I AM A CAPITALIST: Your Problem With That Is?

Seriously. I own a business. I put people to work. I take care of my family.

So those of you who criticize capitalism: What's your problem with me?

 

I own a business too. I put people to work too. I pay the bills too. I pay my taxes and I also support the United States Postal Service. IMO, capitalism isn't failing the people of this once proud nation... People are failing capitalism. No one wants to work. Any man that steps up in hard times and does what he needs to do to suppose him and his family, I have respect for. People need to wake up and realize the benefits of working and making their own money, but how can they when the government makes it so easy to get "benefits". Heck, the state of California calls its food stamps "California Advantage".

I'll end this with my favorite quote of all time by we all know who; "Ask NOT what your country can do for you, but what YOU can do for your country".

 

Is your interpretation of capitalism, necessarily different than geoism? If not, then fine, if so, then I disagree with your ideology.

 

Well i don't think that taxes based on land alone, will pay the bills, if that's what you mean.

 

Why would one bother with 'having a problem with capitalists?'. Leave that to the church and the morality crusaders. I don't give a rat's arse what people do. However, capitalism is inherently inefficient, unstable and based on coercive relations. That just isn't cricket!

 

It isn't worth your time to have a problem with capitalism, then you list your problems? ROTFL. I wonder how many hours you are going to spend on a post you could give a rat's arse about....

To remove the extraneous statements, your answer is:

Capitalism is inherently inefficient, unstable and based on coercive relations. That just isn't cricket!

Obviously, you think it is more efficient to let government run business. That worked out real well for UK in the late 70's. I don't think "efficient" means what you think it does.

 

You seem to be confusing capitalism with socialism.

 

Did it ever occur to you that it is your employees who help make profit for you, do all the hard works for you so you can take good care of your family?

I don't have problem with capitialism, but I don't like capitialists mentality.

 

Did it ever also occur to you that those employees support their families from jobs created by buisness owners ? If all the buisness owners vanished tomarrow, how would the masses support themselves ?

 

(*)(*)(*)(*) straight I have a problem with capitalists. Capitalists want to strip me of my individuality and turn me into another obedient, soul-dead conformist member of the American consumer culture. Capitalists want to break my spirit and bend me to the will of my corporate masters. Well I won't take it and it is my life mission to fight against your impositions on my freedom.

 

Capitalism (in the economic sense) is merely the philosophy behind a system which favours the private ownership of the means of production. In itself it is value-neutral, and as the system which succeeded feudalism, it may be considered an improvement in generating a degree of social equality.

Capitalism may also be considered a selfish, but natural, part of the animal state (humans are animals) inasmuch as it gives the opportunity to gather, and hoard, resources. All animals need to assure themselves of resources sufficient to ensure the survival and propagation of the species. Thus far, only the human animal seems to have taken that natural urge to the extremes we see today, and have seen over the course of millenia. The accumulation of excess resources would not be a problem, were that not habitually accompanied by, and resulting in, the lack of necessary resources for other beings. At this point, the value-neutral status of capitalism changes to become an undesirable attribute, from the point of view of the collective (known as society).

The concept of working hard to provide for one's family has almost nothing to do with the concept of capitalism, and is certainly not something which warrants criticism. Such labour is both possible, and necessary, under all economic and political systems. Services need to be provided, and goods need to be manufactured, whether the society is under capitalist or socialist governance.

The extremes of capitalist exploitation (and dictatorship), and of socialist central-planning extremes (and dictatorship), are both to be avoided. A truly democratic form of governance, which in addition to democracy, offers a high level of social justice, is the best inoculation against either extreme.

So I have no problem with anyone being a capitalist as understood in the terms of possessing capital, and using that to generate further income. I have major problems with any society which considers it just and fair that there be billionaires, and desperately poor and homeless people, whom the general populace regards as lazy and deserving of their situation. This is a situation which may be resolved by civic means and taxation, and what the essentially greedy regard as redistribution of wealth, should be more correctly termed the alleviation of suffering.

 

My problem with you is that your ultimate ambition is to own the entire world and everything in it, including me.

I just can't let that happen (even if you do "put people to work and take care of your family," as if such rudimentary undertakings somehow make you a morally superior human being, or even apologizes for your smug, self-indulgent, philistine philosophy of life.

 

Did it ever occur to you that I work harder than any of them? That I work hard so they can make a living?
How about this one. Did it ever occur to you that I really, really appreciate my employees? That lots of employers treat their employees like family?
nah. Sounds like you're too busy assuming all capitalists have a certain "mentality" that you don't like.

 

I think the left should show more consideration towards small business owners.

 

Nope. Take capitalism's tendency towards market concentration, creating numerous economic rents. The same incentives do not exist in market socialism

 

Yet in actual practice, socialism has proved to be "inefficient, unstable and based on coercive relations." Nations that have tried it ended up producing less than their people need to survive while capitalist nations tend to produce a surplus. The governments of these nations had to keep making adjustments to production, but their inability to understand the interrelationships of thousands of industries made for big swings and production of items that aren't needed or wanted. Worst of all, in most nations that have tried socialism, citizens had to be forced into labor. Even without that, the government forces each industry to produce exactly what the government dictates and to the level that the government dictates - pure coercion.

So, in practice socialism is "inefficient, unstable and based on coercive relations."

 

But it hasn't. You're probably confused by those that have used the tag inappropriately (such as the state capitalist nations). Market socialism would certainly be more stable as the nature of firm organisation changes radically (ensuring, as I said, a reduced tendency towards market concentration and the problems that a monopoly sector creates).

 

I think one of the biggest problems with capitalism, and certainly the most morally unjust, are land rents. Market socialism does not necessarily do anything to change this. I would hope that it is these economic rents that are taxed, not the hard work of skilled professionals.

 

Its a minor issue completely dwarfed by the issues associated with work.

 

Are you sure?

How much is collected in rents and interest paid on mortgages? Multiply by a rough average of the ratio of the value of land itself to the value of the total real estate (land + house), then compare to the peoples earned income.

 

Market concentration and economic rents are worse when government limits competition. Socialism is the ultimate limit of competition as demonstrated by pre-Thatcher England.

 

There's no simple relationship between government and economic rents. For example, we can refer to economic development and how government intervention has been key for the development of industry (and the eventual reduction of monopoly power within an international trade context)

Pre-Thatcher Britain was liberal democratic. You continue to say very silly things

 

No problem with you. The problem is, capitalism induces greed and is apposed to God. But that's YOUR problem.

 

I don't care what name you attach to it, as I have yet to find any formal source that agrees with your economic definitions.

But, pre-Thatcher Britain was stalled due to a lot of state ownership (socialism) and unions. No matter how you try to paint it, that situation was, like most experiments in socialism, unsustainable. Had it not been for Thatcher, the collapse of Britian would have been worse.

 

By calling pre-Thatcher Britain 'socialist' you only demonstrated a complete ignorance of Britain and also of socialism.

State ownership isn't a sufficient criteria for socialism. Bit obvious really. Crikey, you'd be calling Heath a socialist for nationalising Rolls Royce.

And why you're mentioning unions is beyond me. Collective bargaining isn't socialism.

Such ignorance! Thatcher, through a failed monetarist experiment, engineered arguably the worst recession that we have experienced (Note: it was some of the most productive enterprises that went to the wall). Only one good thing came out of that era: The Special's Ghost Town