From a banking, profit-making, demand-and-supply perspective, money isn’t all that different from any other commodity, Fact-Man, where not merely a proxy in fact.

Globalization, or its associated complexity, doesn’t alter the basics: it’s still about the selling of goods and services in the most competitive way possible, making a profit.

Does lack of an answer make the question as to what might replace market-based economics any the less relevant?

Criticizing capitalism is great: knowing how to fix it, or what to replace it with. even better?

Rick wrote: From a banking, profit-making, demand-and-supply perspective, money isn’t all that different from any other commodity, Fact-Man, where not merely a proxy in fact.

Globalization, or its associated complexity, doesn’t alter the basics: it’s still about the selling of goods and services in the most competitive way possible, making a profit.

When economic activity shifts markedly from making and selling hard goods to banking and financial services, which includes the stock market, where no hard goods are involved, I think it does alter the nature of the beast and the behaviors that exist in the one aren't applicable to the behaviors that exist in the other and where, for example, jobs take on a whole new complexion. I'd agree that ultimately it still boils down to buying and selling and trading, but the differences definitely affect how we see economics and how we analyze and measure economic activity and what we deem to be significant in those activities.

Rick wrote:
Does lack of an answer make the question as to what might replace market-based economics any the less relevant?

No.

Rick wrote:
Criticizing capitalism is great: knowing how to fix it, or what to replace it with. even better?

The value of criticism is that it shows us what's wrong, which in turn illustrates what must be changed or done differently. A problem cannot be solved unless and until it's thoroughly understood and accepted as a problem in need of a solution.

For example, few would contend the idea that capitalist economies as operated in the US produce prodigious waste streams, in which Americans are consuming about half the world's annual production of raw materials and sending a goodly share of it to landfills, which can hardly be built or created fast enough to keep up with the flow. Yet the US represents something less than five per cent of the world's population ... so there's an obvious imbalance there and it has existed for decades as a norm in American capitalism.

This is a problem that needs resolving, and great efforts have been made toward that end, what with recycling and calls to "use less" or "buy locally" and so on. Still, hardly a dent has been put in America's enormous waste streams, which continue almost unabated.

The problem is that this "norm" is not sustainable nor will the rest of the world likely stand for it much longer. This is a huge problem, one that cries out for a solution, and to date we've not found a solution to it in the normal modus operandi of America's capitalist economy, try as some people might.

Criticism leads to the formulation of specific problems and issues that might be dealt with effectively in some new model of economics. But as I noted, such new models cannot be articulated in anything less than book-length treatments or studies that would be voluminous because of complexity.

There is one pretty good study that goes in this direction that was published in 2009 by the now defunct British Sustainability Commission, titled "Prosperity Without Growth," a 106 page PDF that can be found on the web by searching on the title. I'd urge you to get a copy of this report if for no other reason than to get a glimpse of the scope and complexity that's involved with the question. This report spends 106 pages just overviewing the problems and the issues, while making no recommendations as to how we might do things differently, although it does at least outline some of the things that we'd probably have to do in any new economic schema.

That report is a good place to start in coming to grips with a) just how critical things have become and b) the complexities that are involved in any attempt to develop new models.

Carry on!

Rick wrote: From a banking, profit-making, demand-and-supply perspective, money isn’t all that different from any other commodity, Fact-Man, where not merely a proxy in fact.

Globalization, or its associated complexity, doesn’t alter the basics: it’s still about the selling of goods and services in the most competitive way possible, making a profit.

When economic activity shifts markedly from making and selling hard goods to banking and financial services, which includes the stock market, where no hard goods are involved, I think it does alter the nature of the beast and the behaviors that exist in the one aren't applicable to the behaviors that exist in the other and where, for example, jobs take on a whole new complexion. I'd agree that ultimately it still boils down to buying and selling and trading, but the differences definitely affect how we see economics and how we analyze and measure economic activity and what we deem to be significant in those activities and the formulation of economic policies.

Rick wrote:
Does lack of an answer make the question as to what might replace market-based economics any the less relevant?

No.

Rick wrote:
Criticizing capitalism is great: knowing how to fix it, or what to replace it with. even better?

The value of criticism is that it shows us what's wrong, which in turn illustrates what must be changed or done differently. A problem cannot be solved unless and until it's thoroughly understood and accepted as a problem in need of a solution.

