The Capitalist Manifesto
POSTED BY: Yulaw
UPDATED: Wednesday, February 1, 2006 08:34
VIEWED: 1943
PAGE 2 of 3
I tend to think that free-market capitalism works much better then overregulated socio-capitalism, and I site the nuclear industry. And “pure capitalism” is a strawman anyway. No capitalist has ever advocated capitalism without the rule of law, anymore then any socialist has ever advocated socialism without the rule of law.
And I’m not sure that the US is more capitalist then the UK. The last document I remember seeing that compare the economies of the US and UK seemed to suggest that there was greater economic freedom (i.e. more free market capitalism) in the UK then in the US. Of course these things are notoriously hard to measure and I imagine that whatever difference there is between the US and the UK probably falls in the margin of error. So it’s difficult and probably impossible to compare the two.
As far as wealthy people go, anti-capitalist love to talk about all the wealthy people and the so-called income disparity in capitalist countries, but the truth is that this is a red herring to deflect the argument from the fact that socialist countries have far greater income disparity then capitalist countries. To make socialism even worse the wealthy people in a socialist state are almost always associated with or involved in the government.
Oh, he's so full of manure, that man! We could lay him in the dirt and grow another one just like him.
-- Ruby
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No capitalist has ever advocated capitalism without the rule of law
Except mabye Joss
This document needs a lot of work. It's should be about 10% of the length, for starters. There is an excessive amount of political posturing which trumps the philosophical utilitarian arguments.
Capitalism works.
Capitalism is free will to alter society.
Capitalism is equitable and accountable.
Capitalism rewards effort and progress.
Capitalism creates employment opportunities.
Capitalism does task people want done.
Capitalism can funciton in a tax void.
Capitalism evolves through competition and natural selection.
Some amount of attack on it's enemy, Socialism, is warranted, because the fallacies of Socialism need to be exploited.
Socialism doesn't work.
Socialism is top down imposed society.
Socialism is oppressive and unaccountable.
Socialism is top down imposed society.
Socialism forces employment.
Socialism does task goverment wants done.
Socialism requires heavy taxation to function.
Socialism is pre-designed and does not adapt.
I think a more in depth answer is needed, and I'll think about it.
Overall, I think a free society has several key points, democracy, constitiution, and capitalism
Democracy allows us to choose our rulers, and thereby effect the policies that rule our lives.
Constitution gives us rights to do our own thing, say what we want, oppose who we want and organize however we want.
Capitalism is the greatest and most important freedom, because it gives us the power to generate the means to sustain our societies, ourselves.
We no longer need to rely on a state in order to survive. We, the people in a capitalist society, drive our own destiny, whereas those in a socialist state are merely passengers.
Just stating my own right wing rant.
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Originally posted by Citizen:
I still take issue with capitalism distributes wealth though. It's always held up as distributing it more equally amongst the population, which is plainly not the case. It does concentrate wealth, and although the ideal maybe somewhat more even than the reality of 99% in the hands of 1, that doesn't make it any less concentrated.
Capitalism is a meritocracy by natural selection. It's not supposed to be a system of universal equality. It's equitable because the most efficient corporations are those that distribute wealth evenly, and so evolution favors that development. The overwhelming majority of companies worldwide, and even here in America still fall within, or close to, the rule of 8, which is the top salary does not exceed 8 times the lowest salary. Often now, that applies to everyone except the CEO, but that CEO is seldom more than 4 times the other executives. Now this is a disparity, sure, but one based on merit.
In a govt. system, the top wealth is obscenely higher than the bottom. Even in America this is a serious problem. But within each company, things are pretty well distributed, and it's arguably the favoritism that govt. shows to particular corporations which tips the scales, and allows corrupt corporations to continue long past their natural lifespan.
Exxon just posted the highest profit ever for a corporation, $10B. But this is not free market capitalism in action. These profits came from two things:
1. Free oil, stolen from Iraq, which Exxon was given, under the table, and allowed to resell at market.
2. An absurdly high price of oil created by an artificially initiates political situation.
So, if you have a govt. bending over backwards to help you out, then you're golden. But in open competition, eventually the more fair will win out.
