ccortez wrote:WalMart isn't the problem, capitalism is.
steve hyde wrote:....perhaps one of the problems is that nobody stops to define explicitly what they are talking about. Nobody says, for example that they are using a definition of capitalism that is characterized by a division of labor among the capital owning class and the laboring classes. I see people painting capitalism with a broad brush e.g, if you work under capitalism that makes you a capitalist. That certainly isn't the definition I use.
When I reference capitalism I'm talking specifically about a political economy founded on inequality. Inequality is what makes capitalism.
Capitalism is about surplus value going to the capitalists instead of labor.
Therefore capitalsim is a political economy that was created by the rich elite to insure that the rich elite remain the rich elite.
Ideally, capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and are operated for profit. It is driven by a free market that determines production, prices, profits, income, and investments. It is fueled and regulated by supply and demand. Demand for a product influences production, while competition among producers and supply of products and raw materials and productive labor regulate the price. That's the ideal.
That's a fairly pure basic description of capitalism. Ideal capitalism isn't compatible with a command economy. It is not a political system, but an economic one. Of course, pure capitalism doesn't exist anywhere in the world, and neither does a free market. And political influence can't really be avoided because governments can't resist monkeying with the market and with business and trade in the form of tariffs, labor controls, taxes and duties, import/export quotas, subsidies and similar protectionism, legalizing products, outlawing products, banking and money supply controls, etc ad nauseum.
I suspect most people on this board who own or operate businesses do so with the expectation of realizing profit and improving their lives to the greatest extent possible, and would be both unwilling and unable to continue their business for long as charity. If one can't gain greater rewards by bringing greater energy and talent and investment to bear, what incentive would one have to excel? Why bother building and bringing a better product to market if you don't stand a chance to reap greater rewards? Why bother trying to compete with similar businesses if your sales and profit are determined by the state?
While there are flavors and variations, the basic economic systems are fuedalism, capitalism, communism, and socialism. The first one and the latter two are inevitably also political systems because they are command economies in which the state entirely controls the means of production. Capitalism, as it is actually practiced, also has political implications because the governments of the ostensibly free countries of the world can't resist meddling in the economic system. As I said, there are no pure economic systems in existence.
Those of you who oppose capitalism, please tell me which of the other three basic systems, feudalism, socialism, or communism you think superior to capitalism, and why.
I'm also curious which of those economic system those of you who own businesses prefer, and why.
For my part, I favor capitalism. It's the economic system that gives me the best chance for creating my own rewards, based on my own efforts rather than the beneficence of government (LOL) or the unearned labor of others, and shifting the unequal distribution of wealth a bit more my way.
