Capitalism .......A force for good or A force for bad.

I'm With Stupid said:
Yeah, there's this big narrative around Japan and how they've basically seen no growth for three decades. And yet when you look at the country, everything still seems to work, there's still a high standard of living, their education, healthcare, etc are still world class, and they still seem to have lots of the world's most successful companies. Sure, they have challenges like everywhere else, but if you listened to the growth-obsessed types, you'd have thought the whole country would have fallen into ruin by now.
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That’s actually a really good point that’s never occurred before. Along with Switzerland, it’s the best functioning society that I’ve witnessed.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Yeah, there's this big narrative around Japan and how they've basically seen no growth for three decades. And yet when you look at the country, everything still seems to work, there's still a high standard of living, their education, healthcare, etc are still world class, and they still seem to have lots of the world's most successful companies. Sure, they have challenges like everywhere else, but if you listened to the growth-obsessed types, you'd have thought the whole country would have fallen into ruin by now.
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Although the domestic economy of Japan has stagnated, Japanese enterprises have made a large amount of investment abroad. In the past three decades, the profits brought by these investments have enabled Japanese society to remain in a stable state.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Yeah, there's this big narrative around Japan and how they've basically seen no growth for three decades. And yet when you look at the country, everything still seems to work, there's still a high standard of living, their education, healthcare, etc are still world class, and they still seem to have lots of the world's most successful companies. Sure, they have challenges like everywhere else, but if you listened to the growth-obsessed types, you'd have thought the whole country would have fallen into ruin by now.
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There is a good reason for that and it's because the Japanese population isn't growing because the birth rate isn't high and the population demographic is swayed heavily towards the elderly. The Japanese population is actually decreasing and the rate of decrease is increasing but their economy is still growing. That won't last long though as eventually the amount of people available to actually do work will stagnate economic growth.

We're on the opposite end of the balance to Japan, the population has grown at a similar rate or sometimes faster than growth at a time when successive governments have underfunded infrastructure and our means to cope with it. The truth is though what's happening is not chronic underspending, it's chronic overspending on the wrong things.

For example this government chooses to give tax cuts and higher bonuses to the finance industry. That may help the finance industry to take risks and increase FTSE growth but what difference does that make to a working family? At the end of the day if GDP increases by 0.1% then the vast majority of that 0.1% will be swallowed in wasteful governmental spending (in a feeble attempt to create another 0.1%) or it just gets pocketed by the rich.

If I was Labour then the first thing I'd look at is policy on families and what will help people to have kids and bring up kids. They don't need these shitty growth slogans which are based upon really dull aspects of finance and GDP figures because nobody cares about them. Labour needs to centre its policy on what it can do for families, that's how Blair won massively and it's why today his policies are needed more than anything else.
 
gordondaviesmoustache said:
It’s not the be all and end all, but it’s definitely a huge factor. Human nature is the problem. The more we have, the more we want.
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That's the part of free-market capitalism that I just can't get my head around : -
"The more we have the more we want".
I don't think the majority of folk are wired to think like that. Most would be content with job security, affordable and secure accomodation, and the possibility of bringing up a family if they so desired.
The fear of having nothing drives greed more than anything.
It's most likely designed to be exactly that way.
 
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Not sure if it is an inevitable result of Capitalism but the Corporatisation and Monetisation of everything is certainly a force for evil.

With the growth in power of Corporations under the capitalist system you have organisations that are as rich and powerful as countries.
 
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