Capitalism is a corrupt and festering corpse, yet the maggots can feast for a little while longer

[txlibdem]

Are we mature enough here on DU to discuss this topic? Let's find out...

Nobody wants to admit it or even talk about it. But it is the truth. Capitalism and its puppet governments will topple within the next 20 years.

There are 2 paths that will emerge from the ruins:
1) Despots, dictators and psychopaths take over and the human race eventually dies. Or,

2) The people of all colors, all races, religions, orientations, unite and stand strong for a just and equitable society.

[MasonJar]

1. Greed will bring destruction. Corporations currently only look for massive

profit. There was a time when some industry giants thought of the country and their workers. Well, okay. Not too many, but a few. Deregulation brought out the worst in these greedy manipulators.

[dkf]

2. Exactly whose system is so much more successful than capitalism?

Who are we supposed to be emulating? If there is no one then why was it not successful prior to now?

[RyanPsych]

3. Why do we have to emmulate something?

We need something that is (actually) new. Capitalism is a mess that necessary implodes upon itself. We need something different.

[dkf]

6. My entire working life I have diligently saved and invested and prepared for the day I cannot work.

I have denied myself free spending habits, kept my car for 14 years, delayed buying a place in an overheated housing market, while around me I see people spending freely, eating out, buying clothes and expensive bags and nice cars and exciting travels.

Now you want my investments to mean nothing. Does anything I've sacrificed have meaning? Should I have been enjoying and spending every penny I made?

I have an investment in this system, the only one I know and understand. How do I know what you all are proposing, the obsolescence of all past savings, will provide a secure future for me?

[drokhole]

7. I think people feel this way these days...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHpdYRzeFuE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fD7D-Nkfw-8

[txlibdem]

12. "It's all about me" - how do I know that the new system will protect meeeeeee?

This is the "I got mine: screw you" attitude that has set the path of destruction for Capitalism.

PS, you scrimped and saved? Or you got lucky? Or you took advantage of people to get what you got? How does that make your life any more worthy of saving than the person who caught a disease or got injured or had a genetic disorder, or who didn't have the same opportunities that you had and started life with two strikes against them?

When only a few people are self-centered like that, the current system can absorb their waste. But today it's a vast majority of people who think like that, and that is what will bring the whole house of cards down around your collective heads.

[dkf]

24. You ever read the story of the little red hen?

All the irresponsible of the world want no consequences that is what I see. How many health problems are due to bad behavior? Over eating, sugar sugar sugar, sedentary lifestyle. To those with genetic diseases I can see where life isn't fair, but so much of our problems were within our ability to avoid.

There is no reward for prudent living when all around you people live as screw ups and turn everything to crap.

[txlibdem]

26. straight out of the GOP talking points list, congratulations

I wasn't sure you'd have the stones to actually get them all out in just a few posts. You'd find a much more receptive audience over in freeperland. I highly recommend it to you.

I do appreciate you showing us an example of someone who blames the sick and the old for "bad lifestyle choices."

You're a true American.
:sarcasm:

[creon]

37. Brilliant response

You have not helped yourself with the "sarcasm".

[txlibdem]

39. Sorry, should I have countered with "The Scorpion and the Frog?"

Capitalism is the scorpion, even if everyone in your little sphere (including you) thinks that YOU are the scorpion, in the end you find out that you are just the frog. And you both still drown. Because that (killing you I mean) is what scorpions do: it's in their nature.

[billh58]

28. And you actually believe

that a different economic system will alter people's behavior? You might want to read Orwell's Animal Farm for a little objectivity about human nature and greed.

Capitalism isn't the problem with our society -- neoconservatism and bigotry is the problem with our society. The successful anti-labor, and greed-enabling efforts of the Kristol/Gingrich/Raygun/Atwater cabal of criminals to eradicate 40-years of sound New Deal policies which established a unique American approach to the regulation of capitalism, is the problem. The result is what we have now: unfettered Capitalism driven by neoconservative corruption and greed.

American-style capitalism works just fine when it is reasonably regulated by Democrats and true American Liberalism. Democrats use our legislative system to attempt to achieve a social and economic "level playing field" for those of our citizens who have been disenfranchised, and not the entrepreneurial marketplace.

On the other hand, the Far Left ideology of a pure Marxist Socialistic/Communistic economic system in America is unrealistic. Marxism has been proven to be unattainable, unfair, unworkable, and highly prone to corruption, because those in charge of the economy oversee themselves. Also, Socialist and Communist economic systems do not fit well with a constitutional and democratic political system. If you will notice, the Founders wisely did not include an economic system in our Constitution.

[txlibdem]

36. You said it: the Founders wisely did not include an economic system in our Constitution

Remember we all thought the Communist Chinese would make terrible Capitalists...

