Capitalism doesnt work

Capitalism works in the sense that it creates profits. Nobody argues that it doesn't work as intended, the argument is about how the way capitalism works is actually a good thing.

I would argue that at this point, the cultural and traditional undermining is being done primarily by technology. If we magically got FULLY AUTOMATED LUXURY COMMUNISM tomorrow, mass media and the internet combined with global air travel would continue to grind up genuine world culture into a universally digestible culture slurry that takes the most inoffensive parts of each culture a la carte, strips them of context, and poorly replicates them worldwide. People are biologically programmed to crave novelty but also safety and comfort. The paradox that creates leads to shit like Chipotle and Olive Garden-different from what you know, but watered down enough to appeal to everyone. Eventually the entire planet will be one blobby monoculture of pidgin english, fusion cuisine, and people who are completely divorced from any kind of deep culture or nonmaterialist understanding of who they are or where they came from.

If you want a vision of the future, picture a fat beige genderfluid eating a malaysian-style burrito while watching a Star Wars sequel-forever.

> If you want a vision of the future, picture a fat beige genderfluid eating a malaysian-style burrito while watching a Star Wars sequel-forever.
No need to go to the future. Modern day USA, the land of glorious crapitalism is exactly that.

Capitacucks always will blame anything except for their glorious crapitalism

>done primarily by technology
I understand where you're coming from, but I would argue it's not the technology in of itself even if it has an accelerating effect on that process. The driver of science and technology in the modern world is rarely the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Market culture generally dictates both the direction of scientific research and its application--money is spent on R&D as an investment it is expected to pay dividends to some degree (Jonas Salk's decision to let the whole world enjoy the work of his polio vaccine is notable because it is one of the unusual cases where the profit motive of science was forfeit).

Ultimately I think it is the Market Culture, in its relentless reduction of all things into mere activities of exchange, that devalues the meanings and practices of the past. It is this nihilistic appraisal of human activity purely in terms of production and consumption and the concordant relativism that undermines tradition and obliterates the values therin. Even if technology is put to that service the cause isn't from technology itself.

This.
Capitalism does not concern itself with giving good results. You can say capitalism works because it isn't intended to give good results.

However, many of the things pro-capitalists say are wrong and don't work. For example, assuming people are rational. Or the conflict between property rights and free market which is ignored. And believing monopolies can't exist.

capitalism makes brothers and sisters into competitors
it places material wealth at the top of the corporate ladder
which is really a pile of bodies of others

Free markets≠Capitalism

they are synonymous, you dense cunt

>le true capitalism has le never been tried guise

Capitalism > all other economic systems combined

Deal with it. Long live capitalism and freedom.

>capitalism
>freedom
Being able to buy BLACKED videos isn't synonymous with freedom

>what is mutualism
>what is market socialism
>what is left-wing market anarchism

Read Proudhon faggot.

>respects rights
Do you even Nestle?

When you are so fucking clueless about even the most basic economic facts, why do you post in threads about economics? It makes absolutely no sense.

>posting a meme thinker
yikes...

And your argument is...?

If you still in 2017 haven't learned about economics, what argument could I possibly give you that you have not already ignored?

Ludwig is a great name

Still waiting for your argument, in case you have one

Reality is my argument.

You on the other hand merely have what ifs as arguments for your stupid murderous failed ideology.

>replying with images with sentimental phrases
Nigga pls

>leftists replying at all

> Reality is my argument
Still no argument here

>your stupid murderous failed ideology.
>if you don't support capitalism it means you are inherently a communist
So you concede? Ok

Even the Economist laughed about that clown Misses.

Typical leftist brainlet responses

It is based upon constant growth so it will eventually stop working in the far future, but it is working pretty well right now

I guess it's all the fault of postmodernist genderqueer feminist Marxists taking over education.

Not an argument.

>income inequality
there is literally nothing wrong with that, what matters is poverty
would you rather have that the poor were poorer, provided that the rich were less rich?

>muh capitalism is b-bad...

Extreme income inequality has historically coincided political turmoil. It's a sign of poor health in a society when its rewards become more and more restricted to a privileged few.

>there is literally nothing wrong with that, what matters is poverty
When return of rate on capital increases faster than the entire economy grows, you're always getting both in a basket.

Conclusion: there is nothing inherently wrong with economic equality.

Not really. You just get that the rich get richer and the poor, but both get rich regardless.

I'll take what you're smoking for 500.

>muh economic equality

The rule is inequality in most areas in life, when socialist retards try to artificially create equality you get none at all.

Good thing then that income inequality is steadily declining all over the world.

>capitalism doesn't work
>he writes while using device invented by capitalists to access a communications network created by capitalists
>probably while using software also created by capitalists and drinking caffeine containing beverages in a store owned by a capitalist

>t. Pikkety reader

Guess what? He has been proven wrong

Nice argument.

Lel, make my day and link to a propaganda piece by the Mises institute.
>mouthbreather can't tell what's an argument and what isn't

youtube.com/watch?v=EgVDyBqAQNw

kys

Nice autism

Not a single developed country has a return on capital that is growing faster than the economy is.

