Why does capitalism bring out the best and the worst?

[ibx 2]

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When pharmaceutical, jails, News, Health care, law, etc are motivated by profit they are almost always bad for general public.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Do you work for free? No. You want to make the most that you can. The profit motive is the inducement for doing thing better.

Really, please explain how private prison system who's main incentive it is to make money can benefit the public. The aim of prison system should be rehabilitation and not the most cost effective punishment possible.

The same goes for news, news should be unbiased and not sold to the highest bidder.

Law enforcement, so you would be ok with ticket quotas, that guarantee a profit for the private police force. I cannot think of a bigger incentive for corruption than a private police. Would the private police go arrest their largest stock holder? Think this through for minute please....

[Darius11 12]

Lefty

Who is this "you" you're referring to who will pay the reporters? Where does "you" get the money to pay them?

People who want news that's who, You don't think news is something a product that people want and expect from major broadcasters?

NPR, BBC to me some of the best news organizations are public. The people who work at the BBC don;t need to hunt for food they get paid.

Its funny how in the US people are so brain washed about capitalism that they can't comprehend how it could be possible if it was not a giant corporation running things.
We have examples of it already its nothing revolutionary, It like health care how do you do it ??? Look at places that are doing it Like HI, a US state. Its doable if you don't think Greed is a aright

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[billvon 3,064]

>Of course there failures within capitalism
>But that does not mean capitalism fails

Pure capitalism gives you slavery, company stores, Donora, the Triangle Shirtwaist factory, Love Canal, Enron etc etc. Pure capitalism is as bad as pure socialism, or pure communism, or pure any -ism. The reason our system works as well as it does (which isn't great, but better than most others) is that we use parts of all of the above.

[billvon 3,064]

>Why does capitalism bring out the best and the worst?

Because, at the end of the day, it's based on greed.

> When does it go from being "providing goods and services in exchange for money" to
>"figuring out how to get people to buy something so you can get money."

I think that, at the end of the day, the two are identical. The strength of capitalism is that greed inspires TV manufacturers to make good, cheap TV's - because that way they make the most money. That's also its greatest weakness, because if that same company can make it APPEAR that they make good, cheap TV's, that generally has the same result without any of the work.

>You can't legislate good intentions (it's ineffective), and you can't just punish
>wrongdoers (it's too expensive, both in terms of fines/incarceration, and to the
>victims).

I think you need a mix of both. You need both regulation (i.e. specific laws that say "don't dump dioxins in the reservoir") and laws that target wrongdoers for more general antisocial behavior (i.e. the more general laws against fraud.)

[Cloudfly 0]

Corporate capitalism is unsustainable and I personally believe capitalism itself is unsustainable long term. Capitalism as we see it today is not free-market. Atleast not the way Adam Smith saw it. The problem with capitalism is it's utter foundation is built from the idea of greed. Greed is also unsustainable. Aside from unsustainability, it creates social stratification. Long-term this is bad. Why is it bad? Because as technology evolves and we begin to create newer technologies (things we can't even phathom today), if we continue to have things that separate humanity from one another, war and fighting will never end. Therefore as technology evolves, so to will our weapons and our ability to destroy ourselves. A thousand years from now there will be technologies and scientific truths that we today do not know or understand. So as humanity approches a Type 1 civilization within the next 100 years or so, if we continue the way we are going, we may very well see the extinction of the human species. I admit the system must fail in order for humanity to change. Humanity will never accept a sudden change in their lives or the world willingly, it will take some extreme threat for them to be willing to change. Be that war, an asteroid, gamma ray burst, total economic collapse, etc. It will be change or it will be the jaws of the tiger.

I'm not saying we will have a utopia, you can't achieve perfection, but "if you aren't a utopianist, then you're a fool"

[davjohns 1]

Is this a PA on Utopianists or fools?

Considering the meaning of Utopia, I have to ponder this statement. It seems to mean, "You are either a fool or a fool". There may be something to that.

I know it just wouldnt be right to kill all the stupid people that we meet..

But do you think it would be appropriate to just remove all of the warning labels and let nature take its course.

[Cloudfly 0]

davjohns

Is this a PA on Utopianists or fools?

Considering the meaning of Utopia, I have to ponder this statement. It seems to mean, "You are either a fool or a fool". There may be something to that.

Utopia - a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions.

If there is someone who doesn't want a "utopia" then they are fools. Because, why would you want anything less? Why would you not want to try and make the world good for everyone? That is the idea behind the quote. If someone prefers seeing war, famine, bigotry, etc etc, rather than trying to make the world better, then they are fools, and possibly mentally ill IMO.

[Darius11 12]

Cloudfly

***Is this a PA on Utopianists or fools?

Considering the meaning of Utopia, I have to ponder this statement. It seems to mean, "You are either a fool or a fool". There may be something to that.

Utopia - a place of ideal perfection especially in laws, government, and social conditions.

If there is someone who doesn't want a "utopia" then they are fools. Because, why would you want anything less? Why would you not want to try and make the world good for everyone? That is the idea behind the quote. If someone prefers seeing war, famine, bigotry, etc etc, rather than trying to make the world better, then they are fools, and possibly mentally ill IMO.

At the root you are right we all should aim for that, we should view this planet as OUR home and how can we make it best for all of us.

It’s a great idea but we still have national pride as one of the biggest motivators for most countries, we are so far away from evolved thought that I don’t think a utopia is possible not yet.
Is it something to shoot for HELL YES. But right now the things we do to this planet is the definition of insanity for any species.

I'd rather be hated for who I am, than loved for who I am not." - Kurt Cobain

[Cloudfly 0]

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At the root you are right we all should aim for that, we should view this planet as OUR home and how can we make it best for all of us.

It’s a great idea but we still have national pride as one of the biggest motivators for most countries, we are so far away from evolved thought that I don’t think a utopia is possible not yet.
Is it something to shoot for HELL YES. But right now the things we do to this planet is the definition of insanity for any species.

and at the root, is the only place we will be able to change anything long-term. these ideas of putting bandaids on an already bleeding artery is self-defeating...and tiresome. We live in a box (the current system we live in), and there are holes in these boxes and we try to plug them not realizing that perhaps the problem isn't "how do we plug these holes" but rather, "perhaps the box is fundamentally invalid"