Does capitalism = consumerism = materialism?

[mandyky]

Is there a way to embrace capitalism without being materialistic and being just a consumer?

In education and healthcare, there shouldn't be this consumer thing. Both are necessities. Same with the environment.

[mdmc]

1. capitalism vs. socialism

capatilism is fine for nike, but bad for health care and education.

[rodeodance]

2. Capitalism in not inherantly bad--but compounded with greed/bottom line

we see what it leads to.

[leftofthedial]

20. respectfully disagree

capitalism is a seductively evil system that will always result in corruption and overconsumption

unless you regulate it to the point that it is no longer capitalism

the prime motivation inherrent in capitalism is one of humanity's basest instincts

without some nearly free resource at the bottom of the foodchain, capitalism fails

[Neil Lisst]

3. yes, it is that way, and will likely remain that way

First people get necessities, then they buy things that look pretty and compete with their peer group for shoes, or shirts, or cars, or something.

[ClassWarrior]

4. Embrace responsible capitalism, and defeat limitless corporatism.

And there are special circumstances - like education, and healthcare, and stewardship of common resources like water - that should NEVER be in the hands of capitalists.

16-5.

NGU.

[The2ndWheel]

7. But they will be

We've seen all through history, that if you live responsibly, you get run over by the people/entity/corporation/government that wants more.

Even if, in theory, there was responsible capitalism, it's still about competition. It's just another word for power anyway. There are always winners and losers. The winners engulf the losers, keep growing, and wait for the next war between centers of power.

It doesn't matter what set of economics are used, it all leads to the same place.

[ClassWarrior]

9. But it's not just the economics. It's a matter of appealing to our...

...higher angels as human beings. That's what's always succeeded throughout history. People of good will who fought for decency. The key is that they need to fight for it. I'm really tired of this idea that if we pick the right government and economic system, we can just put it on auto-pilot and everything will be rosy. Wrong. The key is the human heart.

16-5.

NGU.

[mandyky]

10. That's why programs like the Peace Corps worked

I think America could solve a lot of our problems as well as the world's if we expanded the Peace Corps, helped participants with education costs, and help underdeveloped communities (in the US) and countries around the world.

Also, remember "sister cities" with the Soviet Union? We need to expand that, in and out of our country.

There are plenty of ways to appeal to our higher angels, that we no longer use...

[The2ndWheel]

15. But there are people

who will always want more. Seems that no side actually succeeds. The game board just changes when it's close to checkmate.

[LisaLynne]

5. I think there might be.

However, the tendency seems to be that in the capitalistic system, the emphasis just ends up being placed, by the corporations and businesses, on the bottom line, which in turn makes them want to just sell more and more. How do they do that? By creating more and more desire for products among the people, who become nothing more than "consumers" to them and have no other value in society in many respects. Advertising, using subtler and trickier psychology, starts to create a demand for products that people don't really need and to me, that is where materialism comes in. The entire focus is on these trinkets that we don't need and we assign a lot of things -- like our worth as a person -- to how many of these things we have.

[1932]

6. I think we came to consumerism and materialism more through American

Stalinism than through capitalism.

It really took a lot of anti-capitalism coordination, monopolization, and coopting of the government before a few mighty corporations could reverse the rules of democratic capitalism to put in place the sort of oppression and mind control that drives unneeded consumption. Know what I mean?

[Inland]

8. "Capitalism" is undefined. It's right wing ideology you are thinking of.

But there's nothing about free markets that require materialism or defining people as consumers. One of the great harms of the right wing is that they took a perfectly good science of economics and turned it into a set of moral norms. For example, in economics it is shown that the behavior of a population as a whole can be predicted by presuming a motivation of maximizing profit and consumption. We know that individuals don't always or even often act that way, but all the other motives seem to cancel each other out or whatever. Righties turned that analysis, however, into a moral imperative, that you must maximize profit and consumption. Materilism is normal, greed is good, government is a provider of services, the point of government is to give you more than you put in, that it's your money, and on and on. You ARE what you want. None of that is economic theory.

It's much the same sort of twisting that the conservatives did with Darwin.

[mitchum]

11. They go together like shit, flies, and disease

[Mutley]

12. In a capitalism, all the push will be for people to consume as much as

possible in order to keep the cash flow moving. This is done in obvious ways such as the administration telling us to keep spending, and in not so obvious ways as with the glorification of people who own the biggest and best stuff.

Buy this new car. Buy this big house. Buy these new trendy clothes. Buy a new computer every six months. Buy your kids a Playstation, Gamecube, AND an X-Box ('cause they'll never survive without all three!). Buy this facial cream. Buy this lawn mower. The more you buy, the better person you will be.

We are taught from birth that our value as people is defined by the value of our houses, our cars, our bank accounts, and not by who we are and how we live our lives. We are taught that our sole purpose in life is to strive to be "as good as" those who have the biggest and the best things -- if you don't have those things, you are useless, unworthy of love and admiration. You're not helping to keep the cash flow moving.

