is capitalism dangerous?

[Peter Kropotkin]

yes, and quite clearly yes, capitalism is a clear and present danger to
us all.....any system that depends upon chance and market forces to
do its bidding means we have no control over the economic system...

if we allow supply and demand to dictate the our circumstances,
then we allow the wild ups and downs that dominate our economic lives...
for example, the Great Depression was caused by forces unknown, even
today, economist don't have a good sense of what caused the Great Depression...

if we control the economic system better, we would have far less
ups and downs of the economic system....so, would you allow yourself
to be operated upon with the same forces of chance that so dominate
our current economic system today?

in other words, you want the doctors who operate on you to be licensed
and held accountable and regulated... that is a good thing....
any system that doesn't hold doctors accountable or licensed or regulated
is going to be dangerous for any patients...

if we hold to the ideal that part of the dignity of man means having a job,
then we must have jobs for everyone...if the point of working means having
some dignity, then let us really hold working as being the ideal in life which
means we treat workers with some dignity and pay them like their work has
value....if work has value, then we must also value workers and treat them
with respect and dignity and honor..

our modern system of capitalism treats workers with contempt and
antipathy and derision, then why work? For the minimal pay, the
disrespect we give workers, the opportunity to run out of money in old age,
to be faced with a very real choice between eating and getting medicine...
as old people like my mom who worked most of adult life... she worked until
she was 72... and now she has a choice between eating and getting her medicines....
and my mom is like millions of senior citizens who are faced with this choice....

why work if this is going to be my fate? I have spent over 40 working and I have
nothing to show for it outside of my back pain and my hip pain and the pain
in my feet after standing all day on my feet.....I can't retire anytime soon.....

a conservative would try to put the blame on my head for not having
enough to retire on, but recall, we exists within the capitalist system...
the system cannot take credit for the good things and deny blame for
millions of people who suffer under that very system....we have enough of
that taking credit and denying blame inherent in religion with god taking credit
for the good things and denying blame for the bad things... it is an all or nothing
proposition.....

so if we credit capitalism with raising the standard of living, then
capitalism must take the blame for millions upon millions of people
who are on the edge of starvation and homelessness, if not outright
starving and being homeless....

let us take a deeper dive into systems..... we have a lot of systems in
the universe... cars are one example of a system...the solar system,
the human body, the power grid that lights up our homes.. all of these
are examples of a system....

let us take the car as an example, what if we had the car work as a system
just as we allow capitalism to work, without supervision or the car system
simple being allowed to work in terms of chance and with no control.....

the car will simply act in terms of chance and with no control...
so exactly how long do think the car will continue to function as being
guided by chance? just like capitalism? in terms of supply and demand being
guided by chance and as capitalism is guided by the "hand of god?"
should we allow the same factors to go into our cars?

and what of other systems? our biological system? should we just allow chance
and the "hand of god" determine our biological systems the same way we
do in our economic system? or do we actively work at and control our
body systems with doctors checkups and if needed surgeries... we don't allow
our body system to simply function in terms of chance and the "hand of god" as
we do our economic system........

and I wonder why that is?

so if we understand our economic system as we do our biological system,
then we cannot allow chance and the "hand of god" to determine our
economic system any longer... we must become actively engaged in
our economic system in terms of having far more control over it
and planning it to remove the possibility of chance and the "hand of god"
to impact our economic system....

we must engage much more in terms of hiring and firing and what wages
and what the conditions of the workers are....no longer do we leave to
chance what conditions the workers face and we no longer allow chance
and the "hand of god" to determine the fate of workers.... there
are a couple of possibilities, we create a "UBI" which is basically
a Universal basic income... everyone in America will get a minimum
income regardless of their status in America......now if you work, you still
will get this minimum income to raise your economic level..

and how do we pay for this? we tax the shit out of the wealthy, the billionaires
to the point, where we no longer have any one worth over 25 billion dollars.....
that step alone will create over 250 billion dollars.. a quarter of a trillion dollars
to create the base line of existence for the people of the U.S....

we strengthen America by putting money into those who need it and will spend it...

give a poor person a thousand dollars and they by necessity must spend that money
because they have so little to spend, whereas give a billionaire a million dollars,
and they won't spend it.. they will simply buy a new house or put it into the bank
because they already have enough money to get by without that money....

