Capitalism Will Bring World Peace

So your capitalist idea will not have government at all? is that what your saying?

Bush administration, a capitalist inspired political machine, may have been instrumental in encouraging home ownership but the greed motivated mechanism was capitalistically inspired. I cant see how the you can blatantly blame socialism for bankers greed and down right criminality. It needed more government intervention to stop this sickness not less.

You failed to answer my communities worries over capitalist inspired monopolies. Unlike you, I can give examples of its failings , you merely make prophetic views without supporting evidence. Now tell me what points I have failed to address?

That would be anarchism. But yes, that is the ultimate goal, at least theoretically. I see capitalism as a transition phase towards anarchism, just as I see socialism as a transition phase to... you know what. :sarcastic:
But I usually leave that part about anarchism out, because it would make the discussion more convoluted.

I think that if we engage in a more and more true free market system, eventually the world will need less and less governments, and at some point won't need governments at all and even borders and the concept of nations will disappear, because there's so much trade going on across borders that it's just of no benefit to have nations. All we really need then is some local level crime fighting mechanism, a way to enforce contracts, and maybe technology will offer a solution to that.
In the same way the world will be so connected via trade that military will slowly disappear. The argument is not that if we eliminate military, we will have peace. It's the other way around: if war becomes so costly because the loss in trade, we won't need military any more because it's unnecessary and expensive. If the enemy has a smaller military as well, you having one is only a economic disadvantage.

But I don't think that's what's going to happen in the future, for a few reasons.



By that standard, what system is not capitalistically inspired? Did citizens of the Soviet union not work for greed? I think they did. The point is that all systems are "greed motivated", there is no system that can do away with that. Unless you drug the entire population.
So by your standard, a "capitalistically inspired system" is one in which there are humans.

Banks are greedy, that much is true, but as we just noted, all banks are always greedy. Are you really saying that some banks are more greedy than others, in other words that some not-so-greedy banks are not exploiting their possibility to make money to the fullest? Why would they do that?

In a free market, people can be as greedy as they want, because it doesn't do any harm. If they are criminal they should go to jail, if they make dangerous bets they will go broke.
But government was inspired by the noble cause to grand "affordable housing" to the poor, in other words: give something to people even if they can't afford it. Where did I hear that before? From you! You said socialism is giving stuff to people regardless of their ability. So this was a socialist cause.
So governments made laws that required "special" risky (called sub-prime) home loans, with payments that were initially low but could go up, to be made to people who couldn't afford the normal loans, so more poor people could buy houses. As you well know, if more people buy homes, the cost of homes goes up. So that drove even more people to make even more risky loans.
Also, those new loans were interesting for investors, who could buy a a bunch of houses on a risky loan, and sell the houses at a higher price to pay back the loan before the rate went up. That worked as long as the housing price kept going up. Also those investors buying homes further drove up prices.

Normally a bank would not make a risky investment, because it would lose it's money. A greedy bank wants more money, and not lose money to people that can't pay it back.
But the government had established state-funded companies (that later had to be bailed out) that bought those mortgages. So the banks didn't care if the loan wasn't paid back, because they sold the risk to the taxpayer.

Also the banks had so many of their buddies in the government, that the banks knew that if their risky loans won't be paid back, the government will bail them out. It's like you go to the casino, but you know if you win you get the money, if you lose you get your money back. You would make crazy dangerous bets to hope for the big win, right? You wouldn't play it safe. And later the banks were bailed out, so it worked.

So the banks loaned to people who couldn't possibly afford the monthly payments, they just lied on the applications, because the banks didn't care if those people can't pay the payments. All the banks cared about was that they could sell that loan to somebody else before the loan went bust. The risk was socialized; the banks were betting the taxpayers money.
So more and more risky loans were written to people who couldn't afford the payments. Those people bought houses they couldn't afford, so the housing price kept going up.
It was bound to come crashing down when those people started to default on their loans. Suddenly home prices stopped going up, so investors who couldn't sell quickly started defaulting on their loans. But the banks didn't care, they got bailed out by the taxpayer.

So you see, all this was done by people, it was motivated by greed. But greed was not the cause, greed is always there. What caused the housing bubble on every level were the government interventions, partly inspired by the socialist ideal that poor people should get stuff even if they can't afford it.



There are no capitalist inspired monopolies. Monopolies are either inspired by a physical restriction, such as a water infrastructure, or government intervention. And I have explained that in the examples you gave.
I am curious how you think a "capitalist inspired monopoly" would work even in theory.



I can get back to that. I would appreciate if you would respond to the above segment on the housing bust, and exactly tell me what part you disagree with.

EmperorNero, you said "Humanism means to regard the dignity of the individual as the highest good. Taking the income of one person by force is explicitly disregarding that persons individual dignity, and giving that income to another person to make it dependent and useless is disregarding the dignity of that person as well.
Practicing humanism means ending income redistribution and having free markets.
I see "the benefit of the whole" as the greatest good for the greatest number of people that society can achieve, and not as the short term gain that some downtrodden group can have from getting stuff for free. Because that comes at the expense of far greater 'good', not only for society as a whole but for them.

