Capitalism: Is it Working?

[Something completely different]

not true.

19th century society wasnt the kind of place where you could simply move from one place to another. Most of the land was still owned by nobles and landlords, who drove the people who lived on it of the land to make profit through breeding sheep.
Most famous example being the clearance of the highlands in Scotland.
The only country which avoided this was France, where the nobility had been recently made literaly headless - hence industrialisation in France took mainly place through the state, which avoided the mass poverty each other European country had, but is partialy responsible for creating the blobbed up buerocratic state owned industrial mess France suffers under today.

My apologies. I confess I had the USA too much in mind in my thinking.

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Please further elaborate.
By my definition of words, a participant in tha capitalist system is a capitalist - but you stated that capitalism doesnt provide ethics - are you contradicting yourself or did I miss something?

Workers participate in capitalist systems, as well, selling their labor, knowledge, and services. I'm not getting what this has to do with economic systems not providing ethics. Ethical systems provide ethics.

Why by "participants"????

I don't understand the question.

Since when is capitalism the central theme which defines a society????

I don't know. I don't recall claiming that capitalism is the central theme which defines a society. I've claimed that it's an effective system for maximizing economic growth, and I would modify that with the caveat that this is in comparison to other systems we've tried. It's easy to imagine technological advancements that could replace it with something more efficient. It's harder to imagine a better economic method with current technology, because if I could I'd be backing that horse. And I don't think capitalism is a marvelous system some genius came up with, I think it's what happens when people have a convenient medium of exchange and a certain amount of freedom to exchange goods and services and invest in future productivity. It's what happens when central planning goes below a certain level. It's like science in that it can help you get what you value, but it can't legitimately tell you what to value.

Not true. Wealth inequality stayed widespread well up to the 1950s

Wealth inequality isn't the same as lack of wealth. If my income goes up 10% and my boss's income has gone up 90%, I am not less wealthy than before. I'm not saying that extreme wealth inequality is fair, just that it doesn't mean poor people's standards of living aren't improving.

The factors contributing to the social standerds becomeing more equal are numerous - but in my opinion the most importent was neither the free market nore workers movements - but the reform of the political arena which allowed everyone to participate in it - thereby making social concerns importent for catching votes.

I tend to agree. It helps to have a lot of wealth in your country when you're ready to do that, though.

It is a blind assertion to state that the early movements would have shut down the factories. Are you an expert in creating accurate alternative history models???? Remember - the most importent concern of the earliest workers rights movements werent even wages nore the right to form unions - but the basic right to vote - which was only given to people who owned land.

Cheap labor is a major part of what drove industrialization, just as it is today in developing countries. In combination with stable politics it attracts investment. Cheap labor and rule of law is far more likely to kickstart a poor nation's economy than rich natural resources, to the point I consider particularly precious resources like oil, gems, and gold to be an economic curse for an undeveloped economy, as they encourage economic reliance on the resources rather than on the people.

I agree that the right to vote couldn't come too soon, and it's shameful that it didn't; but historically, only more power makes the powerful share theirs. And capitalism played a role in workers having more power. A peasant can always be replaced by the next peasant over from a feudal lord's point of view; but skilled workers can wreck you by not showing up for work because it can take months or years to train their replacements. Violence was done to force them to work, but it couldn't overcome their will and power in the long run. It could have happened differently, the people have more power than they often think they do, and rulers are always riding a tiger they hope won't realize it's a tiger.

Wrong, our economic system depends on sweatshops and cheap labor - which is why companies in Bangladesh and China have an interest in the politics of labor there. It is the bigger profit that counts in economics and not social change. Proof of which can be seen all throughout the third world: It was Reagan and Tatcher who proposed the idea that through economic liberties will come social liberties - and see today - the same countries which opened to the free market then are still not offering social liberties.

If it weren't for technological advances I see coming, I would project that Western economies will slow down as developing countries advance their economies, making cheap labor less cheap. Africa is the last source of millions of people who will work cheap because they don't yet have the skills to command better wages. Because of its nature of maximizing market efficiencies, a much smaller difference between the economic activity level of countries is coming...if they can manage to make the transition before cheap labor becomes obsolete.

