Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

Capitalism isn’t sustainable in the long run because you can only keep doing “every man for himself” for so long. At the end of it all the only men who gain are the ones who exploited the system in the first place, meaning those who are middle class will eventually be in the same position as the so called “victims of ‘socialism’”.

By our standards, people living in the past lived in conditions we would consider impoverished because society has changed and progressed since then because that is simply how time works.
 
But if you were to step into that time, of say, a subsistence economy, poverty wouldn’t mean the same thing as it does today. So relatively, no they didn’t live in what THEY would consider poverty.
 
However that is beside the point, my point here as i have mentioned in other replies, is not to say poverty is a new idea. It is to say that poverty is assumes to organically arise out of the human condition — which is untrue, as the systems of have and have nots have been designed by humans. The evolution of these systems, as outlined by Historical Materialism, show the shifting of capital amongst the classes.
 
I would argue the quality of life is not rising, In richer countries mental health and physical health is on a rapid decline, People aren’t paid a living wage, (in some places) most don’t have access to viable healthcare, homelessness is rampant. In America, the nutritional quality of food available to most people is awful & giving rise to dangerous illnesses (consider the insane rise of things like childhood diabetes, which didnt even EXIST in the 1980s . As well as how expensive it is to have access to nutritious food).
 
And that is only a taste. War, famine, environmental degradation, neoimperialism, cultural imperialism, economic imperialism and a whole other number of issues plague the so called Global South, whose resources were, and are still, taken to facilitate development in richer countries — whose riches were carried on the backs of laborers and natural resources from those countries in the first place.
 
Yes, we may have iPhones, but the harvesting & production of the materials needed to create said iPhones, the labor that is put into making the products themselves, and the millions of pounds of E-Waste that is destroying environments how that no, the average quality of life is not improving. and I’m not saying iPhones are the the only piece of tech/innovation that would distinguish class stratification, but what I am illustrating is that the comforts we enjoy come at an insane cost. We don’t even think about a lot of the ways that the system effects the lives of the general population. We may not live in caves and collect berries, but we do live in an age where oppression is implemented strategically to make most of us complicit.
 
Poverty is not something that operates like natural selection or is inherent in any human being. Poverty is a subsequent condition of a classist and now in modernity, capitalist, society.

@Mikey  
How unproductive. Yawn.

@Background Pony #E420  
The US should be critiqued as any other country would be.
 
 
@Latecomer  
That’s fine, I disagree with the heavily regulated part. That being said please don’t read into my disagreeing as I support prioritizing the good of companies and executives over workers. I oppose rent seeking from any party. I also support a healthy social security system that involves a form of privatization that still includes a safety net (alternatively allow social security assets to be invested in private assets)and I support healthy public services.
 
Actually social security is a great example for us. You could have the completely unrestrained version, which would mean none at all, you keep that money and do what you like, but large numbers won’t save and when they reach retirement age we reach a crises where either we let them deal with the results, or we take the funds from people who did save in order to keep them afloat. Most people would not like that system. Why not use the advantage of a free market though, have a system in place where a portion of your money is taken for retirement, like now, and invested in private assets, maybe you are given a choice of different “pools” to invest in. Additionally if by the time of your retirement something happened and you don’t have money to retire on then public funds can be used.

Bloombergs outright bashing Bernie on Twitter.
 
I normally wouldn’t care if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s pulling the whole “WE NEED UNITY” card.
 
All these blue checkmark trolls constantly harass Bernie and his “bRo” supporters will cry “VOTEBLUENOMATTERWHO” once they face any kind of criticism towards their preferred candidate.
 
PROGRESSIVES AND CORPORATES CAN NO LONGER EXIST IN THE SAME PARTY.

@Latecomer  
you wanna raise the global average standard? force them to. Sprinkling third world or second world countries with subvention makes them dependent and not productive.  
It’s not because we are successful in terms of economy we owe anything. Any country can exploit its resources and become rich. Look at Dubai, the Emirates, all these places. How did they manage to get from desert to palaces and all in so small time?

@Patachu  

Only because the United States decided it wanted to pay for oil rather than invest in renewable technologies and contribute to anthropogenic climate change and its disastrous results.

@Background Pony #C50D  
That doesn’t answer the question.

@CaptainXtra  
It’s not my political side but we’re all at the same point. Every candidate should be independent and have freedom of passing his ideas.
 
That’s concurrency, just like if you had say the choice between Apple and Android.  
Apple: iOS.
 
Android: Samsung, Blackberry, Sony, Nokia, LG…
 
Everyone : “Well at least we have freedom of choice!”
 
That’s not a choice, that is not making any difference. Here both left and right agrees on the same guidelines and strategies to get elected, there’s no longer any independence of thoughts or differences in ideas. And that’s a catastrophe for democracy.

@Background Pony #E420  
Do you have an actual response?

@Violet Rose in The Rain  
the US really didn’t “decide” to pay for oil over alternatives almost 100 years ago. It’s more a matter of price of energy for developing economies. This is also why I think it is unfair for people to criticize China and India so much on their pollution. Not to say they don’t pollute way too much, they do, but developing economies tend to gravitate toward cheaper energy to feed their growing system. We could, should, and some are, looking more a nuclear energy as an alternative, but the aversion was a more cultural issue of fear.
 
 
@Background Pony #E420  
you’ll need to rephrase the question then because I don’t know what you are asking.