For example, few would contend the idea that capitalist economies as operated in the US produce prodigious waste streams, in which Americans are consuming about half the world's annual production of raw materials and sending a goodly share of it to landfills, which can hardly be built or created fast enough to keep up with the flow. Yet the US represents something less than five per cent of the world's population ... so there's an obvious imbalance there and it has existed for decades as a norm in American capitalism.

This is a problem that needs resolving, and great efforts have been made toward that end, what with recycling and calls to "use less" or "buy locally" and so on. Still, hardly a dent has been put in America's enormous waste streams, which continue almost unabated.

The problem is that this "norm" is not sustainable nor will the rest of the world likely stand for it much longer. This is a huge problem, one that cries out for a solution, and to date we've not found a solution to it in the normal modus operandi of America's capitalist economy, try as some people might.

Criticism leads to the formulation of specific problems and issues that might be dealt with effectively in some new model of economics. But as I noted, such new models cannot be articulated in anything less than book-length treatments or studies that would be voluminous because of complexity.

There is one pretty good study that goes in this direction that was published in 2009 by the now defunct British Sustainability Commission, titled "Prosperity Without Growth," a 106 page PDF that can be found on the web by searching on the title. I'd urge you to get a copy of this report if for no other reason than to get a glimpse of the scope and complexity that's involved with the question. This report spends 106 pages just overviewing the problems and the issues, while making no recommendations as to how we might do things differently, although it does at least outline some of the things that we'd probably have to do in any new economic schema.

That report is a good place to start in coming to grips with a) just how critical things have become and b) the complexities that are involved in any attempt to develop new models.

Carry on!

We apparently agree that questions like ‘what do you propose we replace it with?’ are not “just very shallow remarks that are dumber than a box of razor wire . . .” Fact-Man, and that the lemonade-stand analogy has some merit after all.

The shortcomings so freely attributed to ‘capitalism’ per se, are also really those which emerged with ‘industrial capitalism’, not the same thing. With the actual form in force furthermore varying from country to country - state-run Chinese capitalism is obviously different from the Swedish or American model.

Horace noted that “ the argument for capitalism is that it demonstrably works better than any other system yet tried: witness the high standards of living and freedom in the western capitalist countries built on the British and continental European models. The UK, Canada, Australia, the US, and western Europe. Then witness the alternatives tried.”

It’s not an argument I’d care to dispute, particularly since market-based economics in the developing countries is currently responsible for raising the living standards of billions of people. I’d similarly not dispute the fact that present trends are inherently unsustainable in the longer term.

I think most of us are well aware of capitalism’s flawed nature. The many alternate proposals I’ve come across, ignoring past alternatives, seem neither practicable nor likely.

Rick wrote: We apparently agree that questions like ‘what do you propose we replace it with?’ are not “just very shallow remarks that are dumber than a box of razor wire . . .” Fact-Man, and that the lemonade-stand analogy has some merit after all.

The shortcomings so freely attributed to ‘capitalism’ per se, are also really those which emerged with ‘industrial capitalism’, not the same thing. With the actual form in force furthermore varying from country to country - state-run Chinese capitalism is obviously different from the Swedish or American model.

But not fundamentally different; they each have corporate sectors and they all use currency as their mechanism of exchange and they all have markets and they all employ borrowing and debt and long-term financing. They are essentially the same. We may say that black people are "different" from white people, but they are essentially the same kind of animal regardless of their skin color.

Rick wrote:
Horace noted that “ the argument for capitalism is that it demonstrably works better than any other system yet tried: witness the high standards of living and freedom in the western capitalist countries built on the British and continental European models. The UK, Canada, Australia, the US, and western Europe. Then witness the alternatives tried.”

It’s not an argument I’d care to dispute,

Why not? It's easily shown to be an ill-founded assertion given the waste and debt that it has taken to run it, not to mention the fact that a plethora of cheap shoddy material goods consumed in a profligately wasteful manner hardly represents a "high standard of living" let alone a social environment in which humans can flourish. Any close look at American today will show this to be the case, with its enormous prison population, its badly dumbed down public, and the greed that pervades big business. One in 400 Americans today are homeless, yet there are enough homes standing empty to accommodate them by a factor of 27-to-one. That may have been OK 300 years ago, but it's intolerable today.

And supporting this alleged "high standard of living" by using almost half the raw materials the world's produces each year simply does not give credence to the idea that it's a high standard of living anyway. And we've not even touched on the enormous debt loads folks have carried to sustain their so-called "high standard of living."

