In Defense of Capitalism & Free Markets

[GenSeneca]

Those people look for more ways to make money, and soon relize that making the maximum profit would require violating freedoms. So, they take over the government and control the people, which is the point we are at now.

Then it would cease to be Capitalism... So you've not made an argument against Capitalism.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Then it would cease to be Capitalism... So you've not made an argument against Capitalism.

I have, because I have shown how capitalism in pure form can not exist for long.

 

[samsara15]

Who asked for the subsidies? The business interests have always lobbyied, to the fullest of their capacity to do so, for every economic advantage they could get. To screw the public, and their competitors.

 

[Pandora]

Minimal, because the Constitution was followed and the government was limited in its size and scope of operation.


The Fair Tax - WITHOUT PREBATES - would certainly be the ideal but the Flat Tax would come in a close second.

The Fair Tax would require a repeal of the 16th amendment and there is NOT A CHANCE IN HELL I would trust the current group of politicians in Washington to hold the necessary Constitutional Convention for it's repeal... They would "CHANGE" the constitution to institutionalize their ideal of an unlimited federal government.

Is it true that only land owners paid taxes in the start? There was no IRS, how was taxes collected? Do you know of a site that explains all this?

 

[GenSeneca]

I have, because I have shown how capitalism in pure form can not exist for long.

Is that not true of any form of government? Communism, your preferred system, would only last until people became corrupt and destroyed the system.

 

[GenSeneca]

Who asked for the subsidies? The business interests have always lobbyied, to the fullest of their capacity to do so, for every economic advantage they could get. To screw the public, and their competitors.

And whom are they lobbying for these favors from?

GOVERNMENT

If you eliminate governments ability to confer such favors, then corporations cannot screw the public, or their competitors, and they would have very little reason to contribute to political campaigns since they would have nothing to gain by doing so.

Capitalism eliminates the government's ability to offer subsidies, bailouts, tax breaks and other political favors that companies use lobbyists and campaign donations as bribes in order to obtain such perks.

 

[GenSeneca]

Is it true that only land owners paid taxes in the start? There was no IRS, how was taxes collected? Do you know of a site that explains all this?

Only land owners paid taxes, only taxpayers were allowed to vote and there were tax collectors who went around to the land owners collecting taxes. Sorry, I don't know of a site with such information.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

Is that not true of any form of government? Communism, your preferred system, would only last until people became corrupt and destroyed the system.

A few corrupt people can not ruin a system that makes it impossible for the few to control the many. However, if the majority became corrupt, then there would be a dim chance of Communism surviving. But, 8 billion people becoming corrupt is very unlikely, making Communism most likely to survive.

 

[samsara15]

No system has ever survived. All have changed, and evolved. Most have never existed in their pure form, and cannot, since they contain inherent errors that would doom them if they were ever implemented in full. Only in the minds of their adherents do, or can, pure sytems exist. So neither capitalism, mixed, nor communism have ever lasted long in the real world.

 

[GenSeneca]

A few corrupt people can not ruin a system that makes it impossible for the few to control the many. However, if the majority became corrupt, then there would be a dim chance of Communism surviving. But, 8 billion people becoming corrupt is very unlikely, making Communism most likely to survive.

It takes only the people currently in control to corrupt the system. So it was in Soviet Russia, so it was in Communist Cuba and everywhere else Communism has been tried.

 

[GenSeneca]

Most have never existed in their pure form, and cannot, since they contain inherent errors that would doom them if they were ever implemented in full.

Then explain what you see as the "inherent errors" in Capitalism that dooms it from every being fully implemented.

 

[Dante the Marxist]

It takes only the people currently in control to corrupt the system. So it was in Soviet Russia, so it was in Communist Cuba and everywhere else Communism has been tried.

Soviet Russia was exactly what its official name was:

Union[was a grouping of smaller countries]
Soviet[at first, but the soviet councils couldnt withstand Stalin]
Socialist[state-run command economy]
Republics[practised a varient of the American federal system]

Cuba never claimed any adherence to communism, and was created by nationalists who were forced into leninism by russia.

 

[samsara15]

Then explain what you see as the "inherent errors" in Capitalism that dooms it from every being fully implemented.

Why did Gilded Age economics fail? Boss Tweed? The railroad magnates? How often did the market collapse, during the Gilded Age? Wasn't 1929 only the most significant of many such collapses? When has true capitalism ever existed? Why hasn't it, or didn't it? Same can be said for Socialism. When you present us with your ivory tower ideas, Gen, please show us how they could exit in the real world, and you could prevent people and corporations from corrupting the system, before it ever existed.

 

[OldTrapper]

Then explain what you see as the "inherent errors" in Capitalism that dooms it from every being fully implemented.

True, or if you desire "pure", capitalism can only work in a moral society where the rights of the individual are recognized beyond that of property. That would probably be the greatest flaw of capitalism in that morality most often cannot be enforced without the power of force, or law.

Without the respect for the rights, and the welfare, of the laborer the system is then filled with greed, and that will destroy capitalism.

Today we live in a society where the supply of capital is controlled by a few (40% of all wealth is owned by 2% of the population) individuals, then there are the banks, and the corporations. Thus, while small businesses, and entrepreneurs, produced 85% of all jobs in this country just a short 30 years, or so, ago they now produce less then 65%, and the number is being further eroded by the constantly growing number of government employees.

One of the major reasons for this development is the lack of capital available to the beginning entrepreneur since the wealthy individual will not finance its competition, the banks won't finance anyone preferring to hoard the money while charging ever increasing fees for the money it does lend out such as in credit cards, and the corporations simply find other ways to spend it such as bonuses.

Government in, and of itself, does not own any capital being dependent on what it can force others to give, and then the fiat moeny of the printng press.

http://www.american.com/archive/2009/october/greed-is-not-good-and-its-not-capitalism

 

[GenSeneca]

When you present us with your ivory tower ideas, Gen, please show us how they could exit in the real world, and you could prevent people and corporations from corrupting the system, before it ever existed.

Why is having the government respect and protect the rights of every citizen not something that can be accomplished in the real world?