Okay, so yesterday, I sounded off quite a bit about what passes for the capitalist system of economics here in the United States. Many here are advocates of what is mistakenly seen as a "pure" form of capitalism, although the belief in this system is faulty. Much like other -isms that have come to exist in our world throughout history, this -ism also has tremendous and glaring faults that simply cannot be overlooked.
What kind of faults? Well, that should be obvious now to anyone living in the United States, which is the most extreme version of so-called "pure" capitalism that exists in the world today. Here, "too big to fail" corporations and big banks essentially enjoy so many tax breaks and benefits, that they effectively enjoy a measure of socialism, while as Robert Reich correctly pointed out, the poor, and most of the rest of us who are not all that far from being poor, have to endure a cutthroat version of this extremist, "pure" capitalism.
Indeed, it is pure as yellow snow.
For decades now, the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening, and perhaps it goes hand in hand with self-righteous rich pricks patting themselves on the back and congratulating each other on a job well done, and claim to have earned every penny of their fortunes, while the remainder of us are seen as slobs, essentially, who are to blame for their own general lack of mobility. This is true, even though most people with any objectivity recognize today that the American Dream is essentially washed up, financially hanging most of us out to dry.
Again, this is not necessarily how Adam Smith intended it, although there is the possibility that he understood that there would be abuses, and that the system would obviously privilege some over others, as pretty much every economic and/or political system throughout history has done.
Below is a link to an interesting, albeit long, article, that offers an argument about how capitalism was, in effect, always designed to privilege a certain elite class over all others. I did not read too much of it yet myself, although it seemed interesting enough to share here. Take a look:
What kind of faults? Well, that should be obvious now to anyone living in the United States, which is the most extreme version of so-called "pure" capitalism that exists in the world today. Here, "too big to fail" corporations and big banks essentially enjoy so many tax breaks and benefits, that they effectively enjoy a measure of socialism, while as Robert Reich correctly pointed out, the poor, and most of the rest of us who are not all that far from being poor, have to endure a cutthroat version of this extremist, "pure" capitalism.
Indeed, it is pure as yellow snow.
For decades now, the gap between the rich and the poor has been widening, and perhaps it goes hand in hand with self-righteous rich pricks patting themselves on the back and congratulating each other on a job well done, and claim to have earned every penny of their fortunes, while the remainder of us are seen as slobs, essentially, who are to blame for their own general lack of mobility. This is true, even though most people with any objectivity recognize today that the American Dream is essentially washed up, financially hanging most of us out to dry.
Again, this is not necessarily how Adam Smith intended it, although there is the possibility that he understood that there would be abuses, and that the system would obviously privilege some over others, as pretty much every economic and/or political system throughout history has done.
Below is a link to an interesting, albeit long, article, that offers an argument about how capitalism was, in effect, always designed to privilege a certain elite class over all others. I did not read too much of it yet myself, although it seemed interesting enough to share here. Take a look:
The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Capitalism As a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege by Kevin A. Carson / mutualist.org / Feb 7, 2011:
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