself.

Rich people aren't "the chosen ones" they bust their asses to get to where they are at. Watch a documentary on any of them.. They all came from Rags and worked their way to riches.

So very few people just inherited their wealth.

Ill give you a pro tip, because getting to be a Middle class American is not rocket science. Stop working for minimum wage. You will never get anywhere. There are jobs everywhere that pay over minimum wage and require zero skill or experience, you are just to lazy to do what has to be done.

If my bum ass can do it, you have ZERO excuses, I'm frikken lazy and make a good living. I work hard because I want to provide my family a good living.

Also if you are interested in a Trade their is always free money available to go to school. Again, no excuses.

Sorry for the rant but this is all I see in these threads, Basically "waaah I don't get free millions so the system is broken".

a reply to: Dawgishly

I agree. Capitalism has been subverted. If we let the little guy begin ventures and capitalize on opportunity again thats how little businesses can return to prosperity. Thats what will rebuild the nation.

Sadly, I even hear tales of lemonade stands being shutdown. How monopolistic is that?

a reply to: Mikeyy

I dont think this thread is about you

a reply to: Mikeyy

Brother I use to be a man who looks down on the unfortunate I used to sit up in my castle while the whole world passed me by. But let me tell you something when your on the street looking up at the high rise and the beautiful people and you look at yourself your credits smashed your punished for being poor. You feel trapped the sad thing is humans are habitual and people get used to the dirt. People accept defeat can you blaim them? The system is rigged the haves could not be the haves without the have nots. Therefore a certain casuality of society is acceptable
Now I was in the U.S army and I was not a nice guy 7 years ago. Watching my friends die over a fruitless war started getting me thinking. If you truly believe class manueverablilty is real your in for an awakening . I had what can only be described as an existential crisis. Everything I thougt I knew was wrong and only experience proved this. Good luck to you and instead. Of spitting at the man who's down maybe you could offer a hand today, like it or not we are all on this sinking ship and your high ground will be under water soon enough.

a reply to: Puppylove

Your first problem is believing that man can govern man without downfalls.

We are animals of nature. Anything other than survival of the fittest will not work.

a reply to: TechniXcality

There are no excuses.

Thank you for your service, but your premise of class manueverability is wrong. flat out wrong.

You have a defeatist attitude, and it's disgusting. Sure there's more factors then simply hard work to get you where you want to be, but guess what, life isn't fair.

Most times it takes generations to get out of the hole. So instead of moping around, how about you lay a foundation your children can build so maybe one day THEIR children can live the life you wanted.

originally posted by: Borisbanger
a reply to: Mikeyy

I dont think this thread is about you

No, the pitch forks are designed to be very fair.

This thread has a major flaw.

It assumes that there is ANY system that can't be corrupted and that Intelligence is of equal measure.

It's not the system my friend, after the fall of the Wall I sat in Brooklyn and watched waves of immigrants show up with Millions of dollars and then collect food stamps in tandem. Neither Capitalism nor Democracy was flawed it had serious systems to avoid corruption, checks and balances and a Constitution of human rights almost religious in nature to assure it didn't happen... and well, here we are lol.

Some people are smart as hell and will figure out ways to rise above others, the nice thing about Capitalism was it motivated by taking this innate desire into account while attempting to limit raw abuse of it... and of course still failed.

Doesn't matter if we went back to a native type system, no ownership of anything etc... There was still some prick with 100 Feathers on his hat that got all the babes and told everyone around him what to do...

It will never change, smart people manipulate stupid ones.

About the best you can do is protect the education system and keep it free of outside influence and the Internet these days as well.. if your free to "get smart" you have a fighting chance to manipulate right back, other than that well.... if communists came over by the boat load with Millions from a system designed to keep everyone poor, there's no freaking way your going to get rid of corruption anywhere, personally i'll always want my shiz and i'll take it too zero effs given, Brains + Masculinity + Ruthlessness = Corruption... and there will always be some Putin willing to blatantly shoot the next guy in the head... You can't even stop this stuff in religion which is written about God let alone an economic system.

we don't operate on capitalism. saying it failed is a misnomer, we've barely even had it.

Lets fix it instead of change it. I'm unemployed right now and still have food, electricity, a phone & computer to write down this line right now. Compared to the some of the other "isms" which chose to redefine humanities role within a system I'll stick with this one. I would ask those who lived under Mao, Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, ect. how their systems worked out for the "poor & common folk" before radically changing anything.

a reply to: Puppylove

I disagree... Capitalism hasn't failed. It's working just the way it's supposed to! Keeping the rich rich and the poor poor and manageable...

originally posted by: Puppylove
Capitalism is a failed system, it's the main problem as it has no limits on the gap in wealth distribution, capitalism is the biggest problem in our world today.

Personally I believe in a perks system, one where jobs and positions within them are designated worth based on a calculation of difficulty, required education, physical toll on the body and or mind, benefit to society, needed number of bodies for the job, ect. And then perks are designated to the worker based on both these qualities, and their productivity, with each job having a minimum and maximum productivity worth with perks varying based upon hours worked x productivity.

What this means is, a minimal amount of productivity is required to gain the perks of the job, but one can only get the highest perks of the job by being productive at said job. Hard work is encouraged as the more productive a person is, the least amount of time is required to achieve the maximum perk level of the job.

At the same time, it discourages not working, since each job has a minimum productivity, meaning to keep the perks of said job, one must meet the minimum quota of the job, otherwise perks are removed and they may be required to move to a job with less perks.

No one is incapable of working, even if the job is as simple as being a greeter. Everyone can be of some use to society. As such at minimum even if the job is so simple as to say hello to everyone that comes in to an establishment, everyone should have a job no matter how minor and in doing so be provided with food and shelter. Refusing to work at all in any capacity should be a crime. Exception existing for extreme disability, being paraplegic for example is an obvious exception. Lot's of details would need to be ironed out.

Also to discourage excess children, each child reduces from the perks of the parents as the child receives their own separate perks, so until the child has reached the age of work, the parent's perks foot the bill so to speak, lowing the maximum and minimum worth of their job while they are caring for their children. Attempting to use perks designated for the children for one's self would be illegal and a crime designated as child abuse and neglect.

No one should be without food or shelter, and no one needs 3 personal jets, 2000 acres, 5 pools, 20 cars... you get the idea. Wealth should have a cap and a minimum. No one deserves all those things, and even the least of us, as long as they are doing their part deserves food, shelter and medical care.

This is a rough draft ideology, tell me what you all think? Is such a system feasible? Is there potential to remove cash as incentive and replace it with standard of living instead? Ideas, suggestions? Criticisms?

So...who owns this business providing the job? The government or an individual?