Has there ever been a true capitalist society

[Djinn]

I'm no economioc expert and to define capitalism/socialism/communism etc I'd have to bit of research but from the little I do know the nations that espouse Capitalism don't seem to be too keen on actually practising it, government regulations, corporate welfare, monopolies etc would suggest to me that no-one really beleives in the supremacy of the market in determining the common good.

Like I said I'm a bit ignorant in this area and was wondering what others with a better grasp of the issues thought?

[Indiana_Dem]

1. Keep reading like I've had to do....

I've found out these things:

#1 Capitalism is an ECONOMIC system, not a POLITICAL system. Our political system is called a "representative democracy"...not a a literal true democracy.

#2 Capitalism needs growth to survive. Without economic growth, capitalism dies. (My question--What happens when the world is completely globalized through capitalism...then what happens???)

#3 Capitalism and our representative democracy work well for the elite and their corporations. In the end, the average joe suffers.

I think maybe capitalism and a literal true democracy would work where the people with the all the wealth would not dominate the laws and the economy to their advantage! Otherwise, it's just not gonna work (for us little guys anyway!).

[MAlibdem]

6. I may have an answer to #2 & #3

#2. Growth is not restricted to the growth of capitalism but the growth of the economy.

#3. Redistribution of wealth through bracketed income tax and governmental programs (universal health care & higher education) can mitigate suffering.

[Indiana_Dem]

25. So then my questions would be about the same:

What happens when growth of the world economy stagnates and there's nowhere else to grow? I realize economists don't believe in finite reasoning (I don't know how else to word what I'm trying to say). They more or less look at the economy as in cycles don't they?

Also for redistribution of wealth....bracketed income tax and governmental programs are ideal but it's not happening (or we're losing these things) because of the lobbying efforts of the elite. Their wealth and their power is exponentially growing due to their lobbying for laws benefitting themselves and their interests only. They don't appear to want to redistribute any wealth through any of these ideals!?!? That's where and why I feel a literal democracy is essential.

[Djinn]

7. I know it's an economic system

hence why I mentioned my relative ignorance when it comes to economics. Also my question was has there ever BEEN a capitalist system not whether it works or it's relative merits compared to other systems. Personally I beleive that true capitalism (and the semi capitalism I believe we have) is inherently unfair to all but the few on the top but the point I was getting at is that I don't really think there's ever been a truly capitalist society so how can we really tell how it'd work.

It's something I always wonder about when I hear people insist that we know communism wouldn't work because it didn't when tried (how close to communism any nation has been is another thread) because I don't think anyone's ever really tried capitalism either.

[bigbillhaywood]

13. That's also a point I often make when people are attacking socialism

The Cold War was really the defeat of a bastardized version of Communism by a bastardized version of capitalism.

As to who's theory is more unrealistic-- Marx's or Smith's. It's clearly Smith. Contrary to popular opinion Marx's ideas about Communism do not require people to be innately good at all. In fact, this is what distinguished Marx's version of socialism from the Utopian Socialists that preceded him. I doubt many of the people that claim Communism goes against human nature have even read much, or any, Marx.

Adam Smith's capitalism, by contrast, requires perfect knowledge on the part of consumers (clearly impossible) to achieve a state of perfect market competition.

I'm not a strict Marxist by any means, but I view him as an important contributor to socialist theory. And when someone tells me socialism is unrealistic, I tell them maybe, but capitalism take the cake on defying reality.

[Indiana_Dem]

18. Yes, I ask the same questions!

I don't think there's ever been a true capitalist society.

[BurtWorm]

27. How do you think pure, or real, capitalism would work?

What would it look like? I used to get into a lot of arguments with guys called "anarcho"-capitalists, who believed capitalism wouldn't be pure until there was no government interfering with it. The problem with that idea is that capitalism requires property and property absolutely requires government. If you take away government, property loses all legitimacy, unless it's backed up by personal force.

I'm reading Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel, just now coming to his deconstruction of the band-tribe-chiefdom-state continuum. It makes me realize that capitalism is definitely a state phenomenon.

[bigbillhaywood]

33. Why not start with the guy who started it all-- Adam Smith? nt

[BurtWorm]

34. Funny, but when you quote Smith to these guys and don't ID him?

They think he's a commie! Smith was much more warmblooded than these ultrapure capitalists.

