The End of Capitalism
Posted: Fri Jan 29, 2010 10:26 am
The End of Capitalism and the start of Co-operationism.
Capitalism has failed because as Karl Marx said ?Capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction? and he has been proven right because of an inherent flaw in the capitalist economic model which is that it cannot sustain infinite growth. However this does not mean to say that it has to be replaced by communism or fascism because there are other economic and political models that will work to supply public demand and everything that you need, and more, because a system of co-operation can provide and distribute goods and services more fairly than a system of competition. In a capitalist society the greedy ones get most even though they are in a small minority and the majority of the population get what is left! Economics is just a game where everyone agrees to stick to the rules and it has no inherent reality as a science because of the human factor and the inability predict a human?s actions.
The proof that capitalism has failed is the recent bailing out of the banks by international governments in capitalistic countries. Why because when the banks collapse the country collapses! Tax payer?s money was handed to failing banks or they would have gone bankrupt yet the directors of these institutions still want wages that run into billions!
Both the US and the UK are heavily in debt, so heavily that they can never pay it off. Who have they borrowed the money from? International banks and monetary funds owned by the rich and powerful! Banks love to give anyone credit even countries as well as you the individual because they earn money when you try to pay off that debt plus interest, and if you can?t pay they seize your property and sell it at a profit.
A capitalist economic system relies on infinite demand and the ever growing of that demand and if people don?t spend money on things that they don?t really need then in order to keep the body of capitalism alive then governments around the world have to give your money, taxpayers money to the people so that they will go out and spend it to boost an ailing economy such has been tried in Japan and failed! I suggest that this is an insane economic system that is only staving off the inevitable collapse of capitalism in the near future.
Capitalism is immoral and we can see the effects of it on the grossly overweight people who are an increasing phenomenon on our streets and this is only one negative factor that is immoral in a world where two thirds of Earth?s inhabitants are starving. The ethos of capitalism is simple ?Buy cheap sell dear and use cheap labour to produce goods? and this produces profit.
The danger of a defective system like capitalism is that it can always revive itself by war, destroying itself then re-building and this truism is proven when we look at the aftermath of the Second World War in Germany. Germany had been almost totally destroyed; its factories, its cities and the whole capitalist economic system and there was no supply of goods, no banks, and hardly any housing left standing, the infrastructure, transport , the supply of gas and electricity all kinds of fuel cut off. What happened after this capitalistic country was destroyed? We had the ?economic miracle? as it was totally re-built that in its turn produced millions of jobs and hey presto, the whole capitalistic economic system began to work again, demand quickly revived, houses and so on were rebuilt and it was not long before the banks were full of money again and the whole economic system thriving with the banks lending money to industry to re-build Germany and to people to spend on goods. However the inherent flaw still remained and in a short while since 1945, in less than one generation it is suffering the same malaise as all the other capitalist economic systems around the world, growth is falling off, unemployment is rising and people are not spending enough to create the growth required by these capitalistic societies to continue and that?s why we need to think of another way other than profit, greed and feeding the fat cats, who are the real problem.
Today in 2010 there is one country is Europe that is thriving with growth and spending booming and which did not have an economic meltdown like all the other European countries and that is Albania. Why because it has recently emerged from communism and changed to capitalism and as with Germany after the war when capitalism starts it works well for years until demand and growth tail off and then it becomes inefficient and stops working like today?s capitalist societies that have been around since the 19th Century. Anyone who does not produce goods or services is parasitic upon society and do we really need people who buy and sell money for example? They don?t work to produce goods that we need or give us a service like waiting in a restaurant for example or working to produce things that we need, no all they do is buying and sell money, moving it around the world to where they get the biggest returns.
Bankers are not patriotic and if they don?t get their bonuses here in the UK they will probably move to Switzerland. Big business is not patriotic either and manufacturers build their factories in countries where labour is cheap. The UK was once the the proud manufacturer of many goods and ?Made in England? was a guarantee of quality now it is almost impossible to get anything that is made in England I bought a pair of Reebok trainers once because they had a Union flag on the side but when I looked inside it said ?Made in Taiwan.?
WHAT WOULD REPLACE CAPITALISM?
People would say ?We can?t end capitalism because it supplies all our needs, food, clothing, power, housing and so on. This is wrong and a stupid argument because if all the capitalists were suddenly imprisoned, how would consumer demand be supplied. Well the answer to that is easy. All the food is still there growing in the fields and the cattle and livestock are still alive, the factories are still there that produce the goods that we need and the energy to supply power, nothing has changed people to do the work are still there who are required to produce what we need! But why would anyone go to work if they did not earn money? People would ask and the answer to that question is simple as well. They would go to work to produce the goods and services that they needed.
In fact a lot of human labour in is unnecessary and if modern technology was implemented it could replace the majority of labour by mechanisation, robots would replace most human presence in factories and computers could be operated from home without going to the office. It has not been implemented because capitalism needs unemployment to be created and maintained to drive down wages and perpetuate the capitalist system. The working week could be reduced right now to three days a week and the weekend increased to four days instead of two and production increased .We could do that now and what would we do all day if there was no unemployment and less toil? The answer is simple everyone would spend a lot more time enjoying themselves.
Money is simply a medium of exchange and could be replaced by plastic credit cards and if wealth was equally distributed a co-operative society could produce everything that the people need and more. The fact is society in the UK is becoming more unfair with child poverty sharply rising and the gap between rich a poor growing ever wider. The time for change has come and we can do it if we try and we can do it now. It is time to change the game of capitalism is now and switch to the new game of co-operationism.
