Is capitilism dead?

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At least in the US, I believe we are in a vicious cycle politically. Once people realize that it is a duty to serve as a member of congress, not a career, and impose some term limitations, things will start to work out better. Our politicians have been fighting the good fight so long that they often are disconnected and can not see over the weeds more times than not. Political power is the end all, and the ends justify the means in many cases. To me, this is the attitude that is rampant in DC and screwing up our country, not corporations.

The world is unjust. Even in the fictional world of Star Trek where poverty and hunger was eliminated and there was no longer a need for money, there were still injustices. Why on earth with that kind of society would they need a spaceship with weapons then?

Capitalism will never die, just as socialism will never die. They're just respective sides of a spectrum with no discrete points.

I've seen the doc about Argentina factories being retaken (The doc is called "The Take", it's nothing too fancy) , it was pretty incredible, but i doubt it'll ever happen in the US. <.< Or that it would end peacefully.

Oh btw, i loved Rawls. He had some pretty good ideas o.O

And about the patents, i think the americans have somewhat twisted the definition of it, in the past it used to be for an "invention", something you had came up with from close to nothing. The new patents i've seen look more like "discoveries" than "inventions" (such as the human genome <.<, or any DNA code related to a molecule that you then freely modify and spread out everywhere so it contaminates the local breed and allows you to force foreigners to pay dues because they are unwillingly cultivating something that they never wanted, which is how Monsanto operates btw ^^ )

Then immediately revision your opinion of any of the twentith century being "capitalist" at all. Reagan imposed quotas on Japanese Car Imports, foreign steel, and bailed out the S&L industry. All HUGE Government programs that interfered with the economy. So Reagan was a pretty big statist too, therefore I guess he was also anti-capitalist.

Dwight Einseinhower socialistically expanded New Deal projects and built the inter-state highway system.

American has a domestic steel industry due to high tarrifs imposed on British Steel in the nineteenth century. Without this, the entire steel industry would be dominated by the British.

Bush Jr., of course, bailed out failing firms.

The list of examples could go on.



Obama's plan is hardly at the radical end of wealth redistribution. His plans will still be lightyears away from anything Olof Palme did in Sweden. If anything, we're likely to see a repeat of the Clinton years, with a bit more ambition into doling out money, seeing how times have changed and his paymasters need a bailout. All profit made with government bailout money will remain privatized, of course.



I'll agree that blindly throwing money at failing financial firms, like Bush-Paulson and Obama-Geithner did, is a bad answer. If we're going to be subsidizng failure, the failed instititions have to be reformed. They have to respond to stakeholder requests as well as shareholder requests. Community groups and affected policy should know and have input in these bailed out firms.

Out of curiousity, why is so little of your attention drawn to what an enormous sponge a defence budget in the hundreds of billions is having on your economy? Attacking federal social welfare programs with a scapel or a hatchet won't have nearly as much affected as in halving the military buget.

can i offer a possible distinction between state-capitalist and statist here?

state-capitalist = market type economy run in certain sectors by public bodies (nationalised railways, banks, factories etc), possible example being soviet russia of 1920's during NEP maybe or national railways or utilities in UK before privatisation under Thatcher.

statist = Italy under Mussolini, public money used to 'shore up' or 'protect' capital investments made into economy without taking a stake/share, to hold up an otherwise collapsing inustry, which arguably should be allowed to collapse in order to allow competitors to take up their market share (because they are more efficient/better run/better quality goods etc) - the business continues to be owned and run as a private body/organisation, however, the burden of investment risk is shifted onto the taxpayer. This is not socialist whatsoever.

This would make Obama (and Gordon Brown) statist.

Don't know about capitalism dying (certainly unlikely to do so of its own accord), we'll probably see a protracted and severe restructuring of the world and national economies with a continuing shift towards China in terms of economic strength. Before the A-bomb there would probably be a big old scrap over market share etc, arguably the only positive of massive nuclear arsenals being that direct uni- or multilateral military confrontations are far less likely. The problem of this is, like during the Cold War, they fight by proxy instead.

I thought capitalism was still mainstream in the world.

Mixed economies are mainstream in the industrialized world. Real Capitalism never quite existed anywhere. However trading stuff predates the agricultural revolution (10,000 ybp). Trading stuff and stories is one of our species survival strategies. This is probably why we outlasted the Neanderthals. Homo sap. is a born story teller and blabbermouth.

ruveyn

A system of state capitalism. Pure or laissez faire capitalism only exists in some Third World Nations.

Perhaps not so much in the financial industry (excluding Reagan's S&L bailout), but has the US not been rather state capitalist or "statist" since the fifties? Private investment or rather the raw R&D for industry and businesspeople has been conducted by the government (via military R&D).

No. No. No. In order for Capitalism to exist there have to be property rights. Where are such rights in third world countries like Haiti or Somalia? You are confusing economic anarchy with capitalism. That is not correct.

ruveyn

I dont think there is a rule book for capitalism it seemed to grow organically from coincidences in history like the dutch mastery of finance the glorious revolution then the industrial revolution.Perhaps its not dead because it never really existed and now we need to find out if it could exist without credit.Marx said it was against human nature perhaps he was right how can any system with such disparity be moral.

I had it sort of the other way, that is public funds are used to finance military and civilian projects (through Pentagon as you suggest but also through private bodies - MIT etc) the rights to which are bought by private finance (Bill Gates with the development of computers etc) That is public funds are invested into projects that may not work, thereby taking the risk that private investment doesn't have to, until private groups buy up the rights to develop new finds into a viable business venture, making such activity statist.

Also, I've seen it argued that the US has been statist since FDR.

@ Philosopher

I would be extremely cautious about using the terms 'organic' 'natural' etc. This is often ideology at its purest. Let's not forget the times civil wars/revolutions have been fought to defend the economic interests of a given group - English Civil War, American War of independence, US civil war etc. These certainly aren't coincidences or random events coming together but the actions of people as a part of history.

No disrespect Philosopher but I find it amazing that it could even be suggested that capitalism may never have existed, this point would be both difficult to argue and easily refuted.

I think the answer to 'can capitalism exist without credit?' is categorically no. Try to buy a house without credit and you won't get very far (as ruyven suggests, private property is one of the pillars of capitalism). If instead you mean by credit the practices of financial institutions in the last ten-twenty years then i very much doubt it, the US and UK would certainly not have maintained the kind of economic growth witnessed in the recent epoch if any growth whatsoever. And on morality...well depends on your idea of morality I suppose, or lack thereof.

Trying to create an narrative is always lame but leads to the question can we change the world in my opinion speaking for humanity is better we are not doomed to self destruct we are destined to be free