A Problem I See With Pure Capitalism

[tolbiny]

David you should reqord it more like this (i think this is closer to what you mean.

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I have no idea what the name of the system I am talking about is. All I know is that if the system encourages everyone only to think about

[/ QUOTE ] their preferences , supposedly because that will bring the most good to the most people, then if you are not one of those people, it seems that you should steal if it is the right play EV wise.

[Joga Bonito]

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Your wrong, pure capitalism cannot exist with a government because taxation interfers with the free market.

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Even people (like myself) who believe in Laissez-Faire capitalism realize that taxation is important.

Laissez-faire capitalism (the purest form of capitalism without introducing anarchy) maintains that private initiative and production is best to roam free, opposing economic interventionism and taxation by the state beyond that which is perceived to be necessary to maintain peace, security, and property rights.

The amount of taxation in this society is extremely minimal, and only imposed upon people or businesses that gross a large amount of money.

I don't have the desire to dig up all the information. But say that it was determined that there would be a 2% tax on the 1,000 largest grossing corporations in America. As well as a 1% tax on the rest of the companies.

The amount of money brought in off of these taxes would go a very long way in maintaining peace, security and property rights.

[Borodog]

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I've touched on this subject before but I will make it more explicit.

If you accept the premise that society is better off in the long run if everyone is trying to selfishly maximize their own gain,

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I stopped here, because you clearly don't understand what "capitalism" is.

[iron81]

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I anxiously await Borodog's contributions to this thread.

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I stopped here, because you clearly don't understand what "capitalism" is.

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You're going to make Andy sad. And when Andy is sad, I'm sad.

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[Borodog]

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I anxiously await Borodog's contributions to this thread.

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I stopped here, because you clearly don't understand what "capitalism" is.

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You're going to make Andy sad. And when Andy is sad, I'm sad.

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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I am always annoyed by people that say things like: "The problem that I have with pure capitalism is that in any system where everyone kills and eats babies . . ."

It annoys the [censored] out of me.

Capitalism is a system based on private property in all orders of goods (producer as well as consumer) and freedom of exchange, facilitated by a commodity money. Period.

[DVaut1]

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I anxiously await Borodog's contributions to this thread.

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I stopped here, because you clearly don't understand what "capitalism" is.

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You're going to make Andy sad. And when Andy is sad, I'm sad.

[img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

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I am always annoyed by people that say things like: "The problem that I have with pure capitalism is that in any system where everyone kills and eats babies . . ."

It annoys the [censored] out of me.


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I get the [censored] annoyed out of me when people say they have an irrefutable axiom that explains complex human interactions and thousands of years of recorded human history, but then claim they have no obligation to demonstrate the axiom's validity empirically because their axiom is irrefutable.

[DustinG]

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I get the [censored] annoyed out of me when people say they have an irrefutable axiom that explains complex human interactions and thousands of years of recorded human history, but then claim they have no obligation to demonstrate the axiom's validity empirically because their axiom is irrefutable.

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You should read Non-Zero: The Logic of Human Destiny by Robert Wright. It uses game theory to explain the evolution of human societies. Another great book that goes along with the theme is Lila by Robert Pirsig.

[_D&L_]

This is a problem especially in the area of free trade. Free trade maximizes wealth for a country, but for a country like the US the primary beneficiaries are not those who work for a living, but those who own significant interest in the companies that moving off shore.

Consumers benefit from competition, but free trade doesn't always increase competition due to patents, copyrights, technilogica-know how, slow markets, etc. Thus, when a company reduces its costs, the usual beneficiary is owners / investors in the company who increase profit margins.

The problem is thus not just one for the potential criminal, but one for anyone who works for a living. When we allow companies to move off shore, for instance, and we know the primary beneficiaries are the wealthy, is there a duty to redistribute the gains?

[andyfox]

Adam Smith, in The Wealth of Nations:

[T]he annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavors as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labors to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was not part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it."

and

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of their fellow-citizens."

Is this not Gordon Gecko's philosophy: greed is good?

Is Sklansky saying something similar to what Smith himself said?:

"In the progress of the division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour, that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it."

Or is Smith describing something different from capitalism?

[BCPVP]

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Consumers benefit from competition, but free trade doesn't always increase competition due to patents, copyrights, technilogica-know how, slow markets, etc.

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Most of those are government-induced problems, not free trade problems.

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When we allow companies to move off shore, for instance, and we know the primary beneficiaries are the wealthy, is there a duty to redistribute the gains?

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So when Standard Oil was cutting its costs in the late 19th century and had grown to have almost 90% market share in oil refining, how was it that they kept lowering their price? According to you, they should have kept their prices the same and reaped huge profits. It could be that ideas about free trade are quite wrong. If you want a modern example, look at WalMart. Would the prices of the goods sold by WalMart be less, equal to, or higher than they currently are if all of those products were made in the U.S.?