[bigbillhaywood]

38. Yep. When Smith was writing, it was all untested theory. A version

of mercantile capitalism existed, but it co-existed with a crumbling feudal society, and trading was heavily regulated by the crown. Smith's theory was essentially progressive-- he saw competitive markets as a way to equitably distribute wealth and tear down class barriers. I think his theory was funadmentally flawed b/c it assumed perfect consumer knowledge, but it was progressive.

Then along comes Social Darwinism and all of a sudden capitalism is a "strong survive and advance/weak suffer" theory, and Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman followed that bullshit tradition, and all the free marketeer assholes today worship them.

[Cats Against Frist]

43. You know, I forgot about Friedman

In intellectual discussions they are far more likely to claim him, rather than Rand -- I think he garners much more respect. Though I am not familiar enough with both Rand and Friedman to compare/constrast.

Do you have a short primer? :)

[BurtWorm]

44. They also worship Hayek and the Vienna school

You'll always hear the Libertarians trying to sneak references to Hayek in when they call about economics on C-SPAN.

[bigbillhaywood]

45. Yeah, Salma Hayek is pretty hot. I didn't know she was an economist.

[BurtWorm]

47. You never heard of the Hayek curves?

:spank:

[Cats Against Frist]

46. That's exactly the next thing I was going to write :)

[Cats Against Frist]

49. And Mises

Getting into this is interesting, because it's clearly where the right started launching the "this was what the founders wanted," thing -- which I am fascinated with. They even re-defined "liberalism" into classical liberalism, to steal it back from liberalism.

My argument is that liberalism and just society were on the minds of our framers. I think Ben Franklin and TJ were "drinkin' a little bit of the Rousseau," -- If memory serves me -- and I'm not totally sure -- I think it was actually Thomas Jefferson, who wrote from France, that the anti-Federalists needed to make sure that the Bill of Rights got added to the Constitution. They wanted to ensure that free speech would turn citizens into stewards of their democracy -- and one of the Anti-Federalists MAIN CONCERNS was that the society be "virtuous."

That's my talking point for defending liberalism and beating back the social Darwin shit. Though, the way the GOP is acting, I'm not so sure if they're even concerned with analyzing what the founders intended anymore.

[BurtWorm]

51. I've been thinking about a lot of the same stuff since impeachment

in particular, when the very worst tendencies of the American right wing started to come unashamedly to the fore. Actually, it really began with Limbaugh's reaction against Bush I-ism. But I didn't start to engage it head on until about 1996, 1997. That's when I first started noticing how distorted right-wing "thought" was about "freedom," "the Constitution" and the "Founders"--Jefferson in particular.

Before the Internet I used to take wingers at their word that Jefferson was a proto-winger. But once I was on line, I could check out the quotes they were flinging around at the University of Virginia's Jefferson project and discover how, in context, their favorite quotes would suddenly mean the exact opposite of what they were selling them as. Of course it turns out that Jefferson was a small-d democrat as well as a big-D Democratic-Republican, a member of the "French party," a Deist, a man of the Enlightenment--and a slaveowner and moral coward on the issue of slavery, alas (which is probably the closest he came to holding a position these idiots could actually agree with!).

I was just arguing about this with wingers last week, about the just foundations you're talking about. It's amazing how confused they are about how the Constitution came to be. Most of them see it the way they probably see the Bible, as a sui generis, written-at-once hand-me-down from Heaven. (One guy was trying to tell me that the preamble consciously foreshadows the Bill of Rights!) I also get the sense that the right is ready to ditch the constitution. They're not conservatives anymore. They're pre-radicals. They want to rip everything out, including the root.

[Jim Warren]

55. Some of the right, definitely yes

"I also get the sense that the right is ready to ditch the constitution"

I've heard and seen this talk as well, in some of the far right cells.

[Moonbeam_Starlight]

48. Off topic

but I love your avatar pic. A glorious wonderful man.

Carry on.

[Indiana_Dem]

57. Oh thank you! He inspires me!

I have great respect for him so I chose to use his pic! I always try to emmulate his words.

[swag]

2. I recommend

John McMillan's "Reinventing the Bazaar" as a beginner's history of what are euphemistically known on CNBC as "free markets" and the interaction of these markets with equally necessary and functional governments.


A history of coevolution.

