The People vs. Capitalism: A thoughtful overview from a visionary point of view

[rainy]

Every animal has a home. Like all living things people should have a home. Should have a place they call home and not be forced to become a laborer. All capitalists make money off the natural resources that are actually owned by the people. They make the laboring masses pay for the roads and schools, banks and governments that allow the corporations to make all the money. They take the God given land away from the people and force them to become laborers, stealing and polluting the air, land and water, giving nothing back and they make the people pay for the goods, the means and the services while they pay for nothing and receive everything. At the very least every person should have a piece of land to call their home. Capitalism does not create free men, but, creates salves to money. You should be able to live in peace on the natural resources that are supplied by nature if you choose to step out of the mainstream. Nature supplies us with all we really need to survive. Our schools deliver a barely educated, can't allow too much knowledge, worker to the doorsteps of the corporate owners. These people then become slave for life. We are getting more mentally ill, more physically ill and overall depressed and anxious because we are so trained by the corporations on what to think, what to desire, what to buy, what to eat, where we have to live and so on.

Some places are made uninhabitable by the waste of the corporations that said they came to save the people from starvation, but, the people were way better off before the corporations came in and brought all the toxins with them.

You might say but we saved them from illnesses. I say they would not have gotten the illness to begin with if we had not so polluted their habitats, food and water supplies etc.. Just look at the animals in the wild that are the farthest from the people. They are not dying of un-natural diseases like cancer, heart disease and diabetes. They may fall prey to a few maladies but overall man is causing most diseases. Plus if we ate like nature intended us to eat we would not catch viruses. Our bodies are remarkable in that they can fight anything if given the correct fuel. Our bodies have to make new cells every day. If we feed them crap they make weak crappy cells. if we feed them live, living cells to work with, like the animals in the wild, we could be as healthy as those animals.

Overall, I'm not against the corporation. I love my ipod and most of the comforts. But I think it so unfair that there are so many people starving to death and so many do not care when if we just adjusted the sturcture of the corporations to be more public than private and had a food revolution we could actually create a much better, heathier and happier world. We have to anyway because our rate of growth and waste is unsustainable. We must change or die. It really is that simple.

What do you guys thing about this.

[demrabble]

1. A Brilliant Analysis

You write very well, and your writing demonstrates a keen mind at work.

Keep up the good work!

[Taverner]

2. Nice Anarchist Argument

Personally, I agree with most of it - except that we need corporations. I know that's not popular.

I don't think we need corporations as they are, mind you. We need a new deal to "Save" capitalism from itself. It is quick becoming an oppresive monopoly that does everything you listed above.

[rman]

16. corporate anarchist here

"corporate" in the sense that i agree we do need corporations, just much more regulated than they are now; they should serve society rather than exploit society.

"anarchist" in that i think we need a much less hierarchical form of democracy, or simply put: we need more (real) democracy.

[SanCristobal]

3. Some questions from the Devils advocate:

Why are natural resources the property of "the people"? If a person has put their time and effort into developing and prospering off of an unowned resource, why should those who have not contributed have any rights to their work?

Is it not nature which forces us into labor? Why blame capitalism for something that existed for thousands of years before Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations and that is independent of the human experience? Doesn't nature force all life into laboring for their survival?

How can you claim animals don't die from disease? Wild animals live much shorter lives then those in captivity, similar to the lower lifespans of people living without capitalisms productive blessings. Nature doesn't provide all the finished products people and animals need. Can't it be argued that nature alone forces us into a Malthusian dilemma which only the productive power of capitalism has solved?

[Solo_in_MD]

6. Not to mention Locke and Rousseau

[rainy]

7. That's a pile of BS

"How can you claim animals don't die from disease? Wild animals live much shorter lives then those in captivity" How do you know? Prove it. Only because they may be eaten up.

