the value of an economic system...

[Peter Kropotkin]

we see in a study of economic history, that one particular form
of economics was simply an attempt to promote the state and its power
over the people's well being... this being the Mercantilist economy....

it used regulations to control commerce and industry and to manipulate financial
policy so that the power of the state might be promoted over other states....
it had nothing to do with whither or not, it improved lives of its citizens,
for what was unimportant in this economic system of Mercantilism....

as it is clear in our modern economic system of capitalism that the value
of it lies in its gaining and holding vast wealth by the minority, the 1%, as
we call it.....

that some of the nation, some, have an increase in wealth, but that is
an accidental byproduct of capitalism and not its main intent....

the capitalistic system has one goal and one goal only, the increase
in wealth by the 1%.. and if the rest suffer and die, the 1% couldn't care less.....
that is not their objective... slaves can always be found to keep the system in place....

so what is the value of an economic system?

must it have, as part of its intrinsic value, the improvement of the
economic life of its citizens or does it value come from improving
the vast wealth of the 1%?

what is the objective of an economic system?

who is suppose to be help and who is actually hurt in any given
economic system?

we can point out in feudalism, who it helped and who it hurt
and so we can work out the various economic systems as to it is supposed
to help and who does it actually hurt.....

we have, as economic systems, the Market economy.. ours, we have
the planned economy, the centrally planned economy and the socialist
and the communist economy....

for example, the longest economic system ever, in human history was
the hunter-gatherer system which lasted for almost a million years...

and we also have the economic system which was basically a barter trading system....

and then we have the agricultural system which relied on basically
domestication of animal species...to do the heavy lifting....

and we have had feudalism, which is the nobility held land from the crown,
whomever that was, in exchanged for military service and vassals were
in turn tenants of the nobles while peasants were in the service of the lords...
thus each group was in turn, obligated to the group above them....

mind you that feudalism lasted a thousand years, so in terms of economic
systems, it lasted a really long time....

and then we have the modern system of Mercantilism as the predecessor
to capitalism as an economic system..... and what will take over from
capitalism once capitalism has been exposed for being the failure that it is.....

so, ask yourself? what is the value of an economic system? who is it supposed
to benefit and who does it actually hurt?

Kropotkin

[Peter Kropotkin]

as I hold that money and corporations are the great danger in
modern civilization, that does mean I am against the modern agenda
of calling economic "success" the vast increase in wealth in the 1%....

in only a few benefit from a economic system, such as ours, then it is
a failure to my mind.... it must benefit all or it doesn't benefit any....

and this question lies around the bulk of American's who are the
labor class... who don't own the means of production and must
lease ourselves out to gain a living..... as a class, we only
have about a 2 or 3 week enough wealth before we are faced
with starvation and evictions...most people can't even withstand
a month's worth of income disruption before they are forced into
dire straits...... so how does a system that limits a vast majority
of its workers into complete failure if faced with a month of disruption
of income be successful?

It isn't.....so in other words, we cannot judge the validity of our system
by the toys and trinkets we can buy... to afford anything in America,
we must take out loans and borrow money... can you buy a house without
taking out an loan? can you buy a car without a loan? most people can't...
and that is a very negative accusation against capitalism....

and we cannot judge the success of a nation by its wealth because wealth itself
is a false and empty vision of what it means to be human.....

under capitalism, we find our worth in the items we can buy... I find my worth in
the houses I can buy or the cars I can buy... but is my self worth really connected to
what I can buy??????

I hold that we find our worth under different standards then just in being able to
buy trinkets...

I hold that we find our worth in discovering what it means to be human...
and that isn't the acummulation of wealth....

Kropotkin

[d0rkyd00d]

Greetings PK.

Do you believe the progress we have made as a society in the 20th century owes any of that success to Capitalism?

What if an economic system benefits most, but not all? Is it possible that there is no economic system that benefits all?

[d0rkyd00d]

OK now that I'm not suffering from insomnia I'll dig in a bit deeper here....

the capitalistic system has one goal and one goal only, the increase
in wealth by the 1%.. and if the rest suffer and die, the 1% couldn't care less.....

As I've said before, I think Capitalism in its current form is similar to Marxism, or Communism. I don't find any of these systems to be particularly good at stating a purpose and then fulfilling said purpose. It's either a botched concept or a botched execution. In any case, all of these economic models are neutral it seems, in that the idea in itself is not good or evil, but rather a hypothesis about the best way to organize a society to function effectively (and presumably, I would suppose, maximize happiness). Like science, which was leveraged for noble purposes such as atomic energy, and horrific purposes such as nuclear holocaust, these economic systems can be leveraged for both good and evil purposes, depending on who is pulling the strings.

So I would disagree with the idea that capitalism in general only has the goal of increasing wealth to the top 1%; however, it could very well be that this is the natural result of free market capitalism left to its own devices.