Why do some people think it is impossible to get rid of capitalism?

This argument doesn't make much sense to me. Just because we have lived the system for over 200 years ago that doesn't mean it will endue forever. Did feudalism endure forever? No, it has been replaced by capitalism. I'm sure those who lived under the height of feudalism did not think anything could replace it and yet capitalism did and the business owners replaced the nobles as the ruling class. So why is it so hard to believe that eventually the working class will replace the bourgeois as the ruling class?

a mixture of capitalism & socialism & liberalism. Beat out communism, pure socialism and agrarianism. Beat them all. Even the USA is a mixed market economy.

It is heresy to speak against it. Which is why those who refused to be coerced to the faith are spat upon. Thus, it's oppressive. And it's stupid and devours itself in the end. I don't know if there is a balance to be struck with it at this stage, its current form is a cancer and a producer of mass insanity in the world.

Unless everyone owns literally the same things, or there are literally no regulations or taxes on any kind of business, the economy is "mixed."

The question is, how should we mix our economy? To make it easier for people with money to make even more, or to make it easier for hard working commoners to be comfortable and secure?

...can convince some of the more weak-minded of the working class that they'd be Bourgeois as well, if only they'd fight for their FREE-DUMZ, the bourgeoisie will keep running things.

Perhaps in forty or fifty years, but we're not quite there yet.

And uhm, USA is DEEPLY ensconced and wrapped up in it.

They're in too deep.

Not gonna happen.

Sowwy.

Eventually the bourgeois took power from the nobles.

You see, Americans are fat and comfortable.

People get highly upset and distraught when their internet is down or their favorite teevee show gets preempted.

These are the nature of big tormoil in their lives right now.

They don't have what it takes to stand up and speak truth to power.

The Repugs do it way more than the left, but they are driven by fear and bigotry, which tends to override their comfort. Not to mention they're ignorant as all get up.

That being said, they are also very authoritarian, and love to be led, just by whom they deem should rule them, like a Bachmann or a Perry or a Bush or a Limbaugh or a Beck, etc.

Libs get upset when and if they don't get their every whim handled they way they want, they don't see the big picture, hence you have events like 2010 election, which led to what happened in Wisconsin with the Unions.

Libs don't see past today, hence you have a lib board tlike this one, with tons of threads bickering.

Go to a RW board and you see a quarter or less of the disagreements you see here., perhaps 10 percent or less actually.

The Right certainly won't lead the revolution, at least not one you want, and the Left is too lazy to do it.

Sowwy.

without the death of 1\3 of the population and what that meant... I am willing to bet you would have a form of it still... oh wait, it did survive in places like oh Russia until (officially) 1905 or so.

The Black Death had quite a bit to do with it. The other... a small navigation error that lead to the ahem invention of America.

I am not saying it cannot happen. In fact it will... but it will NOT be replaced by socialism, communism or what have you. And the reasons will be far more dramatic... peak oil and a population crash will do that.

"The Black Death was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history, peaking in Europe between 1348 and 1350." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Death)

"Capitalism, as a deliberate economic system, developed incrementally from the 16th century in Europe,<10> although proto-capitalist organizations existed in the ancient world, and early aspects of merchant capitalism flourished during the Late Middle Ages." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism)

An intriguing theory... but I find it hard to believe that it was the black death, or even a shortage of labor causing some sort of inspiration of optimization theories, that led to capitalism.

By the time capitalism began developing, the populations would've largely re-established themselves... unless you are arguing that those who'd gotten by with fewer laborers for a few centuries suddenly decided that it would be a brilliant idea to throw the peasants off their lands and turn them into wage slaves, and that the lords who finally had a peasant base to work the lands for them and pay their taxes would suddenly agree?... Or suddenly have a shortage of manpower to fight the merchants with?

No... you'll have to argue at far greater length and depth to make the black death->capitalism connection.

And, as for the discovery of "America"... that wasn't a contributing factor to the development of capitalism according to any theory I've heard... unless you are referring to the expansion of the slave trade which allowed the shippers, especially in England, of slaves to amass a lot of profits (capital) which they then had to devise something to use it for. (Though, to be fair, the armed opening of China to the opium trade also brought a lot of capital back to England... which would suggest that the slave trade was only a contributing factor to the accumulation of initial capital... the drug trade would've allowed the same accumulation even had the New World been left unmolested by the Europeans.)

much about it. And the bourgeois didn't seize power from the nobles- though they eventually got a portion of power. Anyway, feudalism was essentially an early form of capitalism.

As of yet a reliable and long term alternative is unknown.