But all this is necessary to sustain a capitalism. A capitalistic society depends on its people to spend spend spend. So, I think the answer is no. Materialism is essential to capitalism.

And I agree about education and healthcare. An educated consumer will make more money, and will in turn spend that money. A healthy consumer will also spend more money (instead of sitting in the house being sick all the time, they'll go to the mall!). One would think people would realize that education and healthcare are good for a capitalistic society, but I guess that's asking too much.

[mandyky]

13. Examples of "subtle marketing" to us

as consumers - Remember the investing craze - like Etrade, before the bubble burst?

Now it is refinancing our homes, and I bet you the housing bubble is about to bust.

I try to block out all thos sublminal con jobs they try to pull, but it works on kids. My 9 year old son thinks he absolutely needs things on commercials, like internet service. My hubby owns an ISP, we don't need it. Yikes!!

[Mutley]

17. It takes awhile to be able to tell the difference between the con jobs

and the legit stuff. Personally I think they're all con jobs. ;) But that's just how your son, and most children in this country are raised (not by you personally, by society) to think they need that stuff. They don't simply want it, they NEED it to survive! They NEED it to attract that mate and further their bloodline. They NEED it so people will like them.

It's interesting how it works on your son. Your husband owns an ISP, yet your son is still convinced by the commercials that he NEEDS an ISP. That's the way it works on most people who don't realize the very careful way that commercials are made to convince people they need this junk.

I'm not against capitalism, I like responsible capitalism, if there is such a thing.

[mandyky]

18. My son is autistic so

that may be part of it...

[Mutley]

21. Well, apparently your son's autism has no effect on how the commercials

work, because that's the way it works on most people, too. My niece is eight, she doesn't have autism, but she's the same way in thinking she NEEDS everything she sees on TV. I know a lot of adults like that, too.

[Tsiyu]

14. With checks and balances

and conducted in a society that values education and quality of life and the well-being of all of its citizens, it could be a grand thing.

If consumers are legally protected from negligence and fraud, if children are taught how to spot fraud and how to plan for their economic futures, if parents turn off the TV and actually talk to their kids about what's important; if you have a government that uses the financial benefits of capitalism to nurture an intelligent, healthy, free populace, if you don't have superstition and hatred and boob jobs and SUV's masking as godliness.

Maybe then.

[phoebe]

16. much "consumerism" is a result of being made to feel inadequate - which is

what the advertising companies were created for..

[mitchum]

19. You have nailed it, phoebe...

inadequacy and fear:
fear that you are less of a man if you don't buy this car...
fear that you don't love your family enough if you don't use this floor wax, detergent, etc...
and on and on and on...

Even the shilling for the most "benign" of products is rooted in exploiting a real or (more often) manufactured fear

I find marketers, ad copywriters, advertising gurus, etc. beneath contempt

[mandyky]

22. Kick for the night shift

feel free to nominate

[izzybeans]

23. Nope.

[Phoebe Loosinhouse]

24. Capitalism should be tempered with limited socialism

there are some things that are too big to be handled by strict capitalism - like healthcare and defense. These areas SHOULD be handled by a government and not privatized. Privatization is supposed to lead to competition and lower costs, but because of corruption and concentration does not.

[welshTerrier2]

25. capitalism cannot co-exist with democracy ...

always a slippery slope defining these terms ... i'll simply define capitalism as an economic system that values the amassing of capital ...

consumerism and materialism may indeed be logical outflows from such a system ...

but a much greater peril, is the threat capitalism poses to democracy ... it seems to me that any system that allows the amassing of great wealth, i.e. wildly disproportionate wealth, cannot possibly protect the integrity of democracy ...

and one other issue: capitalism allows wealth to generate wealth ... wealth can be invested to create more wealth ... this creates severe problems and inequities ... understand, i'm not saying there is anything implicitly evil in acquiring wealth ... to the extent that wealth does not interfere with fundamental fairness in a society and does not corrupt its democratic institutions, there is nothing inherently wrong with obtaining greater and greater wealth ...

but somewhere, certainly in this country, a very bad line has been crossed ... some will call for various election law reforms to protect against the corruption of democratic institutions by big money ... these reforms will never succeed ... this is the bastion of liberals ... they believe a little regulation will go a long way ... it never will ...

what is needed is the capping of wealth ... i understand this idea is not currently politically viable ... that doesn't make it any less necessary ... also what is needed is a tax system that taxes unearned income of the very wealthy at much higher rates than earned income ... right now, we do it exactly backwards ... an hour of labor should always be valued much higher than a dollar invested ...

[CatholicEdHead]

26. In the pure, unchecked form it is

but it can be tempered (not easy but possible) to not equal each other.

[sandnsea]

27. Federal corporate protections

There's a reason corporations were supposed to be chartered at the state level, and without any federal protection. Now that they're extra-national, it's even harder to hold them accountable to the people who are supposed to make up a democratic government.