Pendejo zurdo

Income inequality has been steadily rising in America since the 1970s and wealth concentration is reaching levels not seen since the Roaring 20's.

Well there's only only solution: COMMUNISM

Notice how the bulge on the left (poor side) is steadily flattening out and spreading to the right (wealthier side). Everyone is getting richer but you people choose to complain anyway because a handful of people are super rich.

How many working adults and dependents are in a household?

Why should we be okay with there being super rich people while there still are people that can't afford fucking shoes? If you had more dollars that you could even possibly spend in a timely manner (n) in your bank account in 2011 what exactly do you do with n times 1,25?

Because economics is not a zero sum game you melt.

This doesn't really address the question.

Why should we be okey with you sitting on your ass shitposting on Veeky Forums while there still are people that can't afford fucking shoes?

Because there is such a thing as private property and capitalism needs it. Over the last 50 years capitalism has enabled millions up millions of people that before couldn't afford shoes to now afford shoes. Even as total world population is growing, the number of people living in poverty is steadily declining.

We are very sorry we can't save everyone in one go, but so far we are doing a very good job at elevating the masses out of poverty, and we have a much better track record than any other system tried.

It does.

Do you have more than one room in your current home? Why don't you invite homeless people to stay with you? Oh you're in a 1 room apartment? Buy a 2nd bed and invite the homeless guy on the street to live with you :^) If not, shut the fuck up.

Just because someone has a lot of money that doesn't mean it's the reason someone else has little to nothing.

>violent crime is steadily dropping
>world hunger and malnutrition are steadily dropping
>access to new information is wider than ever
Even the most ardent of fascists generally let their economies run relatively freely during peacetime. In the 1950s while Chinese were starving Americans were getting fat.

capitalists invented coffee and the internet? wtf i live capitalism now

spoiler alert: they didn't invent those

economics is about the distribution of scarce resources. scarcity means that someone gains at the expense of others.

I don't think you understand what "zero sum game" means

>scarcity means that someone gains at the expense of others.

No, it does not you absolute fucking retard. Tiger Woods earning millions of dollars from being good at golf has zero impact on anyone else's well being or net worth.

>Even as total world population is growing, the number of people living in poverty is steadily declining.
not really. in quantity, there's more people in extreme poverty (1.1 billion live under a dollar a day, and thats just EXTREME poor) today than ever before in human history. who cares if we can support a higher population today above the poverty line? This very process by which we can support a high population today is leading us to a HUGE ecological crisis in less than 100 years time during which a shit ton of chaos and poverty will strike the world and neuter the living standards achieved today. All so some 1 billion or more middle class drones today can have some designer shoes eating palm oil-laced candy bars

For sure my dude, to solve global poverty why don't we just.. uuh.. send them money so they're not poor anymore?

are you so small minded that you can't step out and look at the bigger picture outside of the individual? as a bloc, the rich has a huge amount of money they can never spend within their lifetimes. a tiny percentage owns more wealth than most of the world population combined. And yes, Tiger wood's income does matter. As economics 101 says, where we choose to devote our money too is said to be what society allegedly prioritizes as the social good. So if we're prioritizing hundreds of milliosn of dollars to athletes, media icons and movie stars, all the definition of leeches, then we're choosing to dedicate a significant portion of societies' wealth toward leeches at the expense of improving education and healthcare, combatting poverty and other socially beneficial things.

>to athletes, media icons and movie stars
and who, by the way, are only a manifestation of leech corporations, industries and bureaucracies that organize these spectacles on which these individuals achieve their fame

As I said before, wealth disparity is the rule, not the exception. If that group of people were no that rich, that does not mean that another group of people would take over that wealth.

You can improve all of those things you mentioned by allowing prices to reign free, aka a free market. You will not improve any of those, in fact you will make them worse by having a central authority step in to redistribute money for said causes.

Read Adam Smith, it's the least you can do.

>For sure my dude, to solve global poverty why don't we just.. uuh.. send them money so they're not poor anymore?
how is this an argument? I'm actually just chuckling at how much of a non-sequitur this is

Your argument is basically "just throw more money at it and that will solve it all" aka a non argument.

>global poverty rates have only decreased since the advent of capitalism
>more people are educated than ever before
>fewer people go hungry than every before
>fewer people are dying of curable diseases than ever before

>dude capitalism doesn't work xDDD we need le epic socialism to be more like all of the successful socialist societies like um uh ummmm

Literally the only problem with contemporary capitalism is cancerous individualist materialism, but that is because people aren't taught to be virtuous. Catholicism is the cure for this.

>scarcity means that someone gains at the expense of others.

No it doesn't.

>All this criticism of capitalism
>Blah Blah why don't you give some of your spare income to people who need it
Why don't you? You can afford the internet, That isn't exactly a necessity in your life right now. You can live without it. So stop paying for your internet and give whatever money you have left to people who need it.
Oh, that's right, you still enjoy luxury. You still love the idea of being able to afford something and wish to hold onto that idea through whatever means by earning an income and being able to have money that you don't know what to do with at the exact moment.
You wouldn't be writing up mini-manifestos on the internet right now if we were under a pure socialist nation.

