You are a weak dill if you respond to "encouragement" to spend money and buy stuff you don’t need. It's not the "system" that is at fault It's you.

The alternative to capitalism is communism (there is no nice word for it), and you are also a dill if you don't know how that has failed in the past.

All spending except for essentials is voluntary.

"Any ideas?" No. People have to take responsibility for their behaviour.

What is the point here, Capitalism is a dirty word, so a re-branding is necessary. As a Progressive Socialist I agree unfettered Capitalism is detrimental to the vast majority of society, there are plenty of examples of that. What is required is a controlled balance between rampant Socialism in the form of Communism and excessive Capitalism. Capitalism has a recognisable good side, entrepreneurship with innovative investment and efficiencies which government controlled Socialism is not particularly good at delivering. From the Socialist side government can involve itself in a range of social services that private enterprise is unwilling or unable to effectively deliver on its own, health, education, transport etc etc. In Australia we have a fair system, but it is still lopsided, and overly controlled by the Capitalists.

There are many reasons for preferring capitalism over any other system. But not for the greed is good model of extreme capitalism that is served by wasteful designed obsolescence.

The only private enterprise, free market business model that survived the Great Depression largely intact, was co-ops, or if you will, cooperative capitalism. And served us and rural Australia very well until the advent of Howard.

Who set to with a will to destroy every example he could, from sugar producers to dairy producers! Lincoln welders was operated as a co-op for many years as a huge success story not liked by the greed is good extreme capitalism and parasitical middlemen, who are ruled out by this model which prefers the direct factory to you, marketing paradigm that literally halves the cost of living and doing business.

To encapsulate, it is cooperative capitalism comrade! Coupled to direct marketing, assisted by the worldwide internet and markets previously unavailable.

The above model if applied to all local manufacture and maximized energy dependent automation would allow Australia to successfully compete on the international stage with not just China, but all comers!

All we need to make this possible going forward is government facilitation and financing, plus the world's cheapest energy MSR thorium/MSR nuclear waste burners!

And resisted to the last man (die in a ditch first) by conservative and parasitic extreme exploitative capitalism alike!
Alan B.

The term capitalism, as coined by Marx, means the private ownership of the means of production.

The problem comes because people are taught that it's a capitalist society and then use the term to refer to state ownership or control.

"Any ideas?"
Private property. But that won't stop the ignorant from confusing the same issue in the same way.

Paul1405
And the balance is what?

I agree with the author, some terms and phrases are so loaded and imprecise that their use in political and policy debate is counterproductive. Capitalism, neo-liberalism, economic rationalism, Stalinism, and many contemporary uses of the words fascism and Nazism probably fall into this category. While historically some of these labels have objective and definable meaning, their use to describe present-day ideas is almost always derogatory and usually inaccurate.

Polemic and rhetorical flourishes have their uses in political theatre, but I’d suggest for serious and constructive debate a political label is useful if it meets two criteria:

• There is a shared understanding about what the phrase means between people who oppose it and people who advocate it.

• The people and organisations to whom the label is applied will happily use it as a self-description.

To illustrate, the phrase “neo-conservative” has a particular meaning in US politics that is recognised and accepted by both its opponents and proponents:

https://voegelinview.com/mugged-by-reality-the-neoconservative-turn/

But the phrase “neo-liberal” means very different things to different people, is almost always used as an insult, and is not used as a self-description by any significant organisation, academic or political organisation.

That still leaves us with plenty of “isms” to play with – Marxism, Trotskyism, libertarianism, feminism, anarchism, transhumanism, communitarianism …..

The situation is depressing, but the article is excellent - thank you Dara!

What name could we call "economic systems based on voluntary exchanges"?

"Chimera" perhaps?!

Because we can either have systems or voluntary exchanges, they are contradictory terms.

Best forget about economics and just stop having the state interfering with voluntary exchanges in any way. Economy may then still occur (or maybe not), yet it will no longer be systematic, it will be natural, so natural that it will no longer even be given a mention or require a name!

