Can Capitalism be replaced ?

[Robert Maxwell]

Why can't you fight both at the same time? You shave a couple percentage points of the unemployment rate through Keynesian stimulus, that's great, but at the same time you've left the remaining unemployed to drown in misery. Long-term unemployment, as it currently exists in the US, is not something people recover from easily--if they recover at all. We should do whatever is possible to soften that blow while at the same time encouraging hiring.

It sounds like you are saying the government can't multitask. Why not?

Gee, I am one of the guys on the left who is for stuff like basic income so I am not opposed in any way to the welfare state. We have overdone it a bit in Europe in the past but you guys are certainly in dire need of more and not less welfare.

All I am trying to say is that social security destroys work incentives whereas expansive monetary and fiscal policy are relatively unproblematic unless you drive up inflation expectations or don't reduce your public debt in the boom. The forme issues is also ideologically hotly debated whereas the latter is more of a technical macroeconomic issue. Sure, the stimulus has also been pissed upon by the right and there are the lunatic zero-inflation libertarians but precisely because it is about fairly technical stuff it is not as ideologically mined as a more concrete issue like food stamps.

I know you're not opposed to the welfare state, and perhaps it has been overdone in Europe. I'm just saying what we have in the US is pretty damn pathetic--unless you are a senior, then it is just somewhat less pathetic.

Unfortunately, here in the US our political options for "economic stimulus" are limited to tax cuts and, um, spending cuts. Yep, that's pretty much it. Republicans have sold the lie that Obama's stimulus was an expensive failure, so that sort of thing is off the table for the foreseeable future. You can imagine my frustration.

 

[horatio83]

Yep, the right is winning the ideological battle while the left was unable to pressure the centrist president into doing the right thing. It is not like Roosevelt did what he did because he had balls of steel, he was pressured by the public into doing the right thing. The job of a democratic citizen is not to vote the best man into office. Most leaders are mediocre at beast. The job of a democratic citizen is rather to force the powers that be to do the best thing. You could call it the Nixon factor, a staunch anti-liberal who was forced to implement liberal policies.
In the first half of the last century it took long until the pressure from the streets had an impact. It won't happen faster today. As a friend of mine once remarked, we are not going onto the streets because we are too well-off. While protests like Occupy got rid of this identity politics nonsense (of course I am for the struggle of women, LGBT folks, ethnic minorities and so on but the major battleground has to be the economic one) and were a sign that the Old Left might reemerge it were mainly middle class people who went onto the streets. It also takes the underclass, an underclass which is rightly disillusioned by this arrogant middle-class Third Way type of centre-left we currently have. Or to say it with Crhis Hedges, "they [Harvard academia] liked the poor, but didn't like the smell of the poor."

 

[Garak]

Capitalism can't be reformed. Every partial stabilization within a single country is undermined by changes in world economy. Capitalism as a world system cannot be made into a true global polity withou creating a global empire because capitalists rely on their national state to defend their property, which means repress the workers. The clash of nations advancing their bourgeoisie's interests is called "war." Between this murderous imperative and capitalism's inability to either regulate population or to rationalize its ecological interventions, the continued triumph of capitalism will lead to new forms of barbarism.

Also, China is heading both for a major economic collapse and a ferocious civil war that will kill millions. No doubt this will be regarded as a small, small price to pay. Anti-Communists have always regarded the deaths of millions in their crusade with great self-satisfaction.

Communists. And they wonder why they can't be taken seriously.

 

[horatio83]

I am not a communist but this post neatly reveals the problem of most forms of anti-communism: its marriage with anti-intellectualism.

 

[marksound]

Is there anything in the future that could replace Capitalism?

No.

Capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. Profit potential motivates people to build and grow. Competition prods entrpreneurs to stay one step ahead.

Everything we have in the modern world was built either directly or indirectly through competition in the marketplace.

There is no better system ever conceived by humans.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. Profit potential motivates people to build and grow. Competition prods entrpreneurs to stay one step ahead.

Everything we have in the modern world was built either directly or indirectly through competition in the marketplace.

There is no better system ever conceived by humans.

Slavish devotion to a single ideological worldview is rarely healthy, and usual counterproductive, because it stiffens innovation and suppresses entrepreneurship through the elimination of competitive forces.

A capitalist, especially a capitalist, should know that.

 

[E-DUB]

China, regardless of what it says on the label, can no longer be regarded as a communist state. It's marriage of state and corporate interests qualifies it as "Fascist".

 

[marksound]

Capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. Profit potential motivates people to build and grow. Competition prods entrpreneurs to stay one step ahead.