Marxism had promised that sort of working class rebellion for over a century and it has not happened. Only feudalistic countries turned to communism.

If you're getting hit over the head with a sledge hammer, do you suggest a replacement weapon to your attacker before asking him to stop pounding you?

:shrug:

Capitalism extracts profits from your labor and hands it to rich people. It needs to stop

What if I have an idea that I'd like to profit from?

For example I invent a widget, this widget is amazing. I need workers (Skilled and unskilled) to craft these widgets because obviously I can't make enough on my own to sell and make up the cost of the materials.

Am I stealing profit from the people I hire to help craft the widgets? Perhaps? Maybe they should kill me and make the widgets themselves and cut out the big bad boss. But then if I know I will be killed or not gain, why invent my widget?

I think your issue is with Americans Corporate capitalism, which works off of a fundamentally different method. Or not so different but one for which I the widget inventor have way to much power over my crafts people. Which arises when said capitalists attempt to cheat the system. For example Grover Norquist does not feel his business buddies should pay taxes, but I can bet he feels every "right" and privilege granted to a corporation (Which often steals ideas from the creative classes) should be rigorously enforced, where as any rights afforded to labor (Widget makers) should be curtailed.

the widget. Because it feels good to see your fellow human beings to benefit from the widget. Because there is no off position
on your brain and it keeps inventing the widgets anyhow, profits or no profits. This whole idea that without the profit motive
no widget would be ever invented is just ridiculous on its face. Somehow the Soviets managed to invent enough widgets to
win the space race and put the Sputnik into space without getting any profits for their trouble. In fact, I doubt that any NASA
engineers involved in the space race on the other side worried too much about profiting from their inventions either. Soviets
went even further, not only they deprived the inventors of their profits but even of their freedom by putting the creative people
in jail, yet they kept inventing widgets even there, because that's what human mind is designed to do. Presenting the profit
motive as some kind of magic catalyst for creativity has got to be the least convincing of pro-capitalist arguments.

The Soviets invented things via threats and coercion. They had to hang the threat of gulag and work camps if one failed to meat a quota. It feels good to create, but starving does not feel all that good. Not getting credit for your idea does not feel all to well.

Why come up with an idea? Life would be so much easier just showing up to the required work schedule and getting your lough of bread and bottle of vodka.

As for invention, I compare the western liberalized world to that of the Soviets. I'd say our world crafted far more inventions then there's. It would be nice if every person was a Nikola Tesla, but lets face it not every person is. Heck i doubt even 1 in 10 would be so kind with there ideas and letting others profit from their inventions while they withered.

But what we have now is Capitalism gone mad, it's total greed uncontrolled.

Michael Moore said it best in "Capitalism: A Love Story"

It's a system that profits a few, at the expense of many

That's all it is

That's all it's ever been

The Industrial Revolution gave us capitalism and it started off terrible.

revolution... major quibble there.

At the most basic of levels me selling you widgets for dracmas back in fifth century bce Athens is a form of capitalism...

An individual or group of individual is free to provide a service or good for profit.

That, in and of itself, is good.

It does lead to innovation, like it or not.

That is what I'm talking about.

were ripest for revolution was accurate.

Though I suppose you already know that given your icon...

Capitalism survives because of some cultural hegemony?

Ultimately the idea is predicated on the idea that all aspects of capitalism are enforced social constructs and not the result of (In part) by human nature. I think it is faulty to think that human nature and environmental circumstances does not play a role and that only some enforced social construction makes capitalism possible.

Feudalism was after all a product of its era and the specific pressures placed on Europe at the time. At that time, even the ruling class was barely educated and even the priestly classes were barely literate.

There is no system that I can think of that has managed to escape the ability of individuals to leach off society and manipulate it in a parasitic fashion.

Capitalism describes what happens fairly naturally given a few simple conditions:

1) Enough personal freedom to decide what you do for a living, as opposed to have some authority assign you work to do -- this leads to a market for labor and services in an economy.
2) Recognition of personal property without a lot of limitations on what a person can own -- which become the goods and the productive capital in an economy.
3) Currency -- not absolutely necessary, but it greatly facilitates economic development compared to what you can have with just barter and trade.
4) Enough personal freedom to trade your labor and your possessions and your money with other people under mutually agreeable terms.

Let the above exist, and capitalism will simply happen. Capitalism exists because it's what people do when they have the above freedoms, not because some power or authority declares "We're going to be capitalist!", and then institutes, enforces, or imposes capitalism.

