Topic awaiting preservation: Pro-Democracy / Anti-Capitalism (Page 1 of 1)

I am pro-democracy but I have been becoming anti-capitalistic more and more recently.

I keep seeing the a huge struggle between the capitalists and the normal person. There is a huge divide, that attempts to be blotted out with the idea that anyone can make it big in a capitalistic society. I do not believe that I or anyone I know will ever make it big, I believe that me and all those around me will be further subjugated by those with the wealth.

I am all for a situation where my vote can count more than a company which invests millions of dollars in legislation.

I really want democracy but do not think that it can exist side by side with capitalism.

Does anyone have an information to support or to deny these ideas? Will capitalism ever help us to realize a utopia, or are we just pushing ourselfs back towards an aristocrac society, and huge robber barons, who hide behind a corporate logo?

Dan @ Code Town

Only thing I know, without capitalism we will have no jobs and there would be no tax base for government to abuse.

The socialist dream of government providing everything us completely unrealistic. Where woud the money come from?

BTW, the big companies against which your rail are made up of investors-large and small.

"All religions are equally sublime to the ignorant, useful to the politician, and ridiculous to the philosopher." -- Lucretius, Roman Poet (94 - 55 BCE)

(Edited by Ehtheist on 04-20-2005 16:52)

I guess its a matter on what you consider "making it big" means. I doubt you or I will ever be billionaires but I think here in the United States we're in a situation where anyone can make a comfortable life for themselves. A $150,000 a year job is well within the reach of anyone and all that's required is a little motivation.

Influence by the powerful is just the way things work. I don't think it makes any difference which political or economic system we have. There's always going to be a small group of people who are more influential then others who are able to get away with things.

Warmage - I think the big question is -

What would you have in it's place?

Capitolism is not about corporate power. That is certainly something that we see, but that is not what it means.

Capitolism means that we have the freedom to own our property, to make our money, and to do with it what we will. I don't see that any other system is compatible with what we look toward for personal freedom.

Human corruption and greed will be present no matter what form our government takes. And you can't have our money strictly controlled without giving that control to our government. It's not possible to go that route without the total destruction of personal freedom.

So what would propose we do?

When the Berlin wall came down 'someone' can't remember who but recently heard it repeated... said, paraphrase here. '...Well democracy has taken care of communism... next.. it will take care of capitalism.'

I have no problem with anyone making money... and a lot of it. That said, there is however something drastically wrong when the off-spring of Sam Walton (5 of them I think) EACH pocket two billion dollars the result of the last round of bush tax cuts. I have a huge problem with that. I have a huge problem with the whole walmart business model. This not capitalism at work.. don't know what you call but it's something else altogether

I live in a town of 10k and we try our best to buy local but yes, we do at times hit Wmart. Why? To 'stretch' our dollars...which is not the same as 'saving' money. But everytime we buy there I get right pissed off because all we're doing is contributing to the demise of not only 'small business' but many substantial manufacturers.

The Wmart model is quite simple. If you have a product you want Wmalt to carry and you make that product in your town..employing locals... Wmart says... nice product but you'll have to make it in China where we have everything in place and ready to go. So much for your local jobs.

This 'out-sourcing' 'global economy' etc... I see as the initial stages of Capitalisms last gasp if you will. Oh it's going to be a loooong gasp for sure but it's definetly sucking wind. Will it vanish completely? No, and I certainly hope it does not but... the disparity between the haves and have nots will at some point be addressed likely via a revolution of some description. Bloodless, hopefully. And none of us here will likely be around when it happens.

If you don't know the history of 'corporations' the link is a pretty decent time line of just how we got here. I doubt you will look at 'person' in the same light again. =)

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thanks to misleading notes of a clerk, the decision subsequently was used as precedent to hold that a corporation was a "natural person."

From that point on, the 14th Amendment, enacted to protect rights of freed slaves, was used routinely to grant corporations constitutional ?personhood.?

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http://www.reclaimdemocracy.org/corporate_accountability/history_corporations_us.html

^ some good points No Jive

2 important things there

1) as you said, the problems that we are seeing are things that are not capitolism at work, they are the undermining of the capitolist system.

2) as for the overseas sourcing, it is a problem we have created ourselves.

The more we push for higher wages, the stronger the unions get, the more we demand better lifestyles, the harder it is for any company here to produce anything affordable.

Our demands, as consumers and workers, for higher wages and cheaper prices is what has drvien this overwhelming level of overseas purchasing.

