Capitalism: A Love Story

[LeePeyton]

Capitalism is the market and trade for free people.
We can only work to fix the damage we have allowed the government to make.
But Capitalism is always the best market, what did empires of long past use?
Why were they empires? Need I say more?

[IDon'tKnow]

If you didn't expect a thread about a Michael Moore film to start a hell storm you're less intelligent that I'm giving you credit for.

[LeePeyton]

^ Word. Moore twists things to his own means and purposes. My best example would be when he went to Charlton Heston yelling a bunch of crap at him. The man was nice enough to let him in for an interview on top of Moore OMITing that he had Alzheimer's.

Moore is known for his lack of information. For some reason I made myself suffer through a few of his movies before I came up with these conclusions. Sorry I was smart enough to look at other sources.

[shimric]

Originally Posted by MarsMr2

Well sorry for messing up your thread. Later

I was talking about you.

[muffinman]

[LeePeyton]

that kid crying makes me giggle

[shimric]

Originally Posted by LeePeyton

Capitalism is the market and trade for free people.
We can only work to fix the damage we have allowed the government to make.
But Capitalism is always the best market, what did empires of long past use?
Why were they empires? Need I say more?

All great empires have fallen.

[IDon'tKnow]

I like to make bubble like that.... I make them with my mouth because I'm not talented enough to make them with my nose.

[IDon'tKnow]

Shimric spit it out already: if Capitalism isn't the best economic system then what is?

[LeePeyton]

but they were around longer than the others. do you think socialism or communism could out live the roman/greek empire? that's a long time.


To think of it honestly the societies practicing socialism and communism still practice capitalism.
Is it supply and demand or just supply supply?

Not trying to start a flame war just asking how you see things.

[shimric]

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

Shimric spit it out already: if Capitalism isn't the best economic system then what is?

Post #20. Well put.

[IDon'tKnow]

I guess this means I win. It really does feel good.

[Raptor13x]

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

if Capitalism isn't the best economic system then what is?

The best economic system is to have NO economic system (as we know it).

Let's explore:
Capitalism - Supply and demand, minimal interference in the flow of money. This is a fair system, as money, in theory, ends up in the hands of people who earn it. However, inevitably, this leads to a tiny fraction of the population possessing a massive percentage of the wealth, because a) the wealthy learn methods of acquiring money with minimal effort, and b) the wealthy have the power and make the rules. You end up with a ruling elite, and the majority of the population in poverty. Poverty = crime, misery, disease, etc In short, the wealthy are happy, the middle class is in a constant state of distress over politics, and the poor are angry.

Communism - Everyone is the same. All the money is rationed to the people in equal amounts (theoretically). It's fair in that, at least in theory, it doesn't create a huge chasm between the rich and the poor, but it's very inefficient, slow to adapt to market changes, and offers you no motivation to work harder. It should be said that communism has never been adopted as Marx would define it. It's always had a ruling elite that was "more equal than the rest", and lead to horrible living conditions and widespread death. In short there isn't a wealthy or a middle class, there are only the poor, and the poor are never happy.

Socialism - An attempt to reach a balance between Capitalism and Communism. It tries to offer incentive to work harder and achieve while not leaving the wealthy unchecked. This means nobody is ever totally happy with the way government is going. There is constant strife (which works great for a government as a way to keep the population distracted).

As long as our society works using money, we'll have one of the above situations. Money causes over 90% of crime, stress, and unhappiness. The only way out of that is to eliminate the entire economic system, and move to a resource-based economy(a la Jacque Fresco). Basically, we have it within our means to completely eliminate the need to work. Automate everything and make it completely free. Eliminate the need for our costly, insane transportation system- build new, super-efficient cities, and connect them with high-speed, efficient maglev trains. There's no need for traffic enforcement if there's no traffic. Power our entire society with renewable energy. Let computers be our "government" and send resources where needed. Build completely automated manufacturing cities that convert raw materials into finished goods and ship them around the network at the touch of a button. Build machines that automatically service and repair those machines. The "Star Trek" future is NOT beyond us, and we don't need replicators to pull it off (though they would be nice).

