Capitalism: classic or dud?

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(Yes, I know there's been a thread of the same name before, but it wasn't about what I had in mind.)

What are your thoughts on capitalism? I think it's definitely overrated. I mean, it is difficult to come up with a sensible alternative, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.

Social democracy, as seen here in the Nordic states, once seemed to be a credible solution, but I don't it ever was a satisfying one. All it does is alleviate the damage done by capitalism (which is good, of course), but it never truly adheres to capitalism's inherent contoversies.

Me, I remain an anarchist at heart, but I also understand the huge difficulties building an anarchist society could induce. Still, giving up that dream is like saying the history has ended and capitalism has won, and that is an honour I will never grant to the Big C.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:47 (twenty-two years ago)

Add the word "think" there.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:48 (twenty-two years ago)

Let me read the economist's feature on this very subject and get back to you.

― Ed (dali), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:50 (twenty-two years ago)

I get very confused. Capitalism is an economic system, and democracy is a political system. How/why do they intersect?

― kate (kate), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:55 (twenty-two years ago)

''I remain an anarchist at heart''

i hoe you burn in hell ;)

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Capitalism is an economic system, and democracy is a political system. How/why do they intersect?

You don't know what Social Democracy means? As I've understood you used to have it in Britain too, before Thatcher.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:58 (twenty-two years ago)

No, I know what Social Democracy is, well, supposed to be. I just don't understand the mechanics of comparing economic and political systems. China is a capitalist system, for example, according to my friend who lives there.

― kate (kate), Thursday, 3 July 2003 10:59 (twenty-two years ago)

Read what I said. Social Democracy is a political system that tries to minimize the damage done by capitalism. Besides, saying that economy and politics are two completely separate spheres is bollocks, unless you're an incurable liberalist.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:05 (twenty-two years ago)

I’m feeling pretty perky today and right now it seems relatively simple really; thanks to Capitalism, money rules politics. Until we can overturn that dynamic and simultaneously discredit the proposition that life on this planet is a fierce competition, we’re pretty much fucked. Capitalism = dystopic, but right now, any attempt to exist outside it’s parameters or even challenge them, means you get steamrollered or at least ostracised. I think as a race, as a species, we could all do with broadening our horizons just a little and actually stretch ourselves and our capabilities, instead of clinging so blindly to technology (which is almost completely in thrall to the machinery of Capitalism). We are surely capable of greater enlightenment, advancement and utopianism than the point of our present occupation.

It will take a seismic change in perceptions but we need to wake the fuck up and quick.

― Alex K (Alex K), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:19 (twenty-two years ago)

'We are surely capable of greater enlightenment, advancement and utopianism than the point of our present occupation.
It will take a seismic change in perceptions but we need to wake the fuck up and quick'

Alex K have you never heard of DRUGS

― dave q, Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:21 (twenty-two years ago)

No. What are they?

― Alex K (Alex K), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:23 (twenty-two years ago)

They are cool things that destroy the concept of objective reality. Without objective reality it is impossible to put a value on any commodity - goodbye capitalism!

― dave q, Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:26 (twenty-two years ago)

Dude, they sound rocking. I bet you've taken a few.

― Alex K (Alex K), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:32 (twenty-two years ago)

ouch

― dave q, Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:35 (twenty-two years ago)

everybody on LSD = utopia?

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:39 (twenty-two years ago)

Does anyone here plan to read George Monbiot's new book on the subject? Because this makes it all sound very interesting indeed...

― Matt DC (Matt DC), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:49 (twenty-two years ago)

As soon as you do someone a favour the world = capitalist. The root of the word is the latin for 'head'. Much as I hate the prevalence of money as a motivating factor and the reduction of the human soul (which doens't exist so I'll say 'dasein') to a commodity, you can't classic or dud it because it#'s there and always will be.

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:50 (twenty-two years ago)

nick has a point, capitalism is pretty much human nature boiled down. I don't see how you could ever invent a system where money didn't rule politics - and as long as we stop thinking "money" strictly in the short term, I don't see why this is necessarily wrong.

Of course (stateside) we need to rework the patent system, the anti-trust laws and the SEC, but these are comparitively minor details in the long term.

― Millar (Millar), Thursday, 3 July 2003 11:57 (twenty-two years ago)

'human nature' can easily be overcome by fear of death, or indifference to same. revolution!

