Capitalism

[The Persnickety Platypus]

Is it acceptable, under even the most lenient of ethical standards, to allow the upper class live in upmost luxury while millions people all over the globe continue to die of malnutrition?





Coming from an upper middle class family, I have always led a pretty easy and pampered life. Recently however I have starting having second thoughts on whether I or anyone else has the right to live such a life, while others are unable to sustain themselves. Under the economic system of capitalism the less fortunate are more or less exploited by the privileged, resulting in a large economic status gap. This injustice continues in the current administration, as the rich are being granted further privileges, and as a result the weight is thrusted upon the lower and middle classes.

Can any of us possibly justify this grievance whilst retaining good moral convictions?

I much favor socialism over our current system, though admittedly, a pure social order typically fails in a greedy self-centered culture such as our own. I would like to see, at the very least, more socialistic practices in America's free market. Perhaps a taxing of the upper class and a redistribution of the wealth would be the first step to a fairer structure. Ideally, we would place the entire world under a united social structure, granting at the very least the bare necessities to all, but that may just be another unattainable utopian ideal of mine.

You would think human beings, a so called "civilized race" might find a way to cooperate towards the greater good, rather than compete for life. Surely intelligent life forms such as ourselves may find a way to put ourselves above petty 'survival of the fittest' philosophies. There is something for all to gain in a revised economic structure. And yet, we continue to fight.



Capitalism is said to invite prosperity. In reality, the only people that truly prosper are those that receive the luck of the draw. What kind of democracy is that?

[MagusYanam]

Is it acceptable, under even the most lenient of ethical standards, to allow the upper class live in upmost luxury while millions people all over the globe continue to die of malnutrition?

Very simply put, no. The question of what we could do about it is a little less simple, though, and I think you started that discussion very well.

I much favor socialism over our current system, though admittedly, a pure social order typically fails in a greedy self-centered culture such as our own. I would like to see, at the very least, more socialistic practices in America's free market.

Amen. However, I think perhaps in such a system as ours, we should try to readopt the Niebuhrian-Rooseveltian 'vital-centre' politic we had from the 1930's to the 1960's, which involves a relatively free market with some New-Deal type economic safeguards particularly for working-class people. I think we can start by bolstering social security as it exists now; perhaps we can move on to a form of universal health care.

God willing, we may be able (like most European countries have been able to do) to put a cap on the worker-shareholder income ratio. (All of the following figures are accurate as of ten years ago.) Swedish conservatives wanted to move the worker-shareholder ratio cap to Kr1 to Kr8 (liberals wanted Kr1 to Kr4). Even Japan, which is a free-market powerhouse, put a cap on this ratio at 1 to 16. The United States' 1995 average worker-shareholder income ratio was $1 to $145, and there is currently no cap on this ratio.

And what I'd really like to see, even failing all of the above, is corporations taking some responsibility for the workers they lay off. For example, GM, when it's about to lay off a few thousand automotive assembly-line workers, could (instead of just casting them off) put them into a paid training programme for other work skills.

Capitalism is said to invite prosperity. In reality, the only people that truly prosper are those that receive the luck of the draw. What kind of democracy is that?

Actually, it's pretty interesting: this question was being asked a hundred years ago by social reformers like Washington Gladden, William Adams Brown and Walter Rauschenbusch. Rauschenbusch and Gladden in particular wanted to democratise the American economy by advocating socialist policies, such as distributing shares in corporate ventures evenly among participants, like votes. Unfortunately, their ideas weren't too popular. Instead we ended up with both big businesses and big labour unions which are run more like oligarchies than like democracies and which are on mutually poor terms.

[harvey1]

I much favor socialism over our current system, though admittedly, a pure social order typically fails in a greedy self-centered culture such as our own. I would like to see, at the very least, more socialistic practices in America's free market.