putting money into the people hands is the surest way to boast the American
system...... you will have a new, startling economic growth that
has never been seen before if, if you put money into people's hand...
and if you create work and workers has having value, we will create growth
and prosperity because everyone wants to be valued and to be important..
and in our current system, workers have little to no value and they are
negated and devalued because they are workers.....if you are valued and
feel you are important, you become a far better worker... we will improve
productivity and the work experience to the point where people will want to
come to work because they are valued and considered to be important....

study after study after study has shown that when workers are told that they
have value and, AND are shown they have value, they increase their productivity
by a great deal.....we know this, so why not improve the workers lives..
it will mean a great increase in the overall value of the American experience.....

but Kropotkin, how do you know this? simply by knowing people...
people who are treated like human beings, tend to be better human beings...
if we are consistently treated like shit as the American worker is right now,
then we will continue to do our bare minimum to get by....

it is common sense that if a person is treated better, they
respond by becoming better people... we see this all the time
with better bosses... a better boss will always create a better atmosphere
to work in and that creates a happier and more productive workers....

I have seen this time and time and time again at various work places....
treat people with dignity and respect and you get a better working
environment and people respond to that....treat people like crap
and that is what you get back in an working environment....
people who couldn't care less if the business succeeds or fails if they
are treated like crap...so raise the the bar in the workplace
and you will improve the workplace..

make workers your priority and not profits and you will increase the
economic system substantially..... so become more engaged and
be in control over capitalism and our lives, all our lives will improve.....

so yes, capitalism, as is currently constituted, is a danger to us because
it doesn't treat us as human beings, but the capitalistic system negates
and devalues human beings as a matter of course.... we are nothing more
then cannon fodder to the capitalistic system and that is dangerous to us all....

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

if you want to make a better world, begin with a focus
on people, and not on profits as being the goal of and the focus
of corporations...that we will make a better world once we
we no longer devalue or negate human beings, which means we no longer
make profits the goal of existence.....

we abandon our seeking anything that negate or devalues human beings.....

we reject the baubles that exist before us..

we reject seeking wealth or fame or titles or power.....

we seek that which raises us in value.. we seek in becoming or into
growing from animal to animal/human to becoming human... like
Goethe or Gandhi or MLK.... these people sought to become something
greater then just being an animal....in seeking values like justice and truth
and honesty and love and peace... not mere wealth or power....

what future I seek is a future where everyone, everyone has value and
is treated with justice.. and justice always means equality... you cannot separate
out justice and equality....if you have one, you have the other and today, today
we have neither....

and so to begin, we no longer treat profits as being of more value then
human beings....... we no longer hold that taxes have more value then
human beings.... we hold that what is of value in the world, is life,
and not just human life.....

as we move through time, we have increased our understanding of
what it means to be human.... in the beginning, we were simply tribes,
a small collection of families who merged for their greater safety...
and at each step, we increased from a small tribe to a larger tribe
to small cities and then ever larger cities... going from one to a couple
to a several to many.... at every step, we have increased our understanding
of what it means to be human from one to a couple to several and to many....

today, we hold companionship with millions we call Americans... that was
inconceivable millennium ago.. when we call those family, those who were members
of a tribe or a city or a village or a state... today, we include millions into
the family of Americans... and at every step we include those who we bring into
the "family" ..... people I have never met... are part of the American family
and we hold them to be equal to others in our family of Americans...

we hold those who belong to our religion to be part of the family
and we hold those who believe in the same political family, be it
democrat or republican to be part of our family.....

we stick around those individuals who share and hold our beliefs....

thus any who hold and share our beliefs are family....
I consider anyone is a democrat or a liberal to be family
and I respect them more then I would those who do not share
my beliefs..... that is simply being human.....

but as the idea that more and more people are part of the family,
we increase the sheer number of people we hold to be family....

we go from one to a couple to several to many to a small city to a larger city
to a large city..... we have increased our understanding based upon who we
hold dear to be become a ever larger and larger unit.... to today,
we hold American's as being one of us... and next, next we shall increase
increase our understanding of who is one of us, from Americans to human beings....

regardless of who they pray to and who they love and what the color of their skin.....

that doesn't matter in a family....

and that is the growth of being human... going from one to a few to many to ever
increasing number of diverse and separate people, millions of whom we will never
meet or see.... but because they belong to our chosen group, be it religious,
or political.. American or liberal or who we love... that is the path of the human
experience.... at every step we include more and more into our company of family.....

that is the agenda, the goal, not increased wealth or power or fame or titles...
but in the respect we give to other human beings and how we include them into
our understanding of family......