[zeemike]

3. That is an interesting topic

One I have longed to see debated in detail
But first you must state what you mean by a capitalist society. I take it you mean one set up with the philosophy of Ayn Rand, that is totally free of all encumbrances.
In that case the answer is no there has never been such a system to my knowledge. And that is not so strange because such a system would not last more than 100 years or so before it became an oligarchy.

[DBoon]

12. 100 years is way too generous

maybe 10 years before the last capitalist devoured his competitor.

It would be kind of like the Polynesian society on Easter Island - devoted to ever grander monuments, until they have finally stripped the land bare and realized the've chopped down the last tree and can't escape.

[Sandpiper]

4. Around the turn of the 19th century

When William McKinnley was President, and within that general time frame, the United States could probably have been considered the closest thing there ever was to a pure capitalist society.

It was the age of the Robber Barons. The work force wasn't unionized, there were no real labor laws, health and safety standards or environmental standards.

The steel, oil, and railroad industries were largely monopolized, and the Supreme Court was in the pocket of people like the Carnegies, Vanderbilts and Rockefellers, handing down all sorts of decisions that were friendly to big business and corporations, such as corporate personhood.

[bigbillhaywood]

5. If you mean what Adam Smith envisioned, no..

Adam Smith envisioned a system of perfect competition that would have an equalizing and democratizing effect on society, and tear down class barriers. However, there was one really big flaw in Smith's theory...it assumed and necessitated perfect knowledge on the part of the consumer.

This is why in the closest thing that ever existed to a lassiez-faire capitalist society (US in late 19th, early 20th centuries), monopolies were quick to develop and competition was squelched. Class differences widened, albeit different classes than those that existed in Smith's day.

"Ever notice that invisible hand of Adam Smith seems to be flipping a lot of people the bird?"-- George Carlin.

[no_hypocrisy]

9. Dickensonian England? His stories are capitalist morality tales about

Oliver Twist, "Pip", Nicholas Nickelby, David Copperfield and how they were potential victims to greedy men who only wanted to control and use them, not to mention the women who were forced into marriage with rich, decadent men in order to survive.

[DBoon]

14. Class struggle then was bloody

private militias would massacre protesting workers with impunity. Ludlow, Colorado, for example.

[bigbillhaywood]

15. Not just private militias. Police, National Guard and US Army, too.

And I have a feeling we will be returning to that state of affairs very soon. Let's just hope the working-class has the same guts it had back then (but I dunno, I think people were tougher back then, we're kinda spoiled now).

[Cats Against Frist]

22. Spoiled

and pumped full of right-wing hate radio.

[Nevernose]

8. What about Chile under Pinochet? England, early 19th century.

The Chicago Boys and all that? I'm far from an expert in this subject, but I remember reading that the major point of Pinochet's regime was a marriage between government and total, complete, laissez-faire, right-wing economics.

England's policy was dominated by laissez-faire economists during the Romantic Era (to use a literary term), roughly 1775-1830. Didn't work too well, and laid the ground work for modern class problems and even communism.

[happyslug]

10. Communism - Capitalism dualism

The problem is ALL societies have had to balance Capitalism and Communism. Let me give you some examples so you can better see the situation:

You can not run an Army on Capitalism "Fight for your country and if you die while fighting your widow and orphan will beg in the street for it is up to you to take care of them NOT the country".

Given that people DIE in combat, men will NOT fight in them (and their Mothers will NOT send them off to war) if the man's widow and orphans are NOT taken care of by the Society. Thus some sort of community action must provide for the widow and orphans of those that die in Combat. Military organizations have always tended to be Communist, capitalist is to self-center for people to sacrificed themselves for.

Another aspects of Communism is roads, someone has to control them. If you have Prue capitalism the roads would be natural monopolies and thus whoever owned the roads could demand maximum tolls (and force anyone who did not owned a road out of business killing the Prue Capitalist society and producing a Oligarchy society, rule by the few who controls the roads).

A third problem with Prue capitalism is projects to large for any group of people to perform WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO EXTORT LABOR FROM PEOPLE WHO DO NOT WANT TO JOIN IN ON THE PROJECT. The classic case are Bridges and Tunnels. These tend to be expensive to build but once built tend to bring with them large increase in trade BUT NOT ALWAYS FOR THE PEOPLE WHO BUILT THE Bridge and/or Tunnel. These can be built by capitalist (Look at the Railroads of the 19th Century) but unless the return is HUGE, the government ends up doing so as part of its Communist tendency (Look at the Interstate Highway system, no Capitalist organization would have built that given the existing Railroad System).

