Peter’s answer to “Is Capitalism unethical?” > Likes and Comments
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LA ALTERNATIVA ES DARSE CUENTA DE LA 'GRATUIDAD' QUE ES LO REAL. VIVIMOS INTERCAMBIANDO NUESTRA PRODUCCIÓN PERSONAL GRATUITAMENTE CON TODOS LOS DEMÁS Y LA RAZÓN ES QUE LOS PRECIOS SON FALSOS (los objetos deberían tener el precio porcentual en relación al salario o condición económica del que lo compra), LA PROPIEDAD ES UNA FICCIÓN LEGAL , ASÍ QUE LA VERDAD ES QUE TODOS LOS OBJETOS QUE TENEMOS LOS TENEMOS GRATUITAMENTE Y QUE NO NOS LOS QUITAN PORQUE NOS AMAMOS Y NOS DEJAMOS TENERLOS POR EL AMOR RECÍPROCO QUE NOS PROFESAMOS. ¿There is no alternative he?
You could very easily modify capitalism to make more equitable. Eg. Anyone who starts a company cannot hire people without giving them shares in the company. So every company is essentially owned only by the people who work in it.
@Peter Singer, Sorry Peter but your answer is so simplistic, I am amazed. Margaret Thatcher's "There is no alternative (TINA)" repeated verbatim. Any bigot on a street corner would tell you to "look at Russia" as if totalitarian communism was the only alternative imaginable.
Why don't we look at the nordic countries to see how mixed economies could make a better world. Even mainstream economists (Piketty, Steglitz) are telling us that there are alternatives. Progressive taxation can smooth out inequality and bring about reaffirmation of the social contract. Revival of Society can easily save the world.
Capitalism has nourished nothing but selfishness. Selfishness leads to the destruction of society and a society in decline is easy target for strongman totalitarianism (Arendt). We need to eliminate the rising levels of social inequality before it destroys whatever is left of the social contract and ultimately our whole society and democracy.
Exactly. People always mention "oh Russia tried something and that failed so all we have is capitalism". Russia was really just racism replaced by Oligarchy. The only thing it proved was Fascism and Oligarchies are bad.
@Razi @Ian I know this is 3 years old but for everyone that might be reading, mixed economies, Nordic model, progressive taxation, large social safety net etc. are all still capitalist, since the means of production aren't collectively owned. Granted they're more humane but that doesn't make it non-capitalist. So those two aren't actually rebutting Singer's arguments, they're citing capitalist systems as alternatives to capitalism! This all stems from the false but incredibly tenacious notion that social democracy is somehow socialist in spite of the fact that means of production are privately owned.
It is revealing that it is repeatedly denied that socialism ever existed in Russia. This argument serves as further evidence against the alleged alternative called socialism. What use is an economic system that has either failed or supposedly never existed?
Capitalism undoubtedly has its weaknesses, above all the accumulation of capital and the resulting asymmetry of power. But unlike socialism, this system always asserts itself and does not have to constantly deny its own existence.
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LA ALTERNATIVA ES DARSE CUENTA DE LA 'GRATUIDAD' QUE ES LO REAL. VIVIMOS INTERCAMBIANDO NUESTRA PRODUCCIÓN PERSONAL GRATUITAMENTE CON TODOS LOS DEMÁS Y LA RAZÓN ES QUE LOS PRECIOS SON FALSOS (los objetos deberían tener el precio porcentual en relación al salario o condición económica del que lo compra), LA PROPIEDAD ES UNA FICCIÓN LEGAL , ASÍ QUE LA VERDAD ES QUE TODOS LOS OBJETOS QUE TENEMOS LOS TENEMOS GRATUITAMENTE Y QUE NO NOS LOS QUITAN PORQUE NOS AMAMOS Y NOS DEJAMOS TENERLOS POR EL AMOR RECÍPROCO QUE NOS PROFESAMOS. ¿There is no alternative he?
You could very easily modify capitalism to make more equitable. Eg. Anyone who starts a company cannot hire people without giving them shares in the company. So every company is essentially owned only by the people who work in it.