[IDon'tKnow]

I'm speechless Raptor. Are you high right now?

[IDon'tKnow]

OK, OK... before someone pulls the "Ad Hominem" card on me I'll qualify that statement.

The scenario you are proposing is 99.99% impossible in every regard. Someone has to control the means of production and someone has to control capital... In this Utopia you're describing who decides when which city gets what?.... How much?..... Who is going to do the work to produce the perfect scenario?.... Once it's all up an running, who is going to maintain the utopia?.... Who is going to stop the leaders from doing themselves and their friends special favors?

[shimric]

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

OK, OK... before someone pulls the "Ad Hominem" card on me I'll qualify that statement.

The scenario you are proposing is 99.99% impossible in every regard. Someone has to control the means of production and someone has to control capital... In this Utopia you're describing who decides when which city gets what?.... How much?..... Who is going to do the work to produce the perfect scenario?.... Once it's all up an running, who is going to maintain the utopia?.... Who is going to stop the leaders from doing themselves and their friends special favors?

I'm just going to shoot in the dark and try to answer this.

Just imagine, everything the way it is right now. Without money. With that said, that wouldn't work. I honesty have no idea how Raptor's idea would work in this world. Maybe in another world that started on these base principals and kept them through time.

I couldn't ever see that happening here. Ever. The world elite are too greedy and uncaring for it's citizens to do them such a favor. That essentially would be eliminating everything they've done to get them where they are today.

In my personal opinion, the only thing that could possibly fix this cluster **** of a economic world is something completely new that hasn't been thought up as of right now. There! Now where's my million dollars for fixing the world mr. president.

[MarsMr2]

So I went to see the movie and it really makes you see how much our rights are being violated. I really see now how the power houses' relentless greed made the country reach this dilapidated state in my opinion when I really thought about it.

[Raptor13x]

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

The scenario you are proposing is 99.99% impossible in every regard.

Not even close. We already have basically all the technology we'd need now.

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

Someone has to control the means of production and someone has to control capital...

Says who? We need to program some computers.

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

In this Utopia you're describing who decides when which city gets what?.... How much?.....

I never used the word "utopia". There is no such thing as a perfect society where everyone gets along and it's all candy canes and roses. There is, however, room for MASSIVE improvement over our current system. The goal here is to a) massively reduce waste by drastically improving efficiency, eliminating pointless garbage in our society (advertisements, stupid trinkets, low-quality items, etc), streamlining production, etc, b) make the necessities of life so abundant that there's no need to "ration" them. We can do that easily. For instance, we already make WAY more food than we can eat, but the way our food is distributed means much of it goes to waste and we still have people starving.

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

Who is going to do the work to produce the perfect scenario?....

There is no perfect scenario. There is always room for improvement. We can automate construction, build self-erecting structures, and essentially build houses, buildings, and streets without an ounce of human labor. I fully admit the transition to this system is extremely difficult and will require some major upheavals in our society.

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

Once it's all up an running, who is going to maintain the utopia?....

The whole point is to not need humans to maintain it. People will want to be involved in creating new technologies and improving efficiency in others. People want to be known for something, to make a difference, and that's plenty of incentive to get the things done that machines and computers cannot do.

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

Who is going to stop the leaders from doing themselves and their friends special favors?

There are no leaders. Or, at least, there are no leaders with power. What special favors would you need if everything you could ever want was free? The lust for power and wealth becomes irrelevant.

[IDon'tKnow]

That's it, I don't have time to give you a long winded answer. I'm going to have to resort to an Ad hominem attack.

You Raptor are insane. Completely, 100%, absolutely, positively, insane.

[shimric]

Originally Posted by IDon'tKnow

That's it, I don't have time to give you a long winded answer. I'm going to have to resort to an Ad hominem attack.

You Raptor are insane. Completely, 100%, absolutely, positively, insane.

Is that slang for he painted you into a corner and this is your way to admit defeat?