Why my mind is closing towards Capitalism

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by maestromason
Capitalism works just fine.

It does?

Outsourcing illustrates the laws of capitalist exploitation

Maybe for you but not for millions of others...



The only reason the US is not like that is because of worker organizations.

That is how the system is set up. You cannot blame Capitalism for millions of people being destitute. Some people like being poor, some people like living simple and day to day. Happiness is found from within ones self... not searched for in a materialistic world.

The Free-market Capitalistic America that I was born into enjoys life and the fruits of our labors for personal gain. There is nothing wrong with working for one's self and having pleasure in having personal things. Call it what you want to but Free-market Capitalism to those of us Americans who believe in it is the very essence of our American way of life. It is unique, distinct and as American as apple pie.

If you have a problem with it as a non-American too freaking bad...if you have a problem with it as an American DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT to CHANGE IT FOR YOURSELF...hell you can even leave the US and renounce your citizenship and go live anywhere else int he world...AS LONG AS THEY WILL HAVE YOU! That is what makes this country so damn great...two words...

OPTIONS! & OPPORTUNITY!

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by ollncasino
Adam Smith is the father of economics.

Only in your dreams.

Google comes up with 2,760,000 entries in response to the search "adam smith father of economics".

i will say it again very clearly and save people loads of pages of reading

the current form of capitalism, which is corporatism or corporateacry or corporate fascism..doenst work in the end

real capital and real free enterprise involves the pursuit of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. AS LONG as YOU DONT hurt anyone. this last part has been totally neglected. in fact the opposite happened...we redefined what hurt means even though now today we have unions and kids that don't work in sweat shops. We exported the problems to china or india or tawain.

We brainwash people with 10s of billions per month in fake marketing and advertising from tv to the web. We convince governments to go along with all of this---to the point where most laws or tax changes are written by the corporations..it has even infected basic things like health plans and health care ... to the point where the FDA knows 3-5K per us citizen a day in Vitamin D is fantastic for overall immunity health, but they won't raise up the recommended IU which is currently a PATHETHIC 400-600 IU. 1000% too low. That is like the government telling you to sell Apple stock at 100 right before it blasted to 400.

why is this happening? because billions of dollars a month are made on OTHER vitamins, cold remedies, cough drops,flu medicine, allergy medications, anti biotics, anti virals, tissue paper! and this is just one of 100s of things i have found where outright LYING, Deception, Fraud..is being THROWN onto the American People

wake up folks, please...one you do there is no going back. the infection of lies and deceit is in every industry conspiring against you more than you realize. and this is not real capitalism. real capitalism would have people on TV nightly Screaming about the facts in all of these industries until real change and outrage occurred.

but alas, who controls the media and the programming going on and who are they aligned with. you already know

Originally posted by ollncasino
Socialism as practised in the USSR didn't work very well. Socialism as practised in China worked very badly.

But they didn't practice socialism. You have to stop thinking those countries are socialist because they weren't.

Governments appropriated left wing terms to garner support from the people.

Capitalism as practised in the USA fails to protect the poor and under dogs.

Capitalism anywhere does that, more so in third world countries where there is less regulation to stop them.
Child labour is alive and well in American owned companies in China, India, etc.

I respectfully disagree that socialism has proven itself to be successful.

50% raise in food production is not successful? 20% raise in industrial production is not successful? Re-building the tram system and making it free to ride is not successful? Everyone working with no unemployment or people going without is not successful?

“With every passing day the city increasingly fell under the control of the working class. Public transport functioned, the factories were producing, the stores were open, the supply of necessities was unabated, the telephones worked, the utilities operated as usual, everything was organized and run, to a greater or lesser extent, by the workers themselves. Who was responsible for this? The leading committees of the CNT had not issued any orders of the kind” (Ronald Fraser, Op. Cit., Vol. I, p. 187).

“It was incredible, it was the practical proof of what one knew from theory: the power and the force of the masses when they take to the streets. All their doubts quickly dissipated, doubts about how to go about organizing the working class and the masses, about how they can make the revolution without being organized. Suddenly you feel their creative power. You cannot imagine how quickly the masses are capable of organizing. They invent forms of organization that go far beyond anything you have ever heard about or read in books. What was needed now was to seize the initiative, channel it, give it form” (Ronald Fraser, Op. Cit., Vol. I, p. 188).

“In Catalonia, where I found myself, I saw a war industry created as if by magic . . . . [the proletariat] was ready to perform this miracle, one that peoples enjoying adequate economic means take years to accomplish during peacetime, and it did so, furthermore, without any engineers in the factories, with only two or three engineers on the War Industries Commission, and these factories and workshops, which had been so rapidly and completely transformed, functioned admirably, unexpectedly increasing production rates every day, manufacturing the most complicated industrial products, thanks to the remarkable initiative of the Catalan workers” (Felipe Díaz Sandino, Personal Diary, p. 182).

libcom.org...

