What is wrong with capitalism?

why so you keep bringing up socialism? as i clearly stated i am AGAINST any sort of socialist system.

Capitalism does not give people the ability to decide what they want to do, how can a working class child, who goes to a comprhensive primary school which has barely medeocare teacher because all the best teacher have no morales and work at 'public schools' have the ability to choose? There are people in state schools that would have to work ten times as hard as someone who goes to one of the top 'public schools' to get even half as far as they would, and you call that fair?

Its as fair in providing opportunities as any system can realistically get. Working class children in even the worst of schools still can and do do well in life, I would argue that no other system provides the opportunity to do better than others(and as well as you can) like capitalism, certainly no one has been able to come up with one yet.

Reply 141

Captain Crash

9

Original post by tehFrance

I am talking about the UK NHS not France's, the UK's it pretty bad and should be privatised. Even in emergency the wait times are longer than they should be.

I'd be interesting on hearing your evidence that the NHS is 'pretty bad' or that emergency wait times are 'longer than they should be', whatever that means.

Reply 142

van der Veen

There is nothing wrong with capitalism

Reply 143

jesusandtequila

12

Original post by Captain Crash

I'd be interesting on hearing your evidence that the NHS is 'pretty bad' or that emergency wait times are 'longer than they should be', whatever that means.

http://www.healthpowerhouse.com/files/Report%20EHCI%202009%20091005%20final%20with%20cover.pdf

"1.2 BBB; Bismarck Beats Beveridge – yet again!
All public healthcare systems share one problem: Which technical solution should be used to funnel typically 7 – 10 % of national income into healthcare services? Bismarck healthcare systems: Systems based on social insurance, where there is a multitude of insurance organisations, Krankenkassen etc, who are organisationally independent of healthcare providers. Beveridge systems: Systems where financing and provision are handled within one organisational system, i.e. financing bodies and providers are wholly or partially within one organisation, such as the NHS of the UK, counties of Nordic states etc.

For more than half a century, particularly since the formation of the British NHS, the largest Beveridge-type system in Europe, there has been intense debating over the relative merits of the two types of system. Already in the EHCI 2005, the first 12-state pilot attempt, it was observed that “In general, countries which have a long tradition of plurality in healthcare financing and provision, i.e. with a consumer choice between different insurance providers, who in turn do not discriminate between providers who are private for-profit, non-profit or public, show common features not only in the waiting list situation …”

Looking at the results of the EHCI 2006 – 2009, it is very hard to avoid noticing that the top consists of dedicated Bismarck countries, with the small-population and therefore more easily managed Beveridge systems of the Nordic countries squeezing in. Large Beveridge systems seem to have difficulties at attaining really excellent levels of customer value. The largest Beveridge countries, the U.K. and Italy, keep clinging together in the middle of the Index.

There could be (at least) two different explanations for this:
1. Managing a corporation or organisation with 100 000+ employees calls for considerable management skills, which are usually very handsomely rewarded. Managing an organisation such as the English NHS, with close to 1½ million staff, who also make management life difficult by having a professional agenda, which does not necessarily coincide with that of management/administration, would require absolutely world class management. It is doubtful whether public organisations offer the compensation and other incentives required to recruit those managers.

2. In Beveridge organisations, responsible both for financing and provision of healthcare, there would seem to be a risk that the loyalty of politicians and other top decision makers could shift from being primarily to the customer/patient. Primary loyalty could become shifted to the organisation these decision makers, with justifiable pride, have been building over decades (or possibly to aspects such as the job-creation potential of such organisations in politicians’ home towns)."

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 144

Captain Crash

9

Original post by jesusandtequila

http://www.healthpowerhouse.com/files/Report%20EHCI%202009%20091005%20final%20with%20cover.pdf

Hmmm.... as a medical student with a keen interest in international healthcare systems, I thought it was odd that I hadn't heard about this paper. Luckily, it was quite obvious - the methodology is very shoddy giving subjective marks of 0-2 on factors derived from cherry picked sources (including the 10 year out of date Eurocare paper deriving cancer survival rates from the 90s - a favourite of Tories in recent months) and weighting aspects like 'Direct access to specialist' (like this is a good thing?!) as equal to 'Infant mortality'.