Now, throw in the idea that it can all come crashing down at the drop of a big banker's greedy hat, so that it provides little by way of assured economic security and sum it up. I don't think it adds up to a "high standard of living" at all, not even close.

But much of what Horace alludes to as representing a "high standard of living" doesn't arise from our Capitalist economy at all, it arises from collective efforts at improving hygiene and sanitary conditions by building good functioning sewer and drainage systems and sewage treatment plants and educating the public in the ways of sanitary living, and maintaining those systems over time; and by building water and electrical distribution systems and maintaining them over time; and by operating a Center for Disease Control (CDC) that pays attention to public health and does things to sustain it.

Aspects of infrastructure such as these contribute a very great deal to the standard of living enjoyed (or not) by Americans, and they do not depend nor rely upon capitalistic economic activity to either get them built or to maintain them. They arise from public decisions regarding how the public wishes to spend its collective funds. In the same way, local communities build school systems to educate their young and their youth, and States build colleges, technical schools, and universities and opportune, as best they're able, attendance at these institutions by as many students as they can cram in.

Rick wrote:
particularly since market-based economics in the developing countries is currently responsible for raising the living standards of billions of people.

If living standards for "billions of people" are on the rise, and that's a very big if, it could be attributed to any number of things, like local farmers getting better seeds or learning more effective crop growing techniques from UN aid workers and the more widely spread use of antibiotics and better sanitary conditions. It'd be hard to discern just how much of it could be attributed to "market economies."

Rick wrote:
I’d similarly not dispute the fact that present trends are inherently unsustainable in the longer term.

The trick here is just how long is "the longer term"? It's probably a lot shorter than you think.

Rick wrote:
I think most of us are well aware of capitalism’s flawed nature. The many alternate proposals I’ve come across, ignoring past alternatives, seem neither practicable nor likely.

I'm not content with the notion that a 17th century economic system is the best we can do. I in fact think we could do enormously better, fundamentally better, and better in the grandest of ways. But we can't do this using a 300 year-old system that's become obsolete and is beginning to threaten our very well being because of its inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum, which in turn is posing very real and very serious threats to our climate, and by implication to us, us and our way of life.

The window on that deal is fast closing and yet Capitalism rolls on like there was no tomorrow, blind to the realities that loom before us. That's one of the principle flaws of Capitalism, it pays no attention to anything save its bottom line, even when the house is afire, and it has no capacity to think ahead, more at least than the next quarter, which isn't far enough by a very good measure. The system is blind to the future, and we can't hope to navigate the coming years or decades flying blind, the end result of which is always a crash and burn. We need vision.

We'll be forced soon enough by dint of circumstance to shed ourselves of this perversely archaic system we have right now, one way or another, whether through more extreme climate change that's yet to come (but is right around the corner) or because of a catastrophic economic collapse that we don't foresee (we never foresee them) kills the system entirely, we are going to have to change. We have to adapt to new circumstances and new realities if we are to survive anywhere near intact.

We'll figure out what's "practicable" when we have no choice but to figure it out.

Adapt or die.

Onward!

For those who insist that the USA is a capitalism, here is an interesting article. I have heard of Swedes paying 100%+ in tax before...but apparently so do us yanks now... Americans pay ~100% tax.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/102-tax-rate-takes-cake-160010322.html

OnCue wrote:For those who insist that the USA is a capitalism, here is an interesting article. I have heard of Swedes paying 100%+ in tax before...but apparently so do us yanks now... Americans pay ~100% tax.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/102-tax-rate-takes-cake-160010322.html

The US tax Code is 30,000 pages of legaleze only the best tax accountants and tax attorneys can interpret with any reasonable effect or sense.

This produces a situation in which actual tax rates paid can and will and do vary all over the map, as described in the story at your link. In other words, it's a huge mess. I guess one could say it's a "30,000 page mess."

But this has nothing to do with the nature of the economic system, which may be capitalist or socialist or some mix thereof, and in the US it's capitalistic, as it has been from day one of the country's birth.

The American taxation system is a shambles, OnCue, but for a variety of reasons I wouldn’t take too much notice of that Ross example.

Even though obviously influenced by the nature of each particular society, and as further underscored by the lemonade-stand analogy, I did not claim that the ‘forms’ of market-based economics practiced by Sweden, China or America were “fundamentally different”, Fact-Man.