Why dissect the "benefit of the whole" into categories?
The benefit of the whole stands as one, without exceptions. No one actually wants food, water and shelter for free, we want the ability to attain them as a prerequisite to attain our heritage as a human being.
The methods currently used for admission to the "race" we call human are fast becoming antiquated. To have to work to purchase access to "life" from another human is slavery. Under capitalism we are conditioned to think this is done voluntarily, with our rewards commensurate to our ability to extract more from others than we could produce alone.
It will take a change of attitude towards life from the "captains of the staus quo" that have no interest in changing, only bailing the water faster from the sinking ship.
Human life is supported by all other life. It does not have the ability to support itself.
When our attitude changes to incorporate this truth, and reflect it in our management of resources and ourselves, then maybe we stand a chance of being around for a while.
Till then all argument is kind of mute.
Tell me, wasn't it Emperor Nero who fiddled while Rome burned?

ok dudes. i have enjoyed the thread but take my leave now. Keep it respectful.

I don't quite follow you. Sorry. You seem to be one of those hard to understand rambling posters.



That's how the saying goes. But there is good evidence that Nero did what he could to help during the fire of Rome.

You did not answer my questions on local monopolies you made a vague rhetoric remark. Its not sufficient Nero.

Greed as you say drives capitalism and greed self serves, you cant but help yourself admit its failings. England has experienced anarchy, anarchy for years, you obviously are not conversant with English history.

The bankers greed was not inspired by your capitalist government it was natural outcome of fear , fear of disturbing the bankers hold on our very existance. The bankers are the new war lords, corrupt , with limitless power. We had local war lords who exhibited all the capitalist ideals you so admire, no one could control them or their greed either.

You're taking some very exceptional cases, and apply their situation to the whole economy.
As you can see, both those services depend on a piece of infrastructure; water reservoirs and ferry lines. There is no such dependency on a piece of infrastructure for most products.



Greed drives capitalism? Greed drives human nature!
If you blame greed on capitalism, just because capitalism is capable of using greed for good, then please point out the system in which there is no greed.
What you want is some utopia, with elves in funny hats, where we all just help each others because of altruism.
That would indeed be better than capitalism. As long as getting rid of greed is impossible, we can only employ a system that uses greed for good.



Since you say something like "bankers and war lords exhibit capitalist ideals", how do you define capitalism?
How the hell are bankers and war lords capitalistic?

I've enjoyed reading some of these posts, it's good to know so many see folly in the systems that "support" us. Without that there would be little hope for change.
Take care guys (and dolls)

Sorry if I was rude. but I didn't understand your post.
Often if that is the case it's because the posters are rambling about some unrelated generality.
I didn't mean to suggest that with you.
If you could rephrase your last post with a little more detail.

And learn to use the quote feature, it's the second button there ->

How many examples of monopolies acting against the common good and opposing free trade, do you need?

My ideology may be dependant on empathy towards each other but strangely enough im proud of that position.

War lords and Bankers display the same ability to exploit the freedom of power. A capitalist inspired ability were nothing governs their excesses.

So your position is dependent on something which is not there. Good to know.

What is not there, empathy for each other? I think any ideology should be attempting to encourage the very best in human nature.

What's even better than trying to get people to act altruistically is a system that turns selfish action into benefits for others.
So you think you can make humanity act selfishly?

If a government acts by that ideology and every one has empathy, then no one is taking what they have not earned.

I don't think bad people care how emphatically the government acts.

EmperorNero, I am not offended by your remarks, they are indicative of how you feel, and that's as it should be. My leaving the thread may have been hastened by them, but only because I have no wish to argue about semantics. It is enough that others here understand that exploitation of resources is normal throughout the animal kingdom, but should not be "normal" for humans to exploit each other for personal gain at the expense of another. Unless we all "win" we all lose, only the race times will be different.
Anyway, thank you for your consideration.
All the best.

But your system encourages the bad people, it assists their ability. By stages we drag ourselves forward by improved ethics.

So you think putting in place a system that deals with the flawed nature of humans does encourage those flaws?

While a system that attempts to change humans to what they are not does actually change them to the better?

I wonder if you can point out an instance of either working that way. I have examples of both not working that way.

I asked you before how you define capitalism. I think that's important, because you seem to include some government intervention in that term. So how do you define it?

And after that, in what way are bad people encouraged by free markets? What you can point out is only where there is a deviation from free markets.

When war lords ruled in England and Japan , laws had to be made to restrict their power. When men capitalized on the ability to keep slaves we made laws outlawing this trade. When men of industry had total control of its labour, labour laws had to be introduced to curb their greed and give the workers certain rights. When being coloured meant abuse from their white neighbours , human rights and anti discriminatory laws made their plight less painful. In one silly idea you would revert this evolution and place us back to the dark ages. I for one would fight you by any means possible to prevent this occurring. We judge society by its ability to protect the most vulnerable, yours would have no such benefit.

Where is Buckinghamshire?