Capitalists: get up off your knees, please

Capitalism has run it's course, winner take all just like the inventors of the game Monopoly choose to teach us. But apparently we learned the wrong lesson the game inventors wanted us to learn.

Ok so if Capitalism has runs its course what would you suppose we do?

Try building it with a strong middle class first of all, haven't you had enough of supply side trickle down economics. It's destroyed capitalism several times haven't we learned. Even a great republican President
like IKE knew that to keep the money flowing and making a strong middle class with high wages was the answer to making capitalism truly work. His 90% tax rate on any salary over 3 million was brilliant, it made capitalist put their profit back into their company so they didn't have to pay taxes on it. creating a better tax base than just having the middle
class pay for everything and still have something to show for their efforts.

china killed capitalism

Hilarious. We will be lucky if even a scratch is made in the monopoly and CEO worshipping culture that is American Capitalism.

capitalism can't last forever. you may be able to resuscitate it temporary, or allow it to depend on a legislative iron lung (which it has always done to some degree), but free market capitalism relies on growth economies, and there's only so much something can grow before it depletes resources enough to finally kill its host.

it's a fundamentally unworkable system. we need a sustenance economy. it's not a matter of economic ideology, but necessity. there is no other long-term option than to abandon the free market. it's ugly and miserable anyway and i don't think anyone truly enjoys it as much as they're convinced they do, even the super-rich, who've been left with insatiable self-perpetuating pathological greed.

I dont see capitalism dying anytime soon. It may not be the all powerful greedy capitalism of today but it will probably survive in some form or another. If we made it through the great depression with capitalism before im sure we can do it again.

Capitalism in action!

Yeah, there are good, bad, and ugly aspects to everything, the goal is to design a sustainable, self-improving system.

Duh.

How's that working out?

Capitalism and democracy might have worked but for the flawed Federal Reserve Banking System. Which was designed and implemented by the most powerful bankers and financiers at the turn of the 20th century.

Investigate and dismantle the Federal Reserve Banking System and replace it with something that will better suit the needs of modern day civilization.

Please explain how any group of people in history could be rewarded with a multi-trillion dollar bailout or payoff and multi-million dollar bonuses for all the actors involved for the performance and service provided by the present day bankers and the Federal Reserve Banking System. Most sane societies would have put those involved in this giant ponzie scheme in prison and seized all the assets of every participant involved in a calculated plot that has broken the back of the workers and middle class of the United States.

Early in the history of the United States many of our most respected patriots and citizens were dismayed by the concept of everything being controlled by a handful of private bankers and predicted disastrous consequences for the average citizen of the United States.. In the end the powerful interests that pushed for a corrupt banking system were successful. Our loss is their gain. We have lost a wonderful dream and they have control of everything. The children and descendants of the working class in this country are faced with a very bleak future because of the never ending greed and avarice of the few that control the banking system. Conditions can only get worse.

The game was rigged from the start but it was the only game in town. It now seems hopeless...

I have a love-hate relationship with Capitalism. But socializing losses while privatizing gains IS NOT Capitalism. Maybe they'll have to create a new -ism to describe it, but it's not Capitalism.

Let's not kid ourselves, true capitalism (as in Laisse faire economics) doesn't exist. The government isn't supposed to be involved at all, because once it gets involved there is no more of the invisible hand that Adam Smith spoke of. Government will always end up helping some businesses over others. For instance, in a truly market driven economy auto makers, would never have been allowed for so long to make a bad product then consistently get bailed out by the US government. But America has been a mixed economy (capitalist/socialist) since the first Great Depression. In a market economy there are winners and there are losers, if you don't want to be a loser, make a product everybody wants, don't whine and force American's to buy your product by increasing import tarrifs

a culture war? honest and sensible reflection seems more like it...

"predatory capitalism created a complex industrial system and an advanced technology; it permitted a considerable extension of democratic practice and fostered certain liberal values, but within limits that are now being pressed and must be overcome... it is incapable of meeting human needs that can be expressed only in collective terms, and its concept of competitive man who seeks only to maximize wealth and power, who subjects himself to market relationships, to exploitation and external authority, is antihuman and intolerable in the deepest sense. an autocratic state is no acceptable substitute; nor can the militarized state capitalism evolving in the united states or the bureaucratized, centralized welfare state be accepted as the goal of human existence. the only justification for repressive institutions is material and cultural deficit. but such institutions, at certain stages of history, perpetuate and produce such a deficit, and even threaten human survival. modern science and technology can relieve people of the necessity for specialized, imbecile labor. they may, in principle, provide the basis for a rational social order based on free association and democratic control, if we have the will to create it." -- noam chomsky

...as for the alternatives, there are plenty. you need only seek them out. for example, look up capitalism 3.0 (by peter barnes), or, for something more radical, check out parecon (by michael albert and robin hahnel). the only barrier to their implementation is the prevailing power structure's absolute adherence to so-called "free-market" (see: corporate/monopoly) capitalist ideology. once in place, these new systems can only be modified and enhanced through experimentation and popular participation in political decision-making (including the extension of democracy into the economic realm)//

Anyone asserting that socialism is a better choice versus capitalism really needs to show me one single example in the world of a working socialism. I can show you multiple of examples of some collaberation of the two but nowhere is there an implementation of one or the other. However, there are several examples that you can use to show socialist nations moving towards capitalism and are improving while countries moving from capitalism to socialism are going into recession/depression. Corruption does not need capitalism to exist, and those arguing that socialism will save us from it are blind.

At the fundamental level, how can a system that puts all resources into a social construct to be redistributed as seen fit by the social leaders be a better approximation to the needs of the individuals of society versus the individuals of society distributing their resources as they see fit? The only problem with capitalism is when there is deception and corruption amongst those that are selling and those that are buying, and the exploitation that follows. Government interference shouldn't alienate the capital value of companies and commodities, but should enforce the accurate portrayal of those goods and services and their values to the people at large.

Obviously this is a very simplified assertion as the actual construct of the concept would more than likely require a large amount of committed time and a lot more space than this comment box provides.

LOL @ this sentiment. Red scare 2. haha

I only vaguely understand economic issues at the top of the ladder and maybe this sounds trite but I want to say something that has bothered me for years. I know that advertising is an important part of capitalism but I am sick and tired of having it shoved down my throat. Several years back companies began to put their ads on everything in sight
without any respect for the scenery we have around us. They have invaded our homes, our streets, and in any space they see open they manage to get their ugly and intrusive signs into. It has happened gradually over the years so we have come to accept seeing some type of advertisement everywhere we look. Also there is no end to the tricks even big name brands will play to get us to buy. They lie, they exaggerate, they prey on our kids and will do anything ethical or not to get our hard earned money. Why am I bringing this up when we have big economic problems to work on? Because as part of the whole picture these companies from the executives down cheat the average buyer as well as their stock holders, and other companies. When I complain about the poor ethics used in advertising someone usually says this is a result of capitalism and we might as well accept it. I don't know if capitalism has run it's course but there was a time when people would not buy from the rude, insulting, dishonest and unfair so why do we put up with it now in the name of capitalism? If they want our money we should demand they operate with dignity, taste and decency before we give it to them. It's a reflection on our society.

Business is like warfare -- the players are only concerned in their economic interests and ultimate survival.

When everything's going rather well, the corporations would clamor for freer trade and better access to resources on other countries; concessions are usually done in the name of "Free Trade, being Free only in name.

And now that the economic climate hits them, the capitalists dare cry "help!" What happened to their philosophy -- that the strongest, ablest and most efficient survives?