Capitalism can not eradicate poverty

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
It's relevant to the nonsense that socialism/communism failed. It didn't, it was attacked by foreign parties and fell under that pressure.
Isn't the inability to protect and preserve your system from outsiders failure?

Heck, you could say Nazism was a success except for them meanies attacking it.
 

HarperCons

Council Member
Oct 18, 2015
1,865
74
48
Isn't the inability to protect and preserve your system from outsiders failure?

A failure of the ideology itself? Of course not.

Heck, you could say Nazism was a success except for them meanies attacking it.

Nazism never was a success in any sense of the word and you've got communists to thank for stomping out that bankrupt immoral fascist ideology.
 

HarperCons

Council Member
Oct 18, 2015
1,865
74
48
You're suddenly denying the USSR was communist ? hmmm.

Communists do something good = not actually communist
Communists do bad = definitely communist

got it
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
You're suddenly denying the USSR was communist ? hmmm.

Communists do something good = not actually communist
Communists do bad = definitely communist

got it
Suddenly? The USSR was an authoritarian socialist state that paid lip service to communism.

Have you ever read Das Kapital? Or any other communist philosophy? By Marxist standards, the USSR wasn't communist.
 

HarperCons

Council Member
Oct 18, 2015
1,865
74
48
Regardless of how accurately the Soviets followed Marxism, Communists still fight against fascism to this day. The Marxist-Leninist party in Turkey for instance, have been battling ISIS and the terrorist Erdogan regime. You won't find a communist that isn't vehemently opposed to fascism, misogyny, racism, or any type of marginalizing of minorities.

The U.S Invasion of Grenada.





What’s the purpose of it? Capitalism would not collapse if Grenada remained revolutionary. And Reagan was right, it wasn’t a matter of direct resources that you needed from that country. He said, “Nutmeg is not the question.” I mean, that was Grenada’s biggest export, we could get perfectly good nutmeg from Africa, you don’t need Grenada’s nutmeg. So why did they invade Grenada? They invaded Grenada because they were serving notice to the people of the Caribbean, and to the people of Latin America, and to the people of the world, that you cannot drop out of your client-state free-market system. That if you tried to take an independent source, and that if you use your land, your labor, your resources, and your capital, and your markets in a different way, in a collectivist way, if you use them to benefit the needs of your people, rather than to be milked like a cow for foreign investors, if you do that, this is what’s going to happen to you.
Michael Parenti
 

right to left

New Member
Oct 14, 2015
12
0
1
Hamilton
I've been scrolling through this thread and haven't noticed a clear argument that capitalism can eradicate poverty. But, I'm finding lots of attempts at diversion.....well, the commies were worse etc.....which doesn't address the merits/or lack of merits of capitalism!

We do know that capitalism left unrestrained, can do an effective job at concentrating the wealth among a tiny privileged minority....according to a new report from Credit Suisse....

This top layer, defined by the report as “high-net-worth individuals,” is itself divided very unequally, as shown in a second pyramid: 29.8 million with assets of $1 million to $5 million; 2.5 million with assets of $5 million to $10 million; 1.34 million with assets of $10 million to $50 million; and finally, 123,800 with assets over $50 million.
These 123,800 “ultra-high-net-worth individuals,” as the report calls them, are the true global financial aristocracy, exercising decisive sway not only over banks and corporations, but over governments and international institutions as well. Of these, nearly 59,000, almost half the total, live in the United States. Another quarter live in Europe (mainly Britain, Germany, Switzerland, France and Italy), followed by China and then Japan.

“There are strong reasons to think that the rise in wealth inequality since 2008 is mostly related to the rise in equity prices and to the size of financial assets in the United States and some other high-wealth countries, which together have pushed up the wealth of some of the richest countries and of many of the richest people around the world. The jump in the share of the top percentile to 50 percent this year exceeds the increase expected on the basis of any underlying upward trend. It is consistent, however, with the fact that financial assets continue to increase in relative importance and that the rise in the USD (US dollar) over the past year has given wealth inequality in the United States—which is very high by international standards—more weight in the overall global picture.”........................