Amen. However, I think perhaps in such a system as ours, we should try to readopt the Niebuhrian-Rooseveltian 'vital-centre' politic we had from the 1930's to the 1960's, which involves a relatively free market with some New-Deal type economic safeguards particularly for working-class people. I think we can start by bolstering social security as it exists now; perhaps we can move on to a form of universal health care. God willing, we may be able (like most European countries have been able to do) to put a cap on the worker-shareholder income ratio.

Yikes! I sure hope none of you guys become political leaders someday. If you want to look at the results of socialism, look south of the border. Socialism is a failed project.

However, I sympathize with the unfairness both of you see with regards to the massive amount of wealth concentrated in hands of a few. The best way, of course, to change that situation is by implementing competition to the marketplace. For example, if you don't like it that Walmart has so much business, then make it easier for importers to enter the market and sell directly to the consumer. We might do that might by lowering duties on incoming products and encouraging network businesses that establish ties between the importers and Bob who wants to sell those products to his friends and relatives. Bob earns that profit instead of the mega-large retailers.

Of course, there's only so much you can do. For example, perhaps brain surgeons make a great deal of money for the services they provide. If we were willing to have on the job training for people with high school education, then the prices would drop drastically, but would you want that kind of "surgeon" operating on you? So, it isn't necessarily a bad thing that some people make a lot of money. If they didn't, then the rest of us would suffer for critical products and services that we all need.

I'm all in favor of adding more competition. However, socialism is state controlled which often means less competition and more corruption. The state officials can be bribed and competition is eliminated by their self-interests of friends and career ambitions after they leave their government job.

[MagusYanam]

Yikes! I sure hope none of you guys become political leaders someday. If you want to look at the results of socialism, look south of the border. Socialism is a failed project.

Look across the Atlantic Ocean for better examples of socialism at work. Functioning regulated market economies do exist - think Fennoscandia - and they are functioning quite well, thank you.

However, I sympathize with the unfairness both of you see with regards to the massive amount of wealth concentrated in hands of a few. The best way, of course, to change that situation is by implementing competition to the marketplace.

Unfortunately, there is no 'of course' when it comes to economics. We can look at history and say, 'these policies worked and these didn't', but there is very little obviousness to the way the market works (this is coming from a non-expert, by the way). What I do see in history is that the vital-centre, regulated-market politics of FDR and (later) Reinhold Niebuhr got us out of the Great Depression and helped us into an era of unprecedented economic prosperity, one that lasted until the collapse of the vital centre in the 1960's (with the escalation of the Vietnam War).

We can also look at the economic policies of Reagan and say, okay - we followed voodoo economics for eight years and we've got deficit up to our eyeballs and an increasing gap between rich and poor stemming from what looks like vastly increased military spending and decreased social spending with a backdrop of decrease in revenue. We had the Reagan recession as a result. What does that tell us?

Of course, there's only so much you can do. For example, perhaps brain surgeons make a great deal of money for the services they provide. If we were willing to have on the job training for people with high school education, then the prices would drop drastically, but would you want that kind of "surgeon" operating on you? So, it isn't necessarily a bad thing that some people make a lot of money. If they didn't, then the rest of us would suffer for critical products and services that we all need.

What does that have anything to do with regulated market economics? Of course starting from our current educational system you're going to have job specialisation. You're going to have a professional middle class and you're going to have workers. But it doesn't follow that they're going to make the same amount of money even in a regulated market, which seems to be what you're implying. And it's not necessarily even a bad thing that professionals make more than workers do.

However, let's be rational, here. What reason is there for the average company stockholder to make 145 times what the average waged worker does? In Europe and Japan they've imposed limits to keep that sort of nonsense from occurring.

I'm all in favor of adding more competition. However, socialism is state controlled which often means less competition and more corruption. The state officials can be bribed and competition is eliminated by their self-interests of friends and career ambitions after they leave their government job.

