Is Capitalism Unsustainable?

[pirate]

In our parliamentary system no it isn't a majority, in any other world however it is because they achieved the most votes. We don't count votes according to who doesn't vote, we count votes on who does and the majority of people who did vote voted Tory.

In fact at the last election even more people voted Tory than the last time, the argument that there is some resurgence for the left is completely unfounded and not reflected in any shape or form by the voting. All Labour achieved arguably was to regain the more traditional votes and therefore seats it lost in the past.

On your argument, you could argue that an even less percentage of the country voted Labour which just shows even more how people not only do not want change but they also were unwilling to vote for it.

To win Labour needs to not just win new votes but it needs to overturn Tory ones, there is no evidence that is likely to happen nor did it last time.

thats wrong because voting for anyone other than the incumbent (in this case the tories) is voting for change. In which case 57.6% is an actual majority.

A labour win and voting for change are completely different things

 

[Grassland Blue]

Here's the story of Xiaogang village ...

During the 'Great Leap Forward', Fengyang County, along with much of the rest of the country, experienced a period of famine. A quarter of the county's population, 90,000 people, died of starvation. In Xiaogang village alone, 67 villagers died of starvation out of a population of 120 between 1958 and 1960.

In December 1978, eighteen of the local farmers, led by Yan Jingchang, met in the largest house in the village. They agreed to break the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land, local People's Commune into family plots. Each plot was to be worked by an individual family who would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective whilst at the same time agreeing that they could keep the surplus for themselves. The villagers also agreed that should one of them be caught and sentenced to death that the other villagers would raise their children until they were eighteen years old. At the time, the villagers were worried that another famine might strike the village after a particularly bad harvest and more people might die of hunger.

After this secret reform, Xiaogang village produced a harvest that was larger than the previous five years combined. Per capita income in the village increase from 22 yuan to 400 yuan with grain output increasing to 90,000 kg in 1979. This attracted significant attention from surrounding villages and before long the government in Beijing had found out. The villagers were fortunate in that at the time China had just changed leadership afterMao Zedong had died. The new leadership under Deng Xiaoping was looking for ways to reform China's economy and the discovery of Xiaogang's innovation was held up as a model to other villages across the country. This led to the abandonment of collectivised farming across China and a large increase in agricultural production. The secret signing of the contract in Xiaogang is widely regarded as the beginning of the period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation that mainland China has experienced in the thirty years since.

... and it's the reason why capitalism will survive all other systems.

Capitalism is not a top down Utopian system imposed by an elite (like socialism, facism, communism, Marxism etc) it's a system that goes hand in hand with freedom and liberal democracy.

Is it perfect. Is it fuck. Don't equate the appalling behaviour of companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, etc with the real deal.

Capitalism makes your life better and will continue to raise living standards across the world for decades to



That is an interesting story.
I have read the book 'Hungry Ghosts' (by an American author whose name escapes me) .
This book describes the great famine (and the circumstances which led up to it ) which hit China during the time you mention, with millions of people dying from starvation.
At that time China was trying to prove that communism was a better system than capitalism.
That avoidable disaster still has cultural repercussions.
Capitalism without compassion and empathy can be just as brutal as communism, it is important that there is a reasonable basic level below which a person cannot fall.
Homelessness and hunger should not be occurring in our Great Britain.

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

Here's the story of Xiaogang village ...

During the 'Great Leap Forward', Fengyang County, along with much of the rest of the country, experienced a period of famine. A quarter of the county's population, 90,000 people, died of starvation. In Xiaogang village alone, 67 villagers died of starvation out of a population of 120 between 1958 and 1960.

In December 1978, eighteen of the local farmers, led by Yan Jingchang, met in the largest house in the village. They agreed to break the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land, local People's Commune into family plots. Each plot was to be worked by an individual family who would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective whilst at the same time agreeing that they could keep the surplus for themselves. The villagers also agreed that should one of them be caught and sentenced to death that the other villagers would raise their children until they were eighteen years old. At the time, the villagers were worried that another famine might strike the village after a particularly bad harvest and more people might die of hunger.

