Giving thanks... for capitalism

[Little-Acorn]

Yes, actually, it is.

Actually that's exactly what capitalism is: An economy where ordinary people can make and act on their own decisions without interference by government or other coercive thugs.

Capitalism is, in a word, freedom.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Yes, actually, it is.

Actually that's exactly what capitalism is: An economy where ordinary people can make and act on their own decisions without interference by government or other coercive thugs.

Capitalism is, in a word, freedom.

No kids, it isn't. It's why we like to say that we stand for spreading Freedom, Democracy, and Capitalism around the globe. They are separate things, very.

 

[Contumacious]

Capitalism isn't freedom dummy. Learn it.

In a Capitalistic society you are not free to force me to feed, clothe, or insure you.

That taxes you pay fix that little problem.

National DEBT 17 TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTrillion and counting.
Again, when will you and your parasitic ilk move to Havana, Caracas, Somalia or any other socialist paradise?

We founded the nation, it's ours not yours. Let me know if you need help packing.

"we"? The pilgrims were hard working individuals who subscribed to the work ethic.

There were no welfare state politicians in the 1700's. You would have died of starvation.

.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Capitalism isn't freedom dummy. Learn it.

In a Capitalistic society you are not free to force me to feed, clothe, or insure you.

That taxes you pay fix that little problem.

National DEBT 17 TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTrillion and counting.
Again, when will you and your parasitic ilk move to Havana, Caracas, Somalia or any other socialist paradise?

We founded the nation, it's ours not yours. Let me know if you need help packing.

"we"? The pilgrims were hard working individuals who subscribed to the work ethic.

There were no welfare state politicians in the 1700's. You would have died of starvation.

.

This country was founded by Liberal Elites, the same kind that I am, only I'm 230 years smarter than they were. And it was not founded for your kind, the ditch diggers.

 

[Contumacious]

In a Capitalistic society you are not free to force me to feed, clothe, or insure you.

That taxes you pay fix that little problem.

National DEBT 17 TTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTrillion and counting.
Again, when will you and your parasitic ilk move to Havana, Caracas, Somalia or any other socialist paradise?

We founded the nation, it's ours not yours. Let me know if you need help packing.

"we"? The pilgrims were hard working individuals who subscribed to the work ethic.

There were no welfare state politicians in the 1700's. You would have died of starvation.

.

This country was founded by Liberal Elites, the same kind that I am, only I'm 230 years smarter than they were. And it was not founded for your kind, the ditch diggers.

Listen Dingle berry the only resemblance between you and the CLASSICAL LIBERALS" is that you have elbows.

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

.

 

[bripat9643]

Elites only pretend to care about you while they line their own pockets.

Who taught you the workin' man hero crap? Pretty funny actually. And I don't care that you're a child who hates having decisions made for him. They are and they will continue to be. That's the real world little man.

Adults make their own decisions. Preferring to have others make them is the mentality of children.

Adults understand how governments and regulators work, which leaves you exactly where you belong, watching cartoons.

The apparently you're not an adult because you don't understand how governments and regulators work. You actually think government regulations are created for your benefit. What a joke!

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Elites only pretend to care about you while they line their own pockets.

Who taught you the workin' man hero crap? Pretty funny actually. And I don't care that you're a child who hates having decisions made for him. They are and they will continue to be. That's the real world little man.

Adults make their own decisions. Preferring to have others make them is the mentality of children.

Adults understand how governments and regulators work, which leaves you exactly where you belong, watching cartoons.

The apparently you're not an adult because you don't understand how governments and regulators work. You actually think government regulations are created for your benefit. What a joke!

Sometimes. Often they are used to decrease competition by protecting well-established business interests. Like all human things, they are tools. It's how you use them that matters.

 

[Little-Acorn]

Listen Dingle berry the only resemblance between you and the CLASSICAL LIBERALS" is that you have elbows.

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

Please don't feed the trolls.

 

[georgephillip]

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

Have you noticed any changes to American society since the days of the founders? The Industrial Revolution promised to end the need for human toil; the machines would provide. That day has arrived for millions of US workers, but capitalists think they earned all the wealth that has been produced over the last two centuries. Without labor capital would never have come into existence.

 

[bripat9643]

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

Have you noticed any changes to American society since the days of the founders? The Industrial Revolution promised to end the need for human toil; the machines would provide. That day has arrived for millions of US workers, but capitalists think they earned all the wealth that has been produced over the last two centuries. Without labor capital would never have come into existence.

The industrial revolution didn't make any promises to anyone, so no one has anything to complain about.

Labor has received about 70% of all the wealth created by the economy, so quit whining and STFU. Without capitalists capital would never come into existence.

 

[kaz]

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

Have you noticed any changes to American society since the days of the founders? The Industrial Revolution promised to end the need for human toil; the machines would provide. That day has arrived for millions of US workers, but capitalists think they earned all the wealth that has been produced over the last two centuries. Without labor capital would never have come into existence.

