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clintonm
Guest
In a spirit of fairness what that has been talked about recently does deal with Capitalism?
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Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
LOL, good one
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ThomasJMullally
Guest
Capitalism in the 1700’s was designed to smash the trade guilds, who were felt to be too powerful. Mass production was advanced. Even today, a business cooperative formed among many small tradesmen in a region would be considered collusion. On the other hand, nationwide oligopolies among giant corporations, are considered quite legitimate. In your ideal, there is no trust-busting, however capitalism was formed to be anti-trust.
So it seems that what constitutes “competition” is always being gauged and adjusted, and defined in the terms of those with greatest power at the expense of small entrepeneurs. The vast majority of the latter are stymied, and fall into debt.
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freeRadical
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CuteSo, do you want me to try harder, or are you happy in your world?:shrug
Regulations apply to all. They affect those who violate them.
I doubt it.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
Guest
No one “designed” Capitalism.
It began and grew due to free trade. It allowed every one the freedom to choose the work they liked, to specialize in it, to trade their product for the products of others, and to go as far on the road of achievement as ability and ambition will provide.
You can’t say because there simply too many small business very successfully competing with giant corporations. They earn their share of the pie and are happy with that.
Take Apple for example. They control only 8% of their industry. That industry produces hundreds of BILLIONS of $$$. Apple does quite well with it’s 8%.
In today’s “phony Capitalist market” small companies fail because larger companies can influence government to pass restrictive regulations that cost a small company more than they can afford.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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So when do you expect to comply with the latest EPA regulations affecting coal and natural gas fired power plants…???
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freeRadical
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Never. When do you expect to steal, murder, or rape?So when do you expect to comply with the latest EPA regulations affecting coal and natural gas fired power plants…???
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ThomasJMullally
Guest
Hah!! Poor example…
If you don’t think capitalism wasn’t designed and managed for past quarter of a millenium, you are asleep… What you cannot explain is how the introdcution of your pure market is supposed to happen, and how it is supposed to be maintained. Because as you have said, it was tried in the 1800’s in the US, and fell by its own weight.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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If Capitalism was designed and managed…who designed it and, more importantly, who is managing it today? I would really like to get in touch with the “management team”. I have a lot of positive (name removed by moderator)ut they need.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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Never???
I thought you said that Regulations apply to all. You did say that didn’t you. I’m not twisting your words, am I???
You do realize that the EPA is empowered to fine you a lot of money if you don’t comply with their regulations?
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ThomasJMullally
Guest
Didn’t we already establish that there are vested interests blocking any reform that would result in more competition? Why would they be interested in your suggestions? Hah!!
BTW, the entirety of Obamacare was informed by and crafted with the insurance companies in mind. Now everyone must carry insurance, and it is likely that their gross collections will go up 70%- 90% by next year. They could never have achieved this, on their own.
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Zoltan_Cobalt
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Come on…you are just making this up.
What vested interests? Who is “they”?
Who designed Capitalism?
Is there a better reason why the government should stay out of business than ObamaCare.
If what you say it true…it is the perfect example of “phony Capitalism”
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magnet
Guest
Health Insurance companies are more often interested in profits from insuring low-risk people. Obamacare has required them to insure high-risk people. Because they expect much higher cash outflow from high-risk insured claims, they have to increase their premiums. Affordable Health Care is not so affordable if everybody has to pay the premiums for high-risk protection. Instead, the government has instituted a cash transfer system where high-risk poor people can have the taxpayers pay their premiums. I have heard of so-called starving artists limit their income to qualify for government subsidized health insurance. So the incentive is to be poor so that you can get the goodies.
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freeRadical
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I said I don’t expect to comply with EPA regulations because I don’t own a power plant, but if I did, I would have to comply along with everyone else who owns a power plant. The regulation applies to all.
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clintonm
Guest
I think people are confusing Capitalism with a Free Market. In absense of outside influences and regulations, in the absense of government management a free market works by willful exchanges of good and services. Because the exchanges are willful both parties receive a benefit. That is not capitalism. Capitalism is the private ownership of the means of production. That can exist in a regulated market, as in the United States.
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Abu
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As in post #4:
The very term “capitalism” is not necessarily definitive as none other than St John Paul II has taken the trouble to point out.
In *Centesimus Annus *#42, 1991, St John Paul II:
‘If by “capitalism” is meant an economic system which recognizes the fundamental and positive role of business, the market, private property and the resulting responsibility for the means of production, as well as free human creativity in the economic sector, then the answer is certainly in the affirmative, even though it would perhaps be more appropriate to speak of a “business economy”, “market economy” or simply "free economy".’
The very term “capitalism” is a derogatory term coined by Karl Marx, and that’s perhaps why St John Paul II dislikes it, as he makes clear as he emphatically affirms free enterprise in Centesimus Annus.
Since here capitalism = free economy, and reaffirmed by St John Paul II is the ‘fundamental human “right to freedom of economic initiative.” ’ (*Sollicitudo Rei Socialis *(On Human Concerns), Encyclical, 1987, #42), and initiative = enterprise, it is clear what the pope means.
No one, nor any “system”, can be allowed to operate in a society without reasonable safeguards for that society and thus the Catholic way is free enterprise, sound laws, and the morals that maketh the man. The duty of governments is to make wise laws; that’s why we have laws to seek and punish those who steal, cheat, swindle, and to ensure competition.
It is people who commit crimes
The Catholic Late Scholastics taught that some goods must be used to support authority – in the form of taxes. [See *Christians For Freedom, Dr Alejandro Chafuen, Ignatius, 1986, p 61].
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teeboy
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Heads up!!! I never used the word “equal”.
If the market is unwilling, so be it.
The market is always able. The “bailouts” just prevent the market from working like the market is able to work without the “bailout”.
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ThomasJMullally
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Yes, it is the misbegotten mess you are saying. But if you think the large insurers did not sit at the table to draw it up, you are fooling yourself.
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ThomasJMullally
Guest
Excellent point… And by nature in you hold something, you have fenced it off, you are not sharing… you are excluding others. You need the security of the state to protect your property. That is capitalism, and it is not fully congruous with freedom.
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magnet
Guest
If you owned stock in a large insurance company offering health insurance, wouldn’t you approve of representatives of your company being at the table? You want to earn as much profit as you can, don’t you?
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