Capitalism, a system of economic, social, and political order is based on the concepts of market operations, renewable resources and profitability. Over the past few decades the flaws of capitalism has led to both financial and resource crises. With the emergence of a new food crisis, which is a conflict over basic survival commodity, has the time come for the world order to start a new social reformation?
All the Yes points:
All the No points:
- Capitalism has survived centuries
- It wasn’t the flaws of capitalism that caused the crisis
- Inexhaustible ingenuity
Non-Renewable Resources
Yes because…
Capitalism’s survival is dependent on the existence of renewable resources; however, the nature of the capitalist that seeks to marginalise profit is a contradiction to this principal. Profitable energy needs to be scare and comes in large quantities with high energy emission characteristics, these energies include, natural gas, coal, fossil fuel and even uranium, all of which creates conflicts over the amount of natural resources and environmental degradation. This shows that capitalism is hypocritical in its own nature, and if a system of the world order is conflicting in its own nature, how can the world expect sustainability while operating according to such ideas?
No because…
The fact that capitalists seeks to marginalise profit from non-renewable resources doesn’t make the system of capitalism hypocritical. If the existence of capitalism is dependent on non-renewable resources then it is not the flaw of the idea but the flaw of the people operating the system who misinterpret and abuse the idea. The harvesting of non-renewable energies is quite expensive and without the abundance in capital stock which capitalism creates, the facilities to harvest non-renewable energy would never have been possible. Thus, the world is simply experiencing a transitional phrase, in which “short-term” thinking investors are being taught the lessons of damage from their operations.
Although I believe in Social Democracy (like that of France or Denmark)…
Yes because…
Capitalism must be split evenly with socialism. If they are not balanced evenly, one will take control, dictatorships will seed, etc. People are, inevitably, greedy. Total Capitalism will never work, because the poor majority will be oppressed by the rich. They poor rise up and destroy the government. But in every functioning democracy there is some form of welfare (as of 3:32, Nov. 8, 2010, Central Standard time). It may be massive or minute but it exists, and therefore the government is not 100% capitalist.
No because…
Capitalism has survived centuries
No because…
Despite a few hiccups such as the world depression in the 1930s, capitalism has survived ever since its birth. Alternatives, such as communism, have failed, as seen in the USSR and China. It appears that whilst there is an earth with humans things will be sold for a price dictated by the seller.
Yes because…
The fact that it has survived centuries does not imply that one day in the future it may not self-destruct.
It wasn’t the flaws of capitalism that caused the crisis
No because…
The current crisis was created by the housing bubble, which was created by the US Federal Reserve flooding the market with cheap money by lowering interest rates. Since money on the current system is not required to be backed by any physical thing (as was once with gold-backed money) but is just a number in central banks’ computers, the low interest rates resulted in over-borrowing and reliance on unsustainable debt.
In a truly capitalistic system, as that enjoyed by the US until the 30’s, no body was able to decide unilaterally as to the value of money – people valued it for what they valued the equivalent amount of gold; hence, the description of capitalism as the creator of the latest crisis is wrong, and the crisis should instewad be attributed to state interference with people’s judgement.
Yes because…
Inexhaustible ingenuity
No because…
Current industrial nations use non-renewable sources because they are cheap. This does not mean that capitalism is dependent on it: indeed, free enterprise and trade have existed long before the availability of significant non-renewable sources.
When those resources start to run out, therefore, capitalism is perfectly capable (and indeed, the bast way) to make the transition into renewable energy such as solar power, wind energy, geothermal energy etc. This would happen naturally when scarce resources become more expensive, thus generating demand for renewable sources of energy.
Capitalism as an economic system is self defeating because there is market incentive to reduce capitalism’s laissez faire nature. People and companies use capital to sway governmental policies that exclude or limit markets to their own betterment. An example being Disney’s lobbying effort that pushed copyright protection from 30 years to 94 years. Another example being minimum wage to exclude lower wage workers and upstart businesses. There is no inherent limiting system within a capitalist structure to prevent it from going into cronyism and then into something worse.
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