On the other hand Communism's many faults are well known, Capitalism does NOT avoid such faults, but when a Capitalist makes an error it is corrected by the Capitalist going bankrupt unlike a Government that switches the costs to the people at large (and when capitalistic societies start to switch the mistakes of its large Capitalists from the Capitalists to society you have the same problem as in Communist countries).

My point is all Societies have had Capitalism and Communism the key to a successful society is to balance between the two. This Balance is never constant, it changes as society changes, for example roads were built by the Government in the 1700s, early 1800s and in the 1900s but not in the late 1900s where the Capitalist controlled Railroads took over land transportation functions. Non rail transport could not compete with the Railroad till after the invention of the car (and the gasoline tax). Thus Communism was the answer to internal transport needs EXCEPT IN THE LATE 1900 WHEN CAPITALISM WAS THE BEST BALANCE.

Today, with the high costs of Medical Car, Communism is the best solution for medical Care. Not because the Government can provide the care better, but as a whole only the Government can provide the maximum services to the maximum number of people (at the lowest possible costs). Things change so the balance is always in flux, but as there will NEVER be a Prue Communism society there will NEVER be a PRUE Capitalist system either.

[bigbillhaywood]

16. Excellent post, but all your examples are predicated on the nation-state

system. Communism envisions the eventual destruction of the nation-state.

[happyslug]

31. Marxism for saw the destruction of the Nation-state

and even Marx said it would take 500 years to achieve "Socialism". Marx took that concept of Community and expanded it to Socialism, and his followers took it to Marxism.

That is NOT the Communism I wrote about above. The Communism I wrote of is the building of a Road, building a community park, helping build a rail to rail etc. Communism is when people act as a community for the common good. It is this sense of Community, of being part of Something greater that is the heart of ALL SOCIETIES. That is the Communism I wrote of.

The Communism I wrote of includes the building of Churches on the American Frontier (A community project in most settlements) sandbagging Levy when a River Floods, helping your neighbor when he suffers a disaster. In a pure Capitalistic society all of these could NOT happen. Yet all of these strengthen society and thus makes the community something greater than the sum of its individuals members.

This sense of community and the strength produced by the sense of Community is the Communism I am talking of NOT Marxism of even Socialism. My point is ALL SOCIETIES, CAPITALISTIC, SOCIALIST, AND EVEN COMMUNIST must balance between Communism and Capitalism to produce the greatest amount of strength for the society as a whole.

The Modern Nation-State greatest enemy is NOT Marxist Communism but Capitalism and its drive for Globalization. In many aspects Globalization is Communism of by and for Corporations (Something Marx would have thought impossible when he was writing and expected the various bourgeois of the Nation States to use the Nation State to destroy each other).

Anyway the sense of community existed BEFORE the Nation-State and will Survive the fall of the Nation-State. Just like the fact each person is a separate person and thus will consider his own needs first (the heart of Capitalism) he will also want to be a member of the larger community for the benefits being a member of the community gives to him (Community is the heart of Communism). DO NOT CONFUSE COMMUNISM AND MARXISM. Marx wrote of how society will evolve into a Communist and Socialist Society, but that is NOT What I am writing of. I am writing of the fact even when such socialist society is perfected, it will contain elements of Capitalism just like the late 1800s had elements of Communism in its community churches, halls, union, societies, little leagues, and other organizations that existed and exist to make our communities communities not just a collection of individuals.

[Cats Against Frist]

41. Maybe I'm just splitting hairs

but I really prefer that that be called something else. I think the right generally demonizes it as coming from Rousseau, and his concept of just society.

Rand calls it altruism.

I like giving it a different name, because some people on the right have a hard time distinguishing that all altruism theory didn't spring whole from communism.

Communism is like a dirty word in this country -- but most moderates, left and right agree on the necessity of a just society. The Anti-Federalists even almost refused to sign the Constitution, because they were afraid of a society without it.

The extreme wing of the GOP (which I would argue controls the party) is now offering us, on the left, us pitiful leftists, one of two choices: either it doesn't exist or have a place in society, or it has to be delivered by religion-based morality.

