The thing capitalists hate most of all is competition. The aim of good business practice is to destroy or absorb competitors.
Where competition does survive it is not based on giving better and more efficient service to customers. Instead it is based on increasing profits.
Banks, petrol companies, supermarkets, all make sure they are doing same things, charging same prices, cutting same costs, in order to ensure they have the same profit results. Whatever one does the others will follow in case that one somehow gets a break. That is they would rather do something they don’t really agree with than run the risk that being different might be the wrong choice. All a bit like a bunch of runners in a marathon, all watching each other, scared to drop back or make a break.
One garage drops petrol price, all others do in case they lose custom. One raises price all others do in case they lose profits. A bank lowers interest rates, all others do in case they lose custom, one raises, others do in case they lose profits. Same with supermarket prices, cars, restaurants, you name it. In a capitalist society competition between companies reduces the variety.
“Now journalism”, I can hear you say, “journalism is different, represents in pure form the capitalist ideal of nature red in tooth and claw producing excellence and variety”. Journalists all out there trying to get the best story. Well, um no.
These days journalists behave like banks. All move together. You don’t get 100 stories, you get one story 100 times. When one journalist breaks a “story”, no matter how puerile, the rest hurry to reproduce the story identically so that none may gain an advantage. Investigating a different side to the story, or, heaven forfend, finding a different story, is far too risky if the rest of the journalist mob doesn’t follow you. There you would be, all exposed, not doing the consensus thing.
Furthermore, where once journalists would check, analyse, investigate the sources of another journalist’s story, in the process producing a different story, now they will not. There is a one for all and all for one mentality, in which you don’t challenge the work of another journalist because they might challenge your’s.
The result is a media which just runs with a single, unverified, story each day. Every story, no matter how poorly founded, becomes “reality” because every media outlet is carrying the same story. Reality quivers, shakes, finally shatters, as the parallel universe of the media constantly runs stories that have at best a tenuous link with the real universe.
And Thomas Jefferson, quivering, shaking, and finally rolling in his grave keeps muttering ”Educate and inform the whole mass of the people… They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty” alternating with “information is the currency of democracy”.
I’m going to have a quiet cry in the corner now. Not a single remedial suggestion to make.
Thanks, David °~°
You’re a fool if you only follow ‘official media’, SMH, ABC, FOX, News Corp etc.
I don’t and a lot of other people don’t.
My sources include, as well as Australia’s ABC, Democracy Now, The Guardian, ProPublica, AlterNet, Amnesty and a handful of others inc Vanity Fair. Too many and my life would be unmanageable.
And good writers and presenters are worth following, even if they’re dead, George Orwell, Christopher Hitchins, Kerry O’Brian, Suzanne Collins.
You probably guessed I’d have a bit of disagreement with you on this one David. I’m not clear if you consider “capitalism” to be synonymous with “free enterprise” but I get the impression you do.
I think a good case could be made that all economic systems are “capitalistic” in nature; they’re involved with capital. The key issue IMO is “Who controls the capital?” With free enterprise, the individual controls their own capital and competition does exist which drives down prices and increases innovation and creativity. As gov’ts exert more authority and individuals lose more control, the market becomes less free and the opportunity for cartels and monopolies develops (with the help of the gov’t) and you get price fixing, less innovation and all the things you & I both don’t like about the heavily regulated economic system.
Look closely at the world’s most rigidly regulated economic systems and you see more of all the things you don’t like. The greater the economic freedom, the greater the benefit to the greatest number of people.
I corrected some of your post above Eric, to better reflect the reality, and not the propaganda, of capitalism.
“With [un]free enterprise, [an elite few] individual[s] control [the] capital [of all] …and consequently the vast majority have little to no control, leading to a fundamentally undemocratic society where social and economic decisions are removed from the bulk of the [uncapitalized] public”
Mind you your last sentence is apprtopriate, but does not apply to capitalist societies such as the US and Aust..
“The greater the economic freedom, the greater the benefit to the greatest number of people”.
If you look at a breakdown of inequality in your favoured ‘free’ nations you will realize why. .
I understand your point Fred; inequality does exist in free nations. But don’t you honestly think it exists to a lesser extent in “free” nations than it does in heavily regulated nations?
Although, and I’m sure this wasn’t your point, there probably is less inequality in a country like Cuba. The overwhelming majority of the people do not have any discretionary pesos, so more equality. But, again, I’m certain that wasn’t your point.
I understand that you make a distinction between free enterprise and capitalism Eric, but I couldn’t resist re-posting the following quote:
John Maynard Keynes: “Capitalism is the astounding belief that the most wickedest of men will do the most wickedest of things for the greatest good of everyone.”
I think you missed my point Trev. I wasn’t trying to make a distinction between capitalism and free enterprise. Rather, ALL economic systems are capitalistic. The distinctions between them are measured by who controls the capital, the individual or the gov’t.
Free enterprise “self regulates” and keeps the greedy and wicked in check to a greater degree than any other economic system. The more gov’t involvement, the more opportunity for the greedy and wicked to exploit those which the gov’t system (Keynesian Econ) oppresses.