@CaptainXtra  
Nor can they split without cementing Republican rule for decades.
 
 
@Patachu  
Actually, natural resources are the trick path - they tend to result in less prosperity than you might think, and very concentrated in the hands of the elite.
 
 
@Background Pony #C50D  
Well, I was using social security as a descriptor for benefits to those who can’t work in general, not just the elderly. It has to be tax-backed, not based on individual savings.

@Latecomer  

 
They were in the hands of agricultors in South America and miners in Africa before that. Like the cobalt extracted to make your shitty tablet/phone, the cadmium and other minerals , things like that.  
 
Ain’t “progress” fucking grand…

@Patachu  
Exactly - a valuable resource won’t necessarily benefit the place where it’s found.

@Background Pony #C50D  
Is the US a capitalist country? Can criticisms of its policy apply to other capitalist countries?

@Latecomer  
This is why trade exist, and that’s commerce, with the laws of supply and demand. it’s capitalism, if a country have the resource, the government allows you to exploit it and get something in return. You want 3000 acres to implant your factory? Pay taxes, bring employment, pay your employees and our economy will start! We will have healthcare, energy, communications, a higher and higher level of life, security, books, education. Why is it not happening like that?
 
Because the governments are corrupted there and don’t care about benefits for their people. It’s not the fault of capitalism but the absence of any form of economy that’s a problem. And that’s up to these countries to remove that, and aspire to start their own economy instead of living at the mercy of NGOs and chinese corporations coming to exploit their resources. This is already a thing.

@Latecomer  
oh, so for welfare programs? I like the idea of a negative income tax. Abolish all other forms of welfare and just pay straight cash, but have the system phase out as you make more money so that for, let’s say, every dollar you make, you like 25 cents in welfare.
 
 
@Background Pony #E420  
oh, yes, I would say practically every advanced economy is capitalist. Even China is in a weird state where they have embraced capitalism in many ways even though they aren’t there yet.

@Patachu  
And that leaves it ripe for exploitation by capitalists, local or foreign. Cuba revolted for a reason.

@Background Pony #C50D  
should say you lose 25 cents

@Background Pony #C50D  
Some sense there (although there are also perhpas holes to plug as well) - but then the trick is figuring out the meeting point.

@Latecomer  
you’re right. You need to work out the direct mechanics of how to measure it, how much do you get, how to phase it out, and at what level do we cut it off. I think we could do it though.
 
Nice video of Milton Friedman explaining his negative income tax,
 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpgkX588nM
 
and before someone complains about Friedman the man, please focus on the content, the content that I think both parties can support.

@Background Pony #C50D  
My biggest complaint with capitalism is not itself relentless exploitation or colonialism or any of that.
 
It’s the redefinition of costs in terms of an arbitrary number in a database, or previously arbitrary pieces of paper and metal. This cost does not tell you anything about how many slaves were bonded in a lithium mine to give you a product, or how many tons of pesticide were leveled on a field, or how many ppm of hydrogen sulfide were leached into a local river, or how many tons of CO₂ were released into the atmosphere, or how many hours someone had to work to produce a product. Nothing.
 
Of all of these, only one even appears on a company’s balance sheet (labor costs). So companies under capitalism will always have perverse incentives to destroy the environment and use the least financially expensive labor available. You can mitigate it with laws sometimes, but laws aren’t universal and can’t always keep up with technological advancement that poses new environmental threats and threats to laborers.

@Latecomer  
That’s why you should reason as a capitalist. Want to exploit something? Pay for it. Oh you can see somewhere else if you want but if everyone start wanting to get money and returns for what they offer, that’s where capitalism works.  
If a corporation wants to come anyways and exploit your land, you have rifles until they pay up. Do you understand the idea?
 
If a company comes to my property and says «We’re gonna install a 5G antenna on that terrain if you don’t mind, it’s for the benefits of all»  
Either you pay a rent for installing your thing on my terrain, either you get welcomed by the rifle. Or in civilized world, my ushers/lawyers.
 
Private property is a concept that is very tied to capitalism. What you create, build or buy is your private property. You can get someone to pay to have it or sell it, or keep it for yourself, that’s basic rights and that’s anyone’s freedom. Just like it’s everyone’s freedom not to get exploited or enslaved. Either you work and demand money for it, either you do nothing and you’re also free to do so.

@CaptainXtra  
Anyone who sides with both #VBNMW & #NeverBernie is gonna be in a tight spot if Bernie gets the Dem nomination. Which mantra to renege on?

@Background Pony #E420  
Ahh, I see where you are coming from now.
 
The price system in a free market is very good at what it does when it comes to allocating resources. In fact when you look at global free trade it is mindblowing how things come together as well as they have. It all goes to show how effective it is when you look at how centrally planned economies failed.
 
Now, to get to your point on externalities. This is definitely something economists have been wrangling with for years. I agree that we need to find an effective way to work these costs into the pricing system, but the difficult part is how and what value. Carbon credits is a popular solution to carbon pollution. You run a factory that is going to put out carbon? You need to purchase credits for it, thereby working those costs into the price of your final product. In principal this works, in practice it can be difficult.
 
You also run into other problems of what are you trying to price into it exactly? Some people may not like cheap labor overseas and want it brought back to the US for US workers, so you try and price that in, but in the end it hurts both US consumers and overseas workers.