They are trying to erase altruism's claim to a place in government -- they generally try to do this by way of capital "C" communism -- and discredit all altruism because of totalitarian communists.

That's all I'm arguing.

[Jim Warren]

56. I am impressed nt

[zeemike]

17. That is very insightfully

And I would like to add to that that there is a fatal flaw in the economics of capitalism that we hardly notice because of our tax system.
And that flaw is compound interest. If you look at it you see that in a system with no taxes to hold you back wealth is increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer people until a very small number hold all the capital, and from then on you must have a feudalist society.

[Cats Against Frist]

20. Collectivism

Say collectivism instead of communism. Communism is a totalitarian state where all ownership of production and distribution is governmental. It is much better to say collectivism -- or altruism or consensus. The right depends on drawing their rhetoric from the "communism" buzz word.

Our values didn't just come from communism. They were on the minds of the framers, and the ideological left has just as much claim to our government as the right.

By calling it "communism" you're reinforcing their stupidity.

[bigbillhaywood]

24. Not what Communism is according to Marx

You're referring to state socialism. Communism for Marx was the end stage of an historical dialetic, at which point the State had withered away. USSR, China, Vietnam, Cuba, etc. are called "communist", but Marx would not have considered them so (in fact neither would Lenin, he didn't even think the USSR had reached the point of state socialism, much less communism by the time he died).

I'm neither a strict Marxist or Leninist, but if we're arguing over definitions, where better to start than the guy who created the term "communist"?

[Cats Against Frist]

26. I'm suggesting that the poster

actually MEANS collectivism or altruism. There's nothing that says that communism shares a direct binary with capitalism. That's all I'm saying.

But you're right -- my definition of communism was off. Sorry.

[bigbillhaywood]

29. No, I did understand your point. Just wanted to add my own. nt

[Cats Against Frist]

30. Well, you're right

And a distinction between communism, state socialism and the theories of altruism and "just society" -- that Rousseau stuff -- are best separated out, when countering the right that wants to tie all altruism and collectivism to "communism."

[Cleita]

11. I've always had a belief, and it is a dumb belief, that as long

as nation has a swinging economy, any political system will work. The problem is that a political system that keeps an underclass to serve the upperclass will eventually foment insurrection when the "trickle down" stops trickling because of variables that the greedy types don't think about, like war, drought, etc.. I would like to see a real experiment in social democracy with a strong capitalistic eonomy bolstering it happen one of these days. This seems to me might keep everyone happy.

[Cats Against Frist]

21. These already exist

Sweden is a good example -- Canada to some extent.

And no -- it will not keep the ideological right happy.

[zeemike]

23. I think there was a perfect blend

That prospered for more than 300 years.
(please don't yell at me in anger when I say this)
But it was the model of Israel that was established after the exodus.
It had free trade and commerce but with a twist that ensured that it would last.
All debt was forgiven after 50 yeas.All property was returned to its owner, thus ensuring that poverty in a family would last only one generation.
Usury, the lending of money for profit, was against the law.
Every 7 years the land had to lie fallow (this had more of an economic benefit than would first meet the eye)
But other than that it was a free market system.

[Cleita]

28. I do know what you are talking about, but it still allowed

for slavery and other injustices, so I still am looking for something that could work in an industrialized society. Many aboriginal peoples even in my lifetime (I am old), actually had good communal societies that worked for them. I think a lot about the Amazon societies in Brazil long before they were "civilized", which our culture is destroying.

There are many in Micronesia as well. The fact is I feel almost privileged to have learned about stone age societies and how they organized themselves in my lifetime, but now they are going. We need to learn from them, I believe.

[zeemike]

35. The key point is the law of the Sabbath

I have always maintained that the only reason we have poor people is because they have no land.
And obviously this is true because if you have land you can never be forced to sleep on the streets and beg for food.
But Israel started by dividing the land equally among it's inhabitants and then having a law that passed the land back to its owner every 50 years. So if a father was a drunk that sold his land and drank up the money he could still do it, but he could not sell the inheritance of his children. It created a stable social system.
And there is other things about there system that are very interesting and even applicable to today, and I think it needs to be talked about, because there is wisdom there to be had.
And we should not overlook wisdom just because it is mixed with things that are wrong in todays world.