“[Free enterprise “self regulates” and keeps the greedy and wicked in check to a greater degree than any other economic system.]”
No, it doesn’t.
Your statement requires a massive amount of cognitive disssonance.
Heard of the GFC?
Reality vs ideology.
Not just inequality Eric, but inequality and anti-democracy are fundamental to a capitalist system.
If one person [family, company] owns a social utility [land, media concern, factory, bank, railway] then, obviously, everyone else cannot own that utility.
Capitalism restricts ownership.
Its not ‘free’, its ‘unfree’.
It is therefore essentially anti-democratic because the majority in the society cannot access the political and economic power that accrues to the owners of capital.
Remember some time ago when I showed how the report of a climate change group had been deliberately altered by the media and you expressed your disapproval of such a process when you saw it?
That is not accidental.
I think your reasoning is erroneous Fred. I agree that if I open a market on a street corner, “everyone else” can’t open that market. But, they could certainly open another market across the street and compete for the same clientele I serve. And, that keeps my prices in check, my quality high or I’m out of business.
In a free society, anyone has the “opportunity” to accumulate capital, eg youngsters who mow lawns, open lemonade stands, wash cars, babysit, etc. Not everyone has the discipline, motivation, or desire to be an entrepreneur but with a minimum of regulation, they can have the opportunity. But if the city won’t allow a youngster’s lemonade stand to serve drinks without onerous fees and restrictions, the opportunity to accumulate capital is squelched or eliminated.
Sorry, but I don’t recall which report you showed me that had been altered. But, I certainly have no tolerance for misleading or deceptive practices.
http://www.offthechartsblog.org/required-reading-on-the-payroll-tax-cut-and-much-more/?utm_CBPP%20Twitter
Here Eric I’ll help you discover reality.
The transfer in wealth [*] shown here was not achieved by those at the top opening lemonade stands, or working harder, or smarter, or any of the fables the capitalist ideology spouts.
It was achieved by lowering wages of workers, by giving high[est] income receivers special tax breaks, by changing tax structures to favour capitalists and dividend owners those who earn [sic] income by owning assets eg shares as compared to those who earn by wages and salaries, by making education more expensive and thus increasingly restricting it the already wealthy…..and so on
[*] Not covered in this particular table but available elsewhere are figures that show that the growth in inequality for wealth [ie assets], as opposed to income, is even more stark.
This pretty much illustrates my point! Excessive gov’t involvement in business, medicine, education and many other areas of middle class America’s lives,over the past 30 years, has created greater burdens and hardship.
The pols tax and spend, tax and spend and we continue to re-elect them because we’re too apathetic and ignorant.
We are cross posting Eric. Never mind.
1.The report was about recent warm years. It involved the media deliberately misquoting an IPCC [I think] report to say the exact opposite to what it really said. Its in the archives somewhere. {At the time you appreciated how you had been deceived, that was to your credit.}
Thats the problem, in the US [and Oz] the media is both the voice of capitalism and a huge capitalist concern itself and so it iterates capitalist ideology until many people, eg yourself, believe it to be self evident and ‘normal’.
Not so.
Your response above is standard capitalist ideology.
In reality most wealth is inherited, more wealth accrues to that class by political means than the prefferred fairy tale of being earned by the worthy.
Most recently, say the last few decades, we have seen in the US [and Oz] a massive transfer of wealth from the lower sections of the community to the extremely rich by the simple expedient of tax laws passed on behalf of the extremely wealthy..
That reality is rarely cited by the capitalist media, instead opting for lovely ‘rags to riches’ stories which are exceptional and as such bely the reality that most wealth accrues thanks to political power and only accidentally and incidentally is that related to concepts such as ‘worth’, ‘effort’ etc..
Check out graphs that show how the various groups in US society have gined wealth and assets since the GFC.
There are plent out there and they will clearly show you that your lovely little fable about equality of opportunity and the lemonade stand is just that – a fable.
Well, is most wealth “inherited” or is it “accrued thanks to political power?” I have no problem with inherited wealth but I despise the influence political power brings to the table. And, that makes my point! More gov’t, more political influence, less opportunity.
You’re right, there was/is a tremendous transfer of wealth in the US. Stimulus 1, Stimulus 2, QE 1, QE 2 and now QE 3 all have contributed. None of these Keynesian policies have worked and it perplexes me why the pols keep whipping the same horse only to meet with more failure. Definition of insanity?
I am involved with an international group of business owners and I know that the US has fewer regulations (although they are increasing) than what my colleagues in Europe experience. My friends operate their businesses first to serve people with quality products & services, provide opportunity for their employees to earn a living, and yes make a profit in order to be there next year. “Worth” & “effort” are certainly more than concepts and opportunity still exists. My own company is no fable and it started off as little more than the lemonade stand.
Again, simply look around the globe. What countries provide the best education, greatest opportunity, most stabilty, and general highest standard of living? They will always be the countries with the most freedom for its citizens. And, unfortunately, the opposite is also true.
It’s ironic isn’t it Eric that you appear to be advocating a “survival of the fittest” (i.e. Darwinian) economic system?
Yes, I suppose it is! But, I’m only proposing that freedom offers more opportunity than stifling regulation.