Fox News is as famous for being conservative and one sided as CNN is famous for being liberal and one sided. Glenn Beck is bent on convincing America that socialism is bad and it's being brought on by the liberal government. He talks about "what makes this country great" etc... but can we sustain this conservative idea of capitalism forever?
I'm going to use an odd analogy here so bear with me. I'm a Trekkie, like so many others I watch Star Trek in it's many different flavors whenever I can. The world of Star Trek could be considered a socialist world government (they've rid themselves of the need for the accumalation of wealth and generally all work for the betterment of mankind) and yet I've never heard anyone complain that this idea is absurd or bad. Granted it's a kind of utopian socialism that's all but out of reach for our generation or our children's generation but why is socialism constantly bombarded by those that cling so tightly to "what makes America great"? Should we not strive for this type of World? If you follow Star Trek, you know that humanity had to endure 100+ years of war to achieve this utopian socialist society...I'm hoping that we don't have to go that low to achieve some or all of this ideal life.
That aside, those that talk about the American way being lost are stuck in the past. In order to be great we cannot allow ourselves to be stagnant and wallow in the ideas of those long dead. Let's be the leaders we think we are and write our own future.
Minneapolis, Don't Forget to Miss Me
4 years ago
Posts
12 comments:
Really? Fantasy is just that. No Socialist society has ever flourished. Human nature goes to the lowest common denominator and people become lazy and expect handouts. The entire system is guaranteed to collapse eventually.
Capitalism has never had the chance to succeed. Even the "republicans" who tout capitalism call for it with restrictions. That would not be capitalism.
Laissez-Faire Capitalism will always succeed if allowed to do so.
Call it what you will but some of the ideals of Star Trek are solid. Whether we can or want to reach those ideals is a different story. If you want to call it socialism fine, if you want to call it Bob that's fine too but the fact of the matter is no socialist society has ever been true socialism. The same can be said for capitalism as well.
It's irrelevant, what I'm asking for is change from the norm. We can't keep expecting our economy to sustain the ever increasing inflation, there has to be an end. How much can a gallon of gas cost? How much should a movie cost? Will we be paying $20/seat for a movie in the future? You could argue that a true capitalist society wouldn't tolerate $20 for a movie but what if we were all making 3x what we make now? Would that make it ok? If everything is relative then shouldn't we reduce our economy to some kind of least common denominator?
That's probably not the right way of saying that and I'm having a hard time trying to explain what I meant so hopefully you'll "get it".
There are two issues at hand for the costs. The first is that our money is based on an arbitrary number and has nothing backing it. That is causing the inflation to continue to climb.
The second is that the government is so involved in every aspect of our lives that the economy doesnt have the ability to reduce to a common denominator. If the government would butt out and things like taxes would go away, you would see the costs (as well as our incomes) decrease dramatically. Things would become more affordable and quality would improve.
We should have this conversation over a good cigar, but theres no place to smoke one :o)
Tell me you just didn't go "there" with the smoking comment!?!?! Funny.
As far as your first point goes, I agree. If there's no base behind the paper money then there's no reason to stop inflation. The problem is, people's income rarely climbs as fast as inflation.
The second point is far more complicated as I'm sure you are aware. You can argue that government as gotten out of hand (I would agree) but in the same breath I could argue that only government can fix it.
You can't just take away governmental control without serious repercussions down the line. Private industry is often times no better. Charging outlandish prices for a service or product just because you can is no justification. Just because the market can bear it doesn't mean you should gouge people. Private industry is about making money, if they get their hands on a, previously controlled by government, service they will without question try to make a profit. This is not a bad thing so don't misunderstand me but it's when they try to increase prices slowly, imperceptible to the masses that these industries get out of hand. Ironically, competition only makes this worse, especially when said industry is market controlled. I've never seen a competitive private industry where prices have actually gone down. At first the competition lowers prices but eventually one of those companies fails and the other is free to raise prices again.
