Western Capitalism is the scourge of the planet! - is this true?

Question

We consume too much! We eat too much in the west! The rich get richer and the poor get poorer! Is our system floored?

Answer 1

1 We consume too much (in the West)
It's the choice of every individual how much he or she consumes given his or her budget. We really impose our beliefs on what is too much on others

2 We eat too much in the West
Same as above. But given the incidence of obesity in the West, I;d say you are right there; eat too much and of the wrong stuff.

3 The rich are getting richer and the poor poorer.
I am not sure about the poor getting poorer in terms of cash (or even what we can buy), but certainly the gap between rich and poor is growing, and is growing faster. The interesting bit is that the middle class which expected to slowly join the upper/richer echelons is actually also being left behind and is getting drawn to the bottom of the ladder.

4 Is our system flawed?

It depends what you mean by that.
The Capitalist system is designed to work like that, to cause the rich to accumulate more and more and the 'workers' to work and work, with little hope of breaking into the 'capitalist class'.

The beauty of it all is that what is taught in the Unversities about the beauty of capitalism, the increased efficiency, lower prices and eventual trickle to everyone is premised on something close to perfect competition; where basically nobody is large enough to manipulate the market.

In real life however, we all know (or actually many people don't realise) how big the conglomerates that dominate the world actually are. These conglomerates have the power to distort th emarket and influence legislature to their benefit.

For example the CEO/Members of the board can use the clout of the conglomerates (via political donations or threat of moving industries across countries) to ensure lower taxes for themselves, further increasing the income gap.

The ultimate beauty of this system is that the same people tend to sit on boards of many conglomerates, virtually creating a class of rulers. The Middle Ages had blue-blooded people; the 21st century has green-blooded people for the dollars that run in their veins.

The system is doing exactly what it is supposed to do, skew the game towards the rich and powerful.

Karl Marx had predicted that; the capitalist system is dividing the world into haves and have nots. He obviously got th etime frame wrong, but not the central argument. That's simply what it is designed to do.

Middle Class people who believe they are having a great deal with the capitalist system haven't actually woken up to the fact that they will be discarded, dropped to the lower tier sooner or later. May be not them, but their children...

The trick of the capitalist system, the way it perpetuates itself is by, once in a while, placating the people at the bottom of the ladder.

The greatest trick, in my opinion, is share ownership. Share ownership gives everyone a sense that they own something in a conglomerate, that they are participating in the system, benefiting from it. Therefore, if I own shares say in GM, I am happy when I hear they cut costs and increase profits; that means I get 1 cent more in dividends and my shares are worth 5 cents more each. However, I don;t think of the workers who lost their jobs to give me these cents. Now, tomorrow, who is to say that it will not be my conglomerate that will cust costs and I will be cut? What will the few cents per share of GM mean then? Even if I don't work for a conglomerate, how much of my company's business depends on one? When will they cut my company off?

What share ownership has managed to do is break the workers into seperate groups by making them have different interests. Divide and conquer.

The Capitalist system is working fine, whether it si flawed from a social/moral pointo f view, depends on the values of each and every single one of us.

If we are not happy with the system, we can change it.

The Capitalist system only understands Dollars and Cents, and actually depends on us to feed it by our consumption. So we have the power to reward conglomerates that treat workers properly, where CEOs don't earn more than 200 times the wages of an averag eemployee... simply by not spending a cent on the products of these conglomerates whose actions we disagree with.

It's a personal decision, and if enough of us think the same and put our money where our mouths are, we can change things, a quiet revolution by using the system to beat the system.

If we can't be bothered to play our small roles, then we deserve the capitlaist system, don't we?

Answer 2

Capitalism is definitely the scourge of the planet, as it assumes that everything has a price, and relies on exploitation (of natural resources, or human resources) to turn profits for a very few.

This has lead to the absolute destruction of many aboriginal cultures around the world - the ills that are blamed on colonialism can, and should, be blamed on capitalism, as this was the underlying drive behind colonialism.

Now we no longer have military colonialism, but a more insidious form - how many people around the world are reliant entirely on the pennies they make creating consumer goods for foreign markets? They're stuck in the capitalist colonial system, just as firmly as the natives of the colonial era were.