The only way to stop the above conditions from leading to capitalism is to regulate capitalistic behavior out of existence, which requires a lot of interference in the above freedoms, way more than many people will be happy with, or will consider just or fair.

People don't think that the cooperation that humans lived under pre-capitalism counts as "real history". They can't see that humans are a social primate, but believe the deism of an individual relationship to the marketplace. The bourgeois teach the liberation from feudalism quite handily. It is their crowning achievement. They also created our present education system and write the history that is taught in it.

It's more a matter of evolve beyond. Capitalism is PRIMITIVE. Primitive tribes of people who still use stone tools and have no written language (think New Guinea) engage in capitalism. They weave baskets, raise pigs and sweet potatoes, do a little hunting and gathering, and when they interact with neighboring tribes, it is to trade this capital for things that are more useful. You can go to any open air market in the third world and see capitalism at work. What you won't see much of is what comes beyond capitalism: schools, libraries, medical clinics, etc.

Capitalism requires no central planning. Just a place to meet and trade your capital, the fruits of your labors, with your neighbors, who have spent their time amassing capital of a different sort from different labors. Just because people on Wall Street wear $2000 suits doesn't make them any more advanced than a New Guinea hill tribesman, they're still just trying to get the bid and the ask to match up and make a trade.

Once you see that capitalism doesn't plan for education, health care, or mass transportation very well, it's time to centrally plan those out for the benefit of all. While you are at it, you can centrally plan where the parks and nature reserves are going to be, how to divide the natural resources of the nation, how to make sure that everyone is guaranteed a minimum in the society.

Feudalism is not much different from modern industrial capitalism, the serfs just have cubicles instead of hovels. Socialism IS different and is an evolution to a higher stage of organization and development. Little wonder that the same people that abhor evolution also abhor socialism.

:) (I think I read your handle correctly). I like to say that capitalism as a system had it's place. It was a better system for acumulating goods and organizing the means of production than feudalism, but just like ALL systems, it has outlived it's usefulness and has become toxic.

In the developed countries, we HAVE acumulated enough goods and services and have the means of production to move on to the next step. A not as PRIMITIVE step. It's time to redistribute the wealth and means of production to the masses of the people and not just the few.

:shrug:

A society where the workers control the means of production?

How do you get that going?
Will all the capitalists just sit back and watch their oligarchy dissolve?

If you succeeded, how long do you think that would last?
How long before the "workers" aren't you and me but all our top Republican and Tea Party buddies?

I don't see any way in the nine levels of hell to get something like that going within our lifetimes.

If the workers alone control the means of production, what of the creative individual who created the idea that needs to be produced?

A point sorely missed by most revolutionaries, modernity included.

Tearing down the seemingly oppressive structure is the order of the day.

Throw out the baby with the bath water.

Thank you. Have a nice day.

The free software market is full of innovative products while a lot of major companies are very wary to try new ideas because of the risk of profit loss.

Socialism has no fix for it.

The innovative will always be the special minority while the dull unimaginative will always be the norm.
That's not because of an economic system, it's just the basic law of averages for the human race.

Or maybe not.

False. Alarming.

That's the way they do it in the arts.

That is why a revolution is needed, though preferably a peaceful one. As for the reactionaries being part of the new worker's government that will depend upon their ability to assimilate into society. If they continue to agitate for capitalism and to sabotage the worker's government they will have to be fought, however if they accept their new roles and legitimately become members of society I see no reason to harm them.

Market Economy with sound fair regulations plus a safety
net that works for average people, working class and poor.

...or claim to wish we were more like as a country -- the Scandinavian countries, Canada, New Zealand... you name it, is a country with a robust market economy, its excesses tempered and energies channelled by either social-democratic governments of the day, or conservative governments unable to touch the more essential structures laid down by social-democratic governments without being beaten to death at the polls.

I'll settle for that. If it was good enough for Jean Jaurès, and Nye Bevan, and Michael Harrington, it's good enough for me...

is not the answer, and frankly is a short-sighted proposition. Capitalism is the greatest and most effective economic engine our species has ever devised. The computer or mobile device you're typing on now - as well as the internet itself, the TV you watch, the car you drive or the bike you ride - are all the product of capitalism. Someone had an idea to create something, and the desire for success and financial reward motivated them to follow through and allowed them to find willing investors. The unequaled standard of living in the US - whether you think that is a good thing or not - is largely because we employ capitalism to drive our economy. The schools you attend, the road systems you drive on, the police and fire protection you enjoy - all have been developed through tax revenue generated by 100 years of unparalleled economic and industrial growth.

