You're Anti-Capitalist. But, What are you for?

Benefits of Understanding the Role of Capitalism on the Environment

For the final section of this project I would like to touch on some key benefits, I believe, that can come from the understanding of the impact of capitalism on the environment. I believe this essay has successfully outlined how capitalism functions and in what way it is able to manipulate and influence not just human life, but the earth and its biosphere. My final argument is that we can use this understanding in several beneficial ways. First, it shows that there is an immediate need to educate ourselves, as a species, on capitalism and begin to understand that a significant change is required to the entire system. Once we can understand how the system itself functions and the mechanisms involved, going about enacting change can become a much more approachable and attainable endeavor. For example, once we become consciously aware of how marketing, advertising and the media are shaping and forming our needs and desires we can begin to question them critically instead of blindly following the norms created for us by these mechanisms. Furthermore, a deep understanding of capitalism can help humans, as a species, question the way that they are currently living and how sustainable this way of life is. Currently, from childhood we are taught certain norms and values that are not questioned, a lot of which fuel the capitalist system. For example, the education systems’ goal is to prepare students for employment and get them ready to engage with the labour market when they reach adulthood, all of which directly feeds capitalism. Furthermore, the majority of westerners consume meat and other animal products without any real conscious thought into the processes and mechanisms that make this possible. I believe an understanding of capitalism forces an engagement with these issues and allows people to question the very things that they take for granted without much conscious thought.

Another benefit is that it allows people to take individual responsibility for their actions within the capitalist system. This, in my opinion, is one of the most important features of such an understanding due to the fact that it may be impossible to ever move away from the capitalist system. If people are empowered with knowledge and understanding of how the system works, it allows them to take responsibility for their consumption and to think critically about their consumption choices. I argue that such insights allow us to understand capitalism as a form of ‘democracy’ where capital and money are seen as votes. The more you consume a particular product, the more votes you are giving the institution responsible for its production and the more power it will have. If people can become aware of this and become empowered to change the way they think about consumption, we may be able to start seeing a shift towards progress within the capitalist system by using our money and capital to vote for what we believe is right and how things ought to be. As this paper has showed, capital accumulation and profit forms the language of capitalism, so by forming a deeper understanding of capitalism we can use capitalism's own language to enact change in the world. Change for the better and towards a brighter future for the earth and all its inhabitants.

My claim is that it is a system that works more efficiently than any alternative.

How do you incentivize hard work and innovation in a system that isn't capitalist?

How do you big projects and take advantage of economies of scale without corporations?

In a regulated capitalist system people trade work or ideas for money. If someone works hard and has a very good idea they will earn more money.

Corporations in our modern capitalism are large organizations that earn money by selling goods and services. In their best, they produce things cheaply because of an economy of scale, and they can do the big projects that smaller organizations simply can't such as building airplanes or creating a covid vaccine.

Now, capitalism isn't perfect. I concede that there are abuses and injustices under capitalism. I am not here to discuss that. Regulated Capitalism is not a utopia. My claim is that it is a system that works more efficiently than any alternative.

What I am asking is what is the alternative?. How do you incentivize hard work and innovation in a system that isn't capitalist? How do you big projects and take advantage of economies of scale without corporations?

This is a place to suggest an alternative.

Frank, I accept your correction.... what I said was incorrect. It doesn't incentivize hard work, it does incentivize productivity (which is not always correlated to hard work).

You are giving more of a wish than an alternative. But, it made me think of the Guaranteed Minimum Income promoted by Andrew Yang.

In this plan, everyone would be given a basic living income whether they worked or not. Then whoever wanted to work could earn as much money, and become as rich, as they wanted based on their aptitude, work and desire.

Is this what you would want?

I don't see anything even close to an alternative to capitalism.

But, it made me think of the Guaranteed Minimum Income promoted by Andrew Yang.

In this plan, everyone would be given a basic living income whether they worked or not. Then whoever wanted to work could earn as much money, and become as rich, as they wanted based on their aptitude, work and desire.

1) Humans should stop eating meat (but with no suggestion on how to convince humans, who have loved meat since the stone age, to stop eating meat)

2) Education should not be focused on kids joining productive, prosperous careers, but should instead get kids to think the right thoughts. This I suppose is a way to change thing... but I think kids should be educated to be successful at work, and teaching kids to think correct is the definition of indoctrination.

3) We are all doomed, it's too late. This is a key part of the ideological narrative. I don't know what it would mean in terms of policy.

I am looking for a real alternative to our current system of regulated capitalism that would actually be better.

For all these problems, the capitalist system does not offer sustainable and convincing solutions.

By directly pitting the predictions of ideal-type theories against each other within a single statistical model (using a unique data set that includes imperfect but useful measures of the key independent variables for nearly two thousand policy issues), we have been able to produce some striking findings. One is the nearly total failure of “median voter” and other Majoritarian Electoral Democracy theories. When the preferences of economic elites and the stands of organized interest groups are controlled for, the preferences of the average American appear to have only a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non-significant impact upon public policy.

So, are you anti-democracy?

Can you offer an alternative to Democracy that would be better?

With a Guaranteed Incone, I would still be free to work as much as I like. If my goal was to be wealthy, and I had the ability, I could still work to accumulate wealth.

This is still capitalism.