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I'd only tell you to read some from Karl Marx and 'The Iron Heel' by Jack London to see my view on capitalism.
Okay. Now I understand that you're coming from a Marxist perspective. I find Marxism to be deplorable. It lacks a theory of the individual and insists that individuals sacrifice themselves for the sake of the "society." I find few things to be more important than respect of individual rights, the primary ones being those to life, liberty, and property. Marxism respects only right to life in theory, and often does not even respect that in practice.
Basically, you favor collectivism, at least in political philosophy, while I strongly favor individualism. In other words, we're coming from completely different sides.
Capitalism is designed to seek opportunities on humanity's weaknesses. It's designed to improve to sell stuff. The reason why iPhone or that kind of crap exist is capitalism. You may say it's a good thing because the improvements in technology has much do with capitalism. But you have to see that the ones who has the money has the rights in capitalism. There's no equality involved on it.
No. It is not. This is a Marxist conspiracy theory. Capitalism is designed to allow freedom of voluntary trade. If people choose to buy iPhones, they may. If people choose not too, they can make that decision too. Personally, I prefer to buy iPhones. Just yesterday I made my preorder for an iPhone 5. Why do I like iPhones? Because I've been duped by the evil Tim Cook whose sole goal is to prey on my weakness? No. Because it improves my quality of life. I'm not going to enumerate the ways that my iPhone makes me more productive, intelligent, and happy, because that isn't the topic of this conversation, but I think it's clear that it does (yes, I realize that some people use such technology to make themselves less intelligent. This is not the fault of the technology, but the people, since clearly there are counterexamples, such as myself).
The problem with your "who has the money has the rights" argument (well, actually, there are many, but we'll start with one) is that, in a true capitalism,
anyone can be the one with the money. In fact, this is one of the major advantages of a pure capitalist system (not corporatism). Anyone can, with intelligence and effort, be innovative, and become wealthy.
Oh, and we'll have one more. How in the world is it that "who has the money has the rights"? A lower class or middle class person has the same human rights as an upper class person. They can keep what they earn. They can live free so long as they do not initate force on another person. They can enter voluntary agreements of their own volition. I realize the Marxist theory likes to talk about the "oppressed proletariat", but this is more fiction than fact. In reality, Marxism is the system that creates an underclass, and this is a vicious one, because it matters what connections you have to the ruling party.
You referenced
1984 earlier. In
1984, Orwell depicted a society formed by someone with Marxist ideals. Big Brother didn't grow up reading Adam Smith. He grew up reading Karl Marx. So it's ironic that you would refer to an anti-Marxist book to make a pro-Marxist point.
In this world situation, the ones who work hard don't make the money. The ones who use the weaknesses of humanity, the ones who are greedy do. The evil that men do are the reasons why capitalism doesn't work in the way you talk about. If it wasn't for evil in humanity then we wouldn't be in this situation.
Have you been reading my posts at all? I have made it
abundantly clear that there are major distinctions between the current world situation and capitalism. For one, government and business would never be in bed together in a capitalist society.
Once again, you're assuming a malevolent universe, or more accurately, a malevolent humanity premise. This is a premise based on no facts that has still managed to become popularly accepted over the last couple of centuries. The idea is that people are innately evil and that they need to be forced to do good. This is so easily disproven that no one who ever thinks about it should hold it. If people are innately evil, then why aren't we still savages, like
Lord of the Flies (a book which has a flawed basic premise but that I think still does well as a commentary on the influence that a few bad people can have on a whole group, a real-world example being Nazi Germany)? I maintain that humanity is more good than bad. Most people would disagree, but the malevolent humanity premise is fundamentally flawed. And anyway, I think it's interesting that Marxism chooses to "solve" the malevolent humanity "problem" by putting more control in a small group over a large group in order to make sure that everything is "fair." We see how this doesn't work, with examples like Soviet Russia.
The ones who make the most money are most valuable and the ones who has the most rights in capitalist systems. Those people only care about themselves and making more money and that leads to an oligarchy where the "normal" people live restricted and poorly and the rich crushes them.
Do you understand the concept of rights? For example, are you aware of the logically inherent fact that things like the "right" to healthcare are not actual rights? A right is not something that you have to get from someone else. It's something that you have until/unless someone takes it away. Life, liberty, and property are basic rights. Altruists like to say that there is a "right" to things like food, medicine, or more recently, Internet access, but these do not fit the definition of rights. And if a government was to ensure everyone these "rights," they would, necessarily, have to violate at least one of the actual rights, those of life, liberty, and property.
Now that I have provided the correct objective definition of rights, will you continue to assert the claim that in a capitalism, the lower class has fewer rights than the upper class? I'll save us time and point out that in capitalism, no one can legally a) murder the poor, b) lock up the poor in prison for being poor or c) steal from the poor. Other rights, those that derive from the aforementioned, are also not deprived from the poor in a capitalism. In capitalism a) the poor have a right to free speech, b) the poor have a right to negotiate and enter or not enter contracts as they choose, c) the poor have a right protect themselves, their family, and property, d) the poor receive a fair trial if they are accused of a crime and e) the poor will not receive cruel or unusual punishment if they are convicted of a crime.
And I'll respond yet again to this little bit:
Those people only care about themselves and making more money and that leads to an oligarchy where the "normal" people live restricted and poorly and the rich crushes them.
Okay. Many rich people in a capitalist society care primarily about themselves (and by extension the people they personally care about). Some may care primarily about making more money, but most probably see that money is only a means to an end, not an end in itself, and while continuing to make a lot of it, continue to consider it as such. However, I don't see the part where this leads to an oligarchy. Would you like to provide an answer to
how this just magically "leads to an oligarchy"? Because capitalism has the most class mobility of any economic system, because any person with the devotion and talent can be successful. Not everyone is going to enter the top 10% of wealth or anything like that, obviously, but everyone can pull themselves up and improve their own life. Historically, the times when societies have been the closest they've ever been to true capitalism have been the times when standard of living increases most. Consider the industrial revolution. Left-wing ideologues like to go on at ends about how oppressed the working class was, but the fact they do not consider was that standard of living increased very rapidly during this era (in addition, many factory owners got away with abuses that probably would not stand up the courts of a country adhering the basic capitalist non-aggression principle). Capitalism results in massive increases in standard of living for everybody, so that if we became a true capitalist society today, a century from now the poor of that society would have have a standard of living probably well above that of the average middle-class American today. Under a Marxist system, this would not be the case. Standard of living for everyone except the well-connected would not only be far lower than current American society, but it would be the same (or probably worse) after 100 years of such a society's dominance.
Clearly, you've only heard the Marxist conspiracist explanation of capitalism, a description which is mostly inaccurate. I'm trying to provide facts to respond to your claims, many of which you seem to be mostly ignoring. I am willing to continue discussing this, but not if you in the future choose to ignore the points I am presenting in order to make the exact same arguments that you have already made several times.
