American capitalism is dying ?

[kentuck]

Capitalism is, by definition, an economic system based on personal greed. It is not based on making humanity better or sharing the wealth amongst those that participate. Rather it is based on competition and the desire for more wealth and material status symbols. From a positive point, it has led to more innovation and better products in many instances.

However, it is an economic system that cannot survive on its own. It must have government intervention in the form of regulation or in the form of bailouts when it is permitted to operate on its own. That is why we find ourselves today in the present predicament with the price of oil and the dire condition of the banking system. We turned them loose to operate on their own and we are where we are now because of that decision.

In the end, American capitalism begs to be saved by American socialism. That is, they want the government or the people to bail them out. They are "too big to fail", they say. We cannot survive without them. It may be true that American capitalism cannot survive without them but the people can find a much better way without them. If only we saw the opportunity.

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. I agree, but the world, for the most part, has been

lured by Jack and the Beanstalk. That golden goose is too appealing to look at the danger of the Giant in the room.

[closeupready]

2. If these organizations want government bailouts, then in return they must accept more government reg

regulation. To reject that proposition is a total nonstarter, as far as I'm concerned.

[Hannah Bell]

10. hey, there was plenty of reg. just reg that encouraged looting, is all.

[kentuck]

12. The fox guarding the henhouse is not "regulation".

:shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

16. regulation is for the little people.

[notadmblnd]

3. well these industries didn't want government intervention in fth form of regulation

they should not now get any government intervention in regards to bailouts. Pull yourself up by your bootstraps you greedy, weak, whining corporations.

[kentuck]

4. How about we privatize those banks that cannot survive?

And we take over the mortgages and permit people to pay off the principal only on their loans and keep their houses? No more paying 3 or 4 times the value of the house to the big banks? How about we look at radical changes rather than look at the same old solution?

[Indenturedebtor]

7. But but but that makes sense! OMG but wait!!!111!!!11!

That's Socialism! :gasp:

Seriously though... let these bastards reap the whirlwind. That's what happens to me if I stop juggling all of the payments and whatnot.

[marmar]

5. RIP.....Maybe it's time for something different. Something more equitable.

n/t

[kentuck]

6. Right on!

This is the type of thinking we need.

[MinM]

8. Robert Newman - History of Oil

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x157826

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

9. We need a form of social capitalism

Where things like healthcare, utilities, natural resources, education , transportation, defense , and social saftey nets are clearly within the purview of the public sector and where any private players are subjected to stringent oversight, regulation, cost controls, etc.

That leaves a gigantic playground for the rest of the economy as a place for private industry to flourish and for people to aspire to and capture private riches.

[kentuck]

11. We need something besides what we've got...

No doubt about that.

[Iris]

13. yes, a middle ground would be nice.

I shudder to think of the talent wasted because college students think they have to major in "business" even if their talents lie in science, healthcare, or even gov't. administration. This country losing so much to greed and the resulting atmosphere of people doing whatever they have to to make it or at least simply get by.

[kentuck]

14. Gotta have that yacht...

and that big mansion on the hill. And that new sports car. And a villa in Southern France. Otherwise, what's the purpose of living?? :sarcasm:

[Iris]

15. or at least the hope of one, right?

Because how many people are actually ever going to have that?

[readmoreoften]

17. It would take so much to reign in capitalism to make it 'social' you might as well have revolution.

The private players don't and won't accept "stringent oversight, regulation, cost controls, etc" because they own the state. This is what Lenin meant when he said that the State exists to protect the rich from the poor. While the 20th century abuses and vulgarisms of Lenin's work made socialism seem abhorrent, his analysis is hardly irrelevant: the capitalists don't want a playground. They want everything. And they can have it. They own the country--in fact, they own the world. Everything. Literally. They even own the mechanisms of power: the voting and communications infrastructure.

Without the possibility of real representation, the amount of power we would need to capture basic rights is nearly identical to the energy it would take to foment an out and out revolution. (Of course, the question is--revolution towards what system since the 20th century implosion of the left.) Social capitalism or compassionate capitalism relies on either a mechanism of force on the part of the masses or on the voluntarism (good will) of the capitalist who earns money off living and dead labor. There is no way to enforce something without force.

Because communism lost, it seems that the only thing left is to reform capitalism. But what if 21st century global capitalism is incapable of reform? I'm not sure how on earth we can manage to get the most powerful people on earth to stop crushing us (and what's more, to stop crushing the people in the Southern Cone) without putting up a massive and risky resistance.

[kentuck]

18. Power to the People !

The old John Lennon song...

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

22. I know that it is an almost impossible task

I have to use that word almost.

But, many are waking up and now know that the real goal of vulture capitalism is to privatize profit and socialize loss.

Healthcare is the best place to start and then we can work on the different sectors one by one. I would focus on utilities/resources and then transportation next.

I think that the post-modern Lazy Boy American has no appetite for "force of the masses". I would have to place my money on the voulnteerism of the capitalist because I think they are starting to realize that killing the golden goose means no more eggs.

[Taverner]

19. Nope. the rest of the capitalist world is doing just fine

Well, most of it at least...

[The2ndWheel]

20. All economic systems are based on greed

Be it personal greed, or collective greed. I want more. We want more. I want what you have. We want what they have.

[readmoreoften]

23. Pure reactionary thinking. The billion people who earn under $1 a day are not "collectively greedy"

Neither are those born into the bourgeois classes who promote the truth of the equality of the poor and working classes even to their own personal financial detriment. People who fight so that they will not be worked to death are not greedy. People who fought in earlier slave rebellions were not "greedy".

To say that socialism is based on "greed" is like saying that the abolition of slavery was based on "status" and "the desire for social control": All them black folk want is the same thing we slaveowners want--social superiority! They'll enslave us like we've enslaved them! Better for us to be on top than them!"

If the richest people on the block come and seize your house do you simply "want what they have"? No. You want them to return what they stole.

[kentuck]

21. There is a good link elsewhere on this page...

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/336722


<snip>
We are witnessing a momentous event--the great deflation of Wall Street--and it is far from over. The crash of IndyMac is just the beginning. More banks will fail, so will many more debtors. The crisis has the potential to transform American politics because, first it destroys a generation of ideological bromides about free markets, and, second, because it makes visible the ugly power realities of our deformed democracy. Democrats and Republicans are bipartisan in this crisis because they have colluded all along over thirty years in creating the unregulated financial system and mammoth mega-banks that produced the phony valuations and deceitful assurances. The federal government protects the most powerful interests from the consequences of their plundering. It prescribes "market justice" for everyone else.

Of course, the federal government has to step up to the crisis, but the crucial question is how government can respond in the broad public interest. Bernanke knows the history of the last great deflation in the 1930s--better known as the Great Depression--and so he is determined to intervene swiftly, as the Federal Reserve failed to do in that earlier crisis. By pumping generous loans and liquidity into the system, the Fed chairman hopes to calm the market fears and reverse the panic. So far, he has failed. I think he will continue to fail because he has not gone far enough.

If Washington wants real results, it has to abandon the wishful posture that is simply helping the private firms get over their fright. The government must instead act decisively to take charge in more convincing ways. That means acknowledging to the general public the depth of the national crisis and the need for more dramatic interventions.

Instead of propping up Fannie Mae or others, the threatened firm should be formally nationalized as a nonprofit federal agency performing valuable services for the housing market. That is the real consequence anyway if the taxpayers have to buy up $300 billion in stock.