Category: Capitalism

Will capitalism survive?

July 25th, 2010 · admin · Capitalism, Society No comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

economic systemsDue to the enormous socialistic tendencies of the politics nowadays, one is left with the question, will capitalism survive such tendencies? For some, capitalism is the alpha and the omega and it has the capability to rise to the occasion and not be defeated by the opposition in the political or social front. In other words, capitalism would stand the test of time and it would survive.

This is not an illogical thought also, because apparently, there are no signs that imply capitalism would not survive the socialistic tendencies of today’s politics. In fact, one can argue further that these socialistic tendencies are not in a position to harm the dominant economic and political power of the capitalist structure.

If you look back into the past, capitalism has been one of the oldest economic systems that have been around. It even surpasses socialism in terms of its ‘age’. Socialism was born during the industrial revolution when the exploitation of the workers by the capitalists reached its peak.

Capitalism has been continuously delivering growth and has been making an impressive progress ever since. It even provides competition to a lot of so-called capitalist countries, such as the People’s Republic of China, which is ruled by communists.

A lot of philosophers believe that the grandeur of the political and economic agenda of capitalism is such that it can even surpass the socialists. As an economic global system, capitalism has stood strong and even won two world wars, which is quite an impressive task. There is that fire in capitalism which enables it to protect its own interests that are vested on a large scale. Not only that, capitalism also has its own media. This makes it possible for it to control its monopoly and to propagate it for the purpose of serving the people’s and the country’s interest.

Many philosophers are of the impression that socialism is an insignificant opposition and also described it as “obsolete” and a mere theoretical manifesto of the communists. According to them, the country, under the influence of capitalism, has the ability to deliver technologies, improvements and products that are widely approved and liked by the people even if it faces opposition from the socialists’ front.

That doesn’t mean that capitalism would always survive the current politics’ socialistic tendencies; at some point of time, capitalism too shall have its own downfall but that won’t be the end of it, it would rise again under a new title, just like a phoenix from its ashes! It’s just like when an old tool breaks, we create a stronger tool and carry on our work. The basic truth is that we all desire progress, and without the involvement of money, progress is impossible. Hence capitalism will be just fine, it will survive and stand the test of time!

What does the future hold for capitalism?

July 24th, 2010 · admin · Capitalism, Society No comments - Tags: , , , , ,

future2009 was indeed an extraordinary year for the United States, in terms of political and economic fronts. The Democratic Party not only reclaimed control over the House of the Representatives but also the Oval Office. Due to this, the credit markets were frozen and everything came to a standstill, be it the mortgage or lending and this had a heavy impact on the different sectors of the society such as the automotive industries, finance industries and the banking sectors. With so much turmoil going on, the question that is uppermost in the minds of many is whether capitalism has gone array or not and what is the future of capitalism.

Think of capitalism as a double edge sword, it can cause both harm and good. When used the wrong way, it can cause devastating results on workers, investors, companies and industries. Although capitalism is the backbone and the main strength behind all the innovations and the prosperous conditions of the United States of America, it is not immune to the infectious corruption and greed that has taken over numerous political and economic systems of the world. In the words of Victor Naim, this infection is like the reverse of Midas touch, in the sense that it has turned gold into poverty.

Capitalism also has a lot of good aspects, such as it is one of the leading political, social, economic and cultural systems in the world. Sadly, it has been opposed by a lot of fronts that disapproves capitalism.

But what exactly is the future of capitalism? What is the future of the governing system of our society?

Capitalism is the intelligence of the whole world because of its important contributions to the world, the technological products, services, tools, etc.

Capitalism is enormous. So enormous that it is taking initiative to rule the world and in the process, the victims are not taken into consideration because of capitalism’s agendas.

In the past, man treated another man as a slave for the purpose of building his empire. So also, there is no rhetorical approach for softening capitalism and preventing it from carrying out the exploitation of the workers and the lower classes of our society.

Capitalism is exploitative in nature and there’s no denying the fact. In order to acquire further wealth and power, capitalism has and would continue to unleash its power without caring about the victims. The future of capitalism, is to aid mankind in exploring a new frontier and whoever stayed behind in this process, would end up being the victim to the exploitative economic and political power and the bitterness of capitalism. There would be a lot of us who shall, consciously or unconsciously be left behind in this selective evolution. The efforts of opposing capitalism shall be in vain, just like in the past, and this is the future of capitalism.

Capitalism – its ethics

July 23rd, 2010 · admin · Capitalism, Society No comments - Tags: , , , , ,

ethical valuesCapitalism, sometimes referred to as the process of accumulation of capital is a type of economic system where the ownership of all the means of production lies with the private owners and these means are operated for the purpose of earning profits. Capitalism exists in a lot of countries all over the world.

By providing the right to create free markets that are not regulated and to own private properties, capitalism provides the possibility of maximizing wealth to the individuals of the society. The basic principle of capitalism is to provide the society with socio-economic schemes that would benefit the society and its individuals. This type of socio-economic system is also called laissez-faire.

What are the ethics of capitalism?  Firstly, the moral code of capitalism is completely opposite to that of communism. In the latter, the state has the responsibility of administrating the markets. In Capitalism, the economic system including factors like supply and demand, price, capital, investments, distribution of goods, production, etc are entirely controlled by the investors and the government has no right to it. Hence capitalism is based on the principle that reduces the governmental influence on private possessions as well as businesses. Basically, capitalism advocates an economic system that is free from the administration and influence of the government.

While not true in all cases, capitalism and democracy are linked together closely. Most of the ethical values of capitalism are derived from democratic norms! In a capitalist society, although the government does not possess a heavy authority over the markets, it does not mean that the government is entirely ignored. The need of the government intervention arises when an abuse in the capitalism system crops up. Some examples are coercion, fraud, fraudulent practices, etc.