Transparency International (www.transparency.org - a non-profit, non-political organisation dedicated to exposing and fighting corruption in government) would disagree with you. Their CPI report (a survey-based random sample of the voting populations of participant countries) indicates that among the least corrupt national governments are those of Finland (CPI 9.7), New Zealand (CPI 9.6), Denmark and Iceland (each CPI 9.5), Sweden (CPI 9.2) and Norway (CPI 8.9) - all of which have adopted significant regulated-market economic policies at the federal level. The United States is lagging a bit at CPI 7.5 (rank 17 - level with Belgium and Ireland).

Can you come up with any data that indicate a positive correlation between socialist or regulated-market economic policy and corruption? These would certainly indicate the reverse.

[harvey1]

Look across the Atlantic Ocean for better examples of socialism at work. Functioning regulated market economies do exist - think Fennoscandia - and they are functioning quite well, thank you.

Sweden

• work force: 4.46 million
• Population: 9.001 million
• GDP/c: $28K
• Unemployment: 5.6%

Finland:

• work force: 2.66 million
• Population: 5.223 million
• GDP/c: $29K
• Unemployment: 8.9%

Norway

• work force: 2.38 million
• Population: 4.593 million
• GDP/c: $40K
• Unemployment: 4.3%

United States

• work force: 147.4 million
• Population: 295.734 million
• GDP/c: $40K
• Unemployment: 5.5%

These countries don't give you a true representation of the effects of socialism. The scales are entirely different. If we took the people in the United States with the same education level, then how do you think the numbers would change? Generally speaking, their countries should be doing far better than us for no other reason than they don't have the larger social problems that we have.

In any case, Finland is poor per worker (per capita $29K) and high unemployment. Norway has two million people fairly well educated people in its work force, so that's very attractive for companies to locate factories and business there. Sweden is poor per worker (per capita $28K) and their unemployment rate is slightly higher than the U.S. despite the fact that their workforce is much more educated.

The U.S. should not be that high compared to these countries. We have large pockets of poverty (over 12%), and we have a huge education problem.

[harvey1]

We can also look at the economic policies of Reagan and say, okay - we followed voodoo economics for eight years and we've got deficit up to our eyeballs and an increasing gap between rich and poor stemming from what looks like vastly increased military spending and decreased social spending with a backdrop of decrease in revenue. We had the Reagan recession as a result. What does that tell us?

Btw, the recession with Reagan was already in the works prior to his being in office. Stagflation happened under Jimmy Carter and this almost always spells a deep recession is on its way.

However, let's be rational, here. What reason is there for the average company stockholder to make 145 times what the average waged worker does? In Europe and Japan they've imposed limits to keep that sort of nonsense from occurring.

Companies that are sucessful do well, and the people who invested in them (despite the risk of losing their money) did so because they had some kind of insight as to which companies they should spend their money. If you take that away, then those people won't invest their money in those companies. Those companies may not survive, and now you have a situation where companies are laying off workers (high unemployment) because those companies didn't survive.

Transparency International (www.transparency.org - a non-profit, non-political organisation dedicated to exposing and fighting corruption in government) would disagree with you. Their CPI report (a survey-based random sample of the voting populations of participant countries) indicates that among the least corrupt national governments are those of Finland (CPI 9.7), New Zealand (CPI 9.6), Denmark and Iceland (each CPI 9.5), Sweden (CPI 9.2) and Norway (CPI 8.9) - all of which have adopted significant regulated-market economic policies at the federal level. The United States is lagging a bit at CPI 7.5 (rank 17 - level with Belgium and Ireland).

You can't just pick the cream of the crop and assume that this shows that socialism doesn't lead to corruption. Look at all the other socialist countries who have rampant corruption. Look at the population of those socialist countries. The percentage of socialist (in terms of population) that you are referring to in those stats is very, very small. Mexico alone has a bigger population than all of them combined.

[harvey1]

Magnus,

I thought you might find the following news item to be relevant to our discussion. I think France is what the U.S. would look a lot like (with poorer education, mind you) if it followed a trend toward socialist reforms:

By LAURENCE FROST, AP Business Writer
Tue Aug 2, 8:20 AM ET

PARIS - The French government approved new labor laws Tuesday making it easier for small companies to hire and fire, prompting angry reactions from trade unions.

Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and members of his government issued six new decrees designed to boost employment as they met for their last cabinet meeting before the summer break.

Among the new measures, the most ambitious and hotly contested by unions is the "New Recruit Contract" allowing companies to lay off workers anytime in their first two years of employment, without giving any reasons.

The new plan takes effect Sept. 1 and applies only to companies with 20 or fewer employees. Workers laid off under the new conditions will be given at least two weeks' notice and will be entitled to unemployment benefits but not the usual levels of severance pay.

French President Jacques Chirac said the new measures "demonstrate the country's determination to go beyond traditional solutions and to modernize thoroughly," in comments relayed to reporters by the government's official spokesman, Jean-Francois Cope.

"The tools are in place to launch a new dynamic in the labor market," Chirac said.

The new laws were rushed through by decree, under so-called "emergency procedure" introduced last month to allow the government to enact employment legislation without consulting lawmakers.

By cutting the cost and red tape associated with layoffs, ministers hope to remove a major obstacle to job creation. The main French employers' group, Medef, has long cited the heavy cost of cutting jobs in France as a deterrent against hiring.

France's jobless rate fell in June for the first time in four years but remains a major drag on the economy at 10.1 percent well above the government's earlier 9 percent target for the end of the year.

Other measures introduced Tuesday include government funding to help the smallest companies hire extra staff and a euro1,000 (US$1,220) tax credit for young workers who take jobs in sectors suffering from labor shortages.

But unions and opposition leaders predicted that the new measures would undermine working conditions and confidence while failing to creating new jobs.

"If we want to create jobs, we should be creating economic activity, not new types of contract," said Socialist Party spokesman Julien Dray in an interview with France Inter radio.

"This will increase job insecurity, not job creation."

The left-wing CGT union, France's second largest, vowed to organize street demonstrations against the new measures next month.

In comments published by daily Liberation, the CGT's deputy leader, Maryse Dumas, also criticized the government for acting in "contempt" of lawmakers.

"The emergency procedure is not a sign of the government's strength," she said. "On the contrary, it's an illustration of its unpopularity and illegitimacy."

___

Associated Press Writer Christine Ollivier contributed to this report.

[MagusYanam]

All right, one small detail to clear up first:

You can't just pick the cream of the crop and assume that this shows that socialism doesn't lead to corruption.

Logically, yes, I can. See, you made these statements:

Socialism is a failed project.

However, socialism is state controlled which often means less competition and more corruption.

The fact that most European countries have not lapsed into anarchy after all this time using regulated market economics makes the first statement unequivocally false. The second statement is a generalisation which you have to back up; the fact that the countries with the least governmental corruption implement regulated markets would seem to indicate that the second statement is problematic - the logical burden of proof (in your case, that the social and economic problems Mexico faces are caused primarily by their use of socialist policies) lies with you.

Correlation is not causation, but you have to have the first before you can try to prove the second. On a similar note:

These countries don't give you a true representation of the effects of socialism.

What, may I ask, is a 'true representation' of socialism? You can't just pick the examples that suit your argument: you claim that socialism doesn't work. If I give you an example of a country with socialist policies which does, you can't just deny that these countries are a 'true representation'. It just weakens your argument.

As it is, I took examples of countries with a close historical, cultural and political resemblance to this one (not size, although I don't see how size would matter more than the political system or the sociocultural mindset). And in such countries, legally regulating business practise does work. It has problems, sure, but no more so than our system does.

The U.S. should not be that high compared to these countries. We have large pockets of poverty (over 12%), and we have a huge education problem.

First, you have to tell me what this per capita GDP figure is. Is it a mean or a median figure? If it's a mean, then by statistical reasoning your last statement is (with respect) bulls--t. That we have large pockets of poverty along with a large mean per capita GDP means absolutely nothing, especially considering that our country is home to the wealthiest people in the world. They skew the mean like no tomorrow. If, in fact, your per capita GDP's are median figures, then it becomes a different story.