[timesup]

32. When I get older...

If this country goes the way of the Reps/Tea Party:
-------
Most of us will have to move to another country with actual fair health coverage.
The Reps want us back to a time when only the rich have anything, and the majority have nothing.
------
We figure we will die working still, I'm enjoying my unemployed golden years in my 40's right now instead, mind you no extravagances, but I don't care, right now it's ok. One income family, we are breaking even at least, which I know is better than plenty.

[jtuck004]

41. Good for you. But millions of people were never lucky, or fortunate

enough, to be paid enough to save anything, not enough to be able to afford a home or even regular food. And they work hard, come home in pain, sometimes give body parts or even their life so some boss or investor could profit from their labor. Yet no matter how hard they work their skin color or their parents or their gender or even their political or sexual orientation, or even just luck allows others to use the capitalistic system to profit from their labor. Unfair? A full third (now perhaps more) of them retire with nothing - nothing - except Social Security for income. Do their sacrifices not have as much meaning as yours?

Thieves in the financial sector recently used the capitalist system to create a Ponzi scheme in which they borrowed vast sums using assets they knew were undervalued to leverage their profits, and when it all came apart their friends in the government rewarded (and continue to reward) them for their bad behavior. Their behavior destroyed the financial lives of millions of people, many of whom made perfectly good loans with good credit scores and good jobs, who saved, were thrifty, drove cars that really weren't that expensive, and whose travels usually meant taking the kids on a vacation where they could learn a bit about the rest of the world. They watched their homes and lives vanish through no fault of their own, while the wealthy profited.

11 million hard-working people, many of whom didn't spend excessively or take "exciting" journeys watched their good jobs be moved out of the country while the other 300 million made it possible by buying those goods at a discount, perhaps because many of them could afford nothing else. But this is how those that run things intend for it to be because a key part of the capitalist system is increasing profits by decreasing expenses. And payroll, (also known as the lives of the people around you), is shown on the books as an expense, not an investment.

This system from which you have profited currently has 40+ million people who need food stamps, (several million of those who work for a living but cannot make enough to stay above the poverty line), some of whom are included in the 20 to 30 million people who are unemployed, underemployed, or simply too disheartened to continue looking for work in a market where there is only 1 job for every 7 to 10 people seeking one. This was on the front page of the paper just a couple weeks ago when McDonalds hired 50,000 people, but turned away nearly a million. (By the way - McDonalds is currently in development where even the low-wage cashier will be replaced by computers that take your order. More profit, less people expense. The holy grail of capitalism).

I understand you are mostly concerned about yourself, (that's not a dig - people are mostly concerned about themselves) and whether you will be treated fairly or that government policies would continue, under some other system, to guarantee that the money you have made (and likely continue to make) from the labor of others will keep its value (you did say from investments). But if making sure that you and the few that have managed to stay on top of the food chain comes at the expense of so may other people, (possibly by avoiding paying a fair share for the infrastructure and people necessary to create that income), maybe a discussion about other ways our economy might be structured is worth having.

Your suggestion that those around you are spendthrifts while you are not reminds me of Reagan and his mythical welfare-cadillac-mother which he used to justify raising taxes on the working people while clearing the way for the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share for the profits they were making. Are there such situations? Of course. Are they the majority or even a significant percentage? No, and it is disingenuous to insinuate that it is. For that matter our system has been purposely structured by those who profit from debt so that it is near impossible to live a life without it, here, and that structure is severely detrimental to those that produce those profits for others to take from them. Like vultures. While you might disagree (back to that self-interest thing again), there might be value to millions of other people in having a discussion that doesn't involve such assumptions.

Just a thought.

[99th_Monkey]

8. see Mondragon in Spain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

Which is what the USA labor movement was all about, before it got all focused
exclusively on "collective bargaining" at the turn of the century (around 1900).

[txlibdem]

14. Mondragon seems like a good first step

[classysassy]

44. Capitalism and its baggage

the concept or aime was and is great but too many criminals use the system to deny others a chance to be included The others you ask? minorities and females.

[pscot]

4. I'll take despots, dictators and psychopaths

for $1000, Alex.

[jwirr]

5. The world is well on the way to number one via disaster capitalism and

the shock doctrine. Even here in the US we are going down that road. As far as I can see it has been a total failure for the people of the nations it has been used in but still we continue marching to the corporate drum.

Not enough people understand how and why we are doing this and I do not see many who are fighting it. I hope I am wrong. I think that we may need the total effects of oil depletion in order to stop these corporations. And even then they will not go easily. They have had their way for far too long. I don't know if oil depletion will even be enough.