Now, critics are going to say "but the cheaters will win." Sure, they will, which is why a limited govt. is necessary to keep the rules fair so that no one can assassinate the rival's ceo's and kidnap their engineers and enslave the workers. But ideally, with all of the proper mechanisms in place, capitalism is the society which runs itself.
Socialism is inherently flawed, because it relies on a govt. spending money. A govt. has no money to spend but that which it takes from the people, from you. If they take your money, then you don't have your money anymore, and your free will is lost, and you only have blind trust that they spend it all on your behalf, and do so perfectly and with absolute accuracy, efficiency and good intent. But reality never even remotely approaches this, and so society is made poorer, less competitive, and eventually whithers and dies.
All of that said. I still see your point. Capitalism is a sink or swim system, and it relies on each individual to be master of their own destiny. Some folks fail. Some of you may remember a couple months ago when an old school classmate came by and stayed a month. He is a hopeless heroin addict, and also an avid socialist, which is neither here nor there, except for this. He certainly isn't a drug addict because he is a socialist, but he is a socialist because he was a drug addict. He needs the state to take care of him. He's a sinker. Throw him back in, and he'll sink again.
So sure, a system is needed to support the sinkers, or they drain on everyone else. Dave drained off of me for a month, and now he is draining off of someone else.
But there are other snags. Capitalism rewards progress. A small amount of people generate the progress, and deserve the wealth. It's nowhere near as bad as $99%/1% pop. but that inequality exists. But it should exist. People should have to work for money. A society that distributes wealth does no work to get it.
Money without work is a disease. Govt, which runs on tax dollars, is capable of far more rash, impulsive and il conceived action because it did nothing to get the cash, and it will suffer no consequences for spending it badly. Only under such a situation do you find things like the war in Ira
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It's an exchange mechanism, it has no moral bias or ideological underpinning which is why you can use it in a liberal democracy, a nazi police state or a communist oligarcy.
If you think it's unfair, it is but for it to be fair the people involved would have to be fair and well they are human.
Are there people rewarded disproportionate to their actual value, unquestionably, but in general successfull people become successfull by working hard. That doesnt mean they are the only ones that do or that all hard work is equally rewarded, but they do put in the hours.
The bad apples, the Ken Lays of the world would be bad apples in any system. Put Ken in a bad suit and he'd be indistinguishable from a 1970's Soviet Apparatchik. There will always be people that want more than they deserve or are willing to work for and those people tend to be cunning enough to manipulate any system they are part of.
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Originally posted by Dreamtrove:
It's equitable because the most efficient corporations are those that distribute wealth evenly, and so evolution favors that development.
If this is the case then how come it is seldom the company that produces the best product that wins out. I can cite numerous examples, but at the end of the day it is nearly always the companies that are most ruthless, not efficient.
Microsoft/IBM won against Apple, not because the IBM PC/Windows is better than Apple Mac/OS but because Microsoft and IBM stole Apples ideas and repackaged them as their own. They then pushed through numerous counter-claims that stopped Apple from effectively taking legal action to protect their intellectual property.
What we have today is the IBM PC (which is architecturally inferior to comparative Macs) and Microsoft Windows (which is inferior to just about every contemporary OS there is).
I don't see many examples where efficiency wins.
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So, if you have a govt. bending over backwards to help you out, then you're golden. But in open competition, eventually the more fair will win out.
I'm sorry dreamtrove but to me this sounds just like "All we have to do is share the wealth and the socialist state will rise and everyone will be living in a land of milk and honey". The fair never win out if there are people around prepared to cheat.
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Socialism is inherently flawed, because it relies on a govt. spending money.
And capitalism is inherently flawed because the free market relies on people 'playing by the rules' without enforcing them. I fail to see how a new starter could ever hope to compete with an established competitor who can do ANYTHING they want in order to stay on top of the pile.
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All of that said. I still see your point. Capitalism is a sink or swim system, and it relies on each individual to be master of their own destiny. Some folks fail. Some of you may remember a couple months ago when an old school classmate came by and stayed a month. He is a hopeless heroin addict, and also an avid socialist, which is neither here nor there, except for this. He certainly isn't a drug addict because he is a socialist, but he is a socialist because he was a drug addict. He needs the state to take care of him. He's a sinker. Throw him back in, and he'll sink again.
So sure, a system is needed to support the sinkers, or they drain on everyone else. Dave drained off of me for a month, and now he is draining off of someone else.