You might respond with "I walk to work, I don't own a TV, my school sucked and the roads in front of my apartment look like the surface of the moon". OK. So the system isn't perfect. But if you live in this country, I dare you to try and go a week without enjoying at least some of the fruits of capitalism.

The problem is that unchecked capitalism is a highly destructive force. Corporate mentality is, by design, like that of a predatory sociopath. It has to be regulated by government, tempered by unions and deterred by the legal system. Not enough to stifle it, just enough to keep it in check and balance the interests. But instead of a smooth ride, our history has been more of a roller coaster, with periods of unchecked profiteering followed by a clamp down in regulation, then a gradual loosening of the restraints until we enter another period of unchecked profiteering, and the cycle repeats. Capitalism + democracy can be a good system, you just can't expect it to be perfect all of the time, and it takes a lot of work.

In the last 40 years or so, however, the game changer has been that the traditional capitalistic interests (republicans) have discovered the power of mass media to not only persuade you to buy the G.I.Joe with the Kung Fu grip, but also to influence your perception of reality. Half of this country is suffering under a delusion induced by a massive advertising campaign that shapes how they think and, more importantly, how they vote. The bad guys figured out how to get into power, and now have set about modifying the rules to keep themselves there (rigging elections, stacking SCOTUS and most state courts, busting the unions, tort reform, redistricting, dismantling the education system, and so on).

I don't see much of that changing. We're probably fuct. I'm buying bullets, gold and MREs from Glenn Beck.

Even Marx admitted that Capitalism was necessary to create the conditions to move on to socialism. That has been done, the necessary wealth has been created we need socialism to distribute it fairly.

Pure socialism can never work. It is contrary to human nature and our survival instinct, and is too vulnerable to manipulation and abuse. It is dependent upon everyone buying into the system, and that will never happen. Did we learn nothing from Orwell's "Animal Farm"?

but an attack on Stalinism. Orwell remained until the end of his days a socialist. Perhaps you have learned nothing from Animal Farm. As for Marx his critique of capitalism is being proven more and more true everyday.

...perhaps at its worse, but still socialism. And at its worse it was a lot worse than what we're dealing with in the US today. Orwell was actually cautioning about extremes in socialism because he was wary of the risk. And just because Marx had insight into the pitfalls of capitalism doesn't necessarily mean he had a viable alternative. American democracy has always endeavored to be a blend of capitalism and socialism, and has enjoyed both successes and failures across the board. But we haven't seen a better system - at least not yet.

It was state capitalism. The workers did not control the means of production. Until you have that you do not have socialism not matter what the propaganda of either side says.

... but begs the question somewhat. Stalinism is what socialism is vulnerable to becoming if it is abused. That was my point.

Or in even more extreme cases it can lead to the rise of fascism which as Mussolini said is the "merger of the state with corporate power."

- thus my initial post in this thread.

we won't see Mussolini fascism here. The corporate special interests want to kill government, not merge with it. I see more of a Rollerball (1975 version) mixed with Idiocracy and a dash of The Running Man in our future.

fine distinction actually.

You want to think socialism? Think Norway.

you could elaborate on exactly how or where Marx is delusional. This I would love to read.

... is a belief that is either mistaken or not substantiated and is held with very strong feelings or opinions and expressed forcefully.<1> In psychiatry, it is defined to be a belief that is pathological (the result of an illness or illness process) and is held despite evidence to the contrary.<1> As a pathology, it is distinct from a belief based on false or incomplete information, dogma, stupidity, poor memory, illusion, or other effects of perception.

Marx believed mankind could temper his self serving nature and be satisfied with the collective benefits and rewards of socialism. That's not going to happen in any society bigger than - I don't know - two?

what Marx actually thought and wrote and what socialism actually means.

That's probably because you have never bothered to read anything Marx actually wrote. If you had, you would know that Marx did not believe mankind would have to temper "his (sic) self seving nature and be satisfied . . . " because Marx foresaw that the evolution from capitalism to socialism was historically inevitable and that the proletariat would assume its rightful place as the true creator of wealth and repository of created wealth.

You might try reading some Marx before opining on his psychological condition. "Das Kapital" is the seminal text but the 'Communist Manifesto' is a shorter, more accesible read from a younger more romantic Marx in touch with the revolutionary fervor of 1848.

at least AIMS at people's higher nature and instincts, you advocate a system that ENCOURAGES the absolute WORST in human nature.

