Why do people hate Capitalism? (ideology, money, support, propaganda)

[Wapasha]

Originally Posted by h0tmess

Well the thing is..the one in Philly has a BUNCH of anti capitalist signs. In fact I believe most of the ones I saw were like that. I guess they just dont have one clear message yet.

You have that right. I have yet to hear a coherent reason from the protesters or those who are supporting them.

Most common is a supporter ranting that they don't like it when CEOs and financial investors make a million dollars a year. Seems like all they are protesting against is income disparity, and they want government to take action to even it all out.

[Mircea]

Originally Posted by h0tmess

I did some googling, and I came across some blogger's opinion. This was a good read and I'd like to share it with everyone:

An explanation on why people hate capitalism

IMO, it's a pretty solid read and makes some really excellent points. I'm going to share one section that really stuck out to me:



This, in a nutshell (to me), basically describes why capitalism works so well. This is the exact reason why people point out the hypocrisy with "OWS" (and all of the other protests). They will stand out there for weeks..protesting against out system..and most of them being very anti-capitalist. Well that's fine, we are a free society and they have a right to protest....but when you're spending all of this time and your consuming products you are supporting capitalism. This, of course, is just my opinion.

What are your thoughts? I do hope you've read it.

Just another benighted blasé blithering blogger.

Capitalism gives the general population an incredible amount of power, for how they spend their money determines what companies should stay in business, what services should exist, what features products should have. But most people are too lazy and/or selfish to properly exercise this incredible power.

Sorry. That is not Capitalism. Looks like you drank the Kool-Aid.

That is [Free] Market Economics. Capitalism is nothing more than an economic theory regarding the ownership of capital -- ie the means of production which includes cash, credit, labor, land (if used for purposes of production), machinery and equipment.

Capitalist Theory posits that Capital is best left in the hands of private owners, because they are more responsive and adaptable.

From Capitalist Theory, we get two corollaries: Diversity and Specialization.

Is your health care system Capitalist or not? It is not. Why? Because it has diversified into many specialties, it has not specialized. How do you know?

Simple. If your hospital system had specialized, then you would be using the European Clinic Model.

Capitalism is not an Economic System. The three Economic Systems are:

Market Economy
Command Economy
Traditional Economy

Yes, there are hybrids. The US uses a hybrid Market/Command Economy. How do you know? The government sets the price for retirement pay through a tax called FICA and then determines when benefits are paid and how much in benefits is paid. That is to day, Social Security is a Command System.

An Economic System aims to answer three basic questions:

What shall be produced?
How shall it be produced?
For whom shall it be produced?

Shall we produce corn? The market says "yes."

How shall you produce corn? Using traditional, neo-traditional or organic farming methods. If the market wants organic corn, then people will demand it.

For whom should we produce corn? To wholesalers, markets, ethanol plants, distilleries, seed, silage, feed, corn syrup, corn starch, corn meal, corn flour, high-fructose corn syrup, canneries etc etc.

See? Your blogger is total loser moron with a capital "LM."

Capitalism has no bearing on that, other than the fact that as I said before, Capitalist Theory says that private owners are more responsive.
If you want organic yummy Silver Queen Corn, the market will provide, because Capitalists will immediately shift capital, ie resources, ie cash, credit, labor, land and machinery to producing delicious yummy Silver Queen Corn.

In a Socialist System, you'd have to get on your hands and knees and beg some bureaucrat to okay the reallocation of resources to produce organic Silver Queen Corn and if the government bureaucrats can't justify enough profit for the government, then it will never happen.

In a Communist System, it would be up to the people, but no Communist System ever existed (sorry -- the USSR was Socialist -- hence Union of Soviet Socialist Republics not Communist Republics). How would that work exactly? I don't know. I guess it would be up to each community to vote on it.

Let's go back to Capitalism versus Socialism.

Shall we produce corn? Apparently.

How shall we produce corn -- shall we produce Franken Corn?

Who the hell wants it? I damn sure don't. Yet the government is ramming it down your throats.

Is that Capitalism or Socialism?

Bad form. That was a trick question. It's actually Feudal Capitalism. Capitalists like Monstanto, Con-Agra, Cargil, Tyson, Purdue etc as vassals paying large tributes to the king -- the government.

[mwruckman]

Originally Posted by DT113876

Read Marx... this is EXACTLY what Marx said the Capitalist class does; it alienates people from the products of their labour and treats them as objects to be used to produce profits for the capitalists. The only difference is now its become glaringly obvious because the Capitalist class has been highly successful at controlling the political process. Workers being treated as a disposable commodity is exactly what capitalism is about. As societies have evolved, the commodification of ordinary life activities is increased, with Capitalists seeing increased oppurtunities to grow wealth and increase markets. What is squeezed out are human values like community, solidarity, compassion, things that don't look for "what's in it for me" or "what looks good for the bottom line"; making a buck becomes sacred.

Folks, Marx is not Satan. Sure, Leninism and Maoism were less than successful (I'd argue because they rejected democratic principles, whereas true socialism would require democracy), but that doesn't mean Marxism is worthless as a critique of how Capitalism works in the real world.

It is refreshing to find someone who understands something called the Theory of Alienation one of many things in Das Kapital by an economist named Marx. Marx was quite far ahead of his epoch..

[PITTSTON2SARASOTA]

It's not people hating Capitalism it's just the greed it entails....and income/wealth inequalities that have balloned the past few decades.









