Like the freedom to choose what you buy and the freedom to be rewarded for your hard work. I capitalism not hard work being exchanged for others hard work. Without the freedom to better yourself wouldn't it stop being capitalism? Why did so many folks from my last question say it's not capitalism but freedom that made America great. I say you can't seperate the two.
2007-07-05 04:34:18 · 17 answers · asked by John Galt 2 in Politics & Government ➔ Politics
Is* capitalism
2007-07-05 04:34:56 · update #1
The greatest freedom of all is the ability to create your own wealth. All other freedoms pale in comparison to this.
2007-07-05 05:03:35 · answer #1 · answered by TheOnlyBeldin 7 · 0⤊ 3⤋
Capitalism, is simply a term that mean the use of Capital investment to generate wealth, as opposed to a labor production basis for wealth like Maxist-Communism. I assume you mean a free market economy, which works well with capitalism in principal which allows freedom of choice in investment, and a democracy, as it is essentially democracy in economics.
As to the greater question of what makes America great, frankly a lot of things do. It's freedom.. but the freedom to practice capitalism, worship as you want, say what you want, and working to build a more stable, healthier society that makes America great. American Indians were free, but they faced disease, starvation, tribal warfare, and ultimately disintegrated in the frontier wars. Hardly "great" in a historical sense. The people are Iraq are "Free", but tend to just sit around with their thumbs up their asses waiting to get blown up or beheaded by militants they're not willing to fight. Anyway Freedom is the Genesis for things that benefot society not an end in and of itself.
2007-07-05 04:48:35 · answer #2 · answered by John L 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Yes. Capitalism is a form of freedom: The freedom to compete and thrive economically for one's own self-interest without government repression.
2007-07-05 07:04:21 · answer #3 · answered by Maid Mesmera 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
When a capitalist refers too freedom, they mean having the freedom to sack to workforce at any time and replace it with a cheaper one, and not having any rules (industrial laws on health and safety)that govern the whole money grabbing greedy process.
I suppose capitalism isn't freedom when the unemployed don't have any choices and when we reach a point where the only type of work on offer to a unemployed person- is when they will be forced like slaves - to work for their benefits and welfare.
2007-07-05 04:41:52 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
What about Freedom? Capitalist type institutions like stock exchanges,private firms,bond markets can exist in a wide range of social systems,from a Nazi-styled planned war economies to a Scandianavian-type Social Democracy.Or even in Hugo Chavez's quasi-socialist system,where even there,people are said to be on a never-ending shopping spree,thanks to the Oil boom going on down there.So how Capitalism per se have to do with freedom.Business men only care about one thing and one thing only,MONEY!!!
2007-07-05 04:51:39 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
Free enterprise is supposed to create a balance in the economy, with competition, new ideas and opportunity.. When the top 1% have control of 60% of the wealth, that seems to be a two tiered elitist society and a poor representation of capitalism.
2007-07-05 04:42:25 · answer #6 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
No, capitalism is most certainly NOT a "form of freedom." In its simplest form, it is somebody with MONEY using the labor of someone ELSE to make money.
"Rewarded for your hard work?" Maybe once upon a time, but not really any longer. CEOs are making 400 times the wages of the employees, and that's obscene, immoral, and preposterous no matter how you slice it.
"Freedom to choose what you buy?" Not really. More and more we are only left with cheap, shoddy, foreign-made products because THAT is where Big Business makes the highest profit margin.
You are spouting ancient homilies about capitalism that simply no longer apply.
I'm sorry to be the one to break it to you.
2007-07-05 04:39:33 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 3⤋
You cannot separate the two, Capitalism and Liberty.
When humans are free to associate with and engage in free exchanges with other humans of their own choosing, good things result.
When I am free to engage in a mutually beneficial transaction of capital or labor or property however I see fit and without busybody government interference, I am my most free.
Socialism and other forms of collectivism are the antithesis of Liberty.
(Why do leftists separate labor from capital as if they are distinct? When I work for someone I have something they want and they pay me for it, my skill is currency. If the relationship is no longer beneficial to the both of us then we end it.)
2007-07-05 04:40:43 · answer #8 · answered by fourthy27 2 · 2⤊ 1⤋
I think that the Conservative notion of freedom IS capitalism.
I think that few understand what they are talking about when they refer to the "spirit of the American people." But I could be wrong about that.
The "spirit of the American people" is rugged individualism. Capitalism.
2007-07-05 04:47:08 · answer #9 · answered by ? 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
"Without the freedom to better yourself wouldn't it stop being capitalism?"
yes
2007-07-05 04:43:46 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
There are some people that want to pretty much do away with capitalism, in a way, make it illegal. Capitalism = evil to them.
2007-07-05 04:41:12 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