After this secret reform, Xiaogang village produced a harvest that was larger than the previous five years combined. Per capita income in the village increase from 22 yuan to 400 yuan with grain output increasing to 90,000 kg in 1979. This attracted significant attention from surrounding villages and before long the government in Beijing had found out. The villagers were fortunate in that at the time China had just changed leadership afterMao Zedong had died. The new leadership under Deng Xiaoping was looking for ways to reform China's economy and the discovery of Xiaogang's innovation was held up as a model to other villages across the country. This led to the abandonment of collectivised farming across China and a large increase in agricultural production. The secret signing of the contract in Xiaogang is widely regarded as the beginning of the period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation that mainland China has experienced in the thirty years since.

... and it's the reason why capitalism will survive all other systems.

Capitalism is not a top down Utopian system imposed by an elite (like socialism, facism, communism, Marxism etc) it's a system that goes hand in hand with freedom and liberal democracy.

Is it perfect. Is it fuck. Don't equate the appalling behaviour of companies such as Apple, Google, Amazon, etc with the real deal.

Capitalism makes your life better and will continue to raise living standards across the world for decades to come.

That's an interesting story but what you've described is not capitalism but a clear form of socialism. The means of production are communally owned and the community make the decision on how the output is distributed.

There's no doubt that capitalism has been responsible for the growth in living standards and the many technological advances we've experienced over the last 150 years or so. But the problems outlined in GDM's post and the lessons of the 2008 financial crash shows that unfettered capitalism, without appropriate oversight & regulation, often leads to bad decisions that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

 

[Chippy_boy]

That's an interesting story but what you've described is not capitalism but a clear form of socialism. The means of production are communally owned and the community make the decision on how the output is distributed.

There's no doubt that capitalism has been responsible for the growth in living standards and the many technological advances we've experienced over the last 150 years or so. But the problems outlined in GDM's post and the lessons of the 2008 financial crash shows that unfettered capitalism, without appropriate oversight & regulation, often leads to bad decisions that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

It's interesting to me how capitalism does become fettered. I agree that it tends to make a very small number of people exceedingly rich, and a much larger number if not poor, then certainly not as well off as they would be, were the wealth shared more evenly. It seems to me that a sort of natural equilibrium comes into play. People tolerate this imbalance provided both the level of "poverty" at the bottom is not so unbearable and more importantly, provided not so many are subjected to it. But as capitalism progresses, the numbers grow and the sense of injustice increases until such point that a more socialist government is installed. They then seek to right these injustices, but often (usually or always depending on your political viewpoint) at the expense of overall economic success. The middle then start to feel hard done by, and they grow in both passion and number to the point that the socialists are kicked out and replaced by capitalists again. Rinse and repeat.

 

[Grassland Blue]

No mate, I am as far a right wing Tory as you will find on these forums!

I've just spent many, many hours on the motorways alone with my thoughts, pondering on the future and how things will ultimately be. It seems to me that (overwhelmingly) desirable that capitalism may be for the next decades, *eventually* there will come a point where it doesn't work.

If I might be so bold to suggest it, I think what your assessment overlooks is that *eventually* humans won't be any good at anything, compared to the machines that we've created. When computers can make far better business decisions than any human ever could; robots can perform every conceivable task better than any human ever could - when that point is arrived at, as it surely one day will be, then the "****" wont have any ability nor opportunity to outdo his neighbour. There won't be enough opportunities for 11 billion people to create value. For a few million perhaps, but you cannot have say 300m people in work earning a fortune and 10.7bn out of work, on punitive levels of benefits. It doesn't work - there would be civil unrest long before we arrived at that point.

That's why there will have to be effectively a communist global central government which distributes wealth equally.

IMO ;-)

Nail on head!

 

[GortonBlue62]

That's an interesting story but what you've described is not capitalism but a clear form of socialism. The means of production are communally owned and the community make the decision on how the output is distributed.

There's no doubt that capitalism has been responsible for the growth in living standards and the many technological advances we've experienced over the last 150 years or so. But the problems outlined in GDM's post and the lessons of the 2008 financial crash shows that unfettered capitalism, without appropriate oversight & regulation, often leads to bad decisions that benefit the few at the expense of the many.

The story describes a failing (collectivist / socialist) system being abandoned and the villagers beginning to work for themselves and their families (an individualist / capitalist approach).

