| Critiques of Capitalism was specifically mentioned, Marx is pretty much the most influential one. Capitalism has brought a huge population of the world out of poverty in the last century. Wars over resources isn't capitalism, most starvation last century was caused by communism. Lack of medical care, I have no idea what this has to do with free trade and property rights. On the subject of healthcare, I live in the UK and the NHS fails to deliver adequate care and constantly doesn't meet targets, even though there is an ever increasing amount of tax payers money invested in it. So social healthcare doesn't work and the NHS is probably one of the better examples in the world. Capitalism is just the results of free trade and property rights. > And.. the citizens end up trading one master (capitalist) for another (communist overseer). What are you talking about? If you live in a capitalist system in the west you have individual rights and property rights. Nobody is your master, anyone can start their own business and be their own boss. If you wanna work for a large megacorp so be it. Not for me, I started my own small IT business. I make enough monthly to pay myself a decent pension (funded by myself), my own healthcare and buy myself property next year (just a regular house nothing fancy but it is mine, I won't be renting anymore if all goes well). > The rest of this "Crony" vs Corporate" seems like a word definition war. How about some good definitions before we move on I have given the correct definitions and have linked or quoted them in my replies. You can look them up, I have used the common definitions. Our other friend I have no idea what definitions he was using. |
Again, one can critique a system (Capitalism) without forwarding some other system (Communism).
> Capitalism has brought a huge population of the world out of poverty in the last century.
And we can't even AB test this. We don't know how it would have fared with strong constitutional monarchies, or more democracy, or what-have-you.
This statement is a tautology. It sounds good to capitalists, but is effectively unprovable against other systems we have.
> Wars over resources isn't capitalism, most starvation last century was caused by communism. Lack of medical care, I have no idea what this has to do with free trade and property rights. On the subject of healthcare, I live in the UK and the NHS fails to deliver adequate care and constantly doesn't meet targets, even though there is an ever increasing amount of tax payers money invested in it. So social healthcare doesn't work and the NHS is probably one of the better examples in the world.
Again, when capitalists compare deaths, its deflected and obfuscated with other justifications that it isn't indeed capitalism that causes it. But as you ask, what does this have to do with "free trade and property rights"? Its because free trade and property rights are the initial conditions. Yet when we look at first and second derivatives of where those rules lead, it leads to the abuses and horrific uses of power. Communists have no corner on violence, btw. The US military was moved in multiple times to bust up worker protests and strikes... And they usually killed quite a few people. Again, 2nd derivative action.
And about NHS, "So social healthcare doesn't work and the NHS is probably one of the better examples in the world." Let me get this straight - -because 1 system has "failed" (your definition of failure, undefined), that NO social healthcare can work? Pretty sure there's a problem with that logic.
> Capitalism is just the results of free trade and property rights.
As initial conditions, sure. I'm talking about how those base rules expand and lead to logical rules from them. You've seen Conway's Game of Life? They are simple rules as well, but contain all sorts of emergent behavior. I'm only saying that the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and further derived rules of capitalism are not healthy and good for society.
I'm not positing communism. If anything, I would put forth worker cooperatives as a possible interim solution. That would change the dynamic of work from a dictatorship to that of democracy. Democracies aren't always better, but dictatorships are usually regarded as terrible things.
> If you wanna work for a large megacorp so be it. Not for me, I started my own small IT business. I make enough monthly to pay myself a decent pension (funded by myself), my own healthcare and buy myself property next year (just a regular house nothing fancy but it is mine, I won't be renting anymore if all goes well).
Maybe we aren't clear. When I talk about capitalists, I'm not taking of an IT worker, retail worker, or even a middle manager. I'm talking of the people/organizations that own the bulk of property and/or own most the money or resources. I'm talking "banking crisis, 2008" type of people/orgs. Those are the capitalists.
In the end, you may do better or worse than other IT workers. I hope you do well. But, the ugly truth is that you are (in the UK) fighting against others in your same boat, for the few scraps. And that fighting is what fractures us. We see the same with Uber (cab), that pits driver against driver, for the same few scraps.