Topic: Is Capitalism Flawed? - page 3. (Read 3153 times)

I don't believe capitalism is flawed because comparing it to other economic system, its still the best. People get to be rich and even contribute to the society, the ability to grow to the highest is not limited by the society, you create a path for yourself to the best of your ability. You decide if you want to stay in the hood for the rest of your life or you want to get out and dine with those that matter all by yourself and not limited by the society that is what capitalism promises and that's why I don't see it as flawed under any circumstances but not perfect.

Capitalism is indeed flawed, so much of inequality to the point the working class got abused. They worked really hard, their labor is not equal to the income they earning. So much for the other side, unlike the working class,  less physical labor but they have millions of earning. I don't have any oppositions to the capitalism system because it is already inevitable, but i think one we can change, one of the many flaws we can removed slowly is the mindset of capitalism towards the workers. Like for example giving them incentives and reasonable incomes, proper treatment e.g giving respect.

I'm no economist but even a brief look at most country's history would show that you can't beat capitalism when it comes to generating wealth and improving the overall income of people. Even avowedly communist China has adopted capitalistic practices. I suppose they'd still be eating sparrows if they didn't.


I'd rather have automation over sweatshops, those people are not getting their fare wages. Of course, that means those people would then need to find some other sources of income. In the industrialized world, I think automation is not as a do-or-die case. Just find some other field that can't be automated yet.

As for outsourcing, it's as natural as countries focusing on what product they can make best. If an American won't take $400 a month to answer irate customers, then find someone in India or the Philippines to do it.

A few hundred years ago people were completely illiterate

They couldn't even read (let alone write), and so what? Complex jobs can be simplified to the point when your average Joe can do them (this is what division of labor basically means). Indeed, the jobs that can be automated will be automated, but the great divide remains unshaken, i.e. some jobs can't be done by robots, as simple as that. Apart from that, what AI are you talking about? This field has been stagnating for over fifty years already. All the recent "advances" have been entirely due to quantitative improvements only (more memory, more processing power, more specialized chips, etc). There is no true artificial intelligence as of yet and may never be (in the sense we think of it), it still essentially comes down to an incredibly complex set of conditions (if-else)

Offcourse there are threats to some basic jobs from automation. There is no deny to that. A report by the McKinsey Global Institute concludes that  5 percent of occupations are likely to be completely wiped out by automation. We just can't escape that.

There are flaws to all systems and so does capitalism. But the simple fact is that where open markets exist with competition, people get more prosperous. If we look at socialism/communism as applied in its most ‘pure’ applications, millions ended up starving in China, Russia and elsewhere because the system simply was inherently dysfunctional. Free market capitalism has its downsides but at least it consistently delivers growth.

But average people cant take complex jobs.

Not everyone can be an AI programmer, a mechanical engineer or a mathematician.

Most people are bartenders, supermarket clerks or similar king of jobs.

Here is the news for you, they are already phased out:

* https://www.theverge.com/2016/12/5/13842592/amazon-go-new-cashier-less-convenience-store


The simple jobs get phased out as fast as lightning. The complex jobs remain for the latest, but they will be phased out too. After all an AI is probably a better engineer than humans.

There is no solution to this than to just abandon this flawed system.

This is what people typically say

They innocently assume that all this automation appears out of thin air like banks are creating money. But industrial production is not banking. All these robots have to be first designed and then manufactured somewhere, and I promise you that somewhere deep down the line there will always be quite a lot of human labor involved. To get an idea, look at the history of automotive industry. It seems like it destroyed quite a few jobs in some sectors but it created many more jobs in other sectors as well as created entirely new ones. It's the same with automation and robotics, they just move human labor to other fields, and since they are more complex technologies, this necessarily means that more human labor is required in other fields. In other words, you can't escape the complexity loop

I didn't search the web to get you proof, but just logically, if we look at a modern production facility or factory, many stages of production are automated, using programmable robots to do repetitive tasks.  Sure there's a team that needs to program and maintain those robots, and although it's a much more intelligent team, the number of general labour jobs that are replaced are much greater.