There are also people who fail not because they don't work as hard, not because they are inherently 'sinkers' but through bad luck. Frankly luck is a much larger factor in who makes it and who does not than you're letting on.
My uncle runs his own business; he's the model of your capitalist dream.
He's also the first to admit that he got where he is through luck. That's not to say he didn't work hard, or that he didn't need to work hard, that's to say he would have failed if the luck hadn't gone the other way. This "you make your own luck" nonsense is exactly that, BS spouted by the lucky few who made it who aren't prepared to admit that luck was a factor.
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A small amount of people generate the progress, and deserve the wealth.
Possibly, unfortunately the people who produce the progress, and do the work ARE not the one's that get the wealth.
I know you're final example of Iraqi oil is most likely what you call socialist, but I'm sorry DT is capitalist, twisted somewhat perhaps, but that is what happens to capitalism in the real world.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.
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No capitalist has ever advocated capitalism without the rule of law
Read Yulaws post, this is more or less what (s)he is suggesting. At least corporations free of the rule of law, because they've never been known to act immorally?
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And I’m not sure that the US is more capitalist then the UK. The last document I remember seeing that compare the economies of the US and UK seemed to suggest that there was greater economic freedom (i.e. more free market capitalism) in the UK then in the US. Of course these things are notoriously hard to measure and I imagine that whatever difference there is between the US and the UK probably falls in the margin of error. So it’s difficult and probably impossible to compare the two.
As a complete system the US is far closer to the free market capitalism that Yulaw is suggesting than the UK. In which case my point still stands, there is still more social mobility in the UK and less disparity between rich and poor than in America, so if Yulaw's supposition is correct and by implementing true free-market capitalism (in respect to corporations only though) we'll get a land of milk and honey, then how does (s)he explain this (at the very least seemingly) contradictory evidence?
I'm still waiting for the explanation as to how we'll suddenly have infinite wealth and resources so everyone can become rich and prosperous through the implementation of free-market capitalism.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
The statistics on sanity are that one out of every four persons is suffering from some sort of mental illness. Think of your three best friends -- if they're okay, then it's you.
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Fletch,
I basically agree with you here. I would just make one clarification that I should have said of my own position. I meant free market capitalism. Sure, state-run capitalism does exist in communist china, and did in nazi germany, but it involved govt. interference, ownership, and 'favored company status' which is what we are starting to get into with Clinton and Bush. I think is has to end now, because that leads towards organized evil. The point is to not have the bad apples have any more power than the other apples.
Citizen,
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Microsoft/IBM won against Apple, not because the IBM PC/Windows is better than Apple Mac/OS but because Microsoft and IBM stole Apples ideas and repackaged them as their own. They then pushed through numerous counter-claims that stopped Apple from effectively taking legal action to protect their intellectual property.
What we have today is the IBM PC (which is architecturally inferior to comparative Macs) and Microsoft Windows (which is inferior to just about every contemporary OS there is).
This just isn't so. The Mac was designed by microsoft and MS programmers for Apple and it was a copy of the xerox star OS. Microsoft was then hired by IBM to make OS 2. The MS developed their own windows os. Microsoft can't steal an idea that was theirs to begin with. But that's not the point, the point is the idea of GUI survived, an idea which never would have come into being without competition. Arguing that mac is superior technically to ibm is an iffy proposition at best, and might be blatantly false, but again, it's not the point. The IBM was evolutionarily superior because it was open architecture, and the apple closed-shop system was less competitive because it did not lend itself to competition. This is why it failed, and lost marketshare to the PC.
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I'm sorry dreamtrove but to me this sounds just like "All we have to do is share the wealth and the socialist state will rise and everyone will be living in a land of milk and honey". The fair never win out if there are people around prepared to cheat.
I meant, without govt. intervention on their behalf, companies with fair labor practices tend to win out evolutionarily because they are more efficient. I don't need to argue the point because 300 years of history has already shown it to be the case. The corrupt oppressive corporate models of the past are just about all gone, because in a free society, people will choose not to work for companies that don't treat them well. Sure, this stuff still happens in the third world, but in countries that become freer, this again disappears. Sweatshops used to abound in japan and korea, but now no one in either country would work for them, so capitalism there evolves as well. In another decade you will see sweatshops disappear in the Phillipines and India. In a socialist state, bad labor can persist because there are no other employment options.