@Peter Singer, Sorry Peter but your answer is so simplistic, I am amazed. Margaret Thatcher's "There is no alternative (TINA)" repeated verbatim. Any bigot on a street corner would tell you to "look at Russia" as if totalitarian communism was the only alternative imaginable. Why don't we look at the nordic countries to see how mixed economies could make a better world. Even mainstream economists (Piketty, Steglitz) are telling us that there are alternatives. Progressive taxation can smooth out inequality and bring about reaffirmation of the social contract. Revival of Society can easily save the world.
Capitalism has nourished nothing but selfishness. Selfishness leads to the destruction of society and a society in decline is easy target for strongman totalitarianism (Arendt). We need to eliminate the rising levels of social inequality before it destroys whatever is left of the social contract and ultimately our whole society and democracy.
Exactly. People always mention "oh Russia tried something and that failed so all we have is capitalism". Russia was really just racism replaced by Oligarchy. The only thing it proved was Fascism and Oligarchies are bad.
@Razi @Ian I know this is 3 years old but for everyone that might be reading, mixed economies, Nordic model, progressive taxation, large social safety net etc. are all still capitalist, since the means of production aren't collectively owned. Granted they're more humane but that doesn't make it non-capitalist. So those two aren't actually rebutting Singer's arguments, they're citing capitalist systems as alternatives to capitalism! This all stems from the false but incredibly tenacious notion that social democracy is somehow socialist in spite of the fact that means of production are privately owned.
It is revealing that it is repeatedly denied that socialism ever existed in Russia. This argument serves as further evidence against the alleged alternative called socialism. What use is an economic system that has either failed or supposedly never existed? Capitalism undoubtedly has its weaknesses, above all the accumulation of capital and the resulting asymmetry of power. But unlike socialism, this system always asserts itself and does not have to constantly deny its own existence.
Capitalism in just a matter of a 400 or so years is close to destroying the earth's natural ecosystems that every living being depends on for food, water, shelter, and spiritual nurturance. Capitalism has wiped out or colonized most of the indigenous peoples whose ways of life and connection to nature had preserved the planet for millennia and kept population growth and technology in balance with available surrounding resources, with the exception of a few advanced civilisations that overshot their landbase capacity or intruded on that of others and so went the way of the dodo, as modern industrial civilisation is rapidly heading. Hundreds of species go extinct each day from capitalist overconsumption and so-called "resource"* depletion, i.e. habitat destruction.
(* Resource: a capitalist euphemism for anything that can be converted to a dollar value, ignoring the value of anything else that doesn't fit within the virtual economic construct.)
Global capitalism has caused runaway anthropogenic climate change which will kill billions of humans and quite likely end the human species. Most scientists that aren't bought off by corporations and banks agree we are heading for the next extinction level event (ELE) and directly link this result to the profligacies of capitalism's "free for all" markets which externalize costs to society and the environment while privatizing so-called profits from surplus labor (exploitation) and artifically cheap "resources". Capitalism converts life to death and is driven by money printed out of thin air.
(* Profits: capitalism's euphemism for the theft of the commons, understood by many indigenous peoples as what has been nourished and grown by their ancestors and owed to their own descendants up to the 7th generation.)
How is capitalism and its results utilitarian -- when the few profit off the many -- or practical -- when it ends most biodiversity on the planet -- in any real world outside the bankers' computer zeroes and ones used to misrepresent "wealth" today. Capitalism is the financialization/virtualization of what was once a real economy but now no longer has absolutely any correlation with available planetary resources and growth capacities, any consideration of nonhuman or human ethical responsibilities, or necessary ecosystem relationships and dependencies?
In short, capitalism is about as practical and utilitarian as a Nazi labor camp making cyanide laced vitamins.
I think I'll be trading in my copy of "Practical Ethics" for this book, "Practical Permacultue".
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...
And I'd also recommend Charles Eisenstein's work on resource based economics to you, professor. Particularly "Sacred Economics", "The Ascent of Humanity", and "The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know Is Possible".
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Charles' work is also available for free or donation as part of his ethical approach to a gift economy that should replace capitalism, assuming we have the time to undo capitalism's damage. He walks his talk. Charles' recommendations draw from some traditional indigenous gift-giving economic practices as well as the entire history of economic thought.
http://charleseisenstein.net/
So there's a few examples of working alternatives to capitalism which I would argue has and never will work in the real world where human, animal, plant, and ecosystems have rights and humans have responsibilities to maintain them.
Glad I skipped Princeton and the investment banker track.