Horace argued that capitalism “demonstrably works better than any other system yet tried”. Pointing out certain of capitalism’s ill effects (or those more properly attributed to societal shortcomings), particularly American ones, and without presenting a better alternative, fails to prove otherwise. It’s also reasonable to assume that by ‘a high standard of living’, Horace means a high ‘material’ standard of living.

Where American living standards are concerned, I could easily mount an argument that the greatest prosperity ever has also created the greatest unhappiness, with US folk consuming more than three-quarters of the world’s antidepressants; a sickness partly brought on by surfeit, increasing alienation from the fundamental values on which human happiness was traditionally founded, pleasure-seeking individualism in place of family life, manic consumerism fueled by ever more debt, real fame denigrated into celebrity obsession, etc, etc - wrong choices flowing from faulty perception - but it’s simply not what this topic is about.

Societal wealth such as a high level of quality infrastructure can only be created out of the surpluses specifically dedicated to such purpose (as opposed to consuming it); one creates wealth by selling goods and services at a profit.

Countries the like of China and India etc happen to practice market-based economics – to what else might we possibly attribute their rising living standards?

The nature of industrial capitalism in the West has obviously changed significantly from that of the seventeenth century. Again, if you feel that we can’t go forward using this system, one totally entrenched within society itself, please suggest a workable replacement.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Rick wrote:
I think most of us are well aware of capitalism’s flawed nature. The many alternate proposals I’ve come across, ignoring past alternatives, seem neither practicable nor likely.

I'm not content with the notion that a 17th century economic system is the best we can do. I in fact think we could do enormously better, fundamentally better, and better in the grandest of ways. But we can't do this using a 300 year-old system that's become obsolete and is beginning to threaten our very well being because of its inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum, which in turn is posing very real and very serious threats to our climate, and by implication to us, us and our way of life.

"It's old" isn't a reason to abandon something, and it's a little odd to compare the "capitalism" of today with the "capitalism" of 300 years ago, as though they weren't particularly different. They are.

Capitalism's supposed "inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum" isn't a "capitalism" thing, it's a political thing. People passing a few laws to tax carbon emissions and the like would be both in accordance with most common understandings of capitalism, and would act to reduce the consumption of petroleum.

Loren Michael wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Rick wrote:
I think most of us are well aware of capitalism’s flawed nature. The many alternate proposals I’ve come across, ignoring past alternatives, seem neither practicable nor likely.

I'm not content with the notion that a 17th century economic system is the best we can do. I in fact think we could do enormously better, fundamentally better, and better in the grandest of ways. But we can't do this using a 300 year-old system that's become obsolete and is beginning to threaten our very well being because of its inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum, which in turn is posing very real and very serious threats to our climate, and by implication to us, us and our way of life.

"It's old" isn't a reason to abandon something, and it's a little odd to compare the "capitalism" of today with the "capitalism" of 300 years ago, as though they weren't particularly different. They are.

The schema is the same, invest, buy, and sell, make a profit, as much as you can as fast as you can. Rinse and repeat.

Loren Michael wrote:
Capitalism's supposed "inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum" isn't a "capitalism" thing, it's a political thing. People passing a few laws to tax carbon emissions and the like would be both in accordance with most common understandings of capitalism, and would act to reduce the consumption of petroleum.

But we know that in America corporations have hijacked the government and now wield almost complete control over "political things," and have exerted great efforts to prevent the passage of legislation aimed at curbing the consumption of petroleum.

Corporations have done this, not you or me or the commonweal, but corporations. Now, ask yourself why they've done this, why have they hijacked the people's government and bent it to their own ends? Why has there not been any legislation enacted that would curb GHG emissions (and by implication, the consumption of petroleum). The answer is pretty simple, but I'll leave you to figure it out.

Science is telling us that if we do not reduce our GHG emissions by marked degrees we're going to be in a real climate pickle within a decade or so, i.e., very soon, and we can already see the beginnings of that pickle in what's happening right across the global environment. Yet, we continue to emit GHGs and pollute our atmosphere with them and we do so because corporations have a lock on our government which allows them to prevent whatever "political things" we might do to address the issue.

And on top of that, the fossil fuel industry spends $millions to spread doubt and confusion about the science, which aids and abets what they do in governance toward preventing the enactment of legislation that would mandate GHG reductions (and hence, a reduction in the consumption of petroleum).