The countries which supposedly benefit most from capitalism - those in the developed world - are those with the highest incidences of depression and other mental illness, which suggests our materialistic way of life isn't that good for us, either!

So yes, it's a flawed system, which is destroying communities (including ours) and the planet. What will it take to change our path? It's far from inevitable, but we need to act NOW!

Answer 3

I quite agree, I am deeply ashamed and angry to be a part of a capitalist society. I wish Marx had been right when he predicted that the working class would rise up against the capitalists, but its not going to happen now. The entire political system is caused by and geared towards capitalism. The big corporations are too powerful, and people just don't care enough to do anything about it. In general, the 'masses' are better off now than in Marx's time, but there is still a massive proportion of the population who are linving in poverty, in poor housing, with no jobs, unable to buy decent food and clothing. People just don't realise that this is happening, and those who are financially comfortable or wealthy don't notice or care enough to do anything about it. It is a horrible situation, but I can't see any end to it, and that makes me really depressed. I truly hope that, in the not too distant future, things start to change, because there is no reason apart from greed, that everyone on the planet should not be able to live in comfort and safety. We have the resources, every human being on this planet should be able to live a decent life.

Answer 4

Definitely! As you said the richer get richer, and the poor get poorer, we are wasting the planet resources and condemning the human specie and animals to their death, all in the name of comfort, wealth and ostentation.
I think that this issue goes deeper that just a system that floored. It is total negligence towards the things that are really important, such as, helping each other, providing food, shelter, and proper education to everybody, etc.
Communism did not work as it was it was in the opposite side of capitalism. But I believe we are starting to see the fall of a capitalist society. It is known for centuries that extreme positions don't function. Maybe the answer is somewhere between a capitalist society and socialist economy.
I am quite worried about this problem, as the signs of capitalist disintegration are out there, and I can't see anything flourishing to take its place...

Answer 5

You blame "western" capitalism. Do you assume "eastern" capitalism is better ? Or do you believe capitalism is inherently western and believe that china, japan, korea and India are not capitalist countries ?

The poor do not get poorer in absolute terms at least not in asia. In Africa one could debate the subject, but so far life expectancy is improving everywhere one could use this as a sign that the poor do not get poorer.

On overall however capitalism is about to face a major crisis because of rising inequalities and negative impact on environement. True. But its better if well spelled.

Answer 6

Yes, and the major flaw is that in order to be paid you have to perform some task or produce a product that people actually want and are willing to pay for. It makes you a servant of your fellow man. I hate that.

Socialism is a much better system there you don't really have to produce anything. There's less of everything but there won't be too much consuming goin on because there ain't much to consume. And except for the bureaucrats and government official who will be skimming off the best for themselves you'll get the same as everyone else, even the ones who are producing stuff, and even if you don't do anything. In short you'll become the property of the state and it will be their responsibility to take care of you. Yeah, thats what I like being a slave and not doing anymore than I have to. To hell with serving my fellow man.

Answer 7

Yes and no. It is not a simple system when it is well run.
When you have few laws, no enforcement, just an unregulated free market, lots of undesirable stuff happens. So a well functioning system is one that allows for competition between companies, coupled with good regulation & enforcement of regulation,
IS MINDFUL OF THE ENVIRONMENT (maybe the world should refuse to tade with the USA until they get the Kyoto thing going, and then do the same to Australia & China & others)
and has a system of help for the needy that combats poverty, homelessness, ill health and undereducaton (at the expense of the rich), while also incentivising a return to work for those able to work.

Answer 8

The very next minute after the first coin was made capitalism was born. What we have today is the nightmare that each of us is responsible for.
Capitalists would and could not exist without the proverbial 'mark' to move it along. You want a bargain?
You are the cause

Answer 9

But two of the most fecked up places environmentally are the former Soviet Union and the Republic of China, and they can't blame capitalism for the mess they've made.
As the song says, there is evil ever around, and the actual system of government's quite incidental!

Answer 10

Not really. We need to encourage a social responsibility amongst the richer nations, so that we all benefit and not just a select few.