[Cleita]

37. I agree about the wisdom to be gleaned not only from the

ages but from different societies. Nothing that's worthwhile should be thrown away.

[oscar111]

60. Israel,ancient:questions

Interesting.
1.How did it end?
2.did it exist largely becausse all believed god was endorsing the set-up?
if so, it cannot be used as a global model... many will not buy a religion. Maybe some part of it tho.

Personally, i forsee the rich ending the Jubilee Year idea of redistribution. Like Reagan's cut of dem programs.

but keep on chatting, i keep an open mind.

[zeemike]

62. It ended when the people wanted a king

The whole story is in the bible. But basically the people wanted a king like all the sournding nations. It was originally ruled by judges and so had no opulent palaces and such that would wow the people.
At first the kings up to the time of Solomon kept the Sabbath but after Solomon many of the kings did not keep the Sabbath and the tribes began to squabble and fight one another they broke the social contract, and eventually they were conquered by Babylon and the tribes were dispersed throughout the world. Babylon eventually let the tribe of Judah returned to the land. And that is why there were only Jews in Israel at the time of Jesus.
Yes I do suppose it was a system that the people believed God wanted sense it was given to moses at the time of the Ten Commandments and it was one of the commandments, Remember the Sabbath and keep it holey. But if you study just how it worked you can see that it an economic and social system that is very stable as long as it is kept.

[muriel_volestrangler]

65. Remember that the Old Testament as we know it

probably dates from around 600 BC, and so its description of what was happening 400 years earlier may not be all that accurate. eg

"The time of Joshua was followed by a period of 200 to 300 years during which the Israelites were a loose confederation of twelve tribes, each occupying its own territory. There was no central leadership, but from time to time a Judge arose to help one or more tribes face a common enemy. The Judges were heroes, such as Deborah, Samson, Gideon, et al., and the book of Judges told their story. Religious tradition holds that this book was written mostly by Samuel, the last Judge, around 1000 BC. The scholarly view is that many of the stories are older--again, some scholars find traces of the J- and E- authors of the Pentateuch--and were handed down from generation to generation. Somewhere around 600 BC, the collection of stories was compiled and edited, with some re-writing. The framework into which the separate stories are set is consistent with the principles of the Book of Deuteronomy and bespeaks a common hand."

http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mbible2.html

[zeemike]

67. If it is logical

And appears to be a workable system does it make any difference to you whether it comes from pure fiction or a true historical account?
But there is sufficient evidence for me to believe that the Torah was passed down to us virtually unchanged, by scribes who painstakingly copied it accurately.

[muriel_volestrangler]

61. The problem with a system based on everyone inheriting land

is that families that grow end up with smaller and smaller amounts of land per person. These will, at some point, become unable to support them. The members of those families will always be starting off as poorer than those from smaller families.

You need an economy where the advantages of specialization, mass production and technological advance can (a) have something productive for the excess population to do, and (b) apply these advances to agriculture so it can feed the growing population. Or you could have your system with rigid population control.

[zeemike]

63. Is it really true?

That land can be farmed better through industrialization and consolidation?
How much farm able land is in the US, and how much would each person have if it were divided?

[muriel_volestrangler]

64. Well, some things like irrigation are easier to do

on a large scale - either as a cooperative effort, or by a large landowner. If the land is to revert to the descendants of the original owners every few years, and be divided up between the more numerous descendants, the cooperation is less easy to get done - people will be less willing to put time and money into a project they know won't benefit them (or who they choose as their inheritors) in the long term.

Larger farms can also afford to own their own heavy equipment; a system of renting heavy equipment might be able to overcome this.

I'm not sure about the US figures; if you did want to divide up all land equitably now, you'd have to take into account the productivity of the land, as well as its area.

[zeemike]

66. As long as there has been farming

there has been co-operative effort between neighbors. And that is what you are talking about.Any large scale effort would be taken on by a group of neighbors.
I looked it up there is almost 1 billion acres of farm land in production today if you divided it up among the 300 million of us , man woman and child each would have 3 acres. it is possible to raise and feed a family on that amount of land.
But you could still sell your land if you wanted to. It is just that you could not sell your children's inheritance, and so each generation can sell its land or keep it and live there.