― dave q, Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:00 (twenty-two years ago)

Geez, why do you have to go and get all essentialist...

― cybele (cybele), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:12 (twenty-two years ago)

yeh, quit harshing my capitalist buzz

― stevem (blueski), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

All praise dave q!

― Nick Southall (Nick Southall), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:14 (twenty-two years ago)

Capitalism is pure classic. Bartering sucked and kept one at a hand to mouth existence. Anarchy is and always has been the LCD but a completely free market system isn't too far off from it.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:29 (twenty-two years ago)

i feel bad for capitalism. poor capitalism.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 12:43 (twenty-two years ago)

It gets a bad rap by wooly cap crew.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Thursday, 3 July 2003 13:01 (twenty-two years ago)

well, i was thinking, everyone starts in to ragging on it just when it isn't feeling well.

― amateurist (amateurist), Thursday, 3 July 2003 14:24 (twenty-two years ago)

well, capitalism a case of 'classic dud' then!?

― t\'\'t (t\'\'t), Thursday, 3 July 2003 18:33 (twenty-two years ago)

twelve years pass...

Is this where capitalism eats itself?

http://blog.ycombinator.com/basic-income

If so, I like it!

― schwantz, Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:05 (nine years ago)

Awesome

― service desk hardman (El Tomboto), Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:14 (nine years ago)

where do I sign up to receive my basic income

― Οὖτις, Thursday, 28 January 2016 00:18 (nine years ago)

did you not read the whole post?

https://jobs.lever.co/ycr/a8dad62d-306b-4414-b5b2-14f771359608

― service desk hardman (El Tomboto), Thursday, 28 January 2016 01:03 (nine years ago)

Hardly a new idea, isnt it rolling out in a few places this last while?

― broderik f (darraghmac), Thursday, 28 January 2016 01:15 (nine years ago)

nope, just experiments. there have been experiments in the past, policy just doesn't get adopted cause it's expensive and unpopular

― flopson, Thursday, 28 January 2016 01:21 (nine years ago)

actually we have a thread on it

Basic income

― service desk hardman (El Tomboto), Thursday, 28 January 2016 02:06 (nine years ago)

six months pass...

i was yelling THIS IS INSANE at the radio in my car last night

http://www.marketplace.org/2016/08/16/world/when-traders-lose-their-mojo-enter-performance-coach

Netto’s dad had been all about academic achievement and Netto barely graduated high school. He said he came to realize his dad’s disappointment was affecting his trades.

“If I don’t believe I’m truly intelligent how can I believe that I have an edge in the market?” he said.

He said making that connection was the start of a turnaround.

Denise Shull, his first coach, is a former trader herself. She also has a master’s in neuroscience and psychoanalytic theory. She said there’s always an underlying reason for trading behavior. Take a guy she coached several years ago.

“He came because he lost money every morning, then made it back and was profitable – but had been doing this for years,” she said. “And he goes, ‘You know it makes no sense, why do I have to start every morning down?’”

It turns out that when he was a kid, his family had barely scraped by. In his teens, he got a running coach, did really well, and began to climb out of poverty. She said he was repeating his life’s story in a day’s trades.

“In fact the next month after we put that two and two together if you will, he made more than three times what he’d ever made in one single month,” she said.

And he kept it up.

― goole, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:35 (nine years ago)

parasites on parasites on parasites

― goole, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:36 (nine years ago)

psychoanalysis is a pseudoscience

― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:42 (nine years ago)

and a malignant one at that

― ælərdaɪs (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:43 (nine years ago)

LOL

― flopson, Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:46 (nine years ago)

perfect match for economics then

― Tom Watson in a fedora (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 16:54 (nine years ago)

haha love this

― F♯ A♯ (∞), Wednesday, 17 August 2016 17:26 (nine years ago)

three years pass...

https://www.theverge.com/2019/12/7/21000094/unicorn-electric-scooter-shut-down-refund-tile

In an email to customers, the company says it lacks the resources to deliver any of its $699 two-wheelers, and won’t be issuing refunds “as we are completely out of funding.”
In a remorseful email, Unicorn CEO Nick Evans said the company had “totally failed as a business” and has also “spread the cost of this failure to you, the early customers that believed in us.”

sorry about taking your money, we feel terrible about this

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Monday, 9 December 2019 21:47 (five years ago)

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