Some of which, such as China are even moving away from the sweatshop lable and participating in the free market by producing products they developed themselves - do in the end: capitalism does not bring democracy - if anything it brings stability to regimes since it legitemises them as trading partners and gives them a chance to legitemise themselves amongst their own people by producing wealth.

Yes, as the country develops, sweat shops become obsolete for the very reasons you outline. As I said before, China's government is wise in implementing capitalism slowly, not only does it smooth out the transition, it allows them to retain their power longer. It won't remain at it's current level indefinitely, although I don't expect China to become an open democratic republic similar to Western ones in my lifetime...with or without capitalism. I don't mind that we disagree, history will tell, eventually. China is certainly likely to remain severely authoritarian longer than Pinochet's Chile after he enacted market reforms.

The biggest magnates werent barons, but successfull people who managed to create a buisness through enterprneurship.

Sorry, I was using a USA-centric expression. Not actual barons, but 'tycoons'. A certain breed in America before the turn of the previous century were often referred to as 'robber barons'. I regret any confusion.

After gaining their wealth the goverments disinterest for social disorder greatly benefited them since equal rights for workers werent given. Non of them were nobles. Other than that, I do not see evidence of the goverment doing any other favores to early industrial magnates and giants other than towards the arms industry. The east India company was actualy even nationalised and so were several companies in imperial Russia.

In America we had great tracts of land that the government gave to railroad tycoons who greased the wheels of congress sufficiently. History would have been kinder if workers' rights were provided sooner.

General goverment policie then was one of non goverment intervention - which is also what caused the great Irish and Indian famines.

That policy seemed to be entirely at the whim of those willing to pay politicians for special privileges. I can't speak to India, but factors in the Irish famine included Catholics having been prevented by the government from owning land until the late 1700s, and Catholics were most of the population. Ireland was a conquered country with a landlord tenant system where most of the landlords didn't even live in Ireland, and this set up the preconditions for disaster. I hate to say it, but England's attitude toward the Irish during the famine smacks more of malice than of laissez faire market beliefs that might have been beneficial if they had been acted on before there was a famine instead of being used to justify halting government relief. Their actions are consistent with a significant faction of the English government wanting as many Irish as possible dead, or at lest a pervasive malevolent incompetence. Given British involvment in India, I wonder if they contributed similarly to the famine there. At any rate, I'm not against government intervention in principle, particularly during a disaster. I'm for anticipating possible unintended consequences of government acton or inaction.

I always wondered what that word meant:


Are you seriously suggesting that the 19th century and verious other societies of tooday live with a medieval social structure?

No, I am not. Wikipedia isn't always our friend in normal conversation. Corporatism also refers to the control of government by large special interest groups, such a large corporations and powerful lobbies.

I find this idea of a goverment which is seperated from a nations economics will somehow create allout wealth to be very similar to marxism in a way: In that it is a prophecy which cannot be proven to be succesfull when applied.

I find that idea curious, too. Capitalism as it is usually conceived can't exist without rule of law and some degree of political stability. I wouldn't build cell towers in a country with no legal infrastructure to ensure that I can collect the charges for my services, for instance. There's a balance: N. Korea is actively hostile to capitalism, I wouldn't want to invest there. Somalia doesn't have the legal structure or stability, too risky. Botswana: just right.

Other than that, it seems to simply be the same kind of word which communists would use when confronted with the horrors of the eastern block, only that you will use it for when confronted with the negatives of capitalism: "Oh but that isnt real capitalism"

If you catch me saying 'that isn't real capitalism', please correct me. I might point out that blame for evil usually belongs to the crafter rather than the tool. I haven't been mentioning one of the most important aspects of capitalism: incentive. It's effective at efficient allocation of resources because it rewards those who do it well. Governments and charities are in a unique position to tap that quality in a variety of ways by offering incentives for coming up with solutions to achieve desired goals one might not ordinarily think of as captialistic, such as hiring a firm to figure out the most effective way to distribute mosquito nets in Mali within a certain budget, with a substantial reward if the method is truly effective. You just have to be careful to know for sure what you're actually incentivizing and have a good way to measure success. That firm will bust its hump trying to figure out how to get mosquito nets to villagers in Mali.

This is not the "real reply"

I am merely doing this so when I come home and look at "recent posts" I am reminded to reply to you again.