Spain before the revolution was a mess, nothing worked, factories were abandoned.

How do you define success?

Originally posted by maestromason
Capitalism works just fine. The only people who have any complaints about it are the non-ambitious. People who do not have a drive to succeed in life.

But if the jobs are not there, it doesn't matter how ambitious you are.

The jobs have gone to China and India. Maybe not your job. Not yet...

reply to post by maestromason


for WHOM does the Grail serve?

its fine to pontificate and dream about becoming rich, creating jobs, etc

but you are an absolute liar if you don't see who corporations are using slave labor overseas at 2 bucks a day...terrible working conditions, to make it possible. usually for stuff that can be made here...and create jobs her if ONLY the corporations would accept less profit margin

but they can't...the LEGAL mandate of a corporation is to maximize profit for shareholders

PERIOD

and that is the ultimate end game here.. you used to have to petition the state for a corporate charter ...and proof you were doing something for social welfare to get that limited liability.

today..any moron can set up a LLC. the whole point being LIMITED liability..or LIMITED responsibility

and hence..we lost our way again...and profit seeking meant a return to the evil aspects of greed at all costs.

again, who does the grail serve nowadays with so many things stacked up against a normal person or small business?

Originally posted by ThirdEyeofHorus
reply to post by ANOK

 

Adam Smith was a socialist...

Oh for crying out loud. Why do you socialist types keep trying to sell the idea that Adam Smith was a socialist, that Milton Friedman was a socialist, that the Founding Fathers were all socialists, and that Jesus was socialist?

Because that is what they've always done.

Free-markets bad...blahh blahh

Libertarians are socialists.....lol

Communism is like anarchism.....lmao

"Actually all of your economic heroes loved socialism."... dribble, dribble....

"I agree with Noam Chomsky, so I am right".... blahh blahhh...

"Right wing radio and fox news are brain washing you..... listen to Left wing talk radio and MSNBC to free your mind."

"Of course you don't agree with me, you are uneducated and mildly retarded, but don't worry, we all know what is best for you."

You know, no one has yet answered my question about "Libertarian Socialism", (which apparently is not a complete oxy-moron according to the geniuses on this thread). Oh I know right, I should read a book or something, preferably something picked out of the Anarcho-socialistic Libertarian Communistic echo-chamber.

Why should the workers own all means of production?

Forty million on food stamps (thats socialism not capitalism) and people still going hungry. Africa gets foreign aid (socialism) and it still goes hungry. So when is socialism planning on fixing this, or do they just not care?

Originally posted by ANOK
But they didn't practice socialism. You have to stop thinking those countries are socialist because they weren't.

What do you mean by socialism?

In the USA, socialism = communism.

In Europe, socialism has a milder meaning.

We appear to be talking at cross purposes.

reply to post by maestromason

That is how the system is set up. You cannot blame Capitalism for millions of people being destitute.

I beg to differ as I do blame capitalism for the millions of people being destitute.

Some people like being poor, some people like living simple and day to day.

Sorry but that is such a crock

Happiness is found from within ones self... not searched for in a materialistic world.

It is very hard to find happiness from with when you are continually interupted by your stomach growling in hunger or you are shivering in the cold whether as you maintain you chose that life or not.

Originally posted by ANOK
Spain before the revolution was a mess, nothing worked, factories were abandoned.

How do you define success?

Pushing changes that led to a civil war that the socialists lost would not be my poster boy of a successful socialist system.

reply to post by colin42


yes, that is why its important that there is a ETHICS involved with capitalism

like the golden rule

and being altruistic

if you know someone starving, why aren't you helping your fellow man?

Originally posted by ollncasino

Google comes up with 2,760,000 entries in response to the search "adam smith father of economics".

So? I could find a bunch of links that says Hitler was a socialist.

But I take it back, he could be the farther of economics, but you failed to reply to rest of my post. He wasn't a capitalist.

"Law and governments may be considered in this and indeed in every case as a combination of the rich to oppress the poor and preserve to themselves the inequality of the goods which would otherwise soon be destroyed by the attacks of the poor, who if not hindered by the government would soon reduce the others to an equality with themselves by open violence." Adam Smith

In the Wealth of Nations he attacks the idea of private property (capitalism). Americans are just confused because you have been taught capitalism means free-markets which it doesn't.

The original definition was from French socialist Louis Blanc, "the appropriation of capital by some to the exclusion of others."

