West Coast Connection Forum
Lifestyle => Train of Thought => Topic started by: King Tech Quadafi on October 13, 2006, 09:57:05 PM
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not necessarily in the classical sense, but the neo liberal globalized capitalism that has slowly consolidated itself over the least 30 years?
Tech has been expanding his knowledge into the dry economic shiiit these days, a realm im not too familiar with, and i have alot of questions and concerns
The system in place today is shaky, and in disorder.
The West (ie. the Atlantic powers) has basically imposed a new order on the world over the last 10 years that takes the normal "opening new markets, protecting local industries while smashing local producers etc" to a whole nother level, where the free movement of capital has basically been the number one priority
no doubt we see some of the effects in the 3rd world today.
im not gettin into any specifcs unless i actually see a decent thread forming. any opinions? new heads, any questions?
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Straight to hell man.
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capitalism will lead us into huge debt which i for one will not be willing to pay. if things get too bad 30 years down the line im hanging collectors in the street, that said i fucking love capitalism but in todays world a truely fair form of capitalism doesn't exist. liberal fucks try to bring in compassion and other things which dont equate with fairness for all producers and consumers and so the decline has been steadily going for the past few decades but nobody except for economists and self made rich people (whos opinion is decreasingly popular) have bothered to complain about it. its so multi faceted i wont even pretend to comprehend all the bullshit in capitalism today but it is the system that produces best results.
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i think capitalism will destroy humanity, it's like a drug for the society we live in, we know it's bad but we can't get rid of it, we are addicted to it. Anyway, good things always have an end
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It better lead me to a mansion on a hill at the expense and exploitation of others god damn it.
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capitilsm is alright, it only needs a few laws to restrict the rich
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i think capitalism will destroy humanity, it's like a drug for the society we live in, we know it's bad but we can't get rid of it, we are addicted to it. Anyway, good things always have an end
wtf?
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Capitalism has led the world into the era of the international free market. I don't see free market liberalism as necessarily bad, but of course we will need international regulations (i.e from the UN) and local governments to enforce them (i.e your governments).
National soverignty will be slowly erroded as foreign countries buy off your country's onshore assets. We will become increasingly integrated economically. I think these changes will mostly effect the West as foreign workers and refugees flock within your boarders, which, unofficially the labour market loves because immigrants are harder workers than the increasingly obese locals. However, the existing local working class in the West only needs to educate itself so it can do the skilled labour (there is a shortage in Australia), because all the no-brainer jobs are going to be/have been taken over by immigrants and foreign workers 'swarming' over your boarders and labour being outsourced to foreign countries. So this means getting some skills in the labour market inorder to compete with the immigrants taking the dishwashing jobs. Which isn't so hard, unless you are already some inbred hick then you will naturally despise the pathetic competition.
'People use yo brain to gain'
-Until We Rich, Ice Cube
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Capitalism will lead the world back to where it was hundreds of years ago. Just as once back in the day landowners were the wealthy and powerful and scarce, and peasants were abundant, poor, and powerless. Very few will be rich and powerful, and they will be able to control everything. The middle class will basically be eliminated. It will become a more sophisticated form of slavory, as it already is today. Think about how many americans work just to live. They spend a majority of their time working so that they can pay rent/mortgage, food, utilities/bills. Not much different than a slave who works all day, while getting a place to sleep at his masters residence and meals. Who really knows what it will bring. The world is overpopulated, so land is becomming scarcer and scarcer and therefore more valuable. It will become harder and harder for people to move up in classes. Small businesses will become harder and harder to stay afloat, and most likely in most industries will nearly become extinct, as you can already see this right now. I believe capitalism led to the most profound history of the world, and it will probably lead to its downfall. Capitalism will probably lead to world war III. There is already plenty of ways to make life more efficient, and make life easier for people. There is no way people in the US should have to work on avg 40 hours a week to maintain the standard of living. However many people have to work much more than that, meanwhile hundreds of thousands are unemployed. And who really ends up losing the most from all of this? The consumer. Product qualities have fallen. Customer Service is horrible. Business ethics are horrible. Big business never wants to take blame/responsibility.