"Labor" is not socialist. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems. The difference for labor is:

1) In a capitalist system, labor is free to strike it's own best deal. They can hold their employers accountable because if their employer stops being their best option they can fire their employer and go wherever they want and negotiate a better deal.

2) In a socialist system, labor is there to make politicians all powerful and fabulously wealthy They are stuck with government as their employer because if their employer sucks, all other jobs in the end are still working for government.

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Other than that there is no similarity between you and the Founding Fathers and the rest of the colonists. Without a welfare politician at your beck and call, you would have frozen to death.

Have you noticed any changes to American society since the days of the founders? The Industrial Revolution promised to end the need for human toil; the machines would provide. That day has arrived for millions of US workers, but capitalists think they earned all the wealth that has been produced over the last two centuries. Without labor capital would never have come into existence.

"Labor" is not socialist. Capitalism and socialism are economic systems. The difference for labor is:

1) In a capitalist system, labor is free to strike it's own best deal. They can hold their employers accountable because if their employer stops being their best option they can fire their employer and go wherever they want and negotiate a better deal.

2) In a socialist system, labor is there to make politicians all powerful and fabulously wealthy They are stuck with government as their employer because if their employer sucks, all other jobs in the end are still working for government.

You have no understanding of socialism and your capitalism is weak at best.

 

[frigidweirdo]

We still hear the whines and fears of liberals who believe that an entire nation full of people working mostly for their own good, can never coalesce to form a nation where the good of all is overall increased steadily, day after day, year after year.

Available evidence indicates otherwise. 200 years' worth.

A timely reprint, slightly updated.

----------------------------------

Jeff Jacoby
Giving thanks for Capitalism

by Jeff Jacoby
Nov. 27, 2003

Today, in millions of homes across the nation, God will be thanked for many gifts — for the feast on the table and the company of loved ones, for health and good fortune in the year gone by, for peace at home in a time of war, for the incalculable privilege of having been born — or having become — American.

But it probably won't occur to too many of us to give thanks for the fact that the local supermarket had plenty of turkey for sale this week. Even the devout aren't likely to thank God for airline schedules that made it possible for some of those loved ones to fly home for Thanksgiving. Or for the arrival of "Twilight Saga, Part 2" at the local movie theater in time for the holiday weekend. Or for that great cranberry-apple pie recipe in the food section of the newspaper.

Those things we take more or less for granted. It hardly takes a miracle to explain why grocery stores stock up on turkey before Thanksgiving, or why Hollywood releases big movies in time for big holidays. That's what they do. Where is God in that?

And yet, isn't there something wondrous — something almost inexplicable — in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?

To bring that turkey to the dining room table, for example, required the efforts of thousands of people — the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks — from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was wrapped.

The activities of countless far-flung men and women over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one — or more likely, a couple dozen — waiting. The level of coordination required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.

No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan. No one rode herd on all those people, forcing them to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn't have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn't a miracle, what should we call it?

Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" — the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

It is commonplace to speak of seeing God's signature in the intricacy of a spider's web or the animation of a beehive. But they pale in comparison to the kaleidoscopic energy and productivity of the free market. If it is a blessing from Heaven when seeds are transformed into grain, how much more of a blessing is it when our private, voluntary exchanges are transformed — without our ever intending it — into prosperity, innovation, and growth?

The social order of freedom, like the wealth and the progress it makes possible, is an extraordinary gift from above. On this Thanksgiving Day and every day, may we be grateful.

This would be the same Capitalism that sees China undercutting US jobs and Republicans moaning about how they want this sort of thing to stop?

 

[PaintMyHouse]

We still hear the whines and fears of liberals who believe that an entire nation full of people working mostly for their own good, can never coalesce to form a nation where the good of all is overall increased steadily, day after day, year after year.

Available evidence indicates otherwise. 200 years' worth.

A timely reprint, slightly updated.

----------------------------------

Jeff Jacoby
Giving thanks for Capitalism

by Jeff Jacoby
Nov. 27, 2003

Today, in millions of homes across the nation, God will be thanked for many gifts — for the feast on the table and the company of loved ones, for health and good fortune in the year gone by, for peace at home in a time of war, for the incalculable privilege of having been born — or having become — American.

But it probably won't occur to too many of us to give thanks for the fact that the local supermarket had plenty of turkey for sale this week. Even the devout aren't likely to thank God for airline schedules that made it possible for some of those loved ones to fly home for Thanksgiving. Or for the arrival of "Twilight Saga, Part 2" at the local movie theater in time for the holiday weekend. Or for that great cranberry-apple pie recipe in the food section of the newspaper.

Those things we take more or less for granted. It hardly takes a miracle to explain why grocery stores stock up on turkey before Thanksgiving, or why Hollywood releases big movies in time for big holidays. That's what they do. Where is God in that?