Far from demonstrating the health of the US economy, this disproportionate growth of the super-rich resembles the spread of a cancer that is rapidly metastasizing, with fatal consequences for the entire social organism.
Never have the rich increased their wealth so quickly as in America since the financial crash of 2008. But side by side with the amassing of previously unthinkable private fortunes, the infrastructure of America is crumbling, education, health care and other social services are starved of funding, and the living standards of the vast majority of the population, the working people who produce the wealth, are declining.
http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2015/10/14/weal-o14.html
and:
Far from demonstrating the health of the US economy, this disproportionate growth of the super-rich resembles the spread of a cancer that is rapidly metastasizing, with fatal consequences for the entire social organism.
Never have the rich increased their wealth so quickly as in America since the financial crash of 2008. But side by side with the amassing of previously unthinkable private fortunes, the infrastructure of America is crumbling, education, health care and other social services are starved of funding, and the living standards of the vast majority of the population, the working people who produce the wealth, are declining.

Somebody needs to point out that "financial assets" can increase irrespective of what happens in the real economy, because they can be created out of thin air! Most of our money in circulation is created through the creation of new debt obligations. And, as long as economies continue to grow year after year, the creditor is payed back with interest. And that increase in money supply is not inflationary as long as the economy continues to grow.

So, what happens when the realities of life in a finite world bring constant economic expansion to an end? Judging from the global picture, it seems that we may be finding out very soon. Sure hope there's a backup plan to capitalism which can keep economies functioning without growth. Because the growth we've been reading about in the last couple of years looks like derivatives ponzi schemes and fake economic numbers.
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
I've been scrolling through this thread and haven't noticed a clear argument that capitalism can eradicate poverty. But, I'm finding lots of attempts at diversion.....well, the commies were worse etc.....which doesn't address the merits/or lack of merits of capitalism!
The merit of capitalism is simply that it has proven time and again to be the hands-down worldbeater at generating invention, innovation, and economic growth.

Also, as I've pointed out, "poverty" is not an absolute. It is relative to the society in question. An impoverished Canadian or American would be a well-to-do to wealthy Somalian, Venezuelan, or Pakistani. "Poverty" is merely where one is on the scale, and there's always a scale.

Further, "capitalism" is every bit as much a fiction as "communism." There is not, and has never been, a purely capitalist economy.

Which ties into. . .

Finally, capitalism is not intended to eradicate poverty. That's not its function. So accusing it of not eradicating poverty is like saying a power drill is defective because it can't cure cancer.

In the real world, capitalist societies do better at elevating the material circumstances of the poor because capitalism tends to create a bigger pie, so even those getting the smallest pieces get more. But the redistributive function of societies is not capitalism, nor part of capitalism.
 

HarperCons

Council Member
Oct 18, 2015
1,865
74
48
I would guess, if anything, capitalism could be a cause of poverty. :)
that is the hard truth that gets consistently ignored or denied by liberals.

The merit of capitalism is simply that it has proven time and again to be the hands-down worldbeater at generating invention, innovation, and economic growth.

This is a lot of nonsense liberal idealism. Capitalism has done nothing to create innovation.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitalism-smith/

Also, as I've pointed out, "poverty" is not an absolute. It is relative to the society in question. An impoverished Canadian or American would be a well-to-do to wealthy Somalian, Venezuelan, or Pakistani. "Poverty" is merely where one is on the scale, and there's always a scale.

This is just such a pathetic argument i see all the time. i also don't know how it's in defense of capitalism either because those third world countries are only poor because of capitalist exploitation.


Further, "capitalism" is every bit as much a fiction as "communism." There is not, and has never been, a purely capitalist economy.

If it's not purely capitalist, what else is it? let me guess, you think social welfare programs are socialist?