[SanCristobal]

9. Out of all those questions you picked animal lifespans to take issue with?

I hope that was just the first of many posts to come. Anyway, here is some zoo's site listing the lifespan of their animals. Captive animals don't face predators, receive a constant food supply and get medical attention, hence longer lifespans.

http://www.phoenixzoo.org/learn/animals/index.aspx

[rainy]

10. I still don't believe they live longer in captivity. But, I'm sorry for just picking that

out. I was listening to a book on tape for my book group tonight and I'm on my way now. I'll get back to the rest of your statement later. I enjoy talking with you and will be back at about 9:30 or ten.

[SanCristobal]

11. Cool, looking foward too it.

Not trying to be a dick with the questioning, but it's good practice to argue these things and your post piqued my interest.

[rman]

19. Can i own air please?

I'm sure that once i own it i can prosper off of it.

To equate capitalism with labor is disingenuous: capitalism is the aggregation of wealth generated by labor - capitalism-as-we-know-it is more often than not profiting from someone else's labor.

[The2ndWheel]

20. We don't solve problems

"Why are natural resources the property of "the people"? If a person has put their time and effort into developing and prospering off of an unowned resource, why should those who have not contributed have any rights to their work?"

Why should anyone have a monopoly on those resources? That process eventually ends up with one corporation(who is a legal person), such as Monsanto, wanting to own the DNA of whatever resource they own. Is that a step in the right direction?

"Is it not nature which forces us into labor? Why blame capitalism for something that existed for thousands of years before Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations and that is independent of the human experience? Doesn't nature force all life into laboring for their survival?"

Yes, but the labor we practice places us in a distant relationship. Most people have no control over where their food comes from, or where their clothes come from, or where their shelter comes from. That's the price of specialization, efficiency, and mass production though. That process feeds on itself, which then ends up with one corporation owning the DNA of life.

"How can you claim animals don't die from disease? Wild animals live much shorter lives then those in captivity, similar to the lower lifespans of people living without capitalisms productive blessings. Nature doesn't provide all the finished products people and animals need. Can't it be argued that nature alone forces us into a Malthusian dilemma which only the productive power of capitalism has solved?"

It hasn't solved anything. We still die.

The funny thing is that the animals in captivity or the wild don't have our concept of time, so they don't know they live longer or shorter, they just live. As much as life can live in captivity, being dependent on one corporation that owns the DNA of life. Then of course nobody asked them if they wanted to live in captivity. They seemed to be doing fine where they were, until we created a problem for them that didn't really exist.

[Ron Green]

4. Balance, balance, balance.

What we have plenty of is "the Market." It runs on fear, hunger and lower-chakra needs. What we have lost much of is "the Church." I don't mean the Catholic Church, or some fundie denomination, but the broad domain of institutions that seek to ennoble and teach us, and tell us how we ought to be - all the higher-chakra practices of loving and connecting with others.

Corporations tend, through natural human fears, to dominate the decision-making process that ought to be better informed by the non-profit institutions. The government is way out of balance toward the Market, and has forgotten the higher messages of the Church.

[StrictlyRockers]

5. Capitalism is THE problem.

Fix this or you will not solve the world's problems. We need a new system. This one creates death and starvation for many. 24,000 people die of starvation every day. Why? Capitalism.

[Boojatta]

12. Three Questions

How did you arrive at the number 24,000? Do you really claim that every year more than 8 million people die of starvation?

What's the connection between "capitalism" and every single case of starvation?

If "state capitalism" is to blame for something, then should plain "capitalism" be held responsible?

[StrictlyRockers]

18. 24,000 people died of starvation today.

24,000 people will die of starvation tomorrow. 24,000 people died of starvation on 9/11/01. What is the real crime? Capitalism.

Capitalism is a zero-sum game which creates losers and winners, haves and have-nots. This is far from the only option for an economic system.

It is a fact that the US scrapes the cream off the top of the world and burns 25% of the world's energy while containing only 5% of its population. This disparity is not sustainable. It is maintained by a huge military which keeps all other countries in check by fear. If you piss us off, we will do to you what we did to Iraq.

Iraq is being used as an example of what can happen to your country if you don't tow the American, capitalist line. Play the game, and play it by our rules, or suffer THESE consequences. We spend $500,000,000,000.00 a year of my money and your money to maintain this force of global knee-cappers. And we semi-willingly allow them to be sent around the planet to do the globalists' bidding.

