Wealth redistribution

[SHRED]

No not private money.
Public money.

Away from the offensive and destruction oriented military to the social programs (education, health care, infrastructure public works, etc...) that we need for the people of this country.

No need for more taxes.
Start using our money to build the USA instead of lining the pockets of the Military/Corporate/Complex.
Spend our money to benefit us, for a change.

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[era veteran]

1. Maybe some private money too

[SHRED]

2. reign in predatory capitalism for starters also

[Cal Carpenter]

4. Is there any other kind?

I mean, isn't capitalism basically predatory by nature?

[SHRED]

5. For example

An organic farmer selling his produce at a Saturday market is a form of capitalism.

Is that "predatory"?

I think not.


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[OneGrassRoot]

7. conscious commerce

I like that term. I also don't believe all capitalism or commerce is predatory or evil by nature. The extremes most definitely are, and we've been witnessing the extremes due to lack of regulation (and lack of humanity) for a long time. And it seems it's going to get much worse before it gets better.

[rhett o rick]

11. Interesting argument. Are you implying that capitalism isnt predatory?

I think your example is only a piece of capitalism and not enough to make a definition. How about this one. A local company developed and sold potato chips that became popular, partly because of the ingredients. The big capitalist potato chip corporation didnt like the competition (capitalists hate competition) and offered to buy them out. In the process they explained that if they didnt sell, the big company would threaten local stores not to carry the small companies product or the big corp would not provide them their big name products for their shelves. The small local company sold out. Guess what, the first thing the big capitalist corporation did was change the ingredients to the cheaper, less healthy ingredients. That's predatory.

How many small companies did Microsoft kill on their General Sherman's march to success?

[Cal Carpenter]

13. His example's not even a 'piece' of it, it's an *exception* in capitalism

[Cal Carpenter]

12. That's not a good example

you are implying that such a situation could only occur under capitalism, when really, your example is an exception in capitalism. That type of market - where one farmer sells his product directly to a consumer and lives off the proceeds - is a fraction of a percent of the economy in our capitalist system. It's not capitalism at all. It's just basic trade. Such businesses, especially successful ones, are constantly bought out by capitalists, or shoved out (see: Walmart and the shutting down of tons of small businesses in any town they invade)

Capitalism by definition seeks profit - and capitalists acquire that profit by basically stealing some of the value of the labor of people who are actually doing the work. Your farmer gets to take the money he gets at the market and take it home to pay his bills, and to buy new equipment for his farm, and so forth. Whereas capitalism prefers to transfer ownership of that fellow's property, pay him a low wage to do the work, and pocket the profit to mass wealth for the new owners and maybe the shareholders/investors.

There is a huge difference. By using phrases like 'predatory' or 'disaster' capitalism, there is this implication that there is some other kind. There's not. Capitalism is what it is, it does what it does, there can be no successful lasting regulation of it because the 'winners' in capitalism become so powerful. Think of how hard we have to fight for the most basic regulation, how little effort is spent at enforcing said regulation, and how quickly and often any sort of regulation gets watered down. Think how our minimum wage laws are terrible, job security, benefits, pension, down the tubes...this is an inevitable result of capitalism. The concentrated wealth = concentrated power. That power is used to promote its own interests, not ours.

It's totally dishonest to imply that food wouldn't get distributed or widgets wouldn't get manufactured if there wasn't someone making a shitload of money at the top of the pyramid. Those people at the top aren't the ones who know how to do the work.

Here it is in pictures:

[izquierdista]

14. That's a pretty "free" market

It satisfies the axioms of a free market: (1) low barrier to entry, (2) equality of buyer and seller, and (3) equal access to information. Predatory capitalism takes all three axioms and turns them on their head to the corporatists' advantage.

[rhett o rick]

8. yes

[Mike Niendorff]

3. ...

Whenever find great concentration of wealth, large-scale wealth transfer has already occurred.

MDN

[era veteran]

6. Payback time; tax the rich.

I find nothing wrong with acquiring wealth as long as the playing field is level. The uber rich should remember that this country gave them the vehicle to get rich. Why would they NOT want to pay their fair share? Not very patriotic to dodge responsibility.

[HillbillyBob]

9. "Why would they NOT want to pay their fair share?"

Rampant greed and no conscience to reel in the sense of entitlement engendered by their family greed.

[era veteran]

15. Of course, I thought the sarcasm would be visible

[kctim]

10. The only way to do that

is to give education and health care the same status as the military in the Constitution. I'm all for it and would gladly vote to get the 2/3 in order to add them.