Squeers, you talk about 'binary logic', but the fact is our so-called capitalist society (neo-capitalist, anyone?) is strongly influenced by government in several ways.

The government tax take is a genuine disincentive to entrepreneurs, and is heavy influence on any capitalist enterprise. For example, many non-business owners are surprised to hear that repayment of debt may be calculated as profit, and so taxed even as the business struggles to find cash for the tax bill. GST is paid even as a business is going broke. Many would-be entrepreneurs are surprised at how invasive and restrictive of growth the modern taxation environment is.

The government is also central to the development of increasing amounts of legislation, some of which can be actively costly for business to implement. The complexity of legislation is a further disincentive for would-be entrepreneurs to stay safely in the employees seat.

Thirdly, our economy adores government spending, with increasing percentages of us being on the government payroll. This point in itself disproves our self-concept of our economy being 'capitalist'. We have a mixed economy.

Finally, the high level of government employment within the population influences the culture in which we live. Every other member of my own immediate family, and coincidentally every other member of my husband's family, is paid by the government. It's not surprising, then, that our families are strongly supportive of an ongoing and ever-increasing government bureaucracy.

In these ways, I would argue that 'capitalism' is merely a concept, certainly inasmuch as 'communism' could be argued to be a concept still open to interpretation in the real world.
For better or worse, government has appointed itself as the protector of all of us, from each other, and that is very unlikely to change.

Well I did carefully proofread that last post after giving it the mandatory spell and grammar check. Then as is so often the way, upon reading it after posting, errors present themselves immediately in glaring obviosity!!

That foul missing word syndrome, that has haunted me for the whole time that I have been on this forum, has reared its ugly head yet again, not once but twice in that last post, and also previously today!! Man, I hate that mongrel Microsoft grammar checker!! (and I hate my corroding brain that reads straight over missing words without noticing their absence!!) AAAAAAARRRRGH!!

Alright, end of dummy spit ):>(

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<<So don't blame capitalism for a rising population. Blame politics and religion.>>

Well Yabby, I think we can certainly blame politics and religion, and also capitalism to a certain extent….although capitalism really is just the means of doing what comes naturally – for each one of us to push for maximum personal gain in a dog-eat-dog world, which just follows on from one of the most basic of all ecological principles – for all creatures and all species to push as hard as they can against their limiting factors to survive, dominate and expand their numbers, completely regardless of any population peaks and crashes that may result.

The amazing thing is that, with all the bleedingly obvious problems with continuous population growth in Australia – in SEQ, Sydney, Melbourne, etc, that we haven’t adapted, or even started to adapt our political system to deal with it!!

Finally, we have a PM who seems to have some notion of sustainability and the dangers of untempered population growth. Arguably, the same thing happened in the USA with Obama, compared to his terrible predecessor, although not much has changed under his tenure in terms of sustainability (?). By crikey I hope Gillard’s initial positivity evolves into meaningful changes.

She’s got to ditch the totally corrupt political donations regime to start with. This is blatant favour-buying by big business, which horribly biases government policy.

So, it is the political regime that is most at fault, not capitalism.

*If the political will is there that can guide capitalism, then it can be done. But of course the will of the people needs to be there in order for the political will to develop. And unfortunately the minds of the masses are not likely to be galvanised until we suffer major consequences of unfettered expansionism.*

Very true Ludwig, but they say that we get the politicians that
we deserve.

Our politicians focus on one thing, ie winning the next elections
and whatever it takes to do that. For that they need a healthy
economy and the easiest way to do that is to stuff more people into
SE Australia, all needing houses and services etc. So that is
what happens.

But for that you cannot blame Capitalism, more like our human
nature of acting in our short term self interest. The politicians
want to win the next elections at virtually any cost, the punters
want to make a good quid, as easily as possible, without much
thought about the longer term.

"Real" capitalism barely exists at the top level. The world's capitalist nations all have immense private monopolies vying for **CONTROL**, and mostly they succeed.

Look at the 3 big miners in Australia. They pay LOW LOW LOW tax, and basically **CONTROL** both the industry and much of the government legislation as it applies to the industry (it's called 'company welfare'). It's all about monopoly rule, and to hell with capitalism. Woolies and Coles are similar regarding the grocery industry........ they couldn't give two hoots about capitalism; they want to RULE, and make sure the laws and regulations are in THEIR favour.

It's about **MONOPOLY** control and dominance ........ just like a communist country is under the thumb of communism, capitalism is under the thumb of monopolies. In almost all cases it's impossible for smaller, private, capitalistic companies to "effectively" compete.

No, capitalism does NOT drive population growth. Other factors drive population growth; things like poverty, lack of democracy, poverty, no birth control (religious fundamentalism), poverty, medical discoveries, poverty. But capitalism? No. Capitalism relies on a dollar return on investment; you can make that same dollar with 100,000 people as you can with 1,000,000 people, and it's done by aiming at certain markets, in certain places with certain products etc etc etc......... in other words you attempt to make the most amount of money with the smallest amount of investment ......... that's what successful capitalism is all about. I'm a big supporter of "real" capitalism.

Dear Yabby, Ludwig, floatinglili and Benq,
I think I address your points more or less above, so I won't embark upon another sermon. If you differ of course let me know and I'll try to defend my position.

Regarding your comment - comparing capitalism to failed alternatives the way you do is precisely the binary logic that helps to maintain its spurious legitimacy,
Problem, there are no alternatives which give even glimmer of “success”,
Thus, my choice of comparatives is limited to a litany of failures.
“There is no denying the superiority of capitalism when it comes to productivity and wealth creation, only its distribution and sustainability.”
No system of economic ownership can control “sustainability”.
You are addressing a different dimension by pretending that capitalism should.
If you try to make people live like 14th century village peasants they will not follow your lead, assuming you hold with notions of democracy, although the opponents of capitalism have often presumed the mantle of a despot.
Distribution is an interesting consideration
Capitalism does not seem fair because the world is an unfair place. If it were a fair place we would all be the same height, all with identical DNA and genes and no one would have physical defects.
The only type of societies which get close to such standardisation and equality were sponsored by Hitler, where he had all the defectives killed off (along with quite a few of the non-defectives)

If we work on the assumption / observation of humanity that people are free to make their own choices and they are not equally motivated by any sense of altruism or even common sense (and that has nothing to do with free market based economics and private accumulation and ownership of resources),

we will observe that some folk, the prudent and frugal will accumulate for their own desires and the indolent and wasteful will not.

Similarly those gifted with an astute and commercially attuned mind will make wise investment and others will not.

So should we penalise the frugal and astute and subsidise the indolent and wasteful? – I think not.

Better for all if we leave things in their capitalist place, rewarding the talented and leaving the lazy to the consequences of their indolence