It's no different really than the manner in which Big Tobacco corporations denied and fought against the medical science that showed us the realities about smoking, and lied about it for 60 years before finally losing the debate. How many people had to die from smoking in those 60 years? Millions. How much did Big Tobacco care about those deaths? They didn't care a lick about them. What they cared about was their bottom line.

It's the same today on the issue of GHG emissions and the oil consumption that drives them. Big Oil only cares about its bottom line and it too has and will continue to lie about it to protect its investments and its earnings. How much do they care about what this means for our futures? Apparently, given their behavior, they don't care at all.

Any economy that allows the blind to lead us off a cliff is not worth a plugged nickle. Any economy that does not possess the flexibility to react positively to scientific findings and do "the right thing" isn't worth its salt. Smart people would dispense with such an economy post haste and draw upon their brainpower to find a better and safer way of doing things.

This may be too subtle and too complex for you to see or to apprehend, but it isn't so for many.

The ‘schema’ is not just one of “invest, buy, and sell”, Fact-Man.

Market-based economics is primarily concerned with determining what people want and of delivering it at the lowest possible cost: a mechanism aimed at satisfying myriad competing wants with limited resources, according to price. Your schema merely identifies its trading or distribution and speculative aspects, elements that have always existed (even the Roman business world speculated on commodity and real estate prices).

And as Loren notes, capitalism’s ‘failure’ to reduce petroleum consumption, or in dealing with some of the other issues you mentioned, including that of global warming, resides with the (abject?) nature of society itself, as for its politics and appointed leaders. As long as people continue to vote in favour of cheap fossil fuel at a high-enough price (each and every time they fill their petrol tanks, in fact), you can bet that there will be someone there to provide it - lest society as a whole in its wisdom rules otherwise.

In the past, capitalism remained also subject to various traditional societal constraints or checks (for instance, throughout the nineteenth century, the masses didn’t even deem money-grubbing a particularly admirable aspiration), fetters now but relegated to the dustbin of history, with market-based economics the new global religion. And unlike many college debating societies’ vision of a Western civilization shiningly heading into a glorious golden future, some of today’s observers suggest that we’re instead rapidly turning rotten to the core, that the West is sliding into a state of ignorant ‘decadence’ beyond the point of no return, into an irreversible decline. Not that I should profess such dismal views, of course.

You say that American corporations “have hijacked the government and now wield almost complete control over ‘political things’ … corporations have done this …” I’m hardly in a position to demonstrate otherwise – as for such notions that America is supposedly ‘owned’ by an oligarchy of billionaires, and with most of its Senators allegedly but Big Business lobbyists? – Yet, if most Americans are simply too blind, uneducated or ignorant to demand or effect change, lack the requisite discrimination or ‘wisdom’, as one might say, or even prefer things just as they are, how can you blame ‘capitalism’?

“Any economy that allows the blind to lead us off a cliff is not worth a plugged nickle”?

“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”

Rick wrote: The ‘schema’ is not just one of “invest, buy, and sell”, Fact-Man.

Market-based economics is primarily concerned with determining what people want and of delivering it at the lowest possible cost:

Actually no, market-based economies are comprised of corporations doing business, they're primary reason for even being in business is very straightforward, it is to make money. There is simply no other reason to be in business. The primary concern of a business is to make money, because if they don't do that much, they'll go out of business soon enough and that's not what they want to do.

Rick wrote:
a mechanism aimed at satisfying myriad competing wants with limited resources, according to price. Your schema merely identifies its trading or distribution and speculative aspects, elements that have always existed (even the Roman business world speculated on commodity and real estate prices).

The details of the schema,“invest, buy, and sell” don't really matter, whether your investing in real estate or stocks or bonds or an IPO, whether you're buying pigs and selling bacon or buying parts and selling computers or building (investing) and selling homes; how one goes about identifying markets and sources of supply and advertises their wares doesn't play in the fundamental schema, those things are all variables, whereas investing, buying, and selling and making a profit are fixed, they are the foundational things that will always occur regardless of what else might go on.

Rudimentary attributes or features or characteristics of a system are those components of it that are fixed; all else are variables that play or don't play ... depending.

Any half decent analytical mind will get this. I don't know about you. Any system can be reduced to its fixed features, which are usually described as their rudiments or their fundamentals, the things that will always occur regardless of what else might go on.