That's a big number of poor but it would suit you to also mention that in the last 25 years the same number of people (1.1 billion) have been lifted out of poverty.

Like it said, I'm very sorry we can't save the entire world in 1 day but we are making steady fucking progress. Meanwhile you want to keep those people poor by not allowing them to produce palm-oil even though that earns them good money.

> If that group of people were no that rich, that does not mean that another group of people would take over that wealth.
in conditions of no or low economic growth the pool of wealth is effectively stagnant and the wealth is accordingly divided up among groups. as you say, wealth inequality has always existed i.e. the pie of wealth is always sliced unequally in favor of one group of people while the smaller portion is left to the rest. But this has varied drastically throughout history, so its hard to test your hypothesis. And anyway what is more important, as i see it, is where the gains of economic growth go to, and at the moment those gains are going disproportionately to financial leeches. I also think that economic growth is a zero-sum gains. Only so much growth is possible due to many constraints, but how this growth is achieved and which sector generates it is done at the expense of others.

>You can improve all of those things you mentioned by allowing prices to reign free, aka a free market.
which is a meme. real world is extremely messy and so-called free markets arise in historical contingency and aren't just some abstract ideal that can arise out of a vacuum. markets will never be free and so trying to even approach an ideal market will always have distortions that can throw off the whole system of overlapping markets.

>financial leeches

Not actually a thing

>economic growth is a zero-sum gains

Objectively false

> Only so much growth is possible due to many constraints,

Objectively false

>this growth is achieved and which sector generates it is done at the expense of others.

Objectively false

In general your understanding of economics is extremely lacking. Please educate yourself.

You can find wealth disparity or any other kind on inequality throughout history, it is as I said the rule, not the exception.

>financial leeches
I know, a lot of money goes to welfare recipients, unions, politicians and so on, sadly. I wish we could remove all kind of welfare to remove leeches.

The economy is as me and others said not a zero sum game, have you even read Adam Smith?

>markets will never be free
Not an argument for why we shouldn't aim for making them as free as we possibly can.

I never said shit about throwing money. I'm just saying your argument that capitalism is solving global poverty is laughable.

scarcity=limited resources. your saying infinite people can live off a finite pool of resources? are you a wizard?

the quantity of suffering is still the same. come to me when that quantity has decreased.
> I'm very sorry we can't save the entire world
again your stuck in the illusion that the world can be saved. the very process by which your "saving the world" is going to kill us all when we pay for our ecological sins.

>Meanwhile you want to keep those people poor by not allowing them to produce palm-oil even though that earns them good money.
at the cost of destroying ecology, leading us closer to global catastrophe. have you ever heard of the tragedy of the commons?

>have you even read Adam Smith?
no. but he advocated monopolies and protectionism. he was hardly the market fundamentalists economist that later neoclassical orthodox economists tried to make him into to shill their ideological agenda, which was bankrolled by the very business interests their ideologies extolled.

Capitalism has done more than every other economic system combined in solving global poverty.

Capitalism had a net good impact on human history but it's entirely unsustainable

The pernicious effects of income inequality and the solution of wealth redistribution has been around long before the concept of socialism or capitalism. Historical wisdom has it that a broad level of equality between citizens especially in a republic or democracy has a salubrious and stabilizing effect on the state--a large and healthy class of independent citizens is far less prone to demagoguery than hungry and incensed rabble. It was Solon, the father of democracy in ancient athens, who as a crucial part of his constitutional reforms included moral provisions for the aristocrats to forgive their debts and end debt slavery. The process of the concentration of wealth into the hands of a small number of parties, due to among other things a natural differentiation in ability between men, and a subsequent disturbance of equilibrium from this fact resulting in either legislation and redistribution or revolution is something that has played out on the pages of history again and again.

pretty much

>entirely unsustainable

Source?

???????????????

Literally not an argument

>Capitalism has done more than every other economic system combined in solving global poverty.
why did the greatest source of poverty and future source of poverty-- incessant and cancerous population growth-- happen in the capitalist world of the last 200 years? because capitalism by its very logic, is the system of "borrowing time", of thinking about how to wring the greatest gain out of the short term at any price, of thinking purely from the perspective of the individual and maximization of individual urges at the cost of collective stability. this process will have hefty bill to the next 10 billions that are born over the next century to payoff in suffering and chaos

Common sense. Our modern credit and debit based economics operates under the assumption of infinite growth which cannot happen when we have objectively finite resources, unless we somehow transition to an economy of almost entirely intangible/digital goods.

>The driver of science and technology in the modern world is rarely the disinterested pursuit of knowledge for its own sake.
This is not only why you are wrong, but the exact reason why you cannot be right. The moment you realize just how upside-down your view of the world is you will accept capitalism.

Please elaborate

Oh but it is

You're not owed an estate when you're born. No one owes you anything, especially not at the cost of everyone else.

Capitalism has proved the best system with which your worth to society is properly measured and thus, given to you as money.

That's for you to philosophize on

oh sod off you wanker

>Individual societal liberation

This.
Rich people getting richer is literally not a problem if the poor are also getting richer.

>leftist """"""""""intellectuals""""""""""