[mountainlion55]

9. If you are looking for alternatives

try a resourced based economy instead of a consumer based economy. Mondragon is good model for co-ops. Watch the movie called--Zeitgeist Move Forward. Yes I agree that capitalism SUCKS. :smoke:

[bemildred]

10. #1 is pretty much where we are now, no takeover needed. nt

[felix_numinous]

11. I pick #2

And #1-- change involves destruction and construction. (But I think decommissioning the nukes is critical)

The ones who survive will be really good at composting and recycling
and plants will grow on top of everything.

Rather than teaching kids about a freaking apocalipse, they need to love good stories, and develop their own creativity--and how to deal with brainwashed people.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. Uniting the people of the world would be an incredibly difficult project

Nothing remotely like it has ever been attempted, really. The nearest is probably the development of capitalism since the Second World War, really. There are so many well-entrenched groups in power that forming one equitable society doesn't look likely in the foreseeable future to me.

How do you see it happening? Expansion of the power of supra-national organisations? The nearest to that is the EU, but at the same time you think this will be non-capitalist. Or revolutions in all the countries of the world? Are you saying that the armies will revolt against their governments and help form a planet-wide democracy?

[txlibdem]

15. My crystal ball is in the shop for some minor repairs...

We do have a united world government today. It is controlled by the moneyed interests and they pull all the strings. They wanted a pipeline that connects Turkmenistan to the Gulf: gotta go through Afghanistan... "No problem. Let's make it happen."
http://liesofbush.com/Afghanistan.shtml

My belief is that, when the sh*t hits the fan and worldwide Capitalism comes crashing down *again* for the umpteenth time, the militaries of the world will more than likely side with the citizens of their country versus a group of foreign psychopaths. If we get the word out and keep reminding people of what is really going on, that is the time to act. Much groundwork needs to be done if Democracy is to be reborn.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. Siding with the citizens of their own countries is one thing; all people uniting is another

When things are tricky, it's unlikely people are going worry about world unity. They'll look to stabilising their own corner, with the people they feel they have a lot in common with.

Mind you, if what you're predicting is just another recession/depression (your *again* seems to point to that now), then international action is more likely. I thought you were predicting the end of capitalism, not just another crash.

You talk of democracy being reborn. Is there a period in world history when you think there was more democracy than today?

[txlibdem]

20. Democracy? You're joking, right?

Didn't you vote in a super-majority party who promised they would be on the side of the people and not the corporations? Didn't you vote for a smiling gentleman who gave great speeches promising to close GITMO, end undeserved tax cuts for millionaires and billionaires, etc., etc? If that is what passes for "democracy" today then I'll take the stuff we had in 1934 any day.

And the movement cannot be lead by old farts like me. I'll be there when it all hits the fan but the leaders have to come from the young generation: it is their future that we are selling off to the highest bidder right now.

[muriel_volestrangler]

21. As it happens, no, I didn't, because I'm British

But I'm not asking if the USA is at its democratic maximum (though it's fairly clearly more so than before the sixties, when the Civil Rights Acts stopped Jim Crow discrimination). We're talking about the world here. Most of South America is more democratic than it was 20 years ago; so is Eastern Europe, and the Middle East looks like it's doing better as well. So what is the state of democracy you'd like to see reborn?

[txlibdem]

22. Most of South and Central America have been invaded

by US troops or by rebels that were trained, armed and backed financially by the CIA, some more than 10 times since 1900. That's Democracy alright... Several of those nations were flat out occupied for a decade or more by US troops.

Anyone remember the "Iran Contra" debacle. If you think Columbia is an example of anything but a nightmare for the citizens then you need to read up on the interwebs.

Eastern Europe, now under the control of puppet regimes with suspiciously and conspicuously wealthy individuals pulling the strings and raking in all the profits, the needs of the people be damned. Yee Hah! Hooray for USA Capitalism. "Which puppet do you want to vote for this time?" "It makes no difference to me..."

For the Middle East, who knows how that will end. I am hoping that the states currently in turmoil end up with a system more like Kuwait, where the oil wealth is shared by all the citizens, just as it is in Alaska.

[muriel_volestrangler]

23. But far less invasions/coups, and far more democracy, in South America recently

Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia, Venezuela, Paraguay, Ecuador - all doing a lot better, and with less US interference, than they used to. Colombia may have had a better period in the 1930s than now, but it's in the minority. Remember, I'm the one saying the world is more democratic now than it used to be. You pointing to past US control of them helps make my point. Nicaragua is freer now than when Reagan was trying to overthrow its government.

Eastern Europe: you're really going to claim it was more democratic under the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact leaders? Like Ceausescu?

[txlibdem]

25. You're confusing Democracy with Corporate Domination

The countries you list (with the exception of Venezuela) have had their democratically elected governments overthrown too many times to count. The current situation there is maintained only because CIA trained death squads have kept any nascent uprisings from gathering any steam in those nations. It's Corporate Domination backed up by death squads and tons of CIA black budget cash in those countries. Far from Democracy.

