Poll: Capitalism dying? (user search)

If capitalism dies, mankind's ability to progress will die.

Not certainly, but capitalism has lead to a lot of competition in order to get a better, cheaper product and that's where the driving force for a lot of innovation in technology comes from. In this system, which there are a lot of flaws, it has worked better than our friends in the USSR and Cuba.

I think it would be best to continue to have a mixed market system, where some things are controlled by the government (schools, police), and others not controlled by the government (businesses) but needs to pay their fair share so everybody can prosper. Almost the current system we have now.

Capitalism is much more efficient than a mixed market system. The only reason we can have a mixed market system is because pure capitalism created enough wealth for all of these safety nets. Capitalism literally has no flaws.

What kind of response is that? Capitalism has a lot of flaws, the largest one being inequality, inequality in gender pay, inequality between the rich and the poor, and it leads to systems such as slavery. Capitalism has a lot of flaws and it's pretty ignorant for someone to think that it's perfect.

Under what system would inequality cease to exist? Certainly not the "mixed market" system you advocate, and certainly not any system capable of doing anything other than impoverishing every member of the populace. I agree that excessive inequality is a bad thing, but you're assuming that this is the result of the free market rather than upward wealth redistribution and destruction, as well as government barriers designed to prevent those on the lower end of the spectrum from escaping poverty.

You probably believe that, even in the absence of such anti-upward mobility policies, a strong welfare state is still needed to help the poor. However, given that basically every politician who champions the welfare state also supports a plethora of regulations (I can specify if you want) in agriculture, energy, housing, labor, medical care, transportation, and countless other economic sectors that make the poor poorer (and quite often, the rich richer), I have to conclude that any sort of social welfare state will inevitably be used as a tool by politicians seeking to harm the poor. Welfare states create a vicious cycle whereby politicians can run for office on the promise of preserving and strengthening welfare programs, quietly enact policies that will steal and destroy even more of what little the poor have (or sometimes, loudly enact them while claiming that they'll really help poor people). The poor then become even more dependent on welfare benefits, and even more likely to vote for candidates that promise to protect and expand these programs, who then enact even more anti-poor policies and perpetuate the cycle. So, the very institution you desire to alleviate inequality will only serve to perpetuate and exacerbate it.

As for slavery, I'm curious why you believe that what we call "capitalism" is responsible for its existence. It's true that slavers subjugate(d) their fellow human beings in search of profit, but the profit motive is not synonymous with capitalism. If I murder someone and steal their wallet out of greed, is that capitalism?

Under no system would inequality would cease to exist, but there is a very large difference between the rich and the poor, that is a fact. Under other systems, like socialism, inequality isn't as large, and the inequality is usually between the leaders of the country and the followers, that happens in a capitalistic system as well.

Of course I support a strong welfare state. It's the right thing to do, we cannot let people who are poorer starve because we don't feel like helping. I also have no idea what regulations would hurt the poor, as regulations are made to help people be safe, and if we didn't have these regulations, it would ultimately hurt the poor, just look at things we've seen in the past. We do not want a return to child labor or very unsafe working conditions.

Of course slavery was caused by capitalism, people wanted to have their farms (the main reason in 1700's and 1800's) run as cheaply as possible to get the biggest profit, and that was through the buying and selling of "property". That happened to be people. Earlier it was because of war, and they wanted soldiers, and that was to be more powerful, to have more land, more stuff.

If the profit motive is not capitalist, then what is? What would you even call capitalism? That's the major pillar, that's what it's based on, the profit.

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