For example, you could replace 500 general labour jobs with robots and maybe a team of 20 engineers.

I don't believe there's anything wrong with automation replacing jobs.  We just need to aim for more intelligent jobs or have a more socialist approach where it's not absolutely necessary for everyone to have a job and earn revenue.  Robots work 24/7 and don't need to get paid or take breaks.  That wealth can be shared.

Capitalism is certainly flawed. The end goal is, in fact, inequality. If the goal for capitalists is capital accumulation, the result for the majority of the population is rent extraction (paying rent for housing, living on wages rather than having access to capital, paying interest due to no access to money). In this way, capitalists accumulate and wage slaves as a whole become poorer and poorer.

Part of the problem in these discussions is that capitalists conflate "competition" with "capitalism." I am not against markets at all; free markets and competition are vital. And it is true competition which can actually address inequality, because in the context of free markets, prices tend to approach the cost of production (due to many competitive producers vying for market share). The problem under capitalism is that 1) governments are used to enforce monopolies and 2) even absent governments, private militaries hired by landowners are used to enforce monopolies. True competition under capitalism is impossible.

Can you prove that?

So far I haven't yet seen anyone coming up with strong facts actually supporting this claim. On the other hand, automation itself requires higher division of labor and that directly supports the opposite claim, i.e. it contributes to creation of more jobs. Basically, you can't have it both ways. Either you accept that automation as such requires more advanced technology itself (but that necessarily means more people are required to support it) or this is not actually an improvement or advancement in technology (since it destroys more jobs than creates). With your other claims I basically agree

On the topic of jobs & automation.

Automation kills many more jobs than it creates.

No one wants to admit that but it is true.

Slavery/indentured servitude/sweatshops/prison labor also kills more jobs than it creates.

As does outsourcing/offshoring of jobs, etc. As that tends to be an exploitive practice.

I certainly understand your apprehensions

But I guess we are far from it (provided we ever come close to). Automation leads to unemployment in certain fields, this goes without saying. But so far, it has also led to the creation of more jobs in a lot of other fields and also certain fields themselves. Introduction of computer made quite a few people jobless at first but then it gave rise to whole new sectors of economy (computer engineering, software development, telecommunications, etc). As to me, there is no need for the introduction of such a system

I agree that in capitalism it has all this, but it is still the best system

I agree with what has being said about how capitalism is the best we've found thus far and I honestly don't know any alternatives, but this "the rich work more hours" narrative is one of the biggest bullshits ever. The rich work smarter, not harder.
The working class spends most of their time working. Established rich families just live off dividends. If you have 10 millions in the bank, you can sit on your ass all day as you get dividends from safe stocks. That is what all these rich kids from instagram do. Oh and now they even get more money by flaunting their wealth on social media since these rich guys get tons of followers which leads to ad revenue.

The people that go from nothing to rich are the ones that spend the most hours trying to figure out a way to get rich (assuming you just don't luck out), but after that, once you are established with enough millions, you can live off passive income and do fuck nothing if you don't want to.

I work my ass off all day, then spend the little amount of free time I have researching crypto stuff trying to get rich. I laugh at the idea of all these rich cunts working more time than me.

Capitalism is the best system we've found thus far to organize societies. The malice and competitive nature of mankind is bet confined in the capitalist system. Capitalism leads to great inequality and other problems, but the alternatives aren't any better.

We can't have an ideal world, but we can improve it. The banking system is a scam, we can improve the rules of the capitalism with decentralized technologies such as bitcoin.

If you have better alternatives, then im willing to hear that.

To be fair, most flaws will self-correct. For example, in the venture capital industry, we have seen a decade-long scam of taking limited partners for a ride, raising big funds, extracting large management fees to the tune of millions annually, and then returning negative on the investment. This, for sure, has already started self-correcting.