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globalization has been around before anyone has ever coined the term. The Chinese traded silk to the Romans, and in route they picked up Buddhism. That's both the globalization, religions and culture spreading, and capitalism. Over time, liberalism (capitalism) and neo liberalism (globalization) was responsible for some the greatest events (spead of religions, like Islam, Christainity; political ideals like Democracy and Communism) and some of the worst events (slave trade, blood diamonds and blood oil). In the end, both are human nature, and both are unstoppable now. There is no way you can reverse 10,500 years of progress (trade of animals from Asian to the Middle East in 7,500 BC). We can try to control it to make trade fair (WTO though sucks ass) and we can try to police the countries from conflict (the UN isn't doing well in this aspect any more). But it's too late, unless you want to pay $20 for a white tee, and $75 for some dickies, and $80 for some Chucks, then you should not complain about it all. There are many ways to look at the issue at hand. For one, we are taking advantages of countries. But if you ever bought your mom flowers, you should now most our roses are from Peru. In Peru, they pay the workers shit wages to US standards, BUT these ladies who work in the rose fields make TWICE as much as the average Peruvian worker. They can take care of their family, and live in a nice house because we buy our flowers there. Now they may not be in the best conditions, but at home they live good. In Thailand, home of most sweat shops, the ladies line up trying to work for Nike, because the pay is better than any job they can get outside of prostitution to European tourist. With high unemployment, these ladies want their sweat shop job.
This is very hard to reverse, but what we need is a way of controling people's living and working condition. This is something neither UN or WTO control, and it's not like they would do it anyways. Globalization and Capitalism are both too ingrained to reverse, so it's never going away. But what can come out of it is we can set up global task forces to enforce something that can help workers. It's along road, Capitalism ain't leading us no where else now, it's already lead us here. It's up to us to lead Capitalism to something fair, and for the good of humanity.
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globalization has been around before anyone has ever coined the term. The Chinese traded silk to the Romans, and in route they picked up Buddhism. That's both the globalization, religions and culture spreading
there is an ongoing debate (in the study of international relations) whether globalisation is just now a continuation of past trends, or with the world's increasingly integrated economy and interconnection if it has reached a whole new unprecedented era.
The only way to 'lead Capitalism to something fair' (I believe) is through government regulation of the market. Without regulation the West is just like the third world (the ultimate deregulated free market). The Right have traditionally been for small government, cutting taxes, minimal government regulation of the market and business and the Left has traditionally been for taxing you inorder to provide the means to police the market and provide a safety net to those would fall beneath the feet of the rat-race. But I see people in the US greatly vilify the 'Liberals' for having high taxes when the truth is the Left spends the money on programs of social uplift whereas the Right will spend that money on a bomb that will either sit in a bunker and gather dust or get dropped on some Iraqi family's house. The Left sees capitalism as a reality but recognises that it can be harsh so it needs programs to help the poor folks, whereas, the Right has this idea that if you strenghen big business (cut their taxes, deregulate, etc) then big business can make more chedder and the wealth will trickle down from the rich to the poor. Make the rich man richer so he can pay the poor man more, this is US Conservative policy, how any person who isn't utterly ballin' feed into that shit is beyond me.
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globalization has been around before anyone has ever coined the term. The Chinese traded silk to the Romans, and in route they picked up Buddhism. That's both the globalization, religions and culture spreading
there is an ongoing debate (in the study of international relations) whether globalisation is just now a continuation of past trends, or with the world's increasingly integrated economy and interconnection if it has reached a whole new unprecedented era.