But I don't need to rip apart the paper, because it does so itself:

"7. How to interpret the Index results?
The first and most important consideration on how to treat the results is: with caution!

The Euro Health Consumer Index 2009 is an attempt at measuring and ranking the
performance of healthcare provision from a consumer viewpoint. The results definitely contain information quality problems. There is a shortage of pan-European, uniform setprocedures for data gathering.
But again, the HCP finds it far better to present the results to the public, and to promote constructive discussion rather than staying with the only too common opinion that as long as healthcare information is not a hundred percent complete it should be kept in the closet.

Again, it is important to stress that the Index displays consumer information, not medically or individually sensitive data.
While by no means claiming that the EHCI 2009 results are dissertation quality, the findings should not be dismissed as random findings. On the contrary, previous
experience from the general Euro Health Consumer Indexes reflects that consumer
ranking by similar indicators is looked upon as an important tool to display healthcare service quality. The HCP hopes that the EHCI 2009 results can serve as inspiration for how and where European healthcare can be improved."

:rolleyes:

There are a multitude of much better papers with more consistent and robust methodology from peer-reviewed journals that display the true state of affairs with regards to healthcare.

Reply 145

madcat1

Original post by ish90an

Its as fair in providing opportunities as any system can realistically get. Working class children in even the worst of schools still can and do do well in life, I would argue that no other system provides the opportunity to do better than others(and as well as you can) like capitalism, certainly no one has been able to come up with one yet.

i understand that, but incase you didnt read the name of the thread it was 'what is wrong with capitalism?' to which there is severall awnsers.

Reply 146

esspweb

boobies is absolutely right that it is not great system but better than communism

Reply 147

badtothebone

8

Original post by helenlouise123

(didn't know where to put this)

seems a pretty fair system really?

just putting it out there....

900,000,000 (abour 1 in 7) are malnurished....perhaps you'd want to talk to them about how capitalism is a pretty fair system or perhaps you wouldn't. i couldn't do it myself.

Reply 148

Mouldywart

1

It isnt fair because people love screwing eachother over for their own ends. This means many people don't even have a half decent shot at success.

That's my opinion anyway :P

Reply 149

jesusandtequila

12

Original post by badtothebone

900,000,000 (abour 1 in 7) are malnurished....perhaps you'd want to talk to them about how capitalism is a pretty fair system or perhaps you wouldn't. i couldn't do it myself.

I most certainly would. They are almost exclusively in countries that haven't embraced capitalism, or haven't embraced capitalism for long.

Wherever we see free trade, strongly enforced property rights and free markets, then we see prosperity.

Reply 150

madcat1

Original post by ish90an

Its as fair in providing opportunities as any system can realistically get. Working class children in even the worst of schools still can and do do well in life, I would argue that no other system provides the opportunity to do better than others(and as well as you can) like capitalism, certainly no one has been able to come up with one yet.

A working class child from 'the worst of public schools' had minimul amount of oppertunity, big coorporation discriminate against people from poor backgrounds, if there were two iddentically intelectual people, one from a 'public' school and one from a state school, the later wouldnt get chosen, the system is flaud in the sense that it does the bare minimum to help poor sutdets/children get access to the top 1/3 of jobs. :frown:

Reply 151

ish90an

10

Original post by madcat1

A working class child from 'the worst of public schools' had minimul amount of oppertunity, big coorporation discriminate against people from poor backgrounds, if there were two iddentically intelectual people, one from a 'public' school and one from a state school, the later wouldnt get chosen, the system is flaud in the sense that it does the bare minimum to help poor sutdets/children get access to the top 1/3 of jobs. :frown:

You are accusing firms that constitute the top jobs of discriminating knowingly against state school pupils with no proof (and before you respond with "only x% of people in this profession went to state school", that is not proof of discrimination against state schools, and is only related to access to the qualifications and profile these jobs require).

Reply 152

madcat1

Original post by ish90an

You are accusing firms that constitute the top jobs of discriminating knowingly against state school pupils with no proof (and before you respond with "only x% of people in this profession went to state school", that is not proof of discrimination against state schools, and is only related to access to the qualifications and profile these jobs require).

i didnt say they openly discriminate against people from state schools, but they would much rather employ someone from a public school, you cant dispute that?

