Hi all,
I’m seeing a lot of hate for capitalism here, and I’m wondering why that is and what the rationale behind it is. I’m pretty pro-capitalism myself, so I want to see the logic on the other side of the fence.
If this isn’t the right forum for a political/economic discussion-- I’m happy to take this somewhere else.
Cheers!
I asked my co-admin once if he thought Capitalism was evil, he’s usually extremely careful with his words. He responded with “it might be”.
It seems to have a lot of real problems, wealth inequality, human exploitation, environmental destruction. I think countries that have a mixed system, where it’s part capitalist and part socialist tend to do better in most metrics. I wouldn’t want to live in a country without socialised medicine, socialised education and pretty strict environmental restrictions.
Is this really uniquely true of capitalism? After all, the Chinese government sacrificed their environment (and neighboring countries) to supercharge growth. Then there was the destruction of the Aral Sea by the Soviet Union, one of the worst environmental disasters. I’m not claiming that communism was the cause, but that neither communist nor capitalism was the cause.
Agreed. I have a similar critique of some of the other comments. A lot of people are pointing to problems right now and drawing the conclusion that capitalism caused those problems. No doubt that capitalism was part of many problems but I think it’s flawed to say the problems of today are uniquely caused by capitalism.
I can’t think of a country that is purely capitalistic. They’re usually some mixture of free-market with government intervention where needed. I think the US is in a period of transition but that description will likely hold for the future.
Mixed economy is the term. It’s the almost universal modern economic model, though of course the balance varies widely.
Or communistic, or socialistic, or… But everyone with a bone for one or the other always trots out the fact that there has never been a purely <fill in economic theory> country, while pointing out the faults of some other country that they argue is purely whatever side they don’t like. Seems more constructive to look at countries that have higher life satisfaction, lower ecological damage, or whatever metric you want to use for most good and figure out what makes them work. And then, instead of complaining about how yeah, but it would never work here, try to figure out how to implement what worked.
Thank you for having an answer that is not black/white. Australia seems to have a mix of social and capitlist policies, that has a decent balance. not perfect of course, and it never will be.
I like the idea of socialised public good (health care, etc) but with those capitalist mechanisms for how the markets operate etc. somewhere between the two is the best answer.