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Break Down Arguments Of Capitalism

What are the best arguments for Capitalism?

Capitalism" refers to a political and economic system that was developed in Europe and America during the Enlightenment. It is characterized by private ownership of property, rather than state control.More fundamentally, it rests on the Enlightenment principle of Individual Rights, in which the unit of moral and political value is each individual.As the American philosopher Ayn Rand explains this,Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the government, in such a society, is the task of protecting man’s rights, i.e., the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man’s right of self-defense, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control.(Source: Capitalism, the Unknown Ideal)From

How did arguments about slavery challenge capitalism?

Slavery treated labor and people themselves as a commodity.

Pure capitalism is amoral and only incidentally help or hurts human rights.

The debate about slavery said some human rights are more important than maximizing profits.

Here in the US, we took this a step further and outlawed our government treating labor as a commodity because business would demand more of it and higher unemployment to drive wages down.

Big agriculture and other businesses have sidestepped this with the use of illegal immigrants who they can pay substantially less than legal American workers.

They have taken the place of slaves, but unlike the slave who at least had a home and steady source of food, businesses use illegals only as long as they need them, then tell them to get lost until the next harvest or even call the INS and tell them where they are camped out.

Why can it be argued that capitalism doesn't work?

Capitalism works. It always does. As a pure system, capitalism only doesn’t work when goods are not traded for value (capital, in its material form). However, we are often incompatible with capitalism.Our values are considered irrational by the financial orientation of the free market. Consider they who farm so they may live near their family, or for the idylls of nature, despite the possibility of a higher income. Or the talking point of laid-off auto workers in Detroit. It’s in their interest to learn a new profession, but as a 50 year-old, that may be out of the question. We have to remember that people’s goals are more than just wealth.As the name implies, capitalism is the system for those with capital. Owners of property and businesses can accrue money merely by right of ownership, as there is scarcity of resources in the world. Unfortunately, few of us have enough capital to make a difference. One of the most painful features of capitalism is that being poor excludes people from being able to make the investment that will allow them to not be poor. Those who have can afford the better schools, closer homes, and better health which allow them to produce even more.Notice the schooling aspect, this peeks at the ways capital can accrue and consolidate over generations. While some fanciful initial value condition may have let pure hard work and talent triumph in the race to the top, through time, those born wealthy are given far more than those who aren’t.A crucial problem is scarcity, a fact of life. We never seem to have enough. While this is a fascinating psychological problem by itself, it’s far greater a material issue. We may want all people to have jobs, but it is impossible under supply and demand assumptions. That classic crisscrossing graph shows only one point where supply and demand schedules meet. This means people there are people (the supply for the labor market) who will not—for whatever reason—work for a certain wage, and as such, people will always be unemployed.The last issue is merely practical: people aren’t perfectly rational, even when they want to be. Desperation, fear, and limited information all play into the worse decisions poor people make. Added to this may be our human inability to see five, ten, twenty years down the road. We can’t foresee how much $100 invested now may be worth more than, say, new clothes, or a birthday gift.

What are the strongest arguments in defense of capitalism?

Other respondents have noted some very good arguments or points lauding the value of a capitalistic society. Another point to consider may be that the alternative to a capitalistic system, some form of authoritarian government, has never achieved any form of success, save the “equal distribution of poverty” and untold misery.Given the history of both forms of economic systems, capitalism and socialism; one has to ask; what system has brought the greatest benefits to the human race? Communism Killed 94M in 20th Century, Feels Need to Kill Again It is difficult to imagine that anyone today would even consider any form of socialism, an authoritarian or Marxist form of government as a viable economic path, but surprisingly and “yet some still say they support the idea: According to a 2011 Rasmussen poll, 11% of Americans think that communism would better serve this country’s needs than our current system.”As an Atheist I have great difficulty understanding why people today still continue to believe in, support and build new churches hoping that the new or refined church belief will provide that great truth and promised land so sought after. The same wishful thinking, however, is that idea of a promised land coming through the the noted violence and barbarity of socialist thinking or belief. Such is the epitomy of the phrase, Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert EinsteinCapitalism is essentially the freedom to achieve based upon one’s own abilities and that contradictory system would have all people achieve to a uniform level of accomplishment satisfying only a government control, which, historically, has proven to lead to overall poverty for the great majority and great wealth for the very few in political power.Such an economic system would be akin to those laws that would mandate a certain level of art from all people and punishing those people who possessed greater talent and attempted to exercise it. The result would be that mediocrity and incompetence is now considered a great work of art. The result is a lowering of standards and expectation and too, the quality of life. An analogy might be the current public educational system in the US where conformity is the objective and objectivity is nonconformity.

Pure capitalism or pure socialism?

What would you say is better? Assuming that they exist in the purest and most ideological form, without the corruption.
Do you think that capitalism is the more natural state of society due to humans drive to survive and only care fore oneself and loved ones?

I'm just wondering what is your take on that. I come from a central EU country and I've been studying in the US for the past five years. I'm very shocked to see such hateful reactions to socialism. In what way to you think socialism differs from the state of the US today?

Thank you for your answers, I don't mean to offend anyone! :)

Summarize Karl Marx's arguments against capitalism?

Marx pointed out that Capitalism creates a system where there are basically 2 classes of people. The workers and the exploiters. The exploiters take advantage of the workers by making profit from the worker's labor and the workers resent the exploiters. As a result of the conflict between them, eventually the workers will revolt and take over society themselves. They will create a worker only society where no one realizes an advantage over anyone else. It is a very simplified view of the nature of relationship between those who achieve success and those who do not. Capitalism today gives all people the opportunity to achieve success. Competition for good workers results in good pay and advancement opportunity. Capitalism is a self-contained system of checks and balances that supports itself and provides the best possible distribution of goods and services to society. Marx had a more simplistic view of this and his ideas have been proven wrong throughout history. Witness: Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, China, USSR, all have tried to put Marx's theories to work and all have resulted in a dismal standard of living.

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