Do you want YOUR capital to be the next Baghdad? Then DON'T step out of line! Got it, pal? There can be no other explanation for what they are doing to Iraq. Incompetence does not explain this. Iraq is being made an example of. This can heppen to YOU! So, watch it! Saddam was jerking the capitalists' chain in a BIG way. That's why he was invaded. Greg Palast has the scoop on this in his latest book, Armed Madhouse: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War.

The Iranians are jerking the capitalists' chain in a BIG way, too, with their new Euro-based oil bourse. The big boys would love to slap them for this, and they are trying. We will stop them this time.

SR

[Boojatta]

13. What's the hypothesis?

If we were to rate every country on how capitalistic it is, would we find that the following countries (categorized by region) are the most capitalistic ones?

Countries facing food crises

Africa
Angola
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Central African Republic
Chad
Democratic Republic of Congo
Republic of Congo
Côte d’Ivoire
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Kenya
Lesotho
Liberia
Madagascar
Mali
Mauritania
Niger
Sierra Leone
Somalia
Sudan
Swaziland
Tanzania
Uganda
Zimbabwe

Asia/Near East
Afghanistan
Indonesia
Iraq
Dem. People's Rep. of Korea
Lebanon
Mongolia
Nepal
Pakistan
Sri Lanka
Timor-Leste

Latin America/Caribbean
Colombia
Cuba
Haiti

Europe
Russian Federation (Chechnya)

From:
Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations
http://www.fao.org/newsroom/en/news/2006/1000416/index.html

[rainy]

14. It is what the leading capitalist nations do to exploit those

countries for their own power and wealth that make those countries so poor and in need of food etc... If we didn't go in and try to steal their natural resources and arm certain factions so that there is always chaos the people would be better off. Have you read confessions of an Economic Hit Man? It explains how our government is meshed with private corporations opperating around the world starting wars to get to the wealth of the other countries. It is very well explained by one who lived it.

[Boojatta]

21. The following is at least a coherent claim.

It is what the leading capitalist nations do to exploit those countries for their own power and wealth that make those countries so poor and in need of food etc...

By using the words "the leading capitalist nations", you are merely referring to some collection of countries and there are other ways of referring to the same collection of countries. For example, you could simply list them by name. If you wish to claim that capitalism is causing those countries to do unethical things, then you have a problem. For an action to be unethical, the person who performs the action must have an appropriate mental state: negligence or intent to cause harm. In the absence of such a state of mind, you may speak of undesirable effects, but it is inappropriate to use a word such as "exploit." A hurricane has undesirable effects, but it doesn't "exploit" people.

Let's suppose that GWB were to announce that he will spend a year in North Korea to study managerial decision-making. The Vice President steps into the Presidential role for that one year. Suppose that, upon returning, GWB announces that the United States government will seize control of all privately owned businesses operating in the USA. GWB then appoints people to run all those businesses. All profits go directly to the federal government. If that actually happened, do you think that all subsequent trade relations and foreign policy involving the USA and other countries would necessarily deserve the admiration of all right-thinking people?

[StrictlyRockers]

15. Your question misses the point.

ALL of the countries operate under a global hegemonic capitalist system. No country operates outside of it, so it matters not at all which of them has a more or less capitalistic system. They all suffer its ill effects.

They all lack the ability to break free from free-market capitalism. There are few alternatives now to neo-liberal globalist capitalism. Latin America is leading the way to finding those alternatives.

I think a global, socialist solution should be found to solve poverty and to give everyone their basic guaranteed human rights: housing, food, clean water, education, employment, freedom of religion and expression, etc.

We could do this with 10% of the current military budget...globally. We could solve the world's problems and live in a much happier place. We need to build the political will. I feel strongly about this.

SR

[rman]

17. "capitalism-as-we-know-it" is the problem

We can't really do without "cooperation", nor can we do without -some- amount a aggregation of wealth.
The issue isn't so much capital and corporations, the issue is how and how much of it.

[Vidar]

8. Pretty good.