Mike Freeman.
Capitalism has failed because as Karl Marx said ?Capitalism carries the seeds of its own destruction? and he has been proven right because of an inherent flaw in the capitalist economic model which is that it cannot sustain infinite growth. However this does not mean to say that it has to be replaced by communism or fascism because there are other economic and political models that will work to supply public demand and everything that you need, and more, because a system of co-operation can provide and distribute goods and services more fairly than a system of competition. In a capitalist society the greedy ones get most even though they are in a small minority and the majority of the population get what is left! Economics is just a game where everyone agrees to stick to the rules and it has no inherent reality as a science because of the human factor and the inability predict a human?s actions.
The proof that capitalism has failed is the recent bailing out of the banks by international governments in capitalistic countries. Why because when the banks collapse the country collapses! Tax payer?s money was handed to failing banks or they would have gone bankrupt yet the directors of these institutions still want wages that run into billions!
Both the US and the UK are heavily in debt, so heavily that they can never pay it off. Who have they borrowed the money from? International banks and monetary funds owned by the rich and powerful! Banks love to give anyone credit even countries as well as you the individual because they earn money when you try to pay off that debt plus interest, and if you can?t pay they seize your property and sell it at a profit.
A capitalist economic system relies on infinite demand and the ever growing of that demand and if people don?t spend money on things that they don?t really need then in order to keep the body of capitalism alive then governments around the world have to give your money, taxpayers money to the people so that they will go out and spend it to boost an ailing economy such has been tried in Japan and failed! I suggest that this is an insane economic system that is only staving off the inevitable collapse of capitalism in the near future.
Capitalism is immoral and we can see the effects of it on the grossly overweight people who are an increasing phenomenon on our streets and this is only one negative factor that is immoral in a world where two thirds of Earth?s inhabitants are starving. The ethos of capitalism is simple ?Buy cheap sell dear and use cheap labour to produce goods? and this produces profit.
The danger of a defective system like capitalism is that it can always revive itself by war, destroying itself then re-building and this truism is proven when we look at the aftermath of the Second World War in Germany. Germany had been almost totally destroyed; its factories, its cities and the whole capitalist economic system and there was no supply of goods, no banks, and hardly any housing left standing, the infrastructure, transport , the supply of gas and electricity all kinds of fuel cut off. What happened after this capitalistic country was destroyed? We had the ?economic miracle? as it was totally re-built that in its turn produced millions of jobs and hey presto, the whole capitalistic economic system began to work again, demand quickly revived, houses and so on were rebuilt and it was not long before the banks were full of money again and the whole economic system thriving with the banks lending money to industry to re-build Germany and to people to spend on goods. However the inherent flaw still remained and in a short while since 1945, in less than one generation it is suffering the same malaise as all the other capitalist economic systems around the world, growth is falling off, unemployment is rising and people are not spending enough to create the growth required by these capitalistic societies to continue and that?s why we need to think of another way other than profit, greed and feeding the fat cats, who are the real problem.
Today in 2010 there is one country is Europe that is thriving with growth and spending booming and which did not have an economic meltdown like all the other European countries and that is Albania. Why because it has recently emerged from communism and changed to capitalism and as with Germany after the war when capitalism starts it works well for years until demand and growth tail off and then it becomes inefficient and stops working like today?s capitalist societies that have been around since the 19th Century. Anyone who does not produce goods or services is parasitic upon society and do we really need people who buy and sell money for example? They don?t work to produce goods that we need or give us a service like waiting in a restaurant for example or working to produce things that we need, no all they do is buying and sell money, moving it around the world to where they get the biggest returns.
Bankers are not patriotic and if they don?t get their bonuses here in the UK they will probably move to Switzerland. Big business is not patriotic either and manufacturers build their factories in countries where labour is cheap. The UK was once the the proud manufacturer of many goods and ?Made in England? was a guarantee of quality now it is almost impossible to get anything that is made in England I bought a pair of Reebok trainers once because they had a Union flag on the side but when I looked inside it said ?Made in Taiwan.?
WHAT WOULD REPLACE CAPITALISM?
People would say ?We can?t end capitalism because it supplies all our needs, food, clothing, power, housing and so on. This is wrong and a stupid argument because if all the capitalists were suddenly imprisoned, how would consumer demand be supplied. Well the answer to that is easy. All the food is still there growing in the fields and the cattle and livestock are still alive, the factories are still there that produce the goods that we need and the energy to supply power, nothing has changed people to do the work are still there who are required to produce what we need! But why would anyone go to work if they did not earn money? People would ask and the answer to that question is simple as well. They would go to work to produce the goods and services that they needed.
In fact a lot of human labour in is unnecessary and if modern technology was implemented it could replace the majority of labour by mechanisation, robots would replace most human presence in factories and computers could be operated from home without going to the office. It has not been implemented because capitalism needs unemployment to be created and maintained to drive down wages and perpetuate the capitalist system. The working week could be reduced right now to three days a week and the weekend increased to four days instead of two and production increased .We could do that now and what would we do all day if there was no unemployment and less toil? The answer is simple everyone would spend a lot more time enjoying themselves.
Money is simply a medium of exchange and could be replaced by plastic credit cards and if wealth was equally distributed a co-operative society could produce everything that the people need and more. The fact is society in the UK is becoming more unfair with child poverty sharply rising and the gap between rich a poor growing ever wider. The time for change has come and we can do it if we try and we can do it now. It is time to change the game of capitalism is now and switch to the new game of co-operationism.
Mike Freeman.