Nicaragua is freer now? You mean now that the CIA-backed contras overthrew a democratically elected government and keeps the population under thumb with CIA-trained death squads??? That's Democracy to you?

As far as Eastern Europe, I repeat my earlier point: just because you get to choose the thief who is stealing everything from you does not mean you actually have rights, nor that your vote changes a thing.

I recommend a healthy dose of google and education in actual history for you. It's all on the interwebs, waiting for you.

[muriel_volestrangler]

27. You may have given up on the South American people, but the rest of us haven't

You're saying they're all backed by the CIA? What rubbish. Just look at what their democratically-elected governments say about the USA. They're highly critical.

And the Nicaraguan president? Daniel Ortega. You're saying he's backed by the CIA too? Ridiculous. He's the one Reagan wanted to overthrow, remember.

You are sounding like a caricature of a die-hard communist, who longs for the old days of the Soviet Union.

[txlibdem]

29. sounding like a caricature

Pot, meet kettle?

"The Contras, who received money, training, and arms from the Argentine Secretaría de Inteligencia and then the American CIA, mounted raids which targeted northern Nicaragua, destroying military bases, bridges, schools, clinics and airstrips. They also attempted to weaken and disrupt the Sandinista government's infrastructure by kidnapping and assassinating those associated with it. A CIA training manual instructed the Contras, under the heading "Selective Use of Violence", to "neutralise carefully selected and planned targets such as court judges, police or state security officials, etc."<68>
... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_squad#Nicaragua

kidnapping
assassinations
killing court judges
murdering police

Yeah. That sounds like Democracy to me...

"These practices ended, however, in 1990, when Nicaragua's civil war came to an end when the Sandinistas were voted out of power."
... from the same link as above

[muriel_volestrangler]

30. Remember, I'm the one saying things are better now

Thanks for pointing to more evidence for that; but it seems a bit of a waste of your time. :shrug:

[txlibdem]

31. Assassinating everyone who stands in your way = things are better now???

I don't think you and I are speaking the same language. Does "better" mean something different in "The Queens English?"

You must have thought everything was just peachy in Haiti under Papa Doc and Baby Doc Duvalier.

[muriel_volestrangler]

33. The year is 2011. You are showing how much worse things were 20 or more years ago

I am wondering about your language, to be honest. I said things are better now in South America than 20 years ago; and you bring up examples of bad situations 20 or so years ago, and you think you're proving your point?

Since you mention it, things are better now in Haiti too; far from fine, but better than under the Duvaliers. This proves my point more.

[txlibdem]

34. Ask the many thousands who were killed what they think -- oh wait, you can't

The dead have no complaints about the current US-backed regime. Well, I find that to be good reason to say everything is just peachy in Nicaragua.

And I'll bet the surviving citizens are "smart enough" to give you the correct answer when you inquire if they love the current government. Memories are long, I would probably only need to witness 3, maybe 4 people hacked to death with machetes before I learned to love Big Brother USA and the puppet regime in Nicaragua.

[muriel_volestrangler]

35. You think the Gaddafi-supporting Ortega is backed by the US?

Just search for 'Nicaragua' in DU search (just look for threads in the Latin American forum) to find out how absurd it is to claim the US is backing the current Nicaraguan government - especially with death squads, as you claimed.

Your posts are completely lacking in logic. You say that because, decades ago, there was a totalitarian govt in Nicaragua, then the current one must be a puppet of the US? :crazy:

[irislake]

16. God I hope that's true.

God I hope the little guys win out. The psychopaths who have been running the show have caused so much suffering.

I lotta lotta blood is gonna be spilt in the coming years.

Brace! Brace! Brace!

[txlibdem]

19. There are millions who will stand with you when the time comes

I envision world-wide strikes, millions staging sit-ins, demanding the dismantling of the Capitalist system and equal rights for all.

Just as the Moon Treaty ensured that the resources of the Moon belong equally to all the people of Earth, I believe we need an Earth Treaty that similarly guarantees the bounty and resources of this Earth be shared equally by all, and that the protection of the Earth is a responsibility shared by all.

[ProfessionalLeftist]

17. "Despots, dictators and psychopaths take over and the human race eventually dies"

That's already happened. We're there.

[Odin2005]

38. The Capitalist Class is a giant parasite sucking the wealth from the population.

[txlibdem]

40. Can Democracy exist without Capitalism?

As one other poster noted, Capitalism is nowhere to be found in the Constitution.

[jtuck004]

42. I may have missed the answer. "Exactly whose system is so much more successful than capitalism?"

Is there an economy out there that really has made life better for so many people, while leaving so many in the ditch?

Is there an economy where the people have held onto a belief that taking care of all is as important as profiting from them at any cost?

Great question you pose, btw.

[The Wizard]

43. Sharks

on a feeding frenzy