[muriel_volestrangler]

69. Effectively under your system, you can lease out your land

until the next jubilee, but not sell it. This may or may not work - some African countries do have a system where there are no permanent private owners of land. People do question whether land development is happening at the rate it would with permanent ownership.

The USA may have 3 acres per person; the old 15 member EU had a population of about 380 million, and about 321 million acres of farmland. Remember that the USA is underpopulated compared with most of the world.

[zeemike]

70. It is not my system

I just spent some time examining it in the Bible after reading an article by some Jewish Rabbi that expounded on it much more than I can here.
This was over 20 years ago and so I cannot remember his name but it was an amazing analysis that I researched in the bible after reading it.
The amusing thing is that religious people are the ones most opposed to such a system even though they know that it was god ordained.
They have latched on to the notion, as most of us have, that in order to own land it must be forever. That anything else is just renting because you have to not only buy property from a person, but all of there offspring as well.
But just a note that this system of perminate ownership was still in Israel, but it only applied to land in the cities. So when you bought property in a city it was forever, just like now.

[Cats Against Frist]

19. No -- there hasn't been

And someone mentioned Ayn Rand.

I think the ideological right has gotten a little too big for its "britches," and is projecting Rand-ian theory onto our framers. This is bad and this is wrong.

The Randian society is just one piss away from being fascist -- even though it claims to be rational. It involves the Nietzsche superman model with psychological practices of "splitting" and "projection."

True story. Rand and Smith and this guy name Galt (I think) run amok on the right -- and they're trying to stake their ideological claim to our entire government. When you ask yourself -- besides evangelicals, separatists and the dumb -- who the hell is voting for the GOP?

It's people who've let bad philosophy and theory take them on a fantasy joy ride. Rand is concerned with completely eradicating mysticism, altruism and communalism from society -- but the framers were very concerned with virtue -- and if they imagined that today's right was based on Rand's bullshit, they wouldn't be none too thrilled.

This is how the right is trying to stop the left's claim to altruism in society. It started out with intellectuals -- but it's filtered all the way down through Rush, and being fed to the plebs at an alarming rate.

Dark days are ahead indeed -- for they are not framing these things as theories, but with absolutes and absolutist claims.

True story. Do some googling.

[bigbillhaywood]

32. Check this out. Asshole USA Today a couple of years ago did a whole

feature article on Ayn Rand. They actually claimed that "Atlas Shrugged" is considered the second most important book ever written-- to the Bible! I can think of several contenders for that title: The Koran, Communist Manifesto, Capital, The Torah, Rousseau's Discourses--but Atlas Shrugged wouldn't even make the top 25. Jesus, these idiots thought Ayn Rand was more important than the founder of capitalist theory himself, Adam Smith. God, the media are such assholes.

[Cats Against Frist]

36. Thing is

it may turn out to BE the most important thing, if the right isn't put in check. It would be a terrible thing to see America marched into right-wing totalitarianism at the hands of Ayn Fucking Rand. Thing is though -- I am confident that this will not happen. The GOP will eventually have to reconcile its opposing philosophical forces: the Randian model has no use for the Evangelicals' mysticism and God. Unless the GOP manages to transform all religion into its bastardized nationalistic, capitalistic toy -- which it is working very hard at doing.

If they can't manage to work the two into one convenient ideological idea, the GOP coalition will dissolve. If they can, they will march us toward fascism. And I'm not being alarmist.

[zeemike]

39. Right you are

But the thing is that Ayn Rand is dead, and she can be morphed into a spiritual profit by the RW idealist so gently that the fundies will never notice that she was really an atheist.
Remember that he that controls the present writes the history of the past.

[Cats Against Frist]

42. Definitely

And it took me a while to figure this all out -- maybe I'm slow or something -- that while Smith provides the economic system, Rand provides the personal philosophical system by which it can be "absoluted" into a worldview.

Rand, to me, seems to suffer mainly from the same kind of built-in flaw that postmodernism suffers from: that if you're simply dealing with reason, ANYTHING can be reasoned, including the necessity of a just society.

If you follow the RW "memes" though -- it all kind of comes back to Rand and fundamentalism. And I think they've done PLENTY to "soften" the message of Jesus Christ -- and they will try to keep it together.

