*I don't think we'd be wanting more and more at all, if it weren't for the aggressive advertising that Capitalism depends on*

Bronwyn, look in history, people have always wanted more. Do you
think that the Spanish plundered the Incas and stole their gold,
because of advertising? Clearly not and that is my point.

The businessman, who wants to make a killing, has been around for
eons. The pretty girl, who wants to marry a rich guy, existed
long before advertising too.

Somehow this is deeply engrained in our genes, back from our
hunter-gatherer days, which is after all, only about 500 generations
back, when we lived in caves.

Status matters to a lot of people, so in effect they are competing
with others. Envy seems to be what it is all about for many.

Capitalism enables peoples to do well if they wish and a great many
people want to be rich. That seems to have always been the case,
long before advertising came along.

Quite a lot to address, yabby nothing in the world is not affected by human nature.
Capitalism in its existing form is a problem human nature or not.
With no doubt I think to the extent he can Obama will put rules in place that improves capitalism.
Greed drove us to this day, how many of us knew it must come?
My post history is full of threads I started or entered to talk about the unsuitability of world spending.
While we can talk about restrictions to house building, it is not the problem.
It is a problem but not even close to the future we must face.
Yes I am unconcerned about the loss on my house price, in all honesty I should have sold.
Been some place on a beach rod in hand, but my home was bought for those in my family who will live here long after I am gone.
Ponzi scheme yes, if today my super fund, every Australian super fund, took all my shares and turned mine and every ones investments into cash?
Shares dive maybe more than our worst nightmares, we have, truly, not yet felt the full force of this crisis.
We must take this event as reason to do better, the wasted cash reminds me of how much better our hospitals could be.
Some of the truly greedy, few unfortunately, are now the true needy, more will join them before its over.

Yabby
"I don't believe that the problem is capitalism, the problem is
human nature."
In any system, the values from its top class, elit, soon or later become the values from the whole society.
In our ages the mass media play the main role on the creation of the public opinion, on the promosion of the ideas that the benefits from capitalists are benefits for the whole society, that every one can be a capitalist.
The mass media have controled from few hard capitalists who do everything to convince us that the lie is truth, the black is white, the bad is good, the Iraq is full of weapons of mass dstraction, and chemicals, al queda and ...
From the other hand the mass media and a huge number of various organizations do not tell us the very basics, who creates the wealth, why we have to privatize a profitable state organization, why the taxpayers have to give billion of dollars to the golden croocks, why 18 billion of American taxpayer's money went for the bonus of the managers when this money was for the creation of new jobs?
We lost billions of dollars of cause the smoking but for many years no one said us the truth, the capitalists have plenty power to press the politicians.
The environment destroyed because the oil companies gave plenty power to buy the politicians.
We left the golden croucks to destroy the international financial system because we was not enough strong to control them, because in really they control us.
Capitalism is not what we think, ask the majority of the people to tell you how happy they are.
It is an other story if they have no other choice as the main political parties are pulled from capitalists.
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

"Capitalism is the unequal distribution of wealth.
Communism is the equal distribution of poverty."

Both systems ultimately fail due to internal corruption, abuse and changing circumstances and both have inherent shortcomings.

The only certainty is that ultimately, people suffer.

The last two posts may have got far away from the threads intent.
It never was to compare capitalism to any thing else, however I will do so now.
Communism, once thought to be the answer for the poor ,workers, in fact the world, it killed more workers and poor than maybe even Nazi Germany did, both are of no use to humanity.
Socialism was a better idea hijacked by communism, it was never anything but a true enemy of communism.
Many today still cling to Socialism, even I want to keep our current system of part Socialism we have under Liberal or Labor governments.
I however am not blind, Socialism can not work on its own, reward for effort is a reason humanity moves forward.
Capitalism not working in its present form, as said above it is the best we have yet it has lead right to what many thought it must, the world financial crisis.
Those who think I a unionist and worker till death betray my ideals must take of the dark glasses, it is time for both capitalism and my movements including the ALP to move into the future leaving yesterdays failures behind.

RobP, Examinator

Humans need some form of structure - I agree, but it can be a structure that values all members rather than just a tiny elite.

Rob - I agree with your timelines - it was only just over one hundred years ago we were putting children down coal mines. Attitudes can change, we are not fixed in concrete. In fact I'd go so far to say that it is human nature to adapt. So there is hope.

On the topic of consumerism - much would change if products were actually made to last or upgrade. When my windows OS was too old to be supported, rather than buy the latest I switched systems to Linux/Ubuntu. We can reduce the cycle of buy/discard/buy. However what is required is a change of philosophy vis-a-vis increasing profits to steady profit. Maybe the outrage caused by Pacific Industries moving a successful manufacturing business overseas will be a case of the pendulum swinging too far.

No single "ism" is the ideal. We need a balance of what works best. A government which provides infrastructure and regulates the excess of private industry. And we need private industry for innovation, real competition, and provision of the products and services that are beyond simple necessities like water or power (utilities should remain government controlled).

In conclusion, capitalism as it stands today - unsustainable - has become a Ponzi scheme.

BTW an example of a fairly lateral playing field is the internet itself, eg OLO - while there are those who believe themselves to be superior they are regularly put in their place by others.