Wealth/Income inequality has gotten even worse since 2007.

US wealth distribution: 10% of US citizens own 70.9% of all US assets | Ron Paul 2012 | Sound Money, Peace and Liberty (http://www.dailypaul.com/111232/us-wealth-distribution-10-of-us-citizens-own-709-of-all-us-assets - broken link)

//www.city-data.com/forum/20917424-post14.html

[KC_Sleuth]

I am a CPA with a strong business background; I do believe in capitalism, and very strongly I might add.

The issue I have is that it seems, in the last 30 years or so, people are forgetting about principles of morality. A perfect example is payday loans. Under strict capitalist terms, charging exorbitant rates for a loan is acceptable because you have a willing participant to an arms-length transaction. However, centuries ago this would have been considered extremely immoral to take advantage of someone by charging a 300%, 400%, or 500% annualized interest rate. Somehow, we have reversed from this position (even though the Catholic Church still considers usury to be immoral). The same could be said about profiting off of indecent material: you have a willing participant to the transaction, but does it really benefit society as a whole?

It used to be that the capitalist market was simply a part of society, but all of society itself was not a full market economy. Churches and schools also had a hand in guiding principles of exchange of ideas, products, etc. And these institutions did not operate on capitalist principles, but they were still influential enough to shape attitudes. It seems like this is not so much the case anymore...people are willing to make a buck on anything, even if it is immoral. I think that there needs to be a return to "responsible, moral capitalism".

[alphamale]

Originally Posted by PITTSTON2SARASOTA

It's not people hating Capitalism it's just the greed it entails....and income/wealth inequalities that have balloned the past few decades.









Wealth/Income inequality has gotten even worse since 2007.

US wealth distribution: 10% of US citizens own 70.9% of all US assets | Ron Paul 2012 | Sound Money, Peace and Liberty (http://www.dailypaul.com/111232/us-wealth-distribution-10-of-us-citizens-own-709-of-all-us-assets - broken link)

//www.city-data.com/forum/20917424-post14.html

Thank you.

I feel much better now. I thought I was losing ground!

Poor people can't handle money....might as well have people like me control it!

[hilgi]

Originally Posted by h0tmess

I did some googling, and I came across some blogger's opinion. This was a good read and I'd like to share it with everyone:

An explanation on why people hate capitalism

IMO, it's a pretty solid read and makes some really excellent points. I'm going to share one section that really stuck out to me:



This, in a nutshell (to me), basically describes why capitalism works so well. This is the exact reason why people point out the hypocrisy with "OWS" (and all of the other protests). They will stand out there for weeks..protesting against out system..and most of them being very anti-capitalist. Well that's fine, we are a free society and they have a right to protest....but when you're spending all of this time and your consuming products you are supporting capitalism. This, of course, is just my opinion.

What are your thoughts? I do hope you've read it.

Because they have been convinced that corporatism is capitalism.

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by KUchief25

Some hate capitalism because they are jeolous. They didn't take advantage of the opportunites others have to improve their wealth and lives so now want everybody to be miserable like they are. Capitalism is the "American Dream" so to say. They want to destroy that and create "equality" where there are no dreams just looking forward to your government bottle of vodka to drown your sorrows at the end of the week after working the labor camp. But we're all equal.

I'm not sure of that. Opportunity to take advantage of opportunities is unevenly distributed. I see opportunity all over the place but I don't have the money required to take advantage of it. Having an idea for a better mousetrap won't get you anywhere if you don't have the money to bring it to market. I don't feel jealous but I sure as heck resent the idea that I am at fault for not taking advantage of opportunities when I don't have the money to do so.

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by alphamale

Thank you.

I feel much better now. I thought I was losing ground!

Poor people can't handle money....might as well have people like me control it!

While it is true that many poor people can't handle money, a lot of people have wrongly adopted your attitude. What's worse is that poverty itself often creates barriers to proper money management and wealth-building.

For example, poor people are not going to get a mortgage regardless of how well they manage their money. (Ironically, the housing run-up and bubble did show that a whole lot of unqualified people were able to get mortgages by lying, although of course that's unlikely to happen again anytime soon, so we're back to the normalcy of poor people not getting mortgages.)

This means that poor people can't buy houses, which leads ultimately to the situation where poor people pay a lot more money for housing than middle class people, and pay more for what little they get. (For years I was paying more to rent a studio apartment (part of a house) than my next door neighbor Bob was paying to own a 3BR house. Did I choose to pay more and get less than Bob? If Bob was managing his money better than I was, Bob was certainly getting a lot of help by being able to pay less for housing than I (despite having 3x more space plus land) and also because the house in which I lived was hit with $1,200 extra property tax that Bob didn't have to pay.)

[freemkt]

Originally Posted by PITTSTON2SARASOTA

It's not people hating Capitalism it's just the greed it entails....and income/wealth inequalities that have balloned the past few decades.









Wealth/Income inequality has gotten even worse since 2007.

US wealth distribution: 10% of US citizens own 70.9% of all US assets | Ron Paul 2012 | Sound Money, Peace and Liberty (http://www.dailypaul.com/111232/us-wealth-distribution-10-of-us-citizens-own-709-of-all-us-assets - broken link)

//www.city-data.com/forum/20917424-post14.html

So if we can get the bottom 50% to pay 2.5 percent of the taxes, would that be fair and make everybody happy?