Also, do you have percentile figures by country for per capita GDP and unemployment? I think you'll find that Finland and Sweden are actually well above average (like in the top 20%) for per capita GDP and below average for unemployment rates.

Generally speaking, their countries should be doing far better than us for no other reason than they don't have the larger social problems that we have.

Such as... poverty? Keeping in mind that correlation is not causation, in general Western European countries don't have very wide wealth gaps, so obviously they're doing something right.

Education? Western European countries also fund their schools instead of dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a vastly excessive military budget. If we actually invest in the system we already have in place, maybe we wouldn't have such bad problems with education, either.

Btw, the recession with Reagan was already in the works prior to his being in office. Stagflation happened under Jimmy Carter and this almost always spells a deep recession is on its way.

That's not the incident to which I was referring. The 1980-81 recession was probably an aftershock of the oil crises of the Nixon presidency, which resulted in stagflation under (most noticeably) Carter. I was referring to the stock market plummet of 1987, primarily. Also, the 1990-91 recession which happened under Bush 41 may have had some cause in Reaganomics.

Companies that are sucessful do well, and the people who invested in them (despite the risk of losing their money) did so because they had some kind of insight as to which companies they should spend their money. If you take that away, then those people won't invest their money in those companies. Those companies may not survive, and now you have a situation where companies are laying off workers (high unemployment) because those companies didn't survive.

Tying the executive stockholder/worker wage ratio does not eliminate investment incentive. Why would it do that? Investors who gauge a company's success by how well their executives are paid will soon find themselves broke - remember Enron? There was no wealth behind the investment, the company for which still paid its executives exorbitant amounts of money.

If we had some kind of legal safeguards in place that forced companies to take some responsibility for their workers and for their investors, we shouldn't have these kinds of problems.

[harvey1]

The fact that most European countries have not lapsed into anarchy after all this time using regulated market economics makes the first statement unequivocally false.

It took communism 50+ years to fail, and even then it didn't lapse into anarchy. Socialism would take even longer, and of course as the economy deteriorates, reforms come along (e.g., in France as my example illustrates) that stave off the dire effects of socialist programs.

The second statement is a generalisation which you have to back up; the fact that the countries with the least governmental corruption implement regulated markets would seem to indicate that the second statement is problematic - the logical burden of proof (in your case, that the social and economic problems Mexico faces are caused primarily by their use of socialist policies) lies with you.

Magus, this is social policy, not a math problem. You aren't likely to find a black and white issue within this context. If someone wants to argue a position, they could do so time without end and even then they wouldn't be forced to admit the cause was socialist policies. All I can point to is a continuum of economies from communist to capitalist and show how conditions generally improve for significant sized nations as they have less and less government regulation and socialist programs. I don't think it serves our purpose to look for exceptions, especially small nations whom Silicon Valley could employ and still need lack workers. Nations that are large cannot depend on the labor shortages of a Silicon Valley or of a cell phone industry (etc.) to meet their needs. They must generate wealth from inside the country or they won't be able to survive. Countries the size of France and larger suffer a great deal of difficulty in doing this. The United States has one of the poorest educational systems in the industrialized world, it has one of the worst racial and ethnic difficulties facing it, not to mention it has had to spend a considerable amount of its GNP on military spending. Yet, despite all these disadvantages, the U.S. produces a very high GNP per capita and low unemployment than many of the small populated socialist countries with a much higher educated populace.

What, may I ask, is a 'true representation' of socialism? You can't just pick the examples that suit your argument: you claim that socialism doesn't work. If I give you an example of a country with socialist policies which does, you can't just deny that these countries are a 'true representation'. It just weakens your argument.