Socialism means but one thing, and that is the abolition of capital in private hands, and the turning over of the industries into the direct control of the workmen employed in them. Anything else is not socialism, and has no right to sail under that name. Socialism is not the establishment of an eight-hour day, not the abolition of child labor, not the enforcement of pure food laws, not the putting down of the Night Riders, or the enforcement of the 80-cent gas law. None of these, nor all of them together, are socialism. They might all be done by the government tomorrow, and still we would not have socialism. They are merely reforms on the present system, mere patches on the worn out garment of industrial servitude, and are no more socialism than the steam from a locomotive is the locomotive.
- Daniel de Leon 1908


Finally, capitalism is not intended to eradicate poverty. That's not its function. So accusing it of not eradicating poverty is like saying a power drill is defective because it can't cure cancer.

Uh, yea except nearly every capitalist apologist says Capitalism does eliminate poverty. You're right, it's not intended to do so, it very clearly doesn't. It IS intended to enrich capitalists at the expense of the lower classes however.

In the real world, capitalist societies do better at elevating the material circumstances of the poor because capitalism tends to create a bigger pie, so even those getting the smallest pieces get more. But the redistributive function of societies is not capitalism, nor part of capitalism.

Capitalist nations have such an abundance of wealth from the exploitation of foreign countries, the exploiting of their national resources and their labour, that poorer people in the first world sometimes get some of the crumbs of the "pie". How is this a good defense of capitalism, and how does it make capitalism better at any other system?
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
that is the hard truth that gets consistently ignored or denied by liberals.



This is a lot of nonsense liberal idealism. Capitalism has done nothing to create innovation.

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/03/socialism-innovation-capitalism-smith/



This is just such a pathetic argument i see all the time. i also don't know how it's in defense of capitalism either because those third world countries are only poor because of capitalist exploitation.




If it's not purely capitalist, what else is it? let me guess, you think social welfare programs are socialist?

- Daniel de Leon 1908




Uh, yea except nearly every capitalist apologist says Capitalism does eliminate poverty. You're right, it's not intended to do so, it very clearly doesn't. It IS intended to enrich capitalists at the expense of the lower classes however.



Capitalist nations have such an abundance of wealth from the exploitation of foreign countries, the exploiting of their national resources and their labour, that poorer people in the first world sometimes get some of the crumbs of the "pie". How is this a good defense of capitalism, and how does it make capitalism better at any other system?
I'm sorry, arguing with true believers is a game for idiots. Which I'm not.

Y'all have a real nice day now, hear?
 

HarperCons

Council Member
Oct 18, 2015
1,865
74
48
You may not be an idiot, but you sure as hell don't know much about capitalism or socialism/communism. neither do most people for that matter.
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
You may not be an idiot, but you sure as hell don't know much about capitalism or socialism/communism. neither do most people for that matter.
More than you do about either, because you deliberately reject more than half of what there is to know about either. You're an ideologue. No different from the freaks who say all government is bad and refuse to comprehend that government is not only often good, but essential. You reject facts that don't fit your theories, a fundamental mistake.
 

AnnaG

Hall of Fame Member
Jul 5, 2009
17,507
117
63
The reason communism fails is the same reason capitalism fails - humanity. Ideologies are nice but when you see the bottom line, it is always that one human wants power over another and "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". - J Dalberg-Acton. He also said, "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern". One can fit any ideology wherever the word "class" sits in that comment as well.

The problem ideologues have is their failure to acknowledge that humans are fallible.
 

Ludlow

Hall of Fame Member
Jun 7, 2014
13,588
0
36
wherever i sit down my ars
More than you do about either, because you deliberately reject more than half of what there is to know about either. You're an ideologue. No different from the freaks who say all government is bad and refuse to comprehend that government is not only often good, but essential. You reject facts that don't fit your theories, a fundamental mistake.
I agree.
 

Tecumsehsbones

Hall of Fame Member
Mar 18, 2013
60,484
9,598
113
Washington DC
The reason communism fails is the same reason capitalism fails - humanity. Ideologies are nice but when you see the bottom line, it is always that one human wants power over another and "power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely". - J Dalberg-Acton. He also said, "The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern". One can fit any ideology wherever the word "class" sits in that comment as well.

The problem ideologues have is their failure to acknowledge that humans are fallible.
That and the fact that "pure" anything doesn't work.