Rick wrote:
And as Loren notes, capitalism’s ‘failure’ to reduce petroleum consumption, or in dealing with some of the other issues you mentioned, including that of global warming, resides with the (abject?) nature of society itself, as for its politics and appointed leaders. As long as people continue to vote in favour of cheap fossil fuel at a high-enough price (each and every time they fill their petrol tanks, in fact), you can bet that there will be someone there to provide it - lest society as a whole in its wisdom rules otherwise.

This is just a weak-kneed and not very bright excuse, it assumes that a $ten trillion a year fossil fuel industry doesn't have an interest in perpetuating ever rising consumption of its products (and global warming and the consumption of oil are related, both are part of the same problem); it further assumes that this industry won't exert every effort to protect its interests and it bottom line and its sources and its markets ... and it further assumes that none of this is going on nor influencing the way people think, people are just slothful by nature. It's the people's fault! Or worse, "It's society's fault!"

Patent bullshit. An utter load of hooey.

If you're drinking this Kool Aid then you're ignoring many obvious and well known things about governance, politics, and economics that tell a rather different story, things that are in the news every day. Everyone who's anyone understands the stranglehold corporations have on the Congress. Senator John McCain said it a decade ago, "Special interests have hijacked our government." It's even more true today and with Citizens United it'll likely become even more true tomorrow.

You do follows the news I assume?

And what about the $Millions the fossil fuel industry has spent spreading doubt and confusion about the science? They doing that for fun? Why don't you tell me why they do this sort of thing? And be advised, it's all well documented and can be shown to be factual, even including leaked memos from Exxon. So don't try to say it isn't so. Just tell me why they're doing it.

Moreover, your excuse fails to recognize what I'm sure are mountains of sociological and socio-economic studies that illustrate the almost functional relationship between people and economy and the manner in which political power plays in that equation to deny the commonweal any real say in things. If we had a more democratic political process at our disposal I'm sure we'd have long since been legislating the kinds of changes that would get us in synch with the science. But since that's not what the corporate world wants nor what's best in terms of short-term economics (for some at any rate), and since the corporations own the Congress, guess what? That kind of legislation doesn't even come up.

I've heard a lot of whacked out excuses that attempt to defend capitalism, but this one takes the cake.

Rick wrote:
In the past, capitalism remained also subject to various traditional societal constraints or checks (for instance, throughout the nineteenth century, the masses didn’t even deem money-grubbing a particularly admirable aspiration), fetters now but relegated to the dustbin of history, with market-based economics the new global religion. And unlike many college debating societies’ vision of a Western civilization shiningly heading into a glorious golden future, some of today’s observers suggest that we’re instead rapidly turning rotten to the core, that the West is sliding into a state of ignorant ‘decadence’ beyond the point of no return, into an irreversible decline. Not that I should profess such dismal views, of course.

You say that American corporations “have hijacked the government and now wield almost complete control over ‘political things’ … corporations have done this …” I’m hardly in a position to demonstrate otherwise – as for such notions that America is supposedly ‘owned’ by an oligarchy of billionaires, and with most of its Senators allegedly but Big Business lobbyists? – Yet, if most Americans are simply too blind, uneducated or ignorant to demand or effect change, lack the requisite discrimination or ‘wisdom’, as one might say, or even prefer things just as they are, how can you blame ‘capitalism’?

I can and I surely do, because the causes of the malaise of which you speak are economic, they're not some naturally abiding aspect of human nature. It's called power dude and the people have little power whereas those Oligarch's they've got gobs of it, mainly because they're wealthy beyond compare, and money = power. Power politics, which seeks mainly to control and determine the shape and content and dynamics of economics, to the end of further aggrandizing the wealth of the capitalists.

I think you need to do some reading on this topic, study up.

Rick wrote:
“Any economy that allows the blind to lead us off a cliff is not worth a plugged nickle”?

“The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars but in ourselves.”

No, the fault lies in trying to operate an archaic economy that's become obsolete and keep it running long past its useful life. That's where the fault lies in this.

Did anyone ever guarantee the world that the Capitalist system was going to be forever? Who claimed that it had to be? Change is the most prominent aspect of society today, and yet we can't change our economy? We change everything but oh no! We can't touch our blessed economy! What, was it granted Sainthood or something? Just what is it that makes it inviolate? Surely it can't be because "it's the best that's ever happened," because that's a long way from being the best we can do.

