Capitalism is an economic system of private ownership and management of production for private profit. It uses a free market where the state has no economic intervention or regulation of prices.
This is seen by many to be the only workable system. It has good goal that most people would agree with:
- everyone should have the opportunity to make profit and be allowed to keep what they have worked hard to produce
- business will control what is produced based on what the market will buy, so there will always be enough for everyone
- any shortages that may happen will produce more jobs in order to fill them
- everyone can give 100% and thereby provide for themselves what they need.
This system seems to be able to continue indefinately, but does it have a dark side?
I still believe that people are basically selfish. So how does that manifest in a Capitalistic system?
Capitalism works because it is a greed based system that appeals to our dark side and uses our greed instead of being destroyed by it. Socialism hopes that all people will be altruistic and it fails as it hits our lazy tendancies. But Capitalism assumes that we are selfish and it uses that to strengthen the system.
- Because I am greedy I will give 100% if I can keep all the profits
- Because I am greedy I will produce what people want because they will pay the most for it and I will make better margines
- Because I am greedy I will try to undercut my competition by being as efficient as I can and that will drive prices down which benefits our customers
The system works well because it understands our nature. But does that have a down side? Sure it does.
To increase my margines I need cheap labour and for that I need a large labour force that is unemployed and desperate for work. Then they will work for next to nothing.
Capitalism will alway seek a large pool of extremely poor people to feed the system cheap labour and thereby increase the margines for the rich.
This is the fundamental flaw of Capitalism. It would work great if everyone was more concerned about their neighbour than they were about themselves but they are not.
Sunday, November 28, 2010
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system of public ownership and management of production for the good of all citizens. It uses a controlled market where prices are set by the state.
If we could get past the negative emotional response to the term "Socialism" that many North Americans have, most people would agree that the goals of Socialism are good:
- it wants to make sure that all people have access to the basics of life, food, clothing, shelter, medical care
- it intends that no one would ever be out of work, since the state would control production, there would always be jobs for everyone
- it would control production to ensure that there was always enough of everything for everyone
- it would set up a system where everyone could give 100%
- it would set up a system where everyone could receive what they need
Socialism is a system that promises the poor that they will no longer be poor as everyone will work together and share together.
Historically, it has been a popular system in many places before it is tried, but it seems to have a very bad record in regard to how it works out. Instead of everyone being rich together, the result is that the common people becomes poorer together. Why?
I believe that people are NOT basically good. We are basically selfish and we all know it from experience even if we want to hope for something better. That does not mean that we cannot ever do good things, but if you take a group of people without controls, they will tend to drift downward.
Under Socialism our selfishness manifests itself as laziness. If everyone is supposed to work their hardest but then they all get the same share, it doesn't take long before the hardest workers notice that the person next to them aren't pulling their weight and yet they still get their share. So the hard workers slacken their pace too. "Why should I work hard and not get anything extra for it?" they think.
This is the fundamental flaw of Socialism. It would work great if the whole group of people were inspired to keep working, but it cannot motivate them and within a few years it starts to show cracks. Within a generation or two, it colapses completely.
If we could get past the negative emotional response to the term "Socialism" that many North Americans have, most people would agree that the goals of Socialism are good:
- it wants to make sure that all people have access to the basics of life, food, clothing, shelter, medical care
- it intends that no one would ever be out of work, since the state would control production, there would always be jobs for everyone
- it would control production to ensure that there was always enough of everything for everyone
- it would set up a system where everyone could give 100%
- it would set up a system where everyone could receive what they need
Socialism is a system that promises the poor that they will no longer be poor as everyone will work together and share together.
Historically, it has been a popular system in many places before it is tried, but it seems to have a very bad record in regard to how it works out. Instead of everyone being rich together, the result is that the common people becomes poorer together. Why?
I believe that people are NOT basically good. We are basically selfish and we all know it from experience even if we want to hope for something better. That does not mean that we cannot ever do good things, but if you take a group of people without controls, they will tend to drift downward.
Under Socialism our selfishness manifests itself as laziness. If everyone is supposed to work their hardest but then they all get the same share, it doesn't take long before the hardest workers notice that the person next to them aren't pulling their weight and yet they still get their share. So the hard workers slacken their pace too. "Why should I work hard and not get anything extra for it?" they think.
This is the fundamental flaw of Socialism. It would work great if the whole group of people were inspired to keep working, but it cannot motivate them and within a few years it starts to show cracks. Within a generation or two, it colapses completely.
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