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The Forum > Article Comments > The end of capitalism? > Comments

The end of capitalism? : Comments

By Oliver Hartwich, published 19/12/2008

The prophets of the end of capitalism have always been on standby, ready to propagate their economic recipes of more state control, more government, and more regulation.

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Col: "My understanding is socialist minded folk in USA decided it would be a good idea to make housing a political football and underwrite anyones ability to buy a house… good vote catching politics… this could be done by the government underwriting the mortgages so the banks took no risk."

Well dang-de-dang ... I always thought Bush was a socialist moron too. And Thatcher, the evil woman ... scaring everyone about climate change.

Can't trust either of them eh what?

Hey Col, keep your head stuck in the mud (or under the bed) - the socialist boogey-man is going to get you.
Posted by Q&A, Sunday, 21 December 2008 12:15:02 PM
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Grim
The market’s answer to the failure of companies is not necessarily for them to get bigger. The market’s answer is loss and bankruptcy. These have the effect of dismembering the companies, breaking them up, and transferring the pieces out of the hands of those who cannot or will not use them to serve the most urgent wants of the people, as judged by the people, and into the hands of those who can and will. It’s not just a system of profit, it’s a system of profit and loss.

In an unhampered market, big corporations can only get big by a repeated series of successful strokes at serving the people, as consumers, with what they consider most urgent.

By far the biggest cause of the predominance of big business is government, because taxation favours the bigger, and regulation unfairly discriminates against the smaller, because it’s easier for the bigger businesses to bear the costs than the smaller. Also it’s easier for big government to deal with big business, it’s easier for big business to lobby government, and government handouts to business overwhelmingly favour big business at the expense of small. Those criticising capitalism for the predominance of big business should agree to abolish the governmental activities causing it.

The success of capitalism is only half due to competition. The other half is the fact that capitalism allows a greater division of labour, which means that human action is more productive. This enables more human needs to be satisfied with the same amount of stuff. For example, the whole of Australia before capitalism was hardly enough to keep 300,000 people in poverty, and now it is used to keep 20,000,000 people at a much higher standard of living.

The reason is because capitalism allows a much greater level of social co-operation, despite what its critics say. That is why capitalist societies tend to win out against non-capitalist societies in war: the people in capitalist societies are co-operating with each other more closely, through the greater division of labour.
Posted by Diocletian, Sunday, 21 December 2008 12:21:09 PM
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Q&A"Hey Col, keep your head stuck in the mud (or under the bed) - the socialist boogey-man is going to get you."

That is about the height of your level of contribution to this and most debates.

At least I am honest about what and who I am

I do not pretend to be something I merely aspire to.

Keep 'em coming Q&A . . . .

I might start speculating what 'Q&A' actually stands for
Posted by Col Rouge, Sunday, 21 December 2008 5:06:18 PM
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(cont.)

In nature, competition results in the destruction of the loser. But competition under capitalism is completely different. The success of a big corporation is a direct result of the behaviour of the people in preferring its goods and services. It means that scarce resources are used to satisfy human wants more economically, which means that what is left over is available to satisfy still other wants. Those who do not use private property to serve their fellow citizens face loss and bankruptcy. Those who lose out, do so as producers. As consumers, everyone is better off, that's the whole point. And as producers, they are free to try again to serve their fellow creatures as well as, or better than the ones who out-competed them. No-one can just thoughtlessly and comfortably live at the expense of others. The consumers do not care what capital vested interests have already invested. Every day everyone's position is reviewed as to who is best using his property to serve others, as judged by those others.

Where will it all end? The theoretical maximum to the world’s wealth is when all people are joined in social co-operation in the division of labour, free of impediments based on force.

It is extremely unlikely that there would only be one firm of car makers in the world, in a market unhampered by government intervention.

But in an unhampered market, if there was only one company making cars or whatever, all it would mean is that the people preferred spending their scarce dollars on buying cars of that make: that firm is best able to remove their dissatisfaction, or provide satisfaction.

It’s not bigness or smallness themselves that are important, it’s the freedom to choose.
Posted by Diocletian, Sunday, 21 December 2008 5:13:58 PM
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How ironic that the advertisments which bombarded me when I opened this article were to implore me to sign up with American Express or to hand my busness dealings over to IBM. Perhaps in recent years too many people believed the ads.
Posted by Smartie, Monday, 22 December 2008 9:52:22 AM
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Here we go again: the binary "thinking" of dullards. Is it "capitalist" or "socialist"? Adam Smith or Karl Marx? Is it left or right? No, it is black, not white! The entire derivatives scam and its many elaborate Ponzi schemes escape such cretins' blunt, rounded and soft mental machinery.

Idiots. Such simpleton musings all seem like a tribute to the degenerate IMF-designed education system which forces the stupid and rich - and their imitators - to overpopulate the ranks of execs, management, politicians and intelligentsia even though such people are obviously unsuited to useful thought, and barely fit for any demanding work at all.

Here's the background of your fairy tales, neolib clowns:

The "free trade" (or laissez faire) cult is an influential remnant of a profoundly corrupt mythology as sponsored most energetically by the British East India Company (BEIC), especially via its Haileybury School. After the Venetian-sponsored ideologue Francois Quesnay, Adam Smith propagated "free trade" in direct support of BEIC ventures - specifically those in the trading of human slaves. The essentially mystical quality of Smith's musings is most obvious in his "invisible hand" notion, but cultists regard that cliche too with equally uncritical awe, reverence, or fetishization, just as the BEIC valued such a "cloak of invisibility" for its own criminal and immoral conduct. In this sense, other BEIC ventures were no less relevant and no less disgusting i.e., opium dealing and the commercial resort to large-scale plunder, extortion and terrorism via the BEIC's private mercenary armies.

Therefore, whenever someone mentions the likes of Adam Smith, David Ricardo or Thomas Malthus, remember the imperialist-commercial, racist and even misanthropic origins and purpose of their lives, and the life of the entity that created their Haileybury School - the vile East India Company, an entity that still has its many admirers, propagandists and emulators today.
Posted by mil-observer, Monday, 22 December 2008 10:09:27 AM
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