So why is there so much hate for capitalism?
If I come up with a business idea, buy a few tools and then begin trading and co-operating with others in a mutually beneficial way my actions are considered to be immoral by some. Why is this?
By definition capitalism relieves scarcity because it encourages individuals to produce value in order to satisfy their needs and wants.
Isn't this something we should lend our support to? Scarcity is a very bad thing afterall
Even if you're a die-hard lefty it's probably worth noting that more capitalism = more taxes, taxes which you can then squander on welfare, Romani Outreach Officers and climate change co-ordinators. It's win win.
So why does it attract so much hate?
By definition capitalism relieves scarcity because it encourages individuals to produce value in order to satisfy their needs and wants.
Isn't this something we should lend our support to? Scarcity is a very bad thing afterall
Even if you're a die-hard lefty it's probably worth noting that more capitalism = more taxes, taxes which you can then squander on welfare, Romani Outreach Officers and climate change co-ordinators. It's win win.
So why does it attract so much hate?
(edited 11 years ago)
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It seems to me that it's currently fashionable to bash capitalism because of the recent recession - what people appear to fail to realise is the fact that we haven't actually had true free-market capitalism - so it makes very little sense to blame it.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
It seems to me that it's currently fashionable to bash capitalism because of the recent recession - what people appear to fail to realise is the fact that we haven't actually had true free-market capitalism - so it makes very little sense to blame it.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
Absolutely.
The fact is you cannot even get a job as museum worker or a childminder these days without having first completed a degree in museum studies or child psychology. Every element of the economy has become riddled with paperwork, and this overly cautious employment culture only goes to serve the incumbents: those who entered these professions years ago when the barriers to entry were low.
This is just the tip of the iceberg of course.
If you cannot even get a medium/low level job what chance do you have in setting up your own business? It's possible, but years of red tape have made it risky, more difficult, and far more expensive than it needs to be.
Crony capitalism indeed.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by Aspiringlawstudent
It seems to me that it's currently fashionable to bash capitalism because of the recent recession - what people appear to fail to realise is the fact that we haven't actually had true free-market capitalism - so it makes very little sense to blame it.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
We've had market-socialism and corporatism.
Original post by chefdave
Absolutely.
Surely this is not the same reason many people hate communism - that it appears impossible for people to actually achieve fully free-markets, just like they fail to have complete equality under state control.
Original post by PythianLegume
Surely this is not the same reason many people hate communism - that it appears impossible for people to actually achieve fully free-markets, just like they fail to have complete equality under state control.
Free markets are achievable though. Just don't attack/restrict somebody when they try to set up a business or trade.
The absence of a free market is an explicitely political decision: we falsly believe that paperwork and bureaucracy protect the consumer when they mainly raise profits for big business via protectionism.
Communism, on the other hand, is an unachievable philosophical mess. It cannot be realised because of it's internal contradictions.
(edited 11 years ago)
Original post by chefdave
Free markets are achievable though.
Interesting to see that there's never been a truly free market in any remotely developed country.
Because they confuse it with corporatism and crony capitalism. The state intervenes too much (red tape, generous welfare payments, bloated public sector, etc.) which makes people think they are better off with the government looking after them, when it's rather the opposite. They think capitalism is evil because it requires you to work, but in reality, it's the system of and for the people by making them completely free to realise their talents.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
Original post by PythianLegume
Interesting to see that there's never been a truly free market in any remotely developed country.
This is probably because all developed countries take a state-centric approach to the economy.
How's that working out for them?
Original post by Iron Lady
Because they confuse it with corporatism and crony capitalism. The state intervenes too much (red tape, generous welfare payments, bloated public sector, etc.) which makes people think they are better off with the government looking after them, when it's rather the opposite. They think capitalism is evil because it requires you to work, but in reality, it's the system of and for the people by making them completely free to realise their talents.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
I think most people object to completely free markets on more moral grounds. In a free market, some people are left with no skills and can only get very basic jobs with low pay and hence have a very poor quality of life. If you can somehow explain how adopting a free market will make everyone better off than they are now, even the poorest in society, then you might convince left-wingers. However, it seems likely that in a free market some individuals will become victims of the system. The state provides these people with at least basic living needs, because many people consider it immoral to leave them to struggle on their own.
Original post by PythianLegume
Interesting to see that there's never been a truly free market in any remotely developed country.
cos it's a useful slave but a lousy master.
Anyway... if you listen to what people are saying rather than rushing to pigeonhole them as either pro or anti capitalist you'll find a lot of anti capitalist sentiment is just opposition to letting the banks run riot for decades (which we were being told at the time was capitalism) then having to bail them out with public money.