Hi Yuyutsu,

You may appreciate this;

Last Saturday I went into K-Mart, at the door was a young girl, checking bags, and greeting customers I assume. There next to her was a large stack of grotesque looking plastic pumpkins, and a large sign $39, a Halloween special! I looked, I turned to the young lady, and with my dry wit I said; "Nah...I have half a dozen of those plastic pumpkins at home already, do I need more?" The shop was full of people, with arm fulls of useless rubbish scuttling to and fro, lining up eager to pay for even more useless rubbish.

"Halloween, contraction of All Hallows' Eve, a holiday observed on October 31, the evening before All Saints' (or All Hallows') Day. The celebration marks the day before the Western Christian feast of All Saints and initiates the season of Allhallowtide, which lasts three days and concludes with All Souls' Day."

Consumerism has taken over Paganism, with plastic pumpkins @ just $39 each. Long live America!

We entered the post war period loaded to the gunnels with war debt and still hadn't fully recovered from the economically deleterious effects of the Great Depression.

But we had two socialist visionaries at the helm and a balance between socialism and capitalism. With the people owning power generation some insurance companies a bank and a couple of profitable airlines. Plus, most railways.

Visionary leaders put us on the map with the massive and visionary snowy mountains project. The engineering wonder of the world. And we produced cheap energy because we kept price gouging, tax avoiding, profit repatriating debt laden foreigners out of cash cow public amenity/essential service.

And became as a consequence of the hard-nosed pragmatism, the third wealthiest nation on planet earth and a debt free creditor one to boot!

Times change, leaders and parties come and go but economic fundamentals never ever do! What our Grandparents were capable of, means, we can do better given our far superior resources.

What they had and missing here is visionary leaders able to set aside petty partisan politics. But were bipartisan and understood the way to recover from crippling war debt was through economic growth on steroids and cheap energy.

And that's all we need now today, given economic fundamentals never ever change. See my previous comment for the recipe we need for today and our times. Pragmatism is another ism!
Alan B.

Broadcaster, Alan Jones, said on air, that people like him on executive salaries and such, could so arrange their affairs to not pay more than 15% of their income in tax. In 2017 the top tax paid as actual dollars to the ATO was just 13%. with a reported 40% of companies paying no company tax to anyone and others paying as little as 4%!

This being so it makes little or no sense to reduce tax to 30% when those who arguably pay all our tax aren't paying any more now today than 15%. And that probably includes most polly waffling Pollies.
Moreover, the double tax act of 1953 was almost the dumbest thing we've done given it was used as another tax avoidance loophole by companies with US branches.

In the sixties and seventies companies paid most of their fair share of tax, and arguably one of the reasons we were as well off as we were.

It wasn't broke and didn't need fixing by muddle-headed ideologues.

Today, no real economic recovery is possible without tax reform as branch and root reform and a jettisoning of our current tax act in its entirety, to be replaced by an unavoidable flat tax of 15% that is imposed on all income/earnings above a generous tax-free threshold. And the world's lowest costing energy! [And that isn't coal or battery/pumped hydro supported renewables!]

Do the above, but only if we would once again, wish to become a debt free wealthy nation with a robust manufacturing sector making everything from nails to airplanes, trains and warp drive starships.

Get the energy and tax paradigms right and all else follows as all comers are all but crushed in the rush to relocate here. And that being the case, we can pick and choose who we want here and who we share with.

It's like, fart tax my arse, with our current polly waffling Pollies at the helm.
Alan B.

Hi AB,

The Capitalist government managed to run the nation into a trillion dollars of public debt. With new debt both public and private increasing, which with generous tax cuts and massive tax avoidance is impossible to reduce, the estimate on repayment of existing public debt alone is 40 plus years, the question is, how are we going to return to a prosperous economy where rising standards of living are possible. Is it now a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted? Are we likely to have a government with the intestinal fortitude to undertake the necessary radical changes needed within the economy. Me thinks not.

The current debt level in Australia, and indeed, throughout the world, is primarily due to the policies adopted to 'fight' the WuFlu. From the outset, it was clear to many that the lockdowns were going to result in massive and unsustainable debt.

Yet an overwhelming majority of the population supported the lockdowns, oblivious to or unconcerned about the generational costs of those lockdowns. For those people to now turn around and lambast governments for incurring debt that they, the pro-lockdown crowd, cheered on, is the height of hypocrisy.