Capitalism is a monstrous raging blind predator loose upon the world, rapaciously and prodigiously consuming everything in sight as it plunders the very world we rely upon for our lives.

I know, the truth hurts.

But there it is dude, just the facts.

If I didn't think we could do a lot better, I'd not be here debating this with you, and I mean a ton better, and for all concerned too, not just some.

Cheers (anyway)!

I think I can make do without your personal remarks, Fact-Man.

Of course business is there to make a profit; in fact, for corporations it’s really the only reason for existing at all. In this ‘schema’, all that markets do is determine price according to demand and supply – do I really need to take you through this mechanism baby-step by baby-step, because this is starting to seem surreal . . .

What’s more, this seemingly simple function of price-setting and resource allocation is one that is well nigh impossible to achieve or duplicate in other ways, especially in a world of ever-increasing complexity.

Corporations are merely another way of doing business, remaining subject to state sanction and regulation, whereas trade (your buying and selling and investing etc) is clearly a crucial component (not much good making something if you can’t sell or trade it or devote resources to it!)

Of course corporations have an interest in “perpetuating ever rising consumption of its products”. How else are they going to maintain profit!

The “Capitalist system’” merely mirrors collective behavior – doing so in a tangible form?

I meant to meticulously answer all of your points, but most only seem to amount to more verbose rhetoric and repetition.

Rick wrote: I think I can make do without your personal remarks, Fact-Man.

Of course business is there to make a profit; in fact, for corporations it’s really the only reason for existing at all. In this ‘schema’, all that markets do is determine price according to demand and supply – do I really need to take you through this mechanism baby-step by baby-step, because this is starting to seem surreal . . .

Just grasp the fundamentals dude, admit they haven't changed in 300 years.

Rick wrote:
What’s more, this seemingly simple function of price-setting and resource allocation is one that is well nigh impossible to achieve or duplicate in other ways, especially in a world of ever-increasing complexity.

So you think. It's not what I and others think.

Rick wrote:
Corporations are merely another way of doing business, remaining subject to state sanction and regulation, whereas trade (your buying and selling and investing etc) is clearly a crucial component (not much good making something if you can’t sell or trade it or devote resources to it!)

Not only crucial components, but the things that haven't changed in 300 years, which was the point. Try sticking to the point sometime, it'd help a great deal if you were to manage that.

Rick wrote:
Of course corporations have an interest in “perpetuating ever rising consumption of its products”. How else are they going to maintain profit!

The “Capitalist system’” merely mirrors collective behavior – doing so in a tangible form?

No, most certainly no. As Reagan said to Carter, "there you go again."

Rick wrote:
I meant to meticulously answer all of your points, but most only seem to amount to more verbose rhetoric and repetition.

I'm afraid you're not up to this.

You have continuously side-stepped and slipped around the key questions and the key elements to introduce irrelevant material or meanings. I think you're so hung up on what you conceive to be "capitalism" you can't see it any other way than the simplistic notions of lemonade stands or the batshit lunacy of it being "the people's fault," and other nonsense. You can't even seem to grasp the nature of the difference between the fundamentals of a system and its variables, and lacking that we can't get to first base.

I've stuck with you patiently (even if a bit strongly stated, which arises from frustration) just trying to keep you on track with a line of reasoned analysis and logical thought, but you're not really interested in anything that might shred your cherished ideations or notions, or so it appears to me.

I think in this last post of mine you got up against some stuff for which you have no answers and so your copping out. If that's not the case then do it, go through my last post and show us what you've got, and be thorough about it and leave no stone unturned. I challenge you to do this, and I'd challenge Horace and Loren to do the same too but the heat in the kitchen has already grown too strong for them and they've bailed out on us. as they always do when the going gets tough and they have no answers, they just run, insisting they're right and the world's wrong with no case to support it.

Look, when people deal with things that are complicated, they have to keep abstracting until they get to a level at which simplicity can better illustrate their points and help find some common ground, then proceed into more complex views that are built up on the simple things using reasoned thought and analysis and logical thought processes.

I've tried to stick to the simpler things, like making the analogy between the behavior of Big Oil and Big Tobacco or noting that because corporations control the Congress we don't get legislation that befits climate science, instead, we get nothing, and that's because Big Oil doesn't want any such legislation ... which would threaten their ongoing business, which makes the point that they are blind to the science, and my contention is the day we go blind to science, we're dead meat. Is that so hard to get? Hell, I know sixth graders who get it.