Kropotkin

[Meno_]

Peter, the problem with the world, as it stands now, is that most everyone dislikes his station in life, and wishes he wore the shoes of another. They'd rather be this than that, be there then here, on the move and not stag still, not merely to burn runner just to get There, but to gethere, to gather.

Something togather, rather together. No I may have not intended that

We have misplaced meaning, at times intentionally, we have to face the ones we hate daily just to earn our daily bread, and require the dogma religious not by way of a a revelation but purely by the rote of invention.

Blessed really are those that do not see, yet are able to believe!

Capital is a tempting tool of devilish power of deception. It' s only danger is for who fall for it's glittering falsity from Madison Avenue!

It's danger is a perversion for the enhancement of basic qualities of life.

[Peter Kropotkin]

and we are miserable and unhappy because we judge our lives
based on economic terms instead of moral terms
we judge ourselves based on how much money we have and
how much money have we saved up for retirement..
instead of judging ourselves in terms of, am I a good person?
Have I done the right thing? Have I helped create a better world for
my children and all children?

how we judge ourselves comes down to what values we use to make
that judgement....and the values I advocate are values of love and hope
peace and justice... and there is no monetary value to those, just moral ones....
and that needs to be how we judge ourselves, morally, not economically.....

Kropotkin

[Mad Man P]

yes, and quite clearly yes, capitalism is a clear and present danger to
us all.....any system that depends upon chance and market forces to
do its bidding means we have no control over the economic system...

if we allow supply and demand to dictate the our circumstances,
then we allow the wild ups and downs that dominate our economic lives...
for example, the Great Depression was caused by forces unknown, even
today, economist don't have a good sense of what caused the Great Depression...

This truly comes across as confused.
Define capitalism because it's clear to me that you're not using the historic, and I would have thought still standard, definition of that word.

our modern system of capitalism treats workers with contempt and
antipathy and derision, then why work?

Work isn't anything special... virtually everyone throughout human history has worked.
I mean we ought to have some innate respect for human life.. but "working" is nearly as common as breathing so I dunno that doing work marks you as exceptional such that you be deserving of any kind of praise or special treatment.

if we control the economic system better, we would have far less
ups and downs of the economic system....so, would you allow yourself
to be operated upon with the same forces of chance that so dominate
our current economic system today?

Fundamentally you are making the classic argument of more freedom means more risk or danger, therefore we ought restrict freedoms.
I don't think this argument is entirely without merit...
The opposite end of freedom is worth any and all risk is also an argument with merit, however...

I think much of the project of erecting a functional society is finding the right balance between freedom and safety.
Certain fields of human endeavour and effort are clearly not best motivated by profit and to make that the main incentive will inevitably corrupt the project.
Education, law enforcement, the military, medicine... are all great examples of things you don't want anyone to manufacture a false need for such as to maximise profits.
That is an unstable motive for operating those tasks, which will inevitably corrupt and pervert the project... very well demonstrated by the state of the US today.

But to then argue that NO human project is best motivated by profit is foolish and equally demonstrably false.
Fishing is best motivated by profit... construction is best motivated by profit... the manufacture of clothes are best motivated by profit.
If we just had government issue standard clothing, a weekly allotment of fish to take home to our uniform apartments... I dare say we'd be less happy.

As to your point of how we treat each other, that's a completely different track and only ties into the political argument incidentally of american culture.
The association is incidental of american culture, that is... Because logically they do not link.
If in fact you guys measure each others moral worth by how much money you have, that would seem perverse to me... I'm not american and so can't speak to whether or not that is in fact prevalent.
But regardless, that is not a strike against a free-market economy... just a scathing indictment of american culture.

[d0rkyd00d]

OK PK, you've lured me out of my hidey hole with this one. It's not often we disagree, so I'll do my best to summarize here.

I believe it would be a grave error to discount capitalism as a whole: "throwing out the baby with the bathwater," if you will. I also believe, in its current form (and I think most on this forum would agree, even obsrvr, gloom, etc.), capitalism is unsustainable.

