Death by capitalism (the meme thread)

[Brian37]

Far too much of the time the word "capitalism" is left alone, without clarification, and both the left and right misuse the word. 

It really means nothing more than to seek and "capitalize" off gaining and or selling resources. There is not one government, friend or foe that is not involved on the global market, to some degree.

Communism is a form of government, and communist China ALLOWS the private sector in China, and is why when you go to Walmart you see "made in China" on tons of the products sold there. Fidel Castro had an estimated personal wealth of $800 million. Gadaffi was a billionaire whom owned stock in General Electric. The Saudi Royal family owns oil companies and banks and invests in the global weapons industry.

Capitalism is not something that only exists in open societies in the west. Even in totalitarian brutal states like North Korea, the ruling Kim family ALSO has global investments and would not be able to pay their army to protect them if they did not.

That is not to say I am happy with how the west conducts business, I am not. Even in the west there is an abuse of power and abuse of wealth. But even in saying that, lets not chase utopias ourselves and chase an impossible utopia of ending all private business ownership on the entire planet. That will never happen.

What can happen, is is exposing more and more worldwide that 62 uber billionaires worldwide have the combined wealth of 3 billion of the rest of us. Simply sitting on money and making it only about competing for shareholders to gain profits is counter productive and does not create global stability.

Global trade and the private sector globally is not going to go away. But we can push more of the world to face the fact that it doesn't do the world any good to think wealth is the only important aspect of our species.