And the kicker.... It is impossible for someone to "charge outlandish prices because they can". Take government out of it ( I know, broken record) and someone else will charge less allowing for competition. Price gouging would be impossible and if a company went out of business and the market could bear it, another would take its place.
Take a competitive market like tobacco (its what I know). Prices remain low (excluding taxation) until government intervened and created "minimum prices" to help the little guy. All of the little guys than went out of business and the prices climbed. If controls were removed, more store owners could stay in business and prices would be more reasonable. You can apply that to any industry.
It is impossible to name an instance of price gouging where government hasn’t been involved.
What about the little guys? What about the small computer shops being put out of business by Best Buy and the likes? Not saying there is anything wrong with that but when there's nothing but one big guy left there's a problem. Luckily, there is internet shops that have no need for storefronts that keep the big guys in check but, at least in Minnesota, there is no more competition for Best Buy. CompUSA-gone, Circuit City-gone, and even places that sell other things like movies or music are slowly disappearing in response to Best Buy dominating the market.
Hardware stores are another industry where large competitors have all but eliminated the smaller guys. Home Depot, Menards, and Lowes all fight for your business which is good for us but what happens when Menards fails, Lowes fails and Home Depot is all that's left? Who's going to step in as another competitor after seeing the other giants fail?
There has to be some regulation, some form of control or what we end up with is one restaurant, one hardware store, one movie rental place, etc... This is, of course, the extreme but you get my drift. This has happened and the fallout is not yet complete.
As an aside, I like shopping at the few remaining Ace Hardware shops. You can find the off-size nuts and bolts there among other things. Hanks Hardware recently went under due to market pressure and, of course, the big boys.
I am sure I am mis representing what you said, but are you saying that CompUSA and Circut City are little guys?
As far as the little guys, are you telling me there are no small businesses that sale and service computers? We have Best Buy here, but there are computer shops on every corner. Home Depot and Lowes are thriving here, but so is ACE Hardware, and I dont expect to hear anyone saying "now all resturants are Taco Bell (movie referene)'.
If you really want to have a fun conversation, we could mention that I also think corporations are a major problem because they wouldnt exist in a true capitalist society. Now that sounds like fun!
No, CompUSA and Circuit City are the big guys that compete with Best Buy. It wasn't really Best Buy's problem that they went out of business but now that they're gone there really isn't any direct competition. On account of the market I seriously doubt any company will show up to take up the competitive spirit with Best Buy.
There are a few computer shops here but a ton of them have gone out of business because they don't have the capital to compete with those that do. But that's really not the issue.
So you think corporations, big and small, would not exist in a capitalist society? Just the term corporation or do you mean "large companies"?
Corporations are falsely created by government. They take the responsibility away from the "owner" and make them an entity unto themselves. The accountability is taken away. All of this was done with government intervention.
In capitalism, a company would only grow to the size the market would allow it to. As it got bigger, others would join in until the market stabilized. Monopolies and "Big Business" would be virtually impossible.
That's interesting but there are some corporations that do tremendous good...Medtronic, for instance. We make it our business to save lives. If we weren't allowed to incorporate, the lawsuits would have crippled us long ago and our founder would never have felt safe to grow a technology that has huge potential to save lives.
Even I incorporated to protect my personal assets when I had my own business. No way was I going to allow myself to get into a situation where a lawsuit could take everything I own. The same goes for Medtronic, I can't imaging going to the shareholders to pay for the companies debts/lawsuits.
Good or bad, Capitalism has no place for corporations. Your comment is absolutely accurate. People have gone outside of capitalism to create safe havens which put more power in the hands of government.
The lawsuits are another matter all together. Our legal system has gotten out of hand. Simply by making the losing party responsible for all legal fees, lawsuits would drop almost instantly. Furthermore, there are so many laws on the books, no one knows all of them. If the legal system were reformed, most of our other problems would cease to exist.
(kind of rambly, but its a Monday damnit)
Post a Comment