Does capitalism promote wasted human energy?

[Robert_Sock]

In what way does it waste energy?

It’s a waste to the degree that the time and energy put into the stock market as a whole could be put to better use promoting higher-ordered values, such as love. Look at all the needless worry that the stock market creates; worry that ultimately interferes with love.

So you want to get rid of the system that works reasonably well in favor of a system you haven’t even thought up yet?

Second, suppose we get rid of the stock market, how would that really help things? After all, I have quite a bit of money in the stock market and if investing in the stock market is banned I will just take my money and put them in stocks traded in Canada, Asia and Europe. How is that going to help the poor here?

I’m a psychologist, not an economist, and I wanted to explore how our world might be improved, especially in terms of increasing love.

LOVE!

 

[Timothysis]

It’s a waste to the degree that the time and energy put into the stock market as a whole could be put to better use promoting higher-ordered values, such as love. Look at all the needless worry that the stock market creates; worry that ultimately interferes with love.

Please explain how we quantify “love.” And how much needless worry is caused by people who are not loved or long for someone to love?

 

[stinkcat_14]

It’s a waste to the degree that the time and energy put into the stock market as a whole could be put to better use promoting higher-ordered values, such as love. Look at all the needless worry that the stock market creates; worry that ultimately interferes with love.

What is unique about the stock market in this regard? After all, my students could be out loving people instead of going to school, should we then get rid of universities? If I was willing to live in a shack, I could work ten hours a week and then spend the rest of the time loving. Should we limit working to ten hours a week?

I do have to take issue with the needless worry claim of the stock market. I have invested in stocks for a couple of decades and it never caused me a minutes worth of worry. I know the risk return properties of stocks so day to day fluctuations are nothing to worry about. Using your logic, people should not have kids since kids also cause worry.

I’m a psychologist, not an economist, and I wanted to explore how our world might be improved, especially in terms of increasing love.

LOVE!

I doubt that the world will be any more loving if there is no stock market. I have been in countries without a stock market and they don’t exude love.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Actually, if your holding period is long enough it is virtually impossible to lose money if you have a sufficiently diversified portfolio.

As the link below shows, even if you bought stocks in 1929 when the stock market crashed and held for twenty years, you still would have made money.

allfinancialmatters.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/SP-500-Rolling-Period-Returns-2013-Edition.pdf

Yes, but we must remember that history need not repeat itself in the future.

LOVE!

 

[nmgauss]

Yes, but we must remember that history need not repeat itself in the future.

That’s what HG Wells envisioned with the idea of “the war to end all wars” . This was written in 1914. Here we are 100 years after the assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand (June 28, 1914) and the history of human conflict has gotten much worse.

How do you intend to solve the world’s problems with love? Is love going to increase the food supply? Is love going solve over-population in third-world countries? How about improving the quality of life for the world’s destitute? How is love going to work towards improving things?

 

[Robert_Sock]

That’s what HG Wells envisioned with the idea of “the war to end all wars” . This was written in 1914. Here we are 100 years after the assassination of Arch-Duke Franz Ferdinand (June 28, 1914) and the history of human conflict has gotten much worse.

How do you intend to solve the world’s problems with love? Is love going to increase the food supply? Is love going solve over-population in third-world countries? How about improving the quality of life for the world’s destitute? How is love going to work towards improving things?

Through love many other virtues are born, such as the desire to cooperate with one another. When we love our neighbor as our self, we care about their well-being and do all that’s in our power to promote it. Solving the world’s problems, if it is to be done, will have a much higher likelihood of success with experiences of higher-ordered love.

LOVE!

 

[stinkcat_14]

Yes, but we must remember that history need not repeat itself in the future.

LOVE!

Is this how you make decisions in psychology? Ignore what has happened in the past and just make up what seems reasonable to you?

 

[Graubo3]

I’m a psychologist, not an economist, and I wanted to explore how our world might be improved, especially in terms of increasing love.

Sadly, I think many politicians are in the same boat as you. Take an Econ 101 class at your local JUCO, it may help in the understanding.

I’m talking about everybody competing against one another, instead of cooperation where all one’s effort goes to the common good. Forming a new business, for example, is a big risk, with a great potential of all one’s energy going to waste. It seems better for a group of people to understand what is needed in society, and combining people’s effort to achieve that goal.

Material is also wasted in our capitalistic, throw-away society. This too results in wasted human energy. It’s ‘planned obsolescence,’ where goods that could last a lifetime, break or wear out far before their time is due.

Capitalism is effective in getting people to produce, and it has played an important role in world growth over the past 200 years or so, but perhaps the time has come to look for a new, cooperative economy. Call me a Catholic lunatic, but I envision a truly spiritual economy where people gladly work for spiritual rewards that come from God Himself. One world under God!

Sadly, again, people with this type of understanding of our economy wonder why they are not hired. Case study the General Motors Company and the “cooperative” UAW along with the quality of said products. While your at it, case study the Detroit metropolitan area as well and maybe the corrollary relationship between GM and Detroit metro.