According to Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher, capitalism is the sole means of acquiring the maximum satisfaction for individuals in a society. He argues that because capitalism is based on the principles of equality of opportunities, it is the sole solution for having a prosperous and wealthy society. He also pointed out that the individuals are motivated to put in their best because of the existence of self-autonomy in the financial system and also because of the healthy competition. Now, when the individuals put in their best efforts, it is only obvious that the nation would prosper as well. Smith however, ignored the negative aspects of the ethics of capitalism.

Now, don’t get it wrong, capitalism is not flawless, it does have its own share of flaws and defects. Because of this, corporate capitalism is said to be the most detested form of capitalism and many critics even argue that it promotes the unequal distribution of power in the society, as in oligopoly and monopoly. Socialists even accuse capitalism of exploiting the lower classes of the society.

One of capitalism’s ethic, the concept of taking interests rates while lending money, is the reason why a lot of major religions like Islam, Judaism and Christianity detests and condemns and disapproves capitalism.

Can a revolution end capitalism?

July 22nd, 2010 · admin · Capitalism, Society No comments - Tags: , , , , , ,

RevolutionYou must already be familiar with the definition of revolution and capitalism. However let’s just go through it again just so that you can understand the depth of the topic. Revolution can be defined as a tool, and make that an effective one, that has enough power to bring about economic, social and political changes. Capitalism, on the other hand, is also related to economic, political and social or cultural aspects of the society. Hence, capitalism is a political, cultural and economic system that is followed by a lot of countries in the world.

Now, revolution can be of two types. The first type is the revolution that was inspired by Karl Marx and carried out by the workers. At present this revolution cannot put an end to capitalism because of the complexities involved, i.e. complexity relating to Marxism, to internal problems faced by the revolutionary leaders, corrupt leadership that is prevailing, lack of expertise to deal with capitalism, etc. Right now, the capitalism that is installed is so massive and enormous in cultural proportion or political and socio-economic proportion that the revolution cannot match up to it.

It is very clear that there once existed an era where this type of revolution could prove better against capitalism; however, it was apparently not successful. Yet, there lies a question, with the dominance of capitalism over the economic, social and political structures of many countries, can one still claim that this revolution could end it?

Next, the second type of revolution. Now, you have to understand that this revolution is hypothetical in nature and is inspired by capitalists. Here the people simply wait for capitalists to change their attitude, i.e. the political and economic attitude of these capitalists towards the society.

In order to end capitalism, the power lies solely with the capitalists themselves. No other revolution can put an end to it or is even capable of challenging it because of its hugely blown-up proportions. Hence, the capitalists themselves must start an internal revolution. This revolution should be aimed at putting an end to the monopolistic control over the different means of production such as land, labour, capital, etc.

Now, let us imagine a situation where the capitalists have successfully launched a revolution that ended capitalism. This, however, is not a one time problem, it can definitely surge up again in the near future. This is because the capitalists run capitalism, the workers oppose the capitalists and the labour is run by these workers. Hence its all sort of interconnected.

The capitalism here can be logically described as the brain of the body and the labour opposing it, the body. It is pretty much a win-win situation for the brain or the capitalists because the brain is the most important part of the body and even if the body were to take over, it would cause a case of backwardness.

In conclusion it can be said that, as of now, capitalism remains an efficient social ruling system and there is no sight of its removal just yet.

Capitalism vs. Socialism

July 21st, 2010 · admin · Capitalism, Society No comments - Tags: , , , , ,

MarxismIn the past decades, a lot of Western European countries have taken a step further towards socialism or Marxism by means of passing laws, etc. Because of this, i.e. the combination of socialism and globalization, the United States were under more pressure and it became more socialistic.

What is socialism? Socialism can be defined as a system, either social or economic where the means of production are controlled and owned collectively by a group of people. To many, this idea of socialism seem to make sense but fundamentally speaking, it is not a flawless system and it almost falls into communism and merges with it.

A huge portion of socialist ideas originated from Karl Marx, mostly Marxism or also known as communism. A Marxist society can be defined as one in which no citizens have a right to their private property and the goods that are produced in that society would be distributed among the people.

Although this idea sounds quite alluring in the sense that everyone is treated equally and freedom and fairness would prevail, however, the defect in this idea is very obvious. This type of society is solely based on a human nature that is almost impossible to come across, because jealousy and greed is a very common trait in humans. And for a Marxist society to exist, the citizens must all have a common quality of the willingness to work for one another’s welfare, which is, practically speaking, very unlikely.

Now onto capitalism, capitalism involves utilization of the willpower of humans, or individuals of the society, mostly entrepreneurs to perform economic activities. Now, economic activities can be defined as all those activities that can be measured in monetary terms or have some monetary benefits. Let us look at capitalism from another point of view, i.e. the individual’s point of view. Here, the individual is working very hard for own interest, and in the process is killing two birds with one stone; meaning, it serves two purposes. The first purpose being his own self interest and the next being the propelling of others towards the goal of economic success by his own hard work for self.

If one is asked whether socialism or capitalism would be better in the real words, obviously the first choice would be socialism, because it is just more alluring. However with socialism come its flaws, which would restrict the smooth functioning of such a society. Hence capitalism is a better choice.

Why? The reason being people cannot be forced to support communism, and without the joint support of all the people, communism won’t work. With Capitalism, even if people don’t put in their joint support, the society would still work. In this case, those people who don’t do their part would face the consequences. However, with the joint support of all the people, the society would be better off. Also, capitalists don’t always work only for their own motives, they would also be willing to make donations to charities, etc. Hence, its capitalism for the win!