This is one of the bright spots if Bush wins the elections. The fundies are going to start demanding payback for their loyalty. The corporatists will have to decide how long the leash should be on the fundies. If it's too long, it will, I hope, enrage Ralph Nader's "100 million" untouched by extremist ideology voters. If it's too short, the fundies will walk out on the GOP. Maybe.

[bigbillhaywood]

40. Ayn Rand: Spoiled rich heiress, just pissed that the commies seized

her family's assets. And I don't think you're being alarmist.

[MundoQueGanar]

50. This is most certainly capitalism.

I'm not sure what you mean by "true" capitalism, but as for the real deal...as the commercail used to say, you're soaking in it!

Capitalism in its essence tends toward monopoly. It reached the stage of imperialism about 100 years ago. Wars are fought to maintain these empires, and are genreally an expression of inter-imperialist rivalry--as is this war.

The US were slipping in relation to the other imperialist blocs, and they can't accept that. So they went for a global power grab, in support of which there is universal consensus among the ruling class, including the section of the ruling class that backs Kerry. In fact, a new consensus may emerge in which the ruling class decides that Bush has outlived his usefulness, or that keeping him around may provoke the masses to rebellion, in which case they'll slide Kerry in with no problems whatsoever. Kerry has after all, adopted the Bush agenda whole cloth with regards to foreign policy and the majority of the domestic policy as well.

So yeah...that's capitalism.

[Djinn]

52. capitalist system

shouldn't provide so much public money for private gain though surely? if the corp's can't hack it the market should see them off to obscurity in other words?

[bigbillhaywood]

53. Hey Mundo...

You see what I mean now. You need to be schooled on how to operate here. You RCPers should take a note on organizational tactics from the WWP. I totally disgree with their political philosophy, as I do yours, but the WWP has thier organizational shit together. Although, I gotta give you guys credit for Refuse and Resist-- that was working OK for a while.

Patience, grasshopper. I wish I was a far left organizational cadre embedding myself in DU-- I'd be good at it. Unfortunately, I'm just a far leftist who likes wasting his time debating on DU.

Mods, I would've PMed this, but it said I couldn't do it when I tried. Anyways, it's beddy bye time.

[MrPrax]

54. NO /nt

[oscar111]

58. S.Korea-Conglomerates are most of the economy

I only briefly heard of this, but look into s. Korea. some conglomerates are a very high percent of the total economy.

I see the natural progress of a C economy to be larger and larger conglomerates , until one old man in a NYC penthouse owns eveything, as in a scifi movie.

Since both sides lie a bit in politics, perhaps the only reliabe thing is theory, not eco data from current history.

If you allow data in, try comparing the MOSTLY capit. states against the MOSTLY non-capit. states, to evaluate each system. One really need not find pure cases. Go to the section of a college library, that has introductory textbooks for courses on POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Yes, capitalism is both political system and an economy. Every economy gives birth to a polity that agrees with its ideas. PS every church is also a political party, to some degree.

Human Nature: anthropologists found nothing fixed about it, except Reciprocity, and the mother-son incest taboo. All else is programmable by tradition. Outrageous acts will be acceptable, if a kid is raised to think they are normal. {like south sea islands, tossing folks into a volcano}.

[Seabiscuit]

59. "Has there ever been a true capitalist society"?

NO.

[AP]

68. In the EU, they're very committed to creating an efficient well-oiled...

...marketplace, based on capitalism.

They're take monopolies more seriously than any government in the history of the world (IIUC) and they're truly comitted to providing a level playing field on which EVERYONE can compete fairly, regardless of race, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, etc.

I predict that Europe is going to catch fire soon -- it's really going to create a ton of wealth and distribute very equitable among its citizens.

It's interesting to me that all the measures that they take to prevent one nation from dominationg will translate into preventing corporate domination. In other words, the thing that would seem to be its greates weakness (unity, multiple cultures and languages) will become its greatest strenght -- it will be the foundation of its committment to not let any one government or entity dominate all the rest.

In the US, for centuries we let white dominate black, men dominate women, the rich dominate the poor, etc., becuase culturally, we felt that these groups really weren't equal (and there has always been a huge opportunity cost in the time it takes for society to realize that this thinking is wrong).

Europe won't have that problem at all.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

71. Yes. They call it the Mafia.

Complete with investors, speculators, enforcers, and the usual cast of parasites found in Corporate America.