If capitalism means creating a financial services super class where rewards are privatised and losses are nationalised it's not too hard to see why that might annoy people.
Because it is not a fair system. I know that you will say that it rewards the innovators and the hard workers, and it does, but it also punishes those who are born into poverty, who work their whole lives for very little reward at all. The rewards are unequally distributed, so of course it breeds resentment for the system that confines some people to the bottom despite their efforts while others are born into a class where success is handed to them without much effort of their part.
I think the Marxist concept of alienation is also useful for explaining why people hate capitalism. Capitalism requires that most of us work for someone else, doing something we don't want to do for things we don't really want. We will always have to work, in whatever economic system we have, but people are bound to be unhappy spending their entire lives doing things so someone else can reap the benefits. The separation of the worker from his/her product or service means that they don't feel they are doing something meaningful as they have no control over their labour. Work doesn't have to be this way.
Finally, capitalism creates production for production's sake. This means we have an excess of products that we are encouraged to buy but we don't really need so that someone can make money off it. This is environmentally destructive and extremely short sighted as we cannot continue to produce meaningless crap forever as we don't have the resources. The lack of resources means that people in poor countries are exploited for their natural resources, causing them more suffering and environmental destruction. Capitalism as a system is not sustainable in a world with seriously depleted resources, yet it is allowed to carry on as if we are the last generation on the planet. We should be saving those resources for things we really need, rather than wasting it on useless crap.
I think the Marxist concept of alienation is also useful for explaining why people hate capitalism. Capitalism requires that most of us work for someone else, doing something we don't want to do for things we don't really want. We will always have to work, in whatever economic system we have, but people are bound to be unhappy spending their entire lives doing things so someone else can reap the benefits. The separation of the worker from his/her product or service means that they don't feel they are doing something meaningful as they have no control over their labour. Work doesn't have to be this way.
Finally, capitalism creates production for production's sake. This means we have an excess of products that we are encouraged to buy but we don't really need so that someone can make money off it. This is environmentally destructive and extremely short sighted as we cannot continue to produce meaningless crap forever as we don't have the resources. The lack of resources means that people in poor countries are exploited for their natural resources, causing them more suffering and environmental destruction. Capitalism as a system is not sustainable in a world with seriously depleted resources, yet it is allowed to carry on as if we are the last generation on the planet. We should be saving those resources for things we really need, rather than wasting it on useless crap.
Original post by Iron Lady
Because they confuse it with corporatism and crony capitalism. The state intervenes too much (red tape, generous welfare payments, bloated public sector, etc.) which makes people think they are better off with the government looking after them, when it's rather the opposite. They think capitalism is evil because it requires you to work, but in reality, it's the system of and for the people by making them completely free to realise their talents.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
Yep, people fail to realise the opportunity cost of a highly regulated economy. While it encourages standardisation and conformity (the former of which would happen anyway under market conditions) it also zaps people of their enthusiasm by burdening them with the dead weight cost of an intensely grey bureaucracy.
Profits then trickle up to big business -a natural consequence of a protectionist system - and this is used as an opportunity to justify yet more state meddling! As if enough damage hasn't already been done. The cycle of despair, poverty and misery is then complete.
(edited 11 years ago)
......
(edited 6 years ago)
Original post by PythianLegume
I think most people object to completely free markets on more moral grounds. In a free market, some people are left with no skills and can only get very basic jobs with low pay and hence have a very poor quality of life. If you can somehow explain how adopting a free market will make everyone better off than they are now, even the poorest in society, then you might convince left-wingers. However, it seems likely that in a free market some individuals will become victims of the system. The state provides these people with at least basic living needs, because many people consider it immoral to leave them to struggle on their own.
Yeah I agree that it's not fair that people are left behind or are lacking in skills. But how will they be better in a system where they are kept in relative poverty by the state (benefits)? Or how Tony Blair's government has increased the entitlement of youth, they think the state will always be there to look after them. Note the opposition to the scrapping of EMA or the mess they created in education (five A*s to Cs in GCSEs etc.). Chefdave made a good point above that you need degrees in basic jobs and I don't think those jobs need over qualification.
Anyway, I see the moral dilemma free markets present (and I sympathise with them), but how will they be better in a system where they are encouraged to claim benefits than try to get a job? It's seeing them as victims, I'm sure everyone has a skill they can take advantage of.
Original post by chefdave
Yep, people fail to realise the opportunity cost of a highly regulated economy. While it encourages standardisation and conformity (the former of which would happen anyway under market conditions) it also zaps people of their enthusiasm by burdening them with the dead weight cost of an intensely grey bureaucracy.