As I may have mentioned before, capitalism is analogous to Cyclops from X-men: without something to focus and hone its untethered energy, it will destroy as readily as it creates. In its current form, capitalism in the USA is Cyclops without the visor down. The visor, in this analogy, would be regulations that protect consumers from predatory large businesses, diligent action to break up monopolies so small and mid size business can continue to thrive and offer up competition, and workers protections that would ensure jobs pay a living wage (inclusive of the cost of healthcare).

It seems our version of capitalism has rapidly degraded into crony capitalism (expedited by the Supreme Court decision on Citizens United vs. FEC):

January 21, 2020 will mark a decade since the Supreme Court’s ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a controversial decision that reversed century-old campaign finance restrictions and enabled corporations and other outside groups to spend unlimited funds on elections.

While wealthy donors, corporations, and special interest groups have long had an outsized influence in elections, that sway has dramatically expanded since the Citizens United decision, with negative repercussions for American democracy and the fight against political corruption.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/ ... -explained

Big business now arguably has a much larger say in our government's decisions than individuals....not exactly what the original signers of the Constitution envisioned, I would imagine. There are other ways in which I think certain versions of capitalism can be unconstitutional. This is where our body politic has failed us: enemies foreign and domestic, I would argue, can include certain versions of economic systems that will inevitably lead to....well, exactly what we see now, where decisions are made not at the benefit of the most Americans possible, but at the benefit of the wealthy and powerful few who have no ties to any particular country, as their wealth gives them the freedom to prosper anywhere.

All of that being said, I cannot think of a better tool than capitalism to harness the inevitable greed motive in some individuals to lead to social progress. Of course, this only works when power can be held to account.

[Urwrongx1000]

Retardation and Far Left Terrorism, death threats and violence from PK and dorkydood, Communism is indeed dangerous.

[Sleyor Wellhuxwell]

Capitalism is far less dangerous than communism. We know the examples from history. Communism has killed 500 million humans so far. And if WW_II_Angry will kill Joker, the number will be 500 million and one. Maybe capitalism caused communism, then it would be the culprit, but that would be an exaggeration. Yet when capitalism and communism come together, as it happened in China, then it is especially dangerous.

And the bioweapon called "Covid-19" also came from China.

[Peter Kropotkin]

and continuing my research......

why is capitalism dangerous? because it seeks as it basic goals
such ephemeral things as wealth, titles, fame, power as it goals
whereas each of these things are nothing more then a fart in
the wind..... wealth can be lost as can be titles and fame and
power... all of these, without exception is based upon
fleeting, negligible values that have nothing to them.....

they are empty, useless values that tell us nothing about what it means
to be human... and that is the failure of capitalism.... it is about
negligible, unimportant things that are easily lost or taken....

communism is wrong for other reasons....so what we must do is
seek an economic system that allow us to become something more
then just seekers of ephemeral values....

one might argue, I won't, but some might argue that by capitalism,
we have improved the quality of life of people, the average person
today has vastly more goods and services then the average person in
Ancient Rome or ancient Greece.....

and I say, so the fuck what?

ten times nothing is still nothing..... and that is the values we have coming
from capitalism... nothing......... capitalism fights for wealth, which can be lost or
taken and it fights for titles and fame, both of which can easily and often is lost or gone...
and power, nothing is more ephemeral then the seeking of power...

empty values for empty people......

capitalism is wrong because it forces us to seek the wrong things in life.....

a person who is in a fever and searches for false and empty gods, is the same
as the person who seeks such false and empty values that are offered in capitalism.....

are you a more complete person when you have wealth, or fame or titles or
power? no, no you are not... you are a more complete person when you
correctly understand what is important in life.... things like meaning
and searching for the values that make life worth living, not money, titles...etc,

to hold values like peace and justice and humanity and charity have far
more worth then values like wealth or titles or fame.....

and that is why capitalism is dangerous.... it promotes values that
aren't values, but empty calories that makes one feel full but really
leaves you hungry........

Kropotkin

[promethean75]

https://youtu.be/GMc9guiSs_o

[Dan~]

Anarcho crapitalism is dangerous.
But capital under strict law, is far less dangerous.

North and South Korea are examples of commune vs capital.

[Dan~]

capitalism is wrong because it forces us to seek the wrong things in life...

The wrong things in life?
Demand determines price.
Price determines supply.
If the right things in life are popular and in demand,
they become famous products.
Other things have no price,
and those good things of life,
have nothing to do with capitalism.