That doesn't make a lot of sense.

as in socialism came after he was dead... first major quibble

Second major quibble, the USSR was as Marxist as the modern US is Capitalist.

socialism is "idealistic" and will never work because of "human nature", yet they champion a system that actually REWARDS the absolute WORST of human nature. I never have understood this line of reasoning.

By the way, from what I understand the pig "Snowball" (the hero, so to speak) in "Animal Farm" was based on Leon Trotsky. Who was a Bolshevik, Marxist, and Leninist.

"The origins of the Internet reach back to research of the 1960s, commissioned by the United States government in collaboration with private commercial interests to build robust, fault-tolerant, and distributed computer networks. The funding of a new U.S. backbone by the National Science Foundation in the 1980s, as well as private funding for other commercial backbones, led to worldwide participation in the development of new networking technologies, and the merger of many networks." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet)

The development of the internet, as a BIG example, was funded by the state, originally by the army. Only once there were some prospect of profitability seen did the "private enterprise" of which "capitalism" is so proud get into the picture. The same is true of a lot of other research which is funded at public universities and then patented by private corporations...

Capitalism may be a great system for development of under-developed markets/resources... but it inevitably hyper-develops anything it can get its hands on, creating a "bubble" which must eventually burst... to use the terminology of the Savings & Loan bubble, the junk stock market, the dot-com bubble, the housing bubble, and the derivatives market bubble...

Marx called it over production.

It amounts to the same thing... boom and bust and starvation for the hapless and crime waves and the need for gated communities and... extensive armies of security personnel to protect the rich—who inevitably come to the idea to buy the government and use the power of those they've bought to "socialize" the costs whenever they "hotbox" some particular segment of the economy... so that they don't actually have to pay any expenses out of pocket or answer to the people whose lives they've ruined and therefore have nothing left to lose and would just love a chance to knife someone in the street just for the satisfaction of it.

The standard of living in the US is exactly related to how much the country has embraced Socialism. All the things you mention—the roads, the cops, etc. are all products of government services... socialism.

You want to see capitalism without socialism? Go to India... where people build ramshackle tenement "neighborhoods" out of corrugated plastic and scavenged bricks next door to 20 story luxury hotels overlooking the Mumbai harbor.

;)

I think once we have successfully established socialism through the use of a vanguard party(a necessary evil to defend against counter revolution) it may well be anarchist communities which show us the way to stateless communism.

I appreciate the correction anyway. Always good to learn.

they see capitalism as some sort of divinely ordained system. Such a view is inherently ahistorical, but it's very difficult to talk some people out of a faith in what they think is a divinely ordained system (capitalism).

In addition, a lot of people suffer from despair that their lives and material circumstances would ever improve. They resign themselves to thinking that the system cannot change, again an ahistorical stance, but the emotion of despair will often blind one to logic.

Ordained by the human condition, absolutely. It cannot be refuted.

Given your assumption, it is just as logical to assume that the rich think their lot will not change.

This is demonstrably false, as is assigning hopelessness to the poor.

Surely, if desperation is a quantity, it exists equally among the rich and poor according to the law of the jungle.

Hence, the eternal struggle.

but I do suspect the wealthy elephant fares a less desperate life in the "jungle" than might, say, a poor, domesticated donkey.

"The Invisible Hand of the Marketplace". That's the ONLY thing that you can call it nowdays. It fits all the criteria.

EXCEPT incompetent industrialism under authoritarian dictators in the twentieth century, which is "communism", the ONLY OTHER POSSIBLE ALTERNATIVE.

For others, there's no problem in imagining dozens, nay, hundreds, of alternative systems.

that doesn't mean it's possible for us to end capitalism. the demise of the system is inherent in its "DNA".

Oh, and feudalism wasn't replaced by capitalism. It's simply another form of capitalism.

WHERE?

there used to be communist movements all over the Third World,now theres hardly any. One of the nuclear superpowers used to be Communist, now its capitalist. Its going the other direction. Its hard to imagine it swinging back that way. With North Korea as a model, how is Communism going to come back? Its not impossible, but its hard to imagine.

The way value judgements come into play is in how you regulate it.

in material items.

Even strictly controlled communist nations had a black market that functioned on largely capitalist principles.

At it's most basic capitalism is simply people trading items/services amongst themselves for whatever they believe that item/service is worth.

Even chimps figure it out.

and capitalism together in the same bag and acting like they mean the same thing! Capitalism is GREAT if you have moral people in charge that look out for the best interests of the working class and not the ruling class. Capitalism is SHITTY if you have immoral people in charge that look out for the best interests of the ruling class and not the working class. Just regulate it already and punish the SHIT out of the corporate criminals! Just that simple.