Reply 153

ish90an

10

Original post by madcat1

i didnt say they openly discriminate against people from state schools, but they would much rather employ someone from a public school, you cant dispute that?

I do and I will. This idea that employers in top firms conspire to employ more privately educated students is just nonsense.

Reply 154

Captain Crash

9

Original post by ish90an

I do and I will. This idea that employers in top firms conspire to employ more privately educated students is just nonsense.

Conspire isn't the correct word. Privately educated students are generally more confident and this bodes well for doing well in interviews and getting the job, but doesn't necessarily mean they perform better. Also, you'd be naive to assume that old-boy networks and such don't exist.

Private companies aren't the paradigm of economic perfection you make them out to be.

Reply 155

ish90an

10

Original post by Captain Crash

Conspire isn't the correct word. Privately educated students are generally more confident and this bodes well for doing well in interviews and getting the job, but doesn't necessarily mean they perform better. Also, you'd be naive to assume that old-boy networks and such don't exist.

Private companies aren't the paradigm of economic perfection you make them out to be.

There is a world of difference between more privately educated students being hired because of the networking opportunities and confidence they get at school which helps them project themselves better and get more opportunities and a company discriminating against state educated students regardless of how good they are simply because they are from state schools(which, if you read the original comment I responded to, was what was being alleged).

Reply 156

AnarchistNutter

1

Original post by Captain Crash

Private companies aren't the paradigm of economic perfection you make them out to be.

Private companies aren't perfect, they are just better, primarily because they must respond to consumer demand and are accountable for by competition plus a whole host of economic reasoning such as the necessity to co-operate with firms to produce a general standard for the benefit of the consumer. On the other hand, we have the different conflicts of politicians and bureacrats at heart all competing to achieve different aims with the businesses they run and we can see this at points in history with the manner of which the legal system has operated (and state run legal practiced were often based upon underlying ethical principles founded by market standards) or the massive point of contention between economists on how federal reserve systems ought to operate (whereas the gold standard was historically 'regulated' by general commerce and the threat of bank runs and subsequent prosecution should the banker deviate from the gold standard when printing extra monetary notes).

This standard of relativity in acquiring knowledge from the outside world is perhaps the most coherent standard and utilisation of epistemological methodology (I do not aim for perfection).

(edited 13 years ago)

Reply 157

iainthegreat

14

This system is all about who you know, not what you know. It's a horrendously unfair and elitist system and needs to be changed. One day all people will wake up from their corporate brainwashing and see this, and real change will be made.

Reply 158

BigDanny

Money is just a means to trade services and resources. Therefore the amount of money doesn't matter, it is the distribution of the money. Therefore if someone is rich then equally someone must be poor. In theory, if no one has a far larger proportion of the wealth than everyone else then it is possible to have a fair soceity.

Unfortunately due to capitalism this is not the case, therefore it is impossible to be a fair system. A dictatorship is even worse as the dictator can take as much money as s/he pleases. In theory, a socialist government could deliver a fair system (although it might not work as there will always be some unfair distribution of wealth).

Uneven wealth = unfair, capitalism = uneven wealth. Therefore capitalism is an unfair system.

Reply 159

AnarchistNutter

1

Original post by iainthegreat

This system is all about who you know, not what you know. It's a horrendously unfair and elitist system and needs to be changed. One day all people will wake up from their corporate brainwashing and see this, and real change will be made.

Gee, that sounds a lot like politics to me :rolleyes:

Original post by BigDanny

Therefore if someone is rich then equally someone must be poor. In theory, if no one has a far larger proportion of the wealth than everyone else then it is possible to have a fair soceity.

This would be true if we lived in a sum-zero economy, i.e. one where people get rich at the expense of others. We do not, however, and wealth earned is earned through voluntary transactions which (often) benefit both parties involved. See my post on the other page in regards to how wealth is redistributed - basically, bankers do not keep pots of gold hidden in the bottom of the garden to hoard for ever (the money goes back into the economy and trade and commerce prospers).

(edited 13 years ago)

What is wrong with capitalism?

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