We've simply outsourced our lower class...



(Edited by DL-44 on 04-20-2005 19:24)

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WarMage said:

Will capitalism ever help us to realize a utopia...

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Absolutely not.

There is nothing that will help us to realize a utopia. In fact, I would warn very strongly against this being a goal at all. I believe utopianism inevitably leads to totalitarianism, oppresion of the individual and human suffering. I cite the former Soviet Union, the Kmer Rouge and Nazi Germany as evidence of this. Each of those regimes were highly motivated by an ideal that sought utopian results.

I believe the best we can hope to achieve in this world, ever, is a balance of power built into whatever form of government we adopt. This means that we must accept that this world will always be frought with imperfection and we can only mitigate that condition, not eliminate it.

: . . DHTML Slice Puzzle : . . .

My idea of utopia is less perfect, and more everyone has equal rights.

So is it common knowledge that the system is broken? I think it is really broken. If we know that then we can work to fix it.

Jive, you link is great, and I think that were we to revert back to the system adopted when our nation was created we would be doing a lot better.

My main ideas are:

1) Increase democracy.
2) Decrease corporate power to nothing.

There are many things that need to be addressed.

Financy reform. We should not allow for any campaign financy. We should have a system of government dissemination of candidate information. Through sucessive rounds we weed out only the canidated that recieve a good deal of votes. As the numbers dwindle there can be more information released about candidates, then government sponsored debates, etc, etc.

Instand runnoff voting.

Tax reform. Make a flat income tax, and do not tax anything else.

Prison reform, deterents only work so far. Our efforts should be nearly 100% towards rehabilitation. People do not belong in cages. If they have to be removed from society do so, but it should be the exception not the rule.

Rewrite the laws, and rework the legal system. It is currently broken. We need simplification, and we need and end to frivilous suits. A system that pits one team agains another, reguardless of the merits of a case is just foolish. The defense and procecution should be forced to work together. The defense and procecution of life and liberties is not something that should be fought on a polarized battle field.

There are so many more areas, but they all come down to:

1) Increased rights for all people without discrimination
2) A government that serves only its people, and no other organizations

So, I guess capitalism stays, but it just needs to be fixed so that it works for the people and never against them. But I still feel we need more democracy, and by that more accountablity to the people, without the ability to corrupt it.

Dan @ Code Town

capitalism is stupid

democracy is okay sometimes

supreme dictatorships own

You want to increase democracy to gain more rights?
Im sorry, but when a majority win on every issue, no one has any rights. We need to protect all individual rights, regardless of what the masses want, less democracy more freedom.

I'd say that currently the government is far more abusive than the large corporations. We need to stop worrying about taking down the man, and start worrying about how much power we've given the government. This is the people's problem, we've let it get to this, we have to stop it. No more asking the government to crack down on businesses, that's not the governments job.

By a large margin, the biggest problem with our current economic structure is how much money the government has to spend. Where did they get this money, and all this control? When this system was started, the people expected checks and ballances on the governments power. The government was not supposed to be allowed to take money to fund a program in location A, or to build a building in location B, the government changed the rules for the purpose of gaining votes.

"We'll subsidize that program for you, as long as you vote for us..."
"Don't worry about it. The people of the United States of America will pick up the tab."

A fair society was not the goal of my country, or of your contry. We strove to be a society where people were free of the rule of Kings and tyrants, we lived for ourselves, for our families, for our friends, not to serve some bullshit nationalistic purpose. We wanted to be free. The businesses didn't take this away from us, it was the governments (on both ends of the political spectrum) that put themselves above the people.

Business contribute as much good to society (well paying jobs, as well as social contributions) as they contribute bad. It's the government that treats people as a source of income, instead of the rightful decision makers in the country that they are.

As far as outsourcing goes. Too bad. If someone else can do your job either better or cheaper, perhaps you're more suited for a different position. Some of those people in India like to eat too.

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Dan said:

A fair society was not the goal of my country, or of your contry. We strove to be a society where people were free of the rule of Kings and tyrants, we lived for ourselves, for our families, for our friends, not to serve some bullshit nationalistic purpose. We wanted to be free. The businesses didn't take this away from us, it was the governments (on both ends of the political spectrum) that put themselves above the people.

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I could not have said it better in a million years. The point that our freedom should be protected from the abuses of government and/or the majority is crucial.

: . . DHTML Slice Puzzle : . . .

