Is Capitalism Moral?

You professional philosophers have lost me on many technical issues but the core understanding i think remains.I had an old disgusting theological book on the value of the black man and by scriptures it finds that it is acceptable to enslave them as they are less than human.
Capitalism reasons that the best survives and the least struggle.I may be holy, i may be stupid but my moral code will not let me accept these reasons as ethical.
I have no problem with the ethics of achievement but not at the expense of others.
I burnt the book even though it had intrinsic value, it made me feel physically ill to read it.

The best medicine for your illness would be gaining the slightest understanding of capitalistic (or at least market) ethics as the market does not determine best or least. It is your lefty elitist thinking that inputs social divisions upon society, assuming that there must be lesser people than others.

---------- Post added at 03:17 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:15 PM ----------

And hue-man, you never addressed my response. I would enjoy one.

:eek:There are not lesser people but capitalism describes them as such.Market forces are beyond mans control but how we manage the consequences of these forces is the ethics of politics.Don't confuse the two issues.I'm glad you realise it is an elitist opinion an illness that requires no medicine but will infest those who are enlightened.

Market forces are beyond man's control?

We aren't talking about gravity here. Market forces exist only because man can control them. If man had no input, there would be no market. The market, at its most simple, is the materialization of human values.

Market values are within our control...so tell me how its done comrade and we will be millionaires before the weeks out, we can convert to capitalism together.Hallelujah praise be to the markets..

Name a manner in which a free person can suffer injustice.

Employment is a real can of worms, but if you wish to explain how capitalism suffers inherently more from unemployment, I would be glad to address your argument.

As for discrimination, if discrimination becomes such a problem within capitalism as to prohibit the achievement of discriminated groups, the introduction of central control over economic agents will merely institutionalize the discrimination.

This is likely nonsense. Perhaps you will surprise me and offer some critique of capital that shows it can only be possible under those circumstances and not under a free system, but I am willing to wager money that you simply assume that Western economy is a good and true example of capitalism.

The individualist does not propose that men become anti-social islands to themselves, rather the individualist proposes that the person is social because he wishes to and chooses to.

What collectivists often don't realize is that there is no man who less socially inclined than the man forced to be social.

Name a manner in which a free person can suffer injustice?? By injustice I'm assuming that you mean unminimized, unpunished, or unreversed acts of coercion. If a person is coerced then they are no longer free.

I'm not saying that capitalism suffers more from unemployment than other economic systems. However, unemployment is a problem for any economic system that is based on a monetary system. Another problem is technological unemployment. Technological unemployment is when emerging technologies take over employment sectors of the economy, causing unemployment in the process. The rate of these emerging technologies begin to surpass the rate of emerging professions that are needed to employ the people who have lost their jobs. The manufacturing industry is a prime example. The jobs lost in that industry were taken over by the service industry, and now the service industry is slowly being replaced by automated computers and robotics. This trend rising productivity and decreasing employment is creating problems and it will continue to create major problems if we do not change the elementary foundations of our economic systems.

As for discrimination, one side argues that central control or anti-discrimination laws institutionalize discrimination and yet they propose no real solution to discriminatory practices in an economic system. All of these government regulations are an attempt to balance out the inherent corruptness of this economic system. Take a look back at the beginning of the industrial revolution before the government started to regulate the practices of economic agents. You call that just and fair?

I don't have to dig too deep to rebut the above statement. I'm sure you know that capitalism is dependent upon an economic class structure. I'm sure you know that in order to keep an economic class system in place, some people need to be kept at a lower level than others. This critique is a very old one.

I'm not saying that the individualists propose that men become anti-social islands to themselves. I'm saying that individualism is not a sensible approach to an economic theory. Economic systems are dependent upon cooperation between very large groups of people. An economic system is a societal system, like political systems and law systems. A society is a collective macro-concept made up of individuals or micros that compose the whole or collective. For that reason I believe that an economic theory, like a political theory or legal theory, should be based on a collectivist approach.

