Capitalist corporations suffer from a personality disorder characterized by enduring antisocial behavior, diminished empathy and remorse, and are rewarded by shareholders for acting that way. If corporations could be sent to a criminal psychologist’s office they’d be diagnosed as psychopaths and locked away forever.
Capitalism encourages greed. But greed is only good for capitalists. For normal people it is anti-social and soul destroying, not to mention very bad for our communities, which rely on altruism, compassion and a generalized concern for others.
Capitalism is a system of minority privilege and class rule based on the private ownership of means of livelihood. This gives a few rich people the power to buy and sell jobs, which means they can build or destroy entire communities that depend on those jobs.
Capitalists praise freedom and individualism, but they destroy freedom and individualism for everyone but themselves. The vast majority of us who work for a living are daily asked to uncritically follow orders, to act as if we are machines, and limit our creativity to what profits our bosses.
Capitalists denigrate cooperation and collectivism, but create mass production processes that rely on both from workers. Their system requires us to be cogs in a giant profit-making machine, but because they fear the power this gives us we are told working together for our own interests is illegitimate and bad. Thus capitalists undermine unions and other organizations that encourage workers to cooperate with each other and act collectively.
Capitalism requires the largest propaganda system the world has ever known to convince us it is the only system possible. It turns people into consumers through advertising, marketing, entertainment and even so-called news. Millions around the world are employed to use their creativity to twist our feelings of love, desire, human solidarity and fairness into tools of manipulation, so that ever more profits can flow into the hands of a tiny minority.
Capitalism is a system in which the principle of one dollar, one vote, dominates that of one person, one vote. Those who own the most shares (bought with their dollars) control giant corporations, many of which are more powerful than all but a few governments. Rich people also use their money to dominate the elections that are supposed to give us all one, equal vote. Under capitalism those with the most money are entitled to the most goods and services as well as the most say in directing our governments and our economy.
Capitalism proclaims the virtue of naked self-interest, but self-interest without regard for morality, ecology or common sense leads to environmental degradation, destruction of indigenous communities, colonialism, war and other forms of mass destruction. Self-interest leads capitalists to seek profit absolutely everywhere, regardless of the damage done to other people and the health of the planet’s ecosystem. Self-interest leads capitalists to destroy any rival economic system or way of thinking (such as indigenous communal land use and respect for nature) that can be a barrier to their endless quest for profit.
Capitalism is not a friend to democracy but ultimately its enemy. When pushed, capitalists choose capitalism over democracy. If people use democracy to weaken the power of capitalists the rich and powerful turn to various forms of fascism in order to keep their privileges.
Capitalism is a cancer taking over our planet. Capitalists make profits from global warming, from destroying our oceans, from pumping ever more chemicals into the atmosphere and from patenting everything they can, including life itself. Only by getting rid of capitalism can we rescue our environment.
Awesome, finally some healthy bashing of our shitty capitalist system!☺
Upvoted, resteemed and followed.
We need more voices like yours on steemit!
Yes we need this for a balance indeed. Too many people associate capitalism with free markets, which it isn't as it's based on monopoly and rent-seeking. Criticizing capitalism from a free market prospective always hits the nerve.
You had "free markets" in different historical periods,in the way that the markets weren't regulated. Mostly farmers and craftsmen selling their goods in a credit system. This didn't protect them from bankruptcy and debt slavery. Actors in a free market are always eventually outcompeted by bigger actors like states, churches, or big private capitalists who enforce monopolies. The free market is a pipe dream. Not that its my dream anyway. I believe in the commons, and in the long term, post-scarcity.
It's a question of definition. In my view sharing the commons eliminates monopolies and thus, as a result leads to the free market.
The best tools to achieve this is nationalisation of land and other natural resources and public control over the monetary system.
This is the the concept of Free Economy by Silvio Gesell, you may have been familiar with.
If not, I recommend reading this - http://userpage.fu-berlin.de/~roehrigw/onken/engl.htm
A quote from the link above to give you a flavour of the concept:
Gesell's theory of a Free Economy based on land and monetary reform may be understood a reaction both to the laissez-faire principle of classical liberalism as well as to Marxist visions of a centrally planned economy. It should not be thought of as a third way between capitalism or communism in the sense of subsequent "convergence theories" or so-called "mixed economy" models, i.e. capitalist market economies with global state supervision, but rather as an alternative beyond hitherto realized economic systems. In political terms it may be characterised as "a market economy without capitalism".
I see your point. It's just that the term free matket is often used by people without any moral qualms in their pursuit of profit. A commons based system would not be a free market in either a positive or negative sense IMO, even though you eliminate monopolies. Because the commons is more about access than profit. The commons should serve the commoners, meaning everybody. I believe in getting rid of the monetary system altogether, I think it fosters inequality, and it's inefficient.
I do think we agree to a large extent, so I don't want to be too polemical.
Yes I agree. There is no need to be polemical when you have agreement in principle and discuss nuances. To be honest I think one of the reasons why the current narrative is hijacked by vested interest is lack of healthy amount of tribalism between people who share views like ours.