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WarMageI am pro-democracy but I have been becoming anti-capitalistic more and more recently.

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All depends on which type of "democracy" you support first off. If you are going by the 1913 definition:

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Government by popular representation; a form of government in which the supreme power is retained by the people, but is indirectly exercised through a system of representation and delegated authority periodically renewed; a constitutional representative government; a republic.
[1913 Webster]

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I am with you all the way. Modern "Democracy" on the other hand, as we allegedly have in the US is a very distorted and corrupt version of this form of government, where money rules, circumvents, manipulates and creates law, and corporatist tyranny is not too far away.

As far as the anti-capitalism, in its current form, I have to disagree. I think the main important thing to realize, and as has been mentioned above, is that the current system we have is not free market capitalism, but a largely distorted version thereof. When your government is bought and paid for by the corporations, both "democracy" and capitalism, along with the personal freedoms guaranteed us, cease to exist IMO.

I personally believe free-market capitalism, theorietically, is the best way to guarantee the common people freedom. What went wrong, and seemingly is repreated all throughout history, is that the people became content, fat, and stupid and let the unscrupulous bastards of the world take over.

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WarMage: I believe that me and all those around me will be further subjugated by those with the wealth.

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I agree, but I would add it is not so much as those with the wealth, but those with wealth who use that wealth to manipulate the system. An increasingly common practce for sure. Wealth in itself is not a crime, it is how you use the wealth.

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WarMage: Will capitalism ever help us to realize a utopia

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Only if we can eradicate greed and corruption from the human makeup...good luck there.

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Ehtheist: BTW, the big companies against which your rail are made up of investors-large and small.

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Do some research into the percentage of the stock market which is owned by the stock market. These big, multi-national companies and the elites who rule them are becoming as powerful as small nations, and that is a very dangerous prospect. They are selling out us serfs for profit and the bottom line.

I fully agree that Socialism is not right. When you get right down to it, it's theft. It doesn't matter that the government plays the middle man and does the stealing for you, it is still theft. We are guaranteed to be secure in our property by Constitutional law, and to deprive the citizens of their property is unconstitutional and leads to slavery.

So where do we go? What next? Well first, I think we need to abolish the federal reserve, go back to a gold standard upon which are money is backed by worth, put a damper on the banks, deflate the dollar, pay off the debt, and then repeal the 16th Amdendment and parts of the 14th, in that order. Then we need take back our media from corporate interests so the people get the truth, limit the reach of presidential Executive Orders, change our foreign policy, dismantle the military-industrial complex, write a constitutional amendment considting of about 50 sentences, each starting with the words "government shall never", stop "privatization" schemes, etc etc etc etc. That is a rough outline, undoing the legislation which has haunted us for nearly a century. Lot of work to be done.

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Jestah: A $150,000 a year job is well within the reach of anyone and all that's required is a little motivation.

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Certainly, to an extent I agree, although those opportunities are disappearing quite fast. We are exporting our jobs on a large scale and future prospects look grim. For instance, China and India are negotiating at this very moment in a sort of partnership where China would handle IT hardware and India would do software. Goodbye to all the well-paying American IT jobs. As DL said, we created the problem ourselves, but we can also uncreate it.

GM, our largest automobile manufacturer just posted huge losses, and reports a few week ago had some analysts calling their bonds junk. We are to have Chinese cars on our roads in the not so distant future, sure to be cheaper without all the regulation and unionized workforces.

The dollar continues it decline in value, many countries which bought the dollar are now switching, fully or partially, to the gold backed Euro.

All goes hand in hand though. Our money is currently primarily backed by the blood & sweat of hard working Americans, remove the oppotunity to bleed and sweat and that money becomes worthless.

What happens when a country, over an extended period of time through the overuse of credit, consumes more than it produces? Eventually you will have a crash, as many economistas and market analysts are now predicting. The middle-class disappears, and all you have is rich and poor, the rulers and the slaves.

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Jestah: Influence by the powerful is just the way things work.

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Does not mean we give up, almost sounds like you are conceding defeat.

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NoJive: I have a huge problem with the whole walmart business model.

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You and me both. On the Walton family, five of them fall into the 15 richest people in the world (#10-#14) with approximately $20 billion each.

In the end, we the people are at fault the most. The people can still take it all back, preferebly the same way it was taken from us, with little bloodshed, but first they need to be awoken from their slumber.

Edit, excellent post Dan.

Ramasax

(Edited by Ramasax on 04-21-2005 01:06)