No one man control the market. But the aggregate of mankind is in control of the market.

Why is it that confirmed capitalist think they have more of an understanding of world economies than lesser mortals.Why is it that stating your socialist ideas gives certain Americans the idea that a red is about to overthrow his country of the free.In the last four days i have observed the most blinkered and narrow minded observation of Americans view of socialism. It could be that Americans have by insular attitudes and frontier mentality created for some a blinkered and narrow view of world politics.My friend complains that a right wing radio nutter is not allowed to enter Britain.I can remember when the mention of having socialist tendencies could promise you a prison sentence in America.Un American activities they called it.

This is bordering upon ridiculous xris. I am a radical free market anarchist who supports full disarmament of the US Armed Forces, the elimination of the central bank in hopes that it fosters community banking in the way of credit unions, and in some circumstances the stakeholder takeover of certain corporate entities. I have repeatedly said that the US economy is a corrupt morass that resembles nothing like a fair and just economy.

I am blinkered?!

Would you like for me to pretend I believe something I don't and argue economics from the socialist point of view? I can. I understand socialism and the arguments you are making more than you. They are not novel and I am not new to the debate.

I am sorry if I come off as arrogant, but there is little more annoying and insulting than making considered arguments and being given the constant rebuttal that one is just an ignorant brainwashed American. Perhaps you are an ignorant brainwashed European, because you refuse to acknowledge the possibility of any position being opposed to your own as the result of intelligent thought.

Your trouble is you assume my politics by my claim of being a socialist animal.I am not castrated by my fellow brit, left or right by stating my socialist ideas.This is new to me, being called a communist, a leftie nutter.

I am a leftie nutter.

You are a social democrat. A regulatory capitalist. A "third wayer".

A free man chooses. How does a free man choose injustice?

I posit that it is impossible for a free man to choose injustice, and therefore a system of liberty and freedom is inherently just.

How do you explain the fact that unemployment levels have been entirely detached from technological growth so far the last century and a half?

Force and violence is never an effective tool in changing men's minds. The only method available for eliminating discrimination is to allow all men to prove their worth on their own.

Capitalism is in no way dependent upon an economic class system.

My last post asked for an explanation of this critique. If you are convinced by it, you should be able to provide it competently.

Economics is the study of human behavior and values. People cannot act and possess value as a group, as every group is an aggregate of individual actors and values.

Have you studied economic theory?

Well you could have fooled me.I cant imagine what your friend will say now.Yes i am a regulator a beacon of reason.Understanding man is not condemning him.

I'm talking about economic fairness and equality.

Unemployment levels have been detached from technological growth??! Didn't I give you an example of how technological growth has affected the manufacturing industry, and how it's now affecting the service industry, which was the sector that made up for the rising unemployment in the manufacturing industry? Look into automation technologies and its consequences on employment and consumption.

The reversal of coercion to minimize coercion is never an effective way to change men's minds? So what do you think about the law system? Do you think that the law system is effective at changing the minds of criminals or deterring crime? If so, then how effective do you think it is?

So your answer is to leave it to the agents in an economic system to be indiscriminate, righteous and fair? That's just another way of saying who gives a damn as long as it isn't me. I think they call that apathy and wishful thinking.

Capitalism is dependent upon economic inequality and a class system because the capitalist or bourgeois class needs the working or proletariat class to labor for them and consume their products. The capitalist gets more money out of the worker's labor than the worker gets for his or her labor (i.e. inequality and the class system).

Is a systematic concentration of wealth moral?

Is a system that values the individual over society moral?

Economic inequality is a natural fact. Economic equality cannot be maintained except at the expense of liberty.

No system administered by humans could ever be deemed 'moral' (or 'immoral' for that matter). Like any other system or tool, it's benefit (or damage) is contingent on the people who are the system.

Is capitalism moral?