Honest Question Re: Blaming Capitalism

Very astute--I completely agree. That is the beauty of capitalism--it lets the customers choose.
And I for one wish customers would begin shopping closer to home.

Originally posted by icmom
Yet people whine about all the crap these big uncaring corporations do and conitnue to do business with them and continue to whine. Why?

Because many of these big corporations are so good at hiding where they get their labour and materials from that a great deal of the time you might not even realize your supporting them by buying their products. Take for example here in Australia we have a certified stamp for products that says ''Made in Australia'' and has a kangaroo outline below it. that tells you it was manufactured here. what is doesnt tell you is where the materials came to make it, and maybe it was assesmbled here but not really made here. I bought a baby crib when my son was born, now it was made from Australian Queensland pine, but it was harvested, sent to china on ship, them used to make a crib, them sent back for me to buy again here in Australia. It must have been cheaper to buy the timber, send it for processing in china and send it back than it was to build it here, otherwise you would assume they would build it here if it was cheaper that way. Corportations have gotten so good at slieght of hand that they can sell you things you dont really want to buy undetected at times, and it can also be so difficult to establish the origin of something that you cant always get what you want but you can get something like it from somewhere else.

reply to post by DarthMuerte


I do not shop at Walmart. I choose my local family owned True Value instead of Lowe's or Home Depot (for most stuff). I don't buy gas at Shell as they are owned by the Saudi family and Iran.
That said, it's hard to economically effect these large corporations as they spread themselves out, taking a piece here and there.

An Anarchist critique of Capitalism (and the State)

www.infoshop.org...

What are the myths of Capitalist economics?

On one level, you are completely correct. "if" people would realize that they hold the power, they could change the system overnight. The problem is awakening a sufficient mass and getting them to take action. It is for this very reason, the elites are working feverishly to take control of the internet, in order to stop such a thing from occurring.

On a deeper level, what is this capitalism that you speak of? "Capitalism" a place where competitors and customers meet in a free market to enter into a voluntary exchange has not existed in a hundred years in the west. Since the creation of the FED, yes I going there, the "free market" was slowly but surely been turned into a rigged market. Large corporations working hand in hand with ever expanding government central planners, with the FED as middle men and the financiers, have replaced the free market with a designed and moderated market. Interest rates went from market based, to being controlled to meet planned targets. Want to juice stock sales, drop the rates. want to lower inflation, raise them. And the elites and their cronies using in the know info are always one step ahead of the crowd. No matter which way the economy goes, they make money and the people get fleeced. Which is why the gulf between rich and poor is getting out of control.

What of competition? While few would argue that polluted rivers, or incompetent professionals should be allowed, the rules governing these things are always written to favor the staus quo and the organized special interests. In this way compitition is sqeezed out, and barriers to entry are raised. What you end up with are government endorsed cartels and monopolies. Look at the ongoing fight on GMO, organics, and raw milk. Government agencies staffed with ex-corporate officials, writting and regulating the companies they worked for, marginalizing and destroying alternatives to the establishment, and when their tenure in gov ends, back to their same corporations that spawned them. The examples go on and on. Capitalism is customers getting free choice from among competitors. Competition has been artificially reduced, often by government policy and regulation, and merger and acquisition. Customers no longer have open choices, but instead are increasingly at the mercy of cartels. The effect is increasing be it choice of food, or choice of news. The store shelves, TV channels, the car lots, the political banners, appear to be filled with choices, but strip away the logos and the campaign slogans, and often you find all are run by just a small handful.

And what happened to a customers voluntary participation? What if I want a big soda? What if I don't want health insurance? What if I don't want ethonol ruining my engine? What if I think vaccines are bad? What if I want to smoke that? What if I don't want to eat GMOs? What if I don't want my children molested in order to travel? Now you have government edicts controlling your participation. Forcing you into markets you don't want, and excluding you from those you do want? Hiding critical decision making information, using coercion. Is that capitalism?

None of this is capitalism. This is fascism.

I think you are getting the replies you are getting because people see negative things that you
do not seem to recognize. There is a point where business can impact people and society negatively,
it IS possible and it does occur. Slavery was a business, poisoning mankind and the Earth with pesticides
is yet another business. Yet you seem to think that I can stop Monsanto or any other insane business
venture with my patronage, that is unreasonable of you to believe. Same thing applies to banks and
other mega corporations that destroy HARD working small businesses.

Walmart often times runs ALL the small business out of an area because they provide the same things at
a lower cost. You pretend to yourself that there is an option... but often times that option is unrealistic
or moot.

Capitalism is where the big dogs survive and the small dogs get eaten by the big dogs.

You will never see a small business having a good profit so that it can invest in itself only to a small extent unlike corporations that have unimaginable profit and just too much money that they could spend.

Capitalism is an economic system based on infinite growth within a finite world. You don't have to be a rocket scientist (in fact, you need to be anything but a rocket scientist) to figure out that the entire system, by its very nature is unsustainable and doomed to fail. All this debate regarding the merits of capitalism and who or who is not to blame for its immediate successes and failures is largely pointless--the system cannot last indefinitely, whether the people choose to continue propping it up or not.