The only way to 'lead Capitalism to something fair' (I believe) is through government regulation of the market. Without regulation the West is just like the third world (the ultimate deregulated free market). The Right have traditionally been for small government, cutting taxes, minimal government regulation of the market and business and the Left has traditionally been for taxing you inorder to provide the means to police the market and provide a safety net to those would fall beneath the feet of the rat-race. But I see people in the US greatly vilify the 'Liberals' for having high taxes when the truth is the Left spends the money on programs of social uplift whereas the Right will spend that money on a bomb that will either sit in a bunker and gather dust or get dropped on some Iraqi family's house. The Left sees capitalism as a reality but recognises that it can be harsh so it needs programs to help the poor folks, whereas, the Right has this idea that if you strenghen big business (cut their taxes, deregulate, etc) then big business can make more chedder and the wealth will trickle down from the rich to the poor. Make the rich man richer so he can pay the poor man more, this is US Conservative policy, how any person who isn't utterly ballin' feed into that shit is beyond me.
I know that with the US, it's all a matter of time, and which way the wind blows. At the heighten era of us being afraid of the Commies, we still voted in Democrats that pushed social programs, and what not. G.Bush 2 won as a fluke in 2000, but in 2001, once 9/11 happened, the U.S. stopped caring about others, and caring about what's socially correct for the world and ourselves, and we are beefing up the military. Had we ever been attacked in the 50's, Republicans would have ruled since then. It's nothing about conservativism, it's more about protection, and who is better in running a military. The Republicans have now put themselves in a position to push their global agenda, lower taxes for the rich, and explote the world. It's a matter of time before we move passed 9/11 that we'd be able to get back on track. Until then, it's up to the rest of the world to do what they got to do.
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Im rich biiiiiiaaaach!
8) 8) 8)
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despite what you see in the news capitilism has helped bring countries closer together - to the point there is now less military fueding between countries and more diplomacy. It also helped the world economic growth reach record levels. however that doesn't mean there are not losers in this too, that is the very nature of capitilism - the ownus is on one's self to suceed and those who don't find a market for themselves will fail. As old aliegencies have been lost with the demise of empire, africa for example has become a poorer continent, in their efforts to restore their dignity by taking control of their countries they have allowed laziness, incompetence and curruption to flurish within their governements. the process was too quick - people were now in power who had never been in power before and they didn't know how to use it properly, so whether it was intentional or unintentional they mismanaged things. Now also there have been drawbacks in the west because the benifit of globalisation is the ability to import cheaper product and services, but will have a negative affect on the domestic producers of such products so they may cease trading if they can't find a market for themselves and everyone who works for them will lose their jobs and those companies who supplied them will lose business because their customer no longer exists and so on...
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Capatalisim leads to companies buying out their competition or just plain wiping them out, eventually one company will previel above all the others and own everything, when this happens Capatalisim become's the very thing that most people think of as it's total oppisite, Commusnisim (well not true Marxist Communisim but the type of Commusnisim that we have seen and think off), one group of people owning everything but instead of being the Government it will be a Corporation, and because they will own all services they will control the world in a way no Government ever could.
Everything will become a commodity, you want to breathe your going to have to pay a fee to breathe, you want water your going to have to pay for it (well you more than likley already do). Capatalisim is nothing more than a system to justify greed and a lack of caring for others, it encourages money before people, Money will be god and the Mall will be the new church (fuck that you won't even need to go to the mall, you can give thanks to the corporation online with your credit card), at least when one Corapration owns everything people won;t have to die in false wars started to gain control of others resources.
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Capatalisim leads to companies buying out their competition or just plain wiping them out, eventually one company will previel above all the others and own everything, when this happens Capatalisim become's the very thing that most people think of as it's total oppisite, Commusnisim (well not true Marxist Communisim but the type of Commusnisim that we have seen and think off), one group of people owning everything but instead of being the Government it will be a Corporation, and because they will own all services they will control the world in a way no Government ever could.
capitalism can lead to this kind of positiion, which is why many countries have competition commissions to ensure fair competition, infact the EU has some of the strictest anti monopoly laws in the world.
however when u get a company like walmart having monopolistic power, u have to ask yourself how it got there - its ability bring in new efficiencies and innovate and thus bring down the cost of your shopping and as a general rule the bigger a company like this gets the cheaper things are for the consumer- however competition also stimulates efficiencies - thus depending on the market monopoly or oligopolies (not cartels!) with the right level of regulation tend to be the ideal situation because of economies of scale - although this is not always the case in reality because some people like to differentenciate themselves.