Profits then trickle up to big business -a natural consequence of a protectionist system - and this is used as an opportunity to justify yet more state meddling! As if enough damage hasn't already been done. The cycle of despair, poverty and misery is then complete.
Profits then trickle up to big business -a natural consequence of a protectionist system - and this is used as an opportunity to justify yet more state meddling! As if enough damage hasn't already been done. The cycle of despair, poverty and misery is then complete.
Completely agree.
Original post by Tibbs735
Because some people feel that the universe owes them something. They want everything to be handed to them on a basis of perceived need. They act like the successful and reproductive are squatting on a magical wellspring of wealth (The "means of production") and if they can somehow take it for themselves, it will continue to produce wealth to fund their nice ideas. They have this innate hatred of people who work hard and succeed..
Have you heard of Bill Gates? He's one of the richest and most successful businessmen in the world, and yet gives away billions to help the poor and needy. Perhaps not everyone who supports this is a mindless scrounger, but just has different moral beliefs to you.
Original post by PythianLegume
Interesting to see that there's never been a truly free market in any remotely developed country.
I would put this down to the fact that 'capitalist economies' tend to also run as representative democracies. No political party would attempt to run on a totally free-market manifesto, because there simply wouldn't be the public support for it. The average man on the street supports at least a bit of state intervention, because he appreciates the redistributive side of it. Obviously, capitalists tend not to go down the revolutionary path (that said, the French Revolution was arguably capitalist-esque-driven), so it's very unlikely that a true free market economy will exist within the foreseeable future.
Inevitably, I have a fair amount of bias, being right wing, but I don't think the difficulties in starting a true free market are equitable to the problems with 'true communism'. The former, as I've said, simply lacks the popularity to be tried properly in the developed world, but the latter contains too many inherent contradictions and flaws to function in reality.
Original post by PythianLegume
Have you heard of Bill Gates? He's one of the richest and most successful businessmen in the world, and yet gives away billions to help the poor and needy. Perhaps not everyone who supports this is a mindless scrounger, but just has different moral beliefs to you.
Agreed, I admire Bill Gates for what he does - a true philanthropist
Using the TSR app ~ Smile, you are amazing!
Original post by Iron Lady
Because they confuse it with corporatism and crony capitalism. The state intervenes too much (red tape, generous welfare payments, bloated public sector, etc.) which makes people think they are better off with the government looking after them, when it's rather the opposite. They think capitalism is evil because it requires you to work, but in reality, it's the system of and for the people by making them completely free to realise their talents.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
I love microeconomics, comparative advantage, free trade, and just as importantly, living within your means.
This made me laugh.
Original post by chefdave
If I come up with a business idea, buy a few tools and then begin trading and co-operating with others in a mutually beneficial way my actions are considered to be immoral by some. Why is this?
By definition capitalism relieves scarcity because it encourages individuals to produce value in order to satisfy their needs and wants.
Isn't this something we should lend our support to? Scarcity is a very bad thing afterall
Even if you're a die-hard lefty it's probably worth noting that more capitalism = more taxes, taxes which you can then squander on welfare, Romani Outreach Officers and climate change co-ordinators. It's win win.
So why does it attract so much hate?
By definition capitalism relieves scarcity because it encourages individuals to produce value in order to satisfy their needs and wants.
Isn't this something we should lend our support to? Scarcity is a very bad thing afterall
Even if you're a die-hard lefty it's probably worth noting that more capitalism = more taxes, taxes which you can then squander on welfare, Romani Outreach Officers and climate change co-ordinators. It's win win.
So why does it attract so much hate?
People feel failed and let down by capitalism because of the recent banking collapse. People believed that capitalism would reward their labour and innovation and that the taxes they generated would build a society in which everbody could prosper. Instead when the markets collapsed due to reckless speculation by financial institutions neo-liberal governments turned around and told everybody that it was more important that banks didn't fail than the lifestyles people had earned and become accustomed too were maintained. Of course that isn't capitalism, it's some sort of sick "Socialism in reverse" where everyone from the middle classes to the most vulnerable have seen their benefits slashed and their taxes hiked so that banks- which we are informed are vital to the capitalist model, are allowed to continue.
This has heightened a sense of class division between the middle and working classes and the owning classes. It's led people to believe .
That neo-liberal capitalism has failed them as it has failed to abide by it's own rules and left people in the cold.
NOTE. I'm not trying to score political points. Just offering a possible answer. To be honest people become disillusioned with capitalism for the same reasons people become disillusioned with any cause- the people endorsing it failed to deliver what they promised.
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