capitalism
Out of context: Reply #47
- Started
- Last post
- 458 Responses
- TheBlueOne0
I really think we've got locked into this capitalist/socialist mindset, which I think is a trap. Capitalism, or the concept of a social order based on private property, profit, and income distributed largely through the operation of markets, is merely one way of ordering society. In a given set of circumstances it does provide the most for the most, but it certainly has many inherent weaknesses that become glaringly apparent as circumstances change - population pressures, environmental degredation, scarcity of basic materials (primarily food and energy), concentrations of power (economic & legitimate use of force), alienation of society...the whole idea of a market being "free" as if it were some sort of Platonic model that can be magically invoked in the really real world is, as I said above, a form of Utopianism, and this can be seen easily in regions where "free market capitalism" is welded onto traditional societies. The pro-free market critics always fall back on the rub "well they didn't implement the WHOLE program"...ah...yes..I see..
Capitalism is a tool of social construction we've used in the West for about five, six hundred odd years now. We should be wise enough to know it's short comings - especially in it's inefficiences of wealth distribution (allowing concentrations of power in fewer and fewer hands over time without check form a State entity - the old truism of "he who has, gets") and weaknesses in the area of providing for the common good (again a Free Market fallacy that ignores the social/environmental costs of doing business) and social justice (self explanatory).
I do like capitalism, and it's basis in allowing the widest range of economic freedom for individuals, but in my mind it's a tool, and should be a flexible one for it to be as efficient as possible, and that flexibility should come from checks and criticisms on it, not from allowing to be free with no checks, or else it will naturally head to it's nearest systemic attractors with concentrations of unbalanced power and violence...