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Old 07-30-2017, 06:17 PM
 
9,694 posts, read 7,392,751 times
Reputation: 9931

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I guess liberals have never studied pilgrims and Plymouth Rock settlement
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Old 07-30-2017, 06:44 PM
 
1,705 posts, read 538,250 times
Reputation: 1142
Weyland-Yutani Corporation
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Old 07-30-2017, 06:50 PM
 
Location: In the reddest part of the bluest state
5,752 posts, read 2,781,845 times
Reputation: 4925
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo View Post
The goal of a corporation has always been to increase shareholder wealth. Nothing has changed.

The goal of an employee is to get the best job he can find. Nothing has changed.

The goal of the consumer is to get the most value for his money. Nothing has changed.
Not true, could you at least try.
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Old 07-30-2017, 07:29 PM
 
Location: Gilbert, Arizona
2,940 posts, read 1,813,027 times
Reputation: 1940
Quote:
Originally Posted by anticap23 View Post
What is the end goal of capitalism? I understand that it motivates people to work and produce at a faster rate than any other system, but so what? If taken to the limit (all problems, whether in politics, math, science, etc. get the most interesting when taken to limits), if a superhuman theoretically were able to do every task on Earth (maybe this will be AI in the future) and invent anything ever needed, could they eliminate all other humans by taking all the available money on earth (yes, that would be evil, but let's say this superhuman were evil and made everyone play the capitalist game fairly (i.e. if you didn't earn or save money, you can't get any and food costs money, so you can't get food either). Let's also say this superhuman hated all other humans and decided he would never have kids and wanted to eliminate the entire human race)? Is a system where money means pretty much everything one that is really the best? I don't have any proven systems that are better, but I'd like to hear your thoughts.
The end goal of capitalism is to increase efficiency by reducing the amount of human effort required to sustain our living at the same time, raise our living standards.

So in a nutshell: produce more stuff, better stuff, and cheaper stuff. That's basically the goal.
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Old 07-30-2017, 07:38 PM
 
15 posts, read 5,334 times
Reputation: 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by man4857 View Post
The end goal of capitalism is to increase efficiency by reducing the amount of human effort required to sustain our living at the same time, raise our living standards.

So in a nutshell: produce more stuff, better stuff, and cheaper stuff. That's basically the goal.
I acknowledged that at the beginning of my initial post. But as I said, what if one person were able to do all of that on his/her own and decided to have all the money for his/her self. "Produce more stuff", well maybe goods, but it's actually producing less people (birth rates in developing countries are dropping), will that trend continue until no one reproduces so that everyone's living standards are amazing since we would not need to take care of new people? If it were so ideal, wouldn't we be driving to reproduce more and figure out how to take care of more people (we have more than enough food for everyone on this planet to eat just fine everyday)? This is where the wrench in the system (a lot of wealthy acquire it by saving money, and one could argue having less kids is essentially due to wanting to save money) comes into play, so that savings becomes more important than actually moving the money around more and creating new things.
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Old 07-30-2017, 08:40 PM
 
Location: Houston
26,979 posts, read 15,889,092 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CCbaxter View Post
Not true, could you at least try.
Completely true from the days of the East India Company.
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Old 07-30-2017, 10:19 PM
 
Location: Los Angeles
4,627 posts, read 3,395,314 times
Reputation: 6148
Quote:
Originally Posted by anticap23 View Post
What do you mean? This is a philosophical critique of capitalism, please tell me counterarguments.
OP: Just a suggestion: you might try this same topic in the Economics forum.

Much less partisan hackery there than in the C-D politics swamp. You'll get more reasoned and less nakedly political responses.
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Old 07-30-2017, 10:25 PM
 
Location: In the reddest part of the bluest state
5,752 posts, read 2,781,845 times
Reputation: 4925
Quote:
Originally Posted by whogo View Post
Completely true from the days of the East India Company.
Not true from the glory days of American industry, which is what we're talking about as opposed to a 17th. century British company run by the crown.
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Old 07-30-2017, 10:29 PM
 
Location: Santa Monica
36,853 posts, read 17,363,818 times
Reputation: 14459
Quote:
Originally Posted by Astral_Weeks View Post
OP: Just a suggestion: you might try this same topic in the Economics forum.

Much less partisan hackery there than in the C-D politics swamp. You'll get more reasoned and less nakedly political responses.
Capitalism is really a philosophy and a moral one at that. It's a tough fit as an economic system.

You can't "implement" free will. You're either free or a slave.

Hint: you're a slave.
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Old 07-31-2017, 06:04 PM
 
15 posts, read 5,334 times
Reputation: 11
Quote:
Originally Posted by No_Recess View Post
Capitalism is really a philosophy and a moral one at that. It's a tough fit as an economic system.

You can't "implement" free will. You're either free or a slave.

Hint: you're a slave.
So then will we all be slaves if that theoretical super individual manages to gain all the money on Earth? Capitalism is reducing the birth rate - ideally, wouldn't we want to find a way to have a higher quality of living AND more people so that the human race expands and can eventually go to other places rather than dwindle? There are a large amount of extremely smart individuals in Western societies who don't have kids at all (great for society so that everyone's standard of living increases, but these are smart people, don't we want more, not less of them). As I said earlier, it values money over human life. If everyone had no kids to help society's standard of living increase and save money for themselves, the standard of living would increase tremendously, at the expense of the human race (yes, this is extreme, but theories/math/science/etc. only gets truly tested when put to its limits).
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