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despite what you see in the news capitilism has helped bring countries closer together - to the point there is now less military fueding between countries and more diplomacy. It also helped the world economic growth reach record levels. however that doesn't mean there are not losers in this too, that is the very nature of capitilism - the ownus is on one's self to suceed and those who don't find a market for themselves will fail. As old aliegencies have been lost with the demise of empire, africa for example has become a poorer continent, in their efforts to restore their dignity by taking control of their countries they have allowed laziness, incompetence and curruption to flurish within their governements. the process was too quick - people were now in power who had never been in power before and they didn't know how to use it properly, so whether it was intentional or unintentional they mismanaged things. Now also there have been drawbacks in the west because the benifit of globalisation is the ability to import cheaper product and services, but will have a negative affect on the domestic producers of such products so they may cease trading if they can't find a market for themselves and everyone who works for them will lose their jobs and those companies who supplied them will lose business because their customer no longer exists and so on...
I have no beef with capitalism. My beef is those that explote it, and create war for their own gain at the cost of millions.
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well i can tell you one thing, the middle class will vanish
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Why do you have to have 3 cars while you can only drive one at a time?
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well i can tell you one thing, the middle class will vanish
wrong. capitilism, especially over the last 40 years, has let millions of working class families living on the poverty line move into the middle classes - the primary reason has for this has been better access to education for all and anti descrimination employment laws - free labour market, this stimulates growth and as country grows so does the living standards of the residents of the country.
The best example of captilism is Hong Kong (a British creation ;)) before we got there it was just a rock, it has no natural resources or anything like that but we turned it into a hugely successful economy, based on free markets minimal regislation. Why do you think China, a communist state, has left it pretty much untouched since we gave back in '97....
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well i can tell you one thing, the middle class will vanish
wrong. capitilism, especially over the last 40 years, has let millions of working class families living on the poverty line move into the middle classes - the primary reason has for this has been better access to education for all and anti descrimination employment laws - free labour market, this stimulates growth and as country grows so does the living standards of the residents of the country.
The best example of captilism is Hong Kong (a British creation ;)) before we got there it was just a rock, it has no natural resources or anything like that but we turned it into a hugely successful economy, based on free markets minimal regislation. Why do you think China, a communist state, has left it pretty much untouched since we gave back in '97....
but at whose expense?
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Capitalism is only a part of the powerhungry world we're living in. It's fed by our wonderful 'democracy', which allows every person to evolve into a bigger consumer than the next man. We're fiending for riches, that's how we're being controlled by the powers that be.
Now while y'all sitting here to discuss all of this, I'm going outside to shoot me some UFO's.
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Many forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed, it has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
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another thing I love about capitalism is that when you go overseas to the Third World your money is like X10! When you step off that plane you are balllllllliiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnn!
For eg: $1 USD is like 40 Filipino pesos, with 25 pesos you can buy a pack of cigarrettes or a Cheese Burger meal. Just think, $100 USD is alot of blowjobs and tequila my friends! Cant wait to go overseas again, maybe Bali this time, its gotten even cheaper cus of 'the terror'.
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u think dollars are good, try travelling on pounds!!
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not necessarily in the classical sense, but the neo liberal globalized capitalism that has slowly consolidated itself over the least 30 years?
Tech has been expanding his knowledge into the dry economic shiiit these days, a realm im not too familiar with, and i have alot of questions and concerns
The system in place today is shaky, and in disorder.
The West (ie. the Atlantic powers) has basically imposed a new order on the world over the last 10 years that takes the normal "opening new markets, protecting local industries while smashing local producers etc" to a whole nother level, where the free movement of capital has basically been the number one priority
no doubt we see some of the effects in the 3rd world today.
im not gettin into any specifcs unless i actually see a decent thread forming. any opinions? new heads, any questions?
It's gonna take us to Robin hood 2: when rich steals poor.