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I fail to see how a new starter could ever hope to compete with an established competitor who can do ANYTHING they want in order to stay on top of the pile.
Try it some time. You'd be surprised. It's not that hard, and they don't beat you over the head or kick you out the door. Most people welcome competition. Most likely, if you become a threat to their business, they will just invest in you.
You make your luck. Luck is not a factor. I'm not one of the lucky. I'm one of the unlucky. I used to believe that it was some random fate. Now I know it's me. I f^&ked up, and so I lost, many times. No luck. But this isn't the point. Some folks will fail, that's life, that's why you need some sort of failsafe, a safety net. Honestly, I don't really care about the people who fail, I'm not out to save them, I've known a large number and I think they really earned that failing, but we have to care for them because otherwise they turn to crime and basically screw everything up for everyone else. I think the dole is a decent way of dealing with it. I'd prefer a credit system that allowed them to purchase goods
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Quote:
Originally posted by dreamtrove:
Citizen,Quote:
Microsoft/IBM won against Apple, not because the IBM PC/Windows is better than Apple Mac/OS but because Microsoft and IBM stole Apples ideas and repackaged them as their own. They then pushed through numerous counter-claims that stopped Apple from effectively taking legal action to protect their intellectual property.
What we have today is the IBM PC (which is architecturally inferior to comparative Macs) and Microsoft Windows (which is inferior to just about every contemporary OS there is).
This just isn't so. The Mac was designed by microsoft and MS programmers for Apple and it was a copy of the xerox star OS. Microsoft was then hired by IBM to make OS 2. The MS developed their own windows os. Microsoft can't steal an idea that was theirs to begin with. But that's not the point, the point is the idea of GUI survived, an idea which never would have come into being without competition. Arguing that mac is superior technically to ibm is an iffy proposition at best, and might be blatantly false, but again, it's not the point. The IBM was evolutionarily superior because it was open architecture, and the apple closed-shop system was less competitive because it did not lend itself to competition. This is why it failed, and lost marketshare to the PC.
Patently and demonstratably false. The Mac was a project developed entirely in house by Apple who when they started the project were the biggest manufacturer of home computers. Hardware design was by Burrell Smith, software design was done by a team of people including a few that had worked at Xerox.
Microsoft at that time was just a software company and were approached by Apple to write applications. Since the machine was new Apple had to give Microsoft prototypes and in some cases source code to allow development of the Microsoft products on time. That was the basis of some of Apple's later lawsuits, that IP transfered under none disclosure agreements had been used by Microsoft to make Presentation Manager for IBM OS/2.
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=A_Rich_Ne
ighbor_Named_Xerox.txt&topic=Microsoft&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium
and as you like wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K
I think you may be confusing this case with the IBM case over OS/2 where IBM effectively said that Microsoft Windows benefited from work-for-hire contract work that Microsoft had done for IBM.
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Reminds me of a story, which may illistrate Citizen's point but no matter. It's to do with Bill Gates. I must prefix this by saying I'm not a "Gates hater" I think a lot of the flack the man gets is just nerd envy. Truth is he built the first successfull independent software company from next to nothing, including coding stuff himself in the early days. In my opinion he paid his dues, he should get the rewards.
Doesn't mean he's consistant though.
Back in the early days of home computers it was hard to get them to do much of anything. There wasn't a lot of RAM memory to be had, and even if the hardware was there you had a hard time finding or writing software to exploit it. It was very much a hackers hobby, people exchanged code and hardware ideas fairly freely. If you went to the right Bay area clubs the Woz would give you a copy of his Apple 1 design so you could wire wrap your own. Back then few people worried about IP.
Except Bill Gates.
Microsoft in the early years made most of its mony selling basic. In fact MS Basic was about as close to a "standard" anything as these home computers ever got. MS would be approached by companies building new machines to provide a semi custom version of MS Basic which was often integrated into the machine's ROM. Now at that time ROM was cheap and RAM expensive, so often the ROM routines were far bigger than anything you could write yourself. In addition to make it easier to port from one machine to another (and help reduce size) MS structured Basic into a number of callable subroutines many of which did usefull things you would like to do in other programs. Wasn't long before hackers discovered this and started using calls to the Basic ROM in their own programs. Of course to do that you had to know what the calls were and how to use them. To help you do this you could buy books from people that had figured out the calls -- programming books.
