Has capitalism enhanced or diminished freedom ? In what way has it increased or taken away freedoms ?

Question

There was a term thrown about by PM Diefenbaker "Asiatic chaos" In some research ( I am no where close to defineing the term yet) I discovered that a possibility was a society where there are bands of capitalists and an under class of the expendable and that this group of under privilaged was to be used more or less as dumb labour .....

Isn't this definition of Asiatic chaos exactly the society we have built with out of control capitalisim and a very ver active class syestem that presents as socail hierachy ?

Whould you dare talk to the CEO if you were a lowly janitor ?
Isn't the phrase "proper channels" just a thinly vieled version of you aren't worthy to talk to so and so ?
Now on the plus side of capitalisim - I have a computer and so forth - undeniably scientific invention has been sped up significantly by the profiteers - but was capitlalisim meant to be more controlled than it is ?
What other advategages and disadvantages to personel freedom does capitalisim yield

Answer 1

Microsoft is the classic situation to explain that there are two concepts at work. One is real Free Enterprise, and the other is Capital Hegemony that pretends to be "Free Enterprise" but is in fact the conquest of Freedom and the individual use of the Commons to create private Tyranny.

Even now you can open a Computer building business in your garage and make some money. Not very much because big companies are having them built in places where workers make less than you can afford to eat on, but for specialty uses or just a level of trust that they can come back to you for repairs, you can still manage.

What you cannot do is write a better operating system. Not that Microsoft is a good system, but everything is standard to their product, and most of the very standards are secret, and even if you figured out what they were, they could change it faster than you can figure it out.

That makes Microsoft the Government of everything having to do with PCs. If you want to do any of the things that are standard to PCs, you are a serf of Microsoft. They do not yet seriously abuse that fact (like insisting you pay $2,000 in taxes every year or quit using a computer) but they could, and could get away with it. Businesses less in the public eye (Energy, Insurance,even roads) do that, and some are taking the entire company private to have even less scrutiny or control.

As each Corporation gathers control of their market, freedom to choose vanishes. And as CEO's make sweetheart deals with money managers, and interlocking directors even the supposed "owners" join the workers, and customers, in getting locked out of society's benefits, and the entire civilization is threatened.

Most of the scientific advancements came about by Federal Government support for basic research, and later Military research in Technology. Even the Interstate Highway system was sold as a military spending need. But it was all Humans that benefited.

Now it is Capitalist Corporations that are capturing the huge Technological Commons (even the roads) into their private satrapies that will kill our Freedoms and bleed us dry till we are all serfs again, unless every true Patriot stands up and say's NO!

Answer 2

Capitalism always increases freedom. More wealth in more hands means more participation in a societies governance. The desire of capitalists to increase their own wealth means that more products will be sold to more people. Those people will need larger incomes to buy those goods. Larger incomes mean those earning them will need more education. Those educated will be less likely to be slaves of the state. Ever notice that the most repressive governments have the least amount of capitalism

Answer 3

Without capitalism there is no freedom. Capitalism enables freedom. There is no class society here in America. You are free to be a bum or a CEO. Your personal ambition or lack of it is the only thing stopping you in America. It is as simple as that.