Let's use the CIA fact book as a definition: "in general, countries in which the government owns and plans the use of the major factors of production; note - the term is sometimes used incorrectly as a synonym for Communist countries"

Very tough to consider. Let's make a list first. We should assume that we don't mean a transition or former communist country, but we mean a country that has a certain degree of wealth and size. In addition, we don't want a list that includes every nation except the United States. I would propose that an easily identifiable list of capitalist nations are those top 5 countries having the most billionaires. Obviously, if they tax billionaires heavily to support the socialist programs, the billionaires won't be the richest in the world. The top 5 countries with the most billionaires are:

1. United States 269
2. Japan 29
3. Germany 28
4. Italy 17
5. Canada 16

As for Socialist nations, these are the richest economies in the world. In addition, it seems like we cannot leave out China, Australia, South Korea, and India, so these are also included.

• Norway $ 37,800
• Austria $ 30,000
• Netherlands $ 28,600
• United Kingdom $ 27,700
• France $ 27,600
• Finland $ 27,400
• Sweden $ 26,800
• Spain $ 22,000
• Greece $ 20,000
• China
• Australia
• South Korea
• India

I think it's pretty obvious that U.S., Germany, and Japan account for most of the wealth in the world. China will eventually pass up all three, but China is also quickly becoming the most capitalistic country in the world too.

First, you have to tell me what this per capita GDP figure is. Is it a mean or a median figure?

Mean.

If it's a mean, then by statistical reasoning your last statement is (with respect) bulls--t.

huh?

That we have large pockets of poverty along with a large mean per capita GDP means absolutely nothing, especially considering that our country is home to the wealthiest people in the world. They skew the mean like no tomorrow. If, in fact, your per capita GDP's are median figures, then it becomes a different story.

From what I can tell, table 5-3 shows that the net worth of the top 1% and top 5% for four countries shows:

United States: 35% 56%
Japan: 25% ---
Canada: 17% 38%
Sweden: 16% 31%

In other words, the top 1% of people having the most net worth own 35% of the total net worth available, compared to Sweden where that number is slightly less than half that number. The top 5% is a little closer with the U.S. top 5% owning 56% of the total net worth of the country, and Sweden's top 5% holds 31% of the total net worth of their country.

However, keep in mind the GNP/c is $40K for the U.S. and only 28K for Sweden. So, there is more wealth to share in the U.S. than there is in Sweden. Also, I would ask that we compare the same educational level between the U.S. and Sweden based on actual test scores. That would surely benefit the U.S. since if you compare education level to education level between both countries, I think you would naturally find the higher earners in the U.S. making a significantly higher income than their Swedish counterparts.

The U.S. has a severe education situation, however you can't blame capitalism on poor education. Education is the result of political conditions that exist in poor urban areas that have a plethora of problems (gangs, drugs, violence, the effects of secularism, etc.).

Also, do you have percentile figures by country for per capita GDP and unemployment? I think you'll find that Finland and Sweden are actually well above average (like in the top 20%) for per capita GDP and below average for unemployment rates.

You'd have to go to the CIA fact book to collect the data and then tabulate it that way. I don't think it is something you will easily find.

Such as... poverty? Keeping in mind that correlation is not causation, in general Western European countries don't have very wide wealth gaps, so obviously they're doing something right.

They are keeping the wealthy poor, but it has tragic results to their economy that we are not aware of because they keep their workers educated so that those are desirable places to expand factories and make engineering facilities, etc.. If they didn't have that resource, then companies that grew from capitalist markets would not expand there. However, if the countries that created the conditions didn't continue to create those free enterprising conditions, there would fewer companies to expand into those regions to take advantage of their labor market. Given their small size as countries (and willingness to open their markets), they benefit enormously. They do a few things right (namely, education and having good work ethics of the labor force), and therefore even though they aren't the best Silicon Valley-like generators of businesses, they still can take advantage of Silicon Valley-like expansion of companies that decide to move there. Ireland is an excellent example. Ireland is one of the largest software exporters in the world. It's not that software companies originated there, they expanded to Ireland because of Ireland's work force being well-educated and having the government make software a high priority for their economic growth. It worked.