Originally posted by ANOK

Originally posted by dadgad
I am wondering. If the cold war era, since it's clear that the Bolsheviks were financed from Wall Street who continued to supply and fund the Sovjets, gave them the bomb etc. was perhaps a propaganda campaign to destroy true socialism. Spain proved that it could work, the absolute nightmare of any ruling elite. So they stole the socialist identity, turned Russia into the Sovjet Union and led the world believe that that was what socialism entailed

That is exactly what happened.

Spain scared the hell out of the establishment.

Many left wing terms were appropriated, or demonized, by the state in order to confuse, or gain support from the people.

Libertarian is a good example of that in more modern times...

As is well known, anarchists use the terms “libertarian”, “libertarian socialist” and “libertarian communist” as equivalent to “anarchist” and, similarly, “libertarian socialism” or “libertarian communism” as an alternative for “anarchism.” This is perfectly understandable, as the anarchist goal is freedom, liberty, and the ending of all hierarchical and authoritarian institutions and social relations.

150 years of Libertarian

lol

The Ron Paulies should read that!

It is very clear now to me that (true) socialism is the absolute nightmare of any ruling elite, and that it has worked and therefor can work. Isn't it amazing how the propaganda has convinced the world of the opposite. Namely that our (we the workers,the people) greatest friend is capitalism (our real enemy) and that socialism (our friend) is our enemy.

My god. I have to applaud these people for their cunningness.

Originally posted by filosophia
Forty million on food stamps (thats socialism not capitalism) and people still going hungry. Africa gets foreign aid (socialism) and it still goes hungry. So when is socialism planning on fixing this, or do they just not care?

Excellent point. Jesus said that the poor we will always have with us...guess he was right...

Originally posted by colin42
reply to post by maestromason

 

Wow how many times do you talk about self and never once mention the society you live in.

It is undeniable that some are more driven and that they should prosper from hard work but not at the cost to everyone else.

Can you tell me how a master plasterer or master bricklayer can ply his trade without a labourer?

Do you believe that the hard working miners, steel workers and dock workers had any say when due to a political ideal they were made unemployed? Do you believe as your post suggests that everyone on the dole is there by choice?

It seems to me you need to look over the horizon as you are not the centre of everything.

I do not have any laborers in my family. My mom is an Accountant, My Father is an Engineer, My Brother is a Investment Banker, Uncles are Lawyers, Aunts are Nurses and Psychologist, Grandfather is a Physician(GP), Grandmother(full time wife), My cousins are all professionals either doctors, engineers, nurses, architects, surgeons, Phd's, Collegiate Professors, Masters, business-owners.

No I do not believe that ANYONE would have any say in becoming involuntarily unemployed regardless of whether they are laborers or white-collared or Professionals. These are the ways of the world and I was taught to cope and to adapt as any intelligent species would do with an ever changing environment. If the government teat is all you want out of life then fine so be it, just make sure that YOU DO NOT COMPLAIN AND B!t@# ABOUT IT!

Happiness is a subjective emotion of the human species and I would suggest to whomever finds it in WHATEVER that they hang on to it for it is just as valuable and precious as life itself.

Originally posted by filosophia
Forty million on food stamps (thats socialism not capitalism)

It the result of capitalism. There would no need for food stamps if the workers own the means of production.

and people still going hungry. Africa gets foreign aid (socialism) and it still goes hungry. So when is socialism planning on fixing this, or do they just not care?

Foreign aid is not socialism.

Socialism is the workers ownership and control of the means of production. If those foreign countries were truly socialist they wouldn't need aid from anyone, they could simply produce what they needed.

People go hungry because of the artificial scarcity of resources.

Technological capacity to produce enough to satisfy everyone's needs already exists globally and has done so for many decades. Yet needs continue to remain unmet on a massive scale. Why? Quite simply because scarcity is a functional requirement of capitalism itself.

www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1990s/1998/no-1124-april-1998/artificial-scarcity

Star and Flag. I agree

reply to post by SuperTripps
I spend every day, every week working within my union to ensure those that I can help do not get the bums rush. That they are treated with repsect and that they get a fair wage for the work that they do.

I support my union that tries to address this where I cannot and opose would not hesitate to opose it if it strayed from that path. Before you ask I am unpaid, I am part of the workforce.

Guess who I have to fight everyday to achieve this? The same company that announces record profits every year even in a downturn and the same company that see's outsourcing as good working practice and to hell with those that played a part in the companies success.

reply to post by ANOK


I think your a bit confused, if you can produce what you need that is capitalism. We dont live in true capitalism so its wrong to blame capitalism for social problems.