You wanna follow Big Oil off a climate change cliff? I sure's hell don't, but that's where its taking us. Why are you content with that? Beats me.

I'm willing to take my chances with the better of our peers here, are you?

xtraordinaryevidence wrote:

MoonLit wrote:

sandinista wrote:

horacerumpole wrote:Didn't OWS supporters tell us that OWS wasn't "anticapitalist?"

some maybe, not all. As far as I know OWS is inherently anticapitalist. If it wasn't than what's the point?

Er, I didn't get that from OWS at all. More like they're "anti unfair bullshit economics".

Lance wrote:Carl Marx tried to change away from capitalism, and he gained a lot of followers who implmented his ideas. Result was a humanitarian catastrophe.

I get kind of annoyed at protestors who oppose something without having a solid proposal as a substitute. If you want to oppose capitalism, you had better have done your homework, because every alternative tried so far has been a disaster.

And what about the countries that have a fine mixture of socialism and capitalism?

Ah, socialism.

Unfortunately, over here we also seem to be heading further towards pure capitalism, although we'll never get to the extremes that America has reached. Every election one of the parties uses the beneficiary-bashing card, and it seems to work. When it comes to politics, why are so many people assholes who don't seem to like the fact that some of their taxes are going to people that are in desperate need of it?

because those morons are insensitive ,stupid and so poor at accounting that they wouldnt even recognize a thief if he/she disguise themselves as politician or salesman.

I enjoyed reading your views, Fact-Man.

Folk will believe anything if presented with an air of authority, or held as fact by the masses?

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Rick wrote:
What’s more, this seemingly simple function of price-setting and resource allocation is one that is well nigh impossible to achieve or duplicate in other ways, especially in a world of ever-increasing complexity.

So you think. It's not what I and others think.

Ok fact-man-2, how about you provide us with a better mechanism of resource allocation.

Mononoke wrote:

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Rick wrote:
What’s more, this seemingly simple function of price-setting and resource allocation is one that is well nigh impossible to achieve or duplicate in other ways, especially in a world of ever-increasing complexity.

So you think. It's not what I and others think.

Ok fact-man-2, how about you provide us with a better mechanism of resource allocation.

I will take that question, allow people to direct the taxpayer to departments they believe deserve more, like research rather than war(even after having the nukes), US could have taken the world forward by 150 yrs if it would have spent more money on research than anything else.

Second, you arent thinking llike scientist, it isnt resource allocation, its being judicious with money so that we end up becoming much more efficient than we are to the point that no one in the world shall have to die of starvation.

FACT-MAN-2 wrote:

Loren Michael wrote:
Capitalism's supposed "inability to reduce the consumption of petroleum" isn't a "capitalism" thing, it's a political thing. People passing a few laws to tax carbon emissions and the like would be both in accordance with most common understandings of capitalism, and would act to reduce the consumption of petroleum.

But we know that in America corporations have hijacked the government and now wield almost complete control over "political things," and have exerted great efforts to prevent the passage of legislation aimed at curbing the consumption of petroleum.

Corporations have done this, not you or me or the commonweal, but corporations. Now, ask yourself why they've done this, why have they hijacked the people's government and bent it to their own ends? Why has there not been any legislation enacted that would curb GHG emissions (and by implication, the consumption of petroleum).

Governments in the past have been hijacked by any number of other interests. The Ottoman Empire was hijacked by the Janissary corps, China has at various times been hijacked by various groups of elites, pre-revolution France was bankrupted by the Monarchy's obligations to the elites it shared power with. These are all examples of political failure, of a political system that can't adapt to changing power structures and fails to account for the incentives that people face on a daily basis.

The fact is, a simple tweak, a carbon tax, some better city planning, these are things that have already been done in various places around the world, and are effective. They aren't "anti-capitalist", they're directly in the vein of capitalism. The fact that America's political system is unable to pursue these policies isn't a function of its economic system - which you would say is the same economic system that Europe and China have - it's a function of its political system. Look at how much gas costs in Europe. Aren't they capitalists? What's going on here?

It's as simple as that. You fight for a carbon tax, you fight to reduce the number of incentives that get people driving instead of biking, and you keep the economic system. If the political system falls victim to various interest groups, revise the political system.