How is the system they moved to socialist?

The point is that when people work for themselves they work harder, achieve more and benefit society considerably more than a collectivist approach.

Socialism is a Utopian dream always imposed as a top down solution. It is the enemy of progress, prosperity and freedom.

Capitalism is what happens when people are free to live their lives and work for themselves.

I'm not a libertarian and I'm not advocating unfettered unregulated systems. I'm also not defending crony capitalism and the excesses of huge multi nationals.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

 

[Prestwich_Blue]

The story describes a failing (collectivist / socialist) system being abandoned and the villagers beginning to work for themselves and their families (an individualist / capitalist approach).

How is the system they moved to socialist?

The point is that when people work for themselves they work harder, achieve more and benefit society considerably more than a collectivist approach.

I don't think you really understand the meaning of socialism. The definition is that the individual or a group owns the means of production and decides what to produce and how to distribute it. In its most restrictive form the state controls all those decisions and I think we both agree that's not optimal.

What the Chinese farmers did was adopt a form of market socialism, where's there's a personal incentive to produce as much as possible but they have to meet state-imposed norms and carry out production in a system where they don't actually own the tools they require to produce those goods. Under a capitalist system, a wealthy individual or company would own the means of production and all the output, which it might then sell at a profit. It would reward those workers with either a share of their output or financially, from the revenue generated.

The Israeli kibbutzes were great examples of market socialism. Members decided how the profits were spent and that might involve buying cars, TV's or a collective asset such as a swimming pool. Many kibbutzniks ultimately became quite wealthy when their kibbutz shut down, they agreed to their factory/farm being taken over or the land used for housing and the financial assets were distributed to the individuals.

 

[GortonBlue62]

I don't think you really understand the meaning of socialism. The definition is that the individual or a group owns the means of production and decides what to produce and how to distribute it. In its most restrictive form the state controls all those decisions and I think we both agree that's not optimal.

What the Chinese farmers did was adopt a form of market socialism, where's there's a personal incentive to produce as much as possible but they have to meet state-imposed norms and carry out production in a system where they don't actually own the tools they require to produce those goods. Under a capitalist system, a wealthy individual or company would own the means of production and all the output, which it might then sell at a profit. It would reward those workers with either a share of their output or financially, from the revenue generated.

The Israeli kibbutzes were great examples of market socialism. Members decided how the profits were spent and that might involve buying cars, TV's or a collective asset such as a swimming pool. Many kibbutzniks ultimately became quite wealthy when their kibbutz shut down, they agreed to their factory/farm being taken over or the land used for housing and the financial assets were distributed to the individuals.

I understand perfectly what socialism is.

The story of Xiaogang village was illustrative. The Chinese farmers risked their lives to move away from a communist (socialist) system that had driven them to the brink of starvation.Of course they weren't going to go around declaring their new found love of Capitalism.

The point is clear; there is no freedom without economic freedom. Working for the collective good never works - it impoverishes everyone.

 

[inbetween]

I don't think you really understand the meaning of socialism. The definition is that the individual or a group owns the means of production and decides what to produce and how to distribute it. In its most restrictive form the state controls all those decisions and I think we both agree that's not optimal.

What the Chinese farmers did was adopt a form of market socialism, where's there's a personal incentive to produce as much as possible but they have to meet state-imposed norms and carry out production in a system where they don't actually own the tools they require to produce those goods. Under a capitalist system, a wealthy individual or company would own the means of production and all the output, which it might then sell at a profit. It would reward those workers with either a share of their output or financially, from the revenue generated.

The Israeli kibbutzes were great examples of market socialism. Members decided how the profits were spent and that might involve buying cars, TV's or a collective asset such as a swimming pool. Many kibbutzniks ultimately became quite wealthy when their kibbutz shut down, they agreed to their factory/farm being taken over or the land used for housing and the financial assets were distributed to the individuals.

What you are detailing in the last paragraph is actually just a business, a capitalist business. It is effectively a group of 'shareholders' who invest their time, efforts or money and choose how to spend the fruits of their efforts together. This is assuming they are free to invest to make profits and share those profits, that makes them effectively venture capitalists.

What do you think they would do if their profits were taken instead for the benefit of the state? Do you think they would continue their business or not bother?