Education? Western European countries also fund their schools instead of dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into a vastly excessive military budget. If we actually invest in the system we already have in place, maybe we wouldn't have such bad problems with education, either.

True. However, I would put caveats on education. No blank checks. If the taxpayer has to pay for someone else's education, then darn it, why should they pay for the kid to take art classes? I think if the education serves a vital interest for industry, then it is good to finance. We have too few engineers and too many people trying to find themselves in this country, and a lot of kids from across the ocean are taking advantage of those opportunities in education facilities that the taxpayer is paying for. Many of those kids start companies with government financed research dollars, make their millions, and they bring their families over making even more money. That's OKAY, because it is helping the U.S. over all. But, there's a lot of poor kids in urban areas whose family built this country and died for it, and they get nothing in return. Even today, kids coming back from Iraq will not benefit from the oil profits made by tycoons who are just waiting for the country to stabilize. It is sickening, but it is the case. So, you have to encourage U.S. kids to go after the jobs that the market wants. It's too bad it should be that way (in my view), because I love art and love humanities, but I can't justify kids coming from overseas taking high tech jobs that should have gone to a kid in the south side of Chicago had he had money to go to a high tech school. Instead, that money was given to other poor kids to take English, and they still end up working at Wendy's. (I realize I'm stepping on toes here, so I might have to speak more softly on this issue.)

That's not the incident to which I was referring. The 1980-81 recession was probably an aftershock of the oil crises of the Nixon presidency, which resulted in stagflation under (most noticeably) Carter. I was referring to the stock market plummet of 1987, primarily. Also, the 1990-91 recession which happened under Bush 41 may have had some cause in Reaganomics.

If I'm not mistaken, the 1987 plummet was due to junk bonds, I believe. We have Michael Milkin to thank for that.

If we had some kind of legal safeguards in place that forced companies to take some responsibility for their workers and for their investors, we shouldn't have these kinds of problems.

I agree with you there. There needs to be reform on this issue, just like there needed to be reform on the junk bonds issue in the late 80's. But, you don't step back from capitalism because of these issues. The U.S. is so inefficient and wasteful that if it didn't have a capitalist economy I see nothing that would prevent us from becoming a Spanish or Franco economy. A very bad move. If anything, we should look for ways to expand free enterprise without leading to a shift of more wealth to the rich.

[melikio]

It seems to me that capitalism works, and so does socialism to certain degrees. (I'm no expert on either however.)

What I am certain of, is that the overall well-being of individuals (in any case) should not be overlooked or disregarded. That is, ANY SYSTEM which abjectly leads to the dehumanization of the average person, runs the great risk of failing gloriously.

Human beings are not "machines", placed here for the purpose of others who would "lord" something over them. Wealth/comfort are things many tend to want, but they aren't anywhere near as important as the entirety of life itself. People have feelings, they are not imperfect and are hardly set-in-stone. Governments and economic systems which tend toward dehumanization of many individuals, end up being beset with problems which prove (typically in hindsight) that such overall treatment wasn't "worth" it. Checks and balances, should be weighted toward regarding the PEOPLE, not necessarily the SYSTEMS in place; when human beings start worshipping systems/things (or even other people)...corruption is often overlooked and the consequences mankind is so familiar with are the end result.

One doesn't have to be an economist or sociologist, to understand that screwing people over (in various ways), usually leads to bad things. The discussions and arguments over such topics, are so often similar (in effect) to those concerning art or music; where a lot can be said about what people think/believe/prefer. But in the end, the bottom line remains, that which people are capable of accepting and/or appreciating; the things which human beings value within the overall picture.

In short, money, wealth, status and power matter and apply to life...but those aren't everything to everyone.

Capitalism certainly works, but it's not perfect by any means...and the same goes for 99.9999% of things which human beings have their hands into. Care should be taken in any case, to consider the kinds of things that edify and benefit all; not all of those things necessarily pertain to wealth and power exclusively.

Just my opinion and basic overview of things related to the topic.

-Mel-