And yet, isn't there something wondrous — something almost inexplicable — in the way your Thanksgiving weekend is made possible by the skill and labor of vast numbers of total strangers?

To bring that turkey to the dining room table, for example, required the efforts of thousands of people — the poultry farmers who raised the birds, of course, but also the feed distributors who supplied their nourishment and the truckers who brought it to the farm, not to mention the architect who designed the hatchery, the workmen who built it, and the technicians who keep it running. The bird had to be slaughtered and defeathered and inspected and transported and unloaded and wrapped and priced and displayed. The people who accomplished those tasks were supported in turn by armies of other people accomplishing other tasks — from refining the gasoline that fueled the trucks to manufacturing the plastic in which the meat was wrapped.

The activities of countless far-flung men and women over the course of many months had to be intricately choreographed and precisely timed, so that when you showed up to buy a fresh Thanksgiving turkey, there would be one — or more likely, a couple dozen — waiting. The level of coordination required to pull it off is mind-boggling. But what is even more mind-boggling is this: No one coordinated it.

No turkey czar sat in a command post somewhere, consulting a master plan. No one rode herd on all those people, forcing them to cooperate for your benefit. And yet they did cooperate. When you arrived at the supermarket, your turkey was there. You didn't have to do anything but show up to buy it. If that isn't a miracle, what should we call it?

Adam Smith called it "the invisible hand" — the mysterious power that leads innumerable people, each working for his own gain, to promote ends that benefit many. Out of the seeming chaos of millions of uncoordinated private transactions emerges the spontaneous order of the market. Free human beings freely interact, and the result is an array of goods and services more immense than the human mind can comprehend. No dictator, no bureaucracy, no supercomputer plans it in advance. Indeed, the more an economy is planned, the more it is plagued by shortages, dislocation, and failure.

It is commonplace to speak of seeing God's signature in the intricacy of a spider's web or the animation of a beehive. But they pale in comparison to the kaleidoscopic energy and productivity of the free market. If it is a blessing from Heaven when seeds are transformed into grain, how much more of a blessing is it when our private, voluntary exchanges are transformed — without our ever intending it — into prosperity, innovation, and growth?

The social order of freedom, like the wealth and the progress it makes possible, is an extraordinary gift from above. On this Thanksgiving Day and every day, may we be grateful.

This would be the same Capitalism that sees China undercutting US jobs and Republicans moaning about how they want this sort of thing to stop?

Theirs is rather different, and it's working, but the GOP has no more idea what the hell to do about that then they do anything else. All they have is Blame Obama.

 

[initforme]

Without regulations capitalism could never exist because it would quickly turn into a polluting at might plutocracy. Things would get so skewed against the average hard working person that we would go back to labor camps. That I truly believe with all my heart. Thank god for regulations.

 

[georgephillip]

2) In a socialist system, labor is there to make politicians all powerful and fabulously wealthy They are stuck with government as their employer because if their employer sucks, all other jobs in the end are still working for government.

Not all socialist systems require government ownership of the means of production as the following exchange points out:
"3. This is to say, then, that who predominates in state, economy and society, which has been the position of various socialists and communists, from Lenin to Lange and Sweezy, is not what differentiates capitalism from socialism?

"Yes, exactly. What differentiates a systems is, as Marx showed, 'how the surplus is pumped out of the producers.' If the surplus producers themselves collectively (i) determine the size of the surplus they produce, (ii) appropriate it, and (iii) distribute it socially, then you have socialism or communism as clearly differentiated from capitalism in which the surplus producers are precisely excluded from making that determination or that appropriation or that distribution.

4.From the perspective of Marxian class analysis you employ, what was the nature of Soviet economy and society..."

Richard Wolff on Capitalism and Socialism An Interview with C. J. Polychroniou Professor Richard D. Wolff

In the US a tiny minority of elites determine how the surplus that's produced by all workers gets distributed; these elites resort to buying and selling politicians in order to maintain their places in society.

There are alternatives.

Mondragon Corporation - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Thank god for regulations.

You got that right. Without those the system collapses even faster but in the end it always will. That is its nature.

 

[initforme]

Excessive greed will be its true killer

 

[georgephillip]

Excessive greed will be its true killer

"We can’t say Karl Marx didn’t warn us: capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction.

"In their chase for ever higher profits, the capitalists shed workers for machines. The higher return on capital means that the share of profits rises and the share of wages falls, and soon the mass of the population isn’t earning enough to buy the goods capitalism produces.

"And that’s exactly what’s been happening over the past four years of the Great Recession: ever increasing income inequality, leading to ever weaker aggregate demand – temporarily disguised by an unsustainable credit binge – leading to collapse.

Karl Marx Was Right Intelligence Squared

 

[PaintMyHouse]

Excessive greed will be its true killer

That and the inability to create additional value. Eventually, the house of cards comes down.