There is an interview for a Radio Shack home computer journal from around 1979 with Bill Gates. Bill at that time was the pimply faced kid you sometimes see in pictures. Probably in this really early 20's long before Windows or IBM asking for MSDOS nack in the days when he signed MS checks himself.
All is going great until the interviewer, talking "geek to geek" decides to ask Bill about some aspect of the Ratshack Basic ROM. At this point Bill goes completely off topic, demanding to know how he knew about that etc etc. The interviewer tells Bill it's in a Basic systems call book he bought. Bill is livid, "This guy is ripping us off this is Microsoft property he's selling!"
And he probably has a point.
However contrast this with what Bill Gates said to Steve Jobs when Jobs discovered that MS was launching Windows. "Look Steve it's like this, we both have a rich neighbor called Xerox and one day I break in to steal the TV set only to discover you'd stolen it first."
Observation: In Bill's mind it was bad for people to steal from MS but not for MS to steal from other people. Which probably explains just why he managed to develop a successfull company when others failed.
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Dreamtrove:
Mac OS stuff:
Your wrong, but most of what I could give has already been cited by Fletch so I won't go over it again. The point is that it is more often the most ruthless, not the most efficient or best product that survives. It could have easily been Beta max vs. VHS, for instance.
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Arguing that mac is superior technically to ibm is an iffy proposition at best, and might be blatantly false, but again, it's not the point.
I think it is the point. The most efficient and better product was sidelined for the one that is supported by the more ruthless group.
Secondly trust me on this, the proposition that the Mac architecture is better than the IBM x86 is far from iffy.
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I meant, without govt. intervention on their behalf, companies with fair labor practices tend to win out evolutionarily because they are more efficient.
Except time and again the most ruthless companies win out over the most efficient.
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I don't need to argue the point because 300 years of history has already shown it to be the case.
I don't know how to say it other than: no it hasn't.
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The corrupt oppressive corporate models of the past are just about all gone, because in a free society, people will choose not to work for companies that don't treat them well.
No, dreamtrove. You're stating this like it happened on its own because that's how it works, unfortunately you're forgetting that over the last 300 years we've gone from having no labour laws to many. Companies treat their work force better now not because it's better for business, but because they have no choice.
It's not despite government controls, it's because of them.
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Sweatshops used to abound in japan and korea, but now no one in either country would work for them, so capitalism there evolves as well.
They abounded in Britain as well, until they were made illegal.
Slavery ended in the western world because it was made illegal, not because it was bad for business.
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In a socialist state, bad labor can persist because there are no other employment options.
Bad labour practices abounded in the free market capitalism of the 19th century because people had no choice as well DT. Please don't tell me they weren't really capitalist because they were.
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Try it some time. You'd be surprised. It's not that hard, and they don't beat you over the head or kick you out the door. Most people welcome competition. Most likely, if you become a threat to their business, they will just invest in you.
Yes I'm sure if you started to threaten a big corporation which in an environment that had no imposed rules would be the law, they'd be more than happy to play by the rules. Problem is DT they don't now, and that's with measures in place to force them to do so.
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You make your luck.
Well that's not what my uncle, one of those self made men who embody the capitalism you talk about, says.
I personally happen to trust what he says about his life.
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Most of them poisoned themselves with cocaine marijuana and liquor.
Fighting men have turned to drugs and alcohol to escape the rigours of war since before the Romans. It's a natural human reaction to a situation far more stressful than any wealthy CEO will ever experience. The reaction that they brought it on themselves and are now expendable after they've been used up fighting the wars of the wealthy is fairly predictable.
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I think it's a mixture, socialists in govt. think tanks supporting policy that corrupt capitalists are taking advantage of, but that's not the point.
The argument that capitalism doesn't fail, its socialists corrupting it, doesn't persuade me anymore the more I hear it. Capitalism fails on its own merits, just like socialism.
Your argument sounds just like that of the socialist and communists who blame the collapse of socialist and communist societies on capitalist conspiracies.
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Ergo, govt. should stay outNOTIFY: Y | REPLY | REPLY WITH QUOTE | PERMALINK | TOP | HOME