I seem to recall that Paul was one of the leading supporter of lockdowns on OLO. Draw your own conclusions.

Agree Paul, this lot and the other lot don't have new ideas or the testicular fortitude to borrow from the success stories of our forebears! Are limited by what comes on the table by their political masters, i.e., the union bosses/heavies!

The other lot too busy with blame shifting and political point scoring and looking after corrupt cronies, middlemen parasites with deep pockets to look at things like cooperative capitalism and genuine national interest, root and branch, essential, market, tax and energy reform. And are constricted/constrained by a self-imposed financial straitjacket.

And wouldn't look at the snowy mountains project today, but for lack of vision put it or today's version, in the too hard basket!

We do not need to borrow money but use our own social credit with cheques that say, the reserve bank promises to pay x dollars. When the project is built and added/shifted to the credit side of the ledger by the value and income earned of/by the finished project, which more than completely offsets the debit!

And the exact same way commercial banks leverage their very modest pool of money which buys more than face value much more than seven times over! With the real estate market and with real estate backed, business loans! Cooperative capitalism comrade!
Alan B.

mhaze, unlike Gerry Harvey and his "60 months interest free" us taxpayers, our children and our grandchildren will be paying and paying for the rest of our lives. I never agreed to give dear old Gerry $22 million or QANTAS $2 billion. You were leading the ScumO'/Friedbrain cheer squad when they were splashing the cash like a pair of drunken sailors! WE HAVE NOTHING TO SHOW FOR IT, except debt as far as the eye can see!

Unfortunately we have plenty of politicians, but not a single Statesman. You with your extreme ideology would hate Gough Whitlam and what he stood for, but now its as plain as the nose on your face, he was on the right track. Unfortunately as in Whitlam's day, the entrenched forces that control society will not countenance reform, as they like it the way it is, with them getting the lions share and the mugs like you who support them, the crumbs off the table.

So Paul, you were fully supportive of the lockdowns (are still fully supportive of the lockdowns?) but not of the consequences of the lockdowns. Very adult of you </sarc>. The debt was the consequence of the lockdowns. It happened in every country that went all-in on lockdowns. You cannot tell half the population to stop working and not end up with massive debt.

But the juvenile thinking of some is that we can have our cake and eat it too. Those people (yes Paul) need to acquaint themselves with the real world. You're like a little kid that hoes into the lollies and then complains of the belly-ache. But kids don't know better. Unfortunately some adults don't know better either.

Paul whined "You were leading the ScumO'/Friedbrain cheer squad". Now Paul we all know that your historic knowledge, even of things that happened in the recent past, is atrocious, but the fact is that I was the first here to oppose the lockdowns and its resultant costs. People like you, OTOH were all-in on the lockdowns.....until the bills came due.

Paul hoped..." You with your extreme ideology would hate Gough Whitlam".

Well I did vote for him - twice.

Does have a memory problem, or does he hope we do.

The lockdowns & payment to those effected was a Labor policy picked up by by the libs, or what passes for the Libs today. He seems to forget, lock downs were the darling of both the labor governments in Vic & Qld.

Of course none wanted to do the right thing, & shut the international boarder with an iron curtain. Other than that it was Victoristan that went completely overboard, & started shooting lock down protestors.

(there is no nice word for it)
ttbn,
Perhaps not a word but there is a sentence; Don't be so greedy & selfish !
Capitalism & Communism would work equally well if people simply weren't so greedy, full stop !

Contrary to what the village idiot thinks, capitalism is not a political system but a free market economic one.

Free markets are what generates business, pays people's salaries and generates the money for taxes that government uses to provide services. Leaving progressives in charge of the economy is like letting a drunk drive your new car.

Shonky,

Make up that feeble mind of yours Shonky, you call everyone who disagrees with you a Village Idiot, now its Dara Macdonald. As you said elsewhere, you lived in a village, methinks The Shady Pines Retirement Village for incontinent old farts, and you are a Nazi, that makes you the Village Nazi.

Need creates the economy & those who satisfy this need earn for what they provide.
Bureaucracy is simply the largest parasitic component in robbing the producers !

Amazing how the normally noisy guilty remain stumm when reminded of their doings !