I cringe when I see somebody ask the question without first defining the term "Capitalism".
 
First, tell us how you define Capitalism because otherwise you will get a hundred answers, none of which may even be addressing the same idea.

I'll answer your questions using what I consider to be the traditional definition, from Dictionary.com

CAPITALISM - "Also called free enterprise, private enterprise. an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production, distribution, and exchange, characterized by the freedom of capitalists to operate or manage their property for profit in competitive conditions"

So the distinction that needs to be made is whether you are referring to a free market system (purely private property) or a mixed socialist economy (where the government intervenes when it sees fit). The essence of Government is being a monopoly on the use of force. In other words, if you don't comply, men with guns will eventually kidnap you and throw you in a cage. When the Government pokes its finger into the natural, voluntary, free movement of individual exchange, it is much the same as stepping on an Ant hill or maybe burning down part of a forest ecosystem. People will simply route around the inefficiency e.g. black markets.

If you define Capitalism as what you see in most Western countries today, than you won't agree with me. For the sake of argument and simplicity though, I think it makes sense to view the Economy as an ecosystem or natural order composed of Billions of actors working independently, yet also cooperatively through free exchange. The saying, "Live and let live" really sums it up well I think. The people that seek to intervene, manipulate and control the economy are extremely arrogant, economic illiterates who probably do not even have their own lives or families sorted out yet, most likely due to their own uncertainties, fears and lack of moral compass, they wish to impose their will on through the power of state legislation instead of leading by example.



There will always be rich and poor. Dominant or weak. Free markets will not create a utopia where everyone is equal, however they will give everyone the best chance.

Government exacerbates the problems you've highlighted because the rich and corrupt simply capture it and use legislation to make themselves richer. It's the collective delusion that state power is legitimate, which gives these sociopaths the opportunity to control us. Why do you think Bill Gates can't just create mandates and expect people to obey? Because he has no coercive authority! Microsoft is nobody, but call yourself a Government and now you have legitimacy in the eyes of the slaves. In fact, Slaves will beg you to increase your power because they believe it's moral and legitimate.

In a free market, entrepreneurs must necessarily provide value to many people in order to become wealthy. They need to persuade you to buy their products. Unrestricted competition keeps their greed in check.

In socialism, government claims they need to forcibly intervene to keep business in check. In other words, people (government) claim that using coercive power is sometimes necessary because the market is inherently flawed. Once you go down the road of excusing violence, you never come back!

So in my opinion, Free Market Capitalism is not flawed, nor is it a "system" that has been imposed. It is simply the natural order or an ecosystem composed of billions of individual actors, exchanging voluntarily. When somebody violates your private property by using physical force or fraud, then they should be punished obviously, but we don't do that by granting a complete and total monopoly on that "justice system" to a government. If we do, then the question is, who will regulate the regulators? Who will investigate the investigators?

Crony Capitalism, Crapitalism or Socialism are the terms I would give to the corrupt systems we currently have in the West. If you want to define Capitalism this way, than I would completely agree with you that it's very flawed.

The only model common in capitalism and an democratic organisation is ,The Rich Become The Richer and the poor remain the poorer.There is no cure,this is how the system have been designed and that's how it's going to be in the future. Capitalism isn't in favour of the poor,never was.

Yes there is, you can add UBI.



Automation is displacing many jobs.

If there are no jobs, there is no income. The corporations will have nobody to sell their products and services too. It's the tragedy of capitalism.

Worker income shrinks due to greedy corporations, and then their profits shrink too, since nobody is left to buy their stuff.

The only solution is UBI, the corporations should pay a % of their profits into an UBI system which gets redistributed across the people.

It could work perfectly, everyone wins in the end.

As you introduce the concept of universal basic income, I would like to plot the example of government sector in my country. In India, government job means total job security and stability as well as regular pay. Thus government employees are off standard and public sector in India is much behind the private. Thus introducing universal basic income will leads to huge decline in global productivity. And what about new innovations taking place everyday??