What is capitalism?

@maxdancona,

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So a car manufacturer can get free money from the government to build a new factory without interest?

I would say yes in some cases but I think it would need public approval.

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Would my money be given to them (without interest), or is my money out of the picture?

I do not see a need for your money to be involved. Your money should be yours and there should be a social safety net to protect your savings that you labored for.

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@JLNobody,

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Cryacuz might tell us about the version of capitalism and socialism he has experienced in Norway

Norway isn't that much different from the USA. I am glad though that there are still some areas where moral principles overrule economic principles. If you want a boob job, you have to pay for it, but it you get breast cancer, you don't have to pay for treatment. You might lose your house if you can't pay your mortgage, but there is a welfare system that ensures that you don't end up on the street without food or the oportunity to get back on your feet.

But all nations are part of the same economic system. Norwegian welfare is a good thing, but in a global context it serves relatively few. Most of the things we have are made in asia, by underpaid, overworked people who have far less than what we take for granted. No matter how well we treat our own, through our capitalistic enterprises we still contribute to perpetuating the imbalance of wealth and welfare in the world.

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@maxdancona,

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How would the banking system work without interest?

Why would you ever give a stranger your hard earned money for 30 years? This means that you will be unable to buy things this period of time.

Do you know how money is made? How it multiplies as the same money is loaned out again and again?
A bank doesnt earn it's money.
The benefit of a banking system is that it empowers people, as you are saying. This is it's function, and economic growth in the community around it should be sufficient incentive, particularly since the commodity banks deal in has no real value in itself.
When you take out a loan, a bank doesn't give you it's own money. It simply adds the sum you promise to pay them to it's holdings, on an account in your name. It is one of the ways new money is added to the supply.

It really is an effective system. But adding intrest to it creates a paradox. There will be more debt than there exist money to pay it off. This has the ultimate effect that real wealth ends up in the hands of those who control the money supply, while everyone else ends up indebted to them.

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@reasoning logic,

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I do not see a need for your money to be involved. Your money should be yours and there should be a social safety net to protect your savings that you labored for.

Right now, I want my money to be involved. This is because I earn interest. This means that the car company gets to build its factory. People in my community get new jobs building cars in the new factory. And I get money from interest.

This is a win-win-win situation. I don't see why you should be able to forbid me from doing this.

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@Cyracuz,

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When you take out a loan, a bank doesn't give you it's own money. It simply adds the sum you promise to pay them to it's holdings, on an account in your name.

You are leaving out half of the equation. I give money to the bank. I earn interest on this money.

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@maxdancona,

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You are leaving out half of the equation. I give money to the bank. I earn interest on this money.

Does that intrest cover the intrest on your mortgage? Wink

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@maxdancona,

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This is a win-win-win situation. I don't see why you should be able to forbid me from doing this.

I can see it to be a win for me and you because we have savings but the sad truth is, that in our society we have intellectually challenged and environmentally challenged people who are at a lesser advantage than us and there are others who are at a greater advantage than us.
If we had a society that could create its own money without having to pay people like me and you to barrow it our society would be less ill and function in more harmony.

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@reasoning logic,

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If we had a society that could create its own money without having to pay people like me and you to barrow it our society would be less ill and function in more harmony

I see no reason to believe that this is true. In fact, what you are really proposing is restricting the transactions that we, as individual members of society, can engage in.

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@maxdancona,

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I see no reason to believe that this is true. In fact, what you are really proposing is restricting the transactions that we, as individual members of society, can engage in.

I am not restricting any such thing but rather sharing my observation with people that there are other ways to generate or create money than to barrow from me.

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@reasoning logic,

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I can see it to be a win for me and you because we have savings but the sad truth is, that in our society we have intellectually challenged and environmentally challenged people who are at a lesser advantage than us and there are others who are at a greater advantage than us.

It goes beyond that. The system itself is made so that those with the advantage can manipulate the flow of wealth to their own benefit, ensuring that they will always be at a greater advantage.
The basic idea is simple. If I have bread, and you and your kids are starving, you will want to buy my bread, even if my price is everything you own. In such a situation, I could take everything you own, and give a trickle of it back to you, so that you stayed alive to work for me, and I'd be seen as a benefactor.

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@Cyracuz,

Yes, capitalism has the potential--and the inherent tendency--to be brutal. But so does socialism when it is not truly democratic. In addition to the gross unfairness of a market economy there is the degenerate dimension of the market culture. The society with a market economy runs the danger of becoming a market society/culture in which (as we said earlier) everything, including the person, is little more than a commodity.

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@JLNobody,

Directly underneath What Is Capitalism? on my New Posts page is The Dog House.

That's pretty apt.

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@JLNobody,

This is true.
It seems to me that any system is bound to fail if it doesn't allow individuals the freedom to act responsibly.
Between the strict "socialist regulations" and the free market powers here in Norway, there is precious little room for people to think for themselves. The most extreme example is perhaps those who lobby towards a law to ban smoking in the privacy of your own home. That, to me, is going beyond what any government should have the authority to decide.

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@Cyracuz,

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The system itself is made so that those with the advantage can manipulate the flow of wealth to their own benefit, ensuring that they will always be at a greater advantage.

Yes but I think that it may even go beyond that.

I think there may be many tiers to this and some of the people are not even aware of their own advantage but I think that most may be but do not care because they are cold toward empathy, otherwise they would speak out against it.

I personally think I see the immorality in a simplistic way but I truly think that many do not and that is why we are still here.

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@reasoning logic,

It is not so much an immorality in people as it is a way to define everything so that morals doesn't enter into it. That in itself is perhaps amoral, but most people can't do much more than ride the currents. I wonder if I would be such an eager critic of the system if I was swimming in money...

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@Cyracuz,

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I wonder if I would be such an eager critic of the system if I was swimming in money...

The sad truth as I see it is neither me nor you would be able to realize what we do if we were swimming in it.

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What is capitalism?

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