- 27 Jun 2021 02:22
#15178660
From my perspective we've had fifty years of capitalism taking over various systems of Western society... particularly in the USA. Capitalists have been responsible for the decline of unions... whether politically, via Reaganism for example, or simply by pursuing automation or sending jobs to countries with lower labor costs. During this same fifty years the USA has spent incredible amounts of money... not so much on war... but on war profiteering, because that helped capitalists and distilled remarkable power into their hands.
In this same period of time, we've watched our prison population explode to the highest of any country in the world... including China which has over three times the USA population. The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated. Free country?
{shrugs}
http://www.prisonstudies.org
Our standing in the world has slipped in a variety of measurable ways. The climate damage we've done in just the past fifty years is catastrophic. We are the country with the most mass murders, while other more positive social indicators slowly slip out of the first tier.
Much of this damage done escapes business's bottom line... these costs are externalized... even socialized, not just on the West but on the entire world. Business simply would not be profitable if it were required to pay for the ecological damage it does.
Our politics are mired in recrimination and deceit, both in the base and at the national level. But leadership are remarkably united in taking care of a relative few corporations and individuals who donate hugely to both sides.
In the past year or so, we've had to resort to giving our citizen's "stimulus checks", just to keep capitalism and the social order intact. Cruise lines and race horse owners have queued up to the trough to get their share of the trillions disbursed. The Federal Reserve has declared itself willing to make good all losses in the stock market by creating money and disbursing it to large banks and corporations.
And all of this has happened in a country with two firmly capitalist parties... all fiction of the Democrats being Leftists aside.
Typically, I lay the blame for climate change on business activity in general, and tend to dismiss those who want to defend capitalism specifically by claiming that the USA has some alternate more abusive form of capitalism that makes it not really capitalist at all. I've never bought this notion and to me it doesn't really matter... because I see the main problem resting with profit seeking market systems in general... not some particular branding of them.
But I'm interested in the opinions of others who count themselves as capitalists and supporters of profit seeking.
Do you think Capitalism has been a success? Is it responsible for the ills that currently beset and divide us?
Because in my view, unless we start treating this planet more like a life boat and less like a strip mine... our civilization is likely to be gone within a hundred years.
In my view, we need to start producing and distributing by need, not greed... as if we are all in a lifeboat.
In this same period of time, we've watched our prison population explode to the highest of any country in the world... including China which has over three times the USA population. The US has 5% of the world's population and 25% of the world's incarcerated. Free country?
{shrugs}
http://www.prisonstudies.org
Our standing in the world has slipped in a variety of measurable ways. The climate damage we've done in just the past fifty years is catastrophic. We are the country with the most mass murders, while other more positive social indicators slowly slip out of the first tier.
Much of this damage done escapes business's bottom line... these costs are externalized... even socialized, not just on the West but on the entire world. Business simply would not be profitable if it were required to pay for the ecological damage it does.
Our politics are mired in recrimination and deceit, both in the base and at the national level. But leadership are remarkably united in taking care of a relative few corporations and individuals who donate hugely to both sides.
In the past year or so, we've had to resort to giving our citizen's "stimulus checks", just to keep capitalism and the social order intact. Cruise lines and race horse owners have queued up to the trough to get their share of the trillions disbursed. The Federal Reserve has declared itself willing to make good all losses in the stock market by creating money and disbursing it to large banks and corporations.
And all of this has happened in a country with two firmly capitalist parties... all fiction of the Democrats being Leftists aside.
Typically, I lay the blame for climate change on business activity in general, and tend to dismiss those who want to defend capitalism specifically by claiming that the USA has some alternate more abusive form of capitalism that makes it not really capitalist at all. I've never bought this notion and to me it doesn't really matter... because I see the main problem resting with profit seeking market systems in general... not some particular branding of them.
But I'm interested in the opinions of others who count themselves as capitalists and supporters of profit seeking.
Do you think Capitalism has been a success? Is it responsible for the ills that currently beset and divide us?
Because in my view, unless we start treating this planet more like a life boat and less like a strip mine... our civilization is likely to be gone within a hundred years.
In my view, we need to start producing and distributing by need, not greed... as if we are all in a lifeboat.