Everything we have in the modern world was built either directly or indirectly through competition in the marketplace.

There is no better system ever conceived by humans.

Slavish devotion to a single ideological worldview is rarely healthy, and usual counterproductive, because it stiffens innovation and suppresses entrepreneurship through the elimination of competitive forces.

A capitalist, especially a capitalist, should know that.

Yeah, ok. Trying to build up your post count?

 

[EmoBorg]

China, regardless of what it says on the label, can no longer be regarded as a communist state. It's marriage of state and corporate interests qualifies it as "Fascist".

i agree with you on that. China practices state capitalism nowdays. It is a marriage of businesses and government. In order for the chinese communist party to stay in power, it will stroke the flames of nationalism. Mixing state capitalism with Chinese nationalism will result in a Fascist type of government in China soon.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Capitalism encourages entrepreneurship and innovation. Profit potential motivates people to build and grow. Competition prods entrpreneurs to stay one step ahead.

Everything we have in the modern world was built either directly or indirectly through competition in the marketplace.

There is no better system ever conceived by humans.

Slavish devotion to a single ideological worldview is rarely healthy, and usual counterproductive, because it stiffens innovation and suppresses entrepreneurship through the elimination of competitive forces.

A capitalist, especially a capitalist, should know that.

Yeah, ok. Trying to build up your post count?

Just pointing out the obvious logical fallacy in your post. I post enough crap on this board to ever worry about my post count.

On the other hand, maybe you should think things through instead of getting snippy when you get called on your sloppy and ideologically-blinded reasoning.

 

[sidious618]

Capitalism can and will be replaced. No one form of economy has lasted forever and it'd be foolish to think that capitalism will.

 

[E-DUB]

I know there have been threads before about "Trekonomics" and I'm not looking to go down that route again, but if anybody ever invents something like the replicator a lot of traditional economic thinking will be quickly defenestrated.

Don't think it's not possible, 3D printing technology is getting A: better and B: cheaper every day.

 

[Thestral]

I'd rather it isn't, it's given me such a feast over the years.

 

[{ Emilia }]

I'd rather it isn't, it's given me such a feast over the years.

You, me, both.

 

[EmoBorg]

Is there anybody here with science background (my background is engineering), who can explain if it is possible for matter to be converted from one state to another state technologically like those replicated items in star trek.

Matter differ from each other in terms of density and arrangement of the atoms. If such a matter conversion technology can come into play in the future, the economic system will be changed forever. Matter conversion technology in the hands of government will lead to the decline of private corporate enterprise. Will that be a good thing or bad thing? Will that lead to a new form of socialism based on technology? I am person of the left so i am kinda for it.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Demonstrating the possibility of the replicator will either coincide with, or else probably immediately lead to, its invention.

So, the short answer is that, no, no one can explain if it is possible. If someone could, then I'd get ready for there to be a lot of replicators around in your lifetime.

 

[horatio83]

I know there have been threads before about "Trekonomics" and I'm not looking to go down that route again, but if anybody ever invents something like the replicator a lot of traditional economic thinking will be quickly defenestrated.

Don't think it's not possible, 3D printing technology is getting A: better and B: cheaper every day.

This doesn't imply that you suddenly live in a post-scarcity world. Replicators are still costly to produce and energy is not available at zero cost either. Out on the frontier some starship might be engaged in a conflict on dilithium.
Sisko once mentioned transporter rations so what has changed in Trek is not merely technology but also the attitude of people. You need acceptance for something like rations, you need people to stop always wanting more. In econ-speak we see in Trek a change of technology as well as preferences.

 

[E-DUB]

I think, and I could be wrong here, that Sisko's mention of "transporter rations" may have been a reference to his time at the academy and that such "rationing" may simply have been applicable to cadets.

 

[horatio83]

True but if it is rationed for cadets it is most likely also rationed for ordinary citizens. Hard to imagine that cadets are worse off than civilians.
The other options are that you have to pay for it or that you have to rationalize your demand for a transport in some bureaucracy and in my opinion they to do not sound very Trek-ish.

 

[EmoBorg]

True but if it is rationed for cadets it is most likely also rationed for ordinary citizens. Hard to imagine that cadets are worse off than civilians.
The other options are that you have to pay for it or that you have to rationalize your demand for a transport in some bureaucracy and in my opinion they to do not sound very Trek-ish.

The UFP alway struck me as a European Union/NATO type of grouping. The individual planets in UFP do have a lot of autonomy just like the states in the EU. Maybe the UFP helps with technology, planetary defense and gives assistance in emergencies but the planets are free to run their own affairs. Perhaps the UFP constitution help guarantee each planet's autonomy.