Tag: capitalism

This diary will attempt to bring the Cold War ideological conflict between “capitalism” and “socialism” into focus.  Here I conclude that capitalism is about profit, and socialism is a vague word which could mean a number of things.  As we define capitalism and socialism, we can see that the flaws and virtues of each can be understood for the sake of struggling to create our own system of political economy, one which actually serves us.  Finally, I will comment upon the relevance of this discussion to the matter of “health care reform” currently being contested in Congress.

(crossposted at Big Orange)

Crossposted at Daily Kos

  Overlooked in the coverage of the passing of the great Senator Ted Kennedy is this ground shaking news out of France.

    France’s leading banks agreed Tuesday to curbs on the way they award bonuses, including penalties for traders who lose money for their companies, as part of a push by President Nicolas Sarkozy for worldwide limits on bonus payouts.

~snip~

    He stressed, though, that international rules are needed to keep French banks competitive, and Sarkozy promised to push the G20 meeting next month in the United States to adopt such measures.

    “While the first signs of stabilization of the economy are here, we are seeing bad habits coming back. I can’t accept that,” Sarkozy told the bankers.

    “No one has forgotten that the financial sector is at the origin of this crisis.”

sympatico.msn.ca

    Expect more below the fold.

There are some things, we just shouldn’t “Leave to the Markets” to decide what’s best

For Example:

Infrastructure

Public Schools

the Unemployed and the Uninsured

Left to their own devices, Private Interests will UNDERCUT the Public Interest, most every time!

That’s what the Profit Motive is all about — it cares more about the interests of ME, instead of the well-being of the WE, from which Societies are built.

Karl Marx’s most profound understanding and prescient warning about the future of Kapitalism is this: It is inevitable in the Kapitalist system, wealth (generated by labor) accrues further and further away from the worker and consolidates itself into fewer and fewer hands, leading to an abyss of economic disparity between labor and “owners”, which leads directly and inevitably to rebellion by labor against Kapital.

With all that is so terribly wrong in this sordid and rapidly decomposing empire the amount of fixation on the White House ‘Beer Summit’ offers a crystal clear glimpse through the looking glass at WHY we are all fucked. The media fueled racial circus of the story of the rogue cop James Crowley and Professor Henry A. Gates led to yesterday’s sit down with The Pope of Hope and the V.P. from the Usury State over a few beers in a symbolic conference that was given the importance of say The Yalta Conference. In our cheapened, dumbed-down, busted-flat in Baton Rouge and fucked up the ass with no lube by the oligarchy lemming colony it’s media manufactured horseshit like this that gives me zero hope that anything will ever be fixed in my lifetime. With healthcare reform pretty much dead other than the certainty that the insurance corporations will be rolling in the dough from the coming mandated coverage, the wars still raging and the phony recovery setting up millions of suckers for the next fleecing it’s drivel like this that serves as news.

Oh and Michael Jackson is still dead.

   And you wonder why they fear socialism.

   

    “But Bill, the profit motive is what sustains Capitalism. Yes, and our sex drive is what sustains the human species but we don’t try to fuck everything!”.

~snip~

   “The problem with President Obama’s health care plan is not socialism, it is capitalism.”

~snip~

   “It’s not just medicine, prisons used to be a non profit thing.”

~snip~

   “It is not a coincidence that we outsourced running prisons to private coporations and then the number of prisoners skyrocketed.”

~snip~

   “And my final example of the profit motive screwing something up that used to be good when it was non-profit . . . TV NEWS!

   I heard all the news anchors this week talk about how much better the news coverage was back in Cronkites day, and I thought, ‘Gee, if only you were in a position to do something about it.’ ”

   Class warfare.

   In order to make a super profit we rape the earth and enslave our fellow human beings. Can you think of ANYTHING that is Big Business that doen’t do one or the other?

   We need to PUSH BACK, YELL LOUDER, whatever it takes.

   We need to March on Washington this summer for health care if they are going to vacation while main street burns. We need to march for health care, for war crimes accountability, to audit the Fed, for many reasons.

   The status quo is not just untenable, it is KILLING US.

   We need to march for justice.

   And I will lead the way, if you will follow me.

   So, who’s coming with me?

also posted on the kos

It’s simply amazing, how Obstructionists operate

Step Right Up!

This magic elixir, will solve everything —

It’s called “More of the Same”

(aka “Private Insurance knows best.”)

It’s simply amazing what Paid Shills will say

to keep their Wealthy Patrons rolling in clover.

Call it Personal Disaster Capitalism

   If Reform Costs X and Fighting it costs Y – choose the lesser of the two everytime.

   

    Executives of three of the nation’s largest health insurers told federal lawmakers in Washington on Tuesday that they would continue canceling medical coverage for some sick policyholders, despite withering criticism from Republican and Democratic members of Congress who decried the practice as unfair and abusive.

crooksandliars.com

    Why? Why would they do this?

    Because it is profitable, of course.

    The line between taking a profit and making a killing is where ethics ends and Super Profits begin. There are thousands of examples we can find in our economy today where taking a profit is not good enough, and thus making a killing is what we do.

    It seems as though once the line between making a profit ethically is crossed there is no going back. Once the people who profit by stepping over the line and making a killing have gone there, the damage is already done and it is too late. What good is it to us if we fine a polluter some millions they can afford after they have made the Super Profit and ripped the resources out of the bare earth, or by denying someone Health Care they paid the Insurance for, or by ginning up a war fro their contractor buddies. The war still happens, people die of preventable disease and no one can put the environment back together again.

   This is how our economy works. Whoever can fuck over the most people the best win. You can be too big to fail but if there is any competition to worry about, don’t worry, the Government will take care of it for you, but if average Joe Sixpacks demand the same thing that is socialism, and that is bad.

    So what is a person to do?

    The first step to fighting the Class War is to know your enemy.

   

    An investigation by the House Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations showed that health insurers WellPoint Inc., UnitedHealth Group and Assurant Inc. canceled the coverage of more than 20,000 people, allowing the companies to avoid paying more than $300 million in medical claims over a five-year period.

    It also found that policyholders with breast cancer, lymphoma and more than 1,000 other conditions were targeted for rescission and that employees were praised in performance reviews for terminating the policies of customers with expensive illnesses.

crooksandliars.com

    You see, if they actually provided the health care insurance policy holders are paying for, they would not make such a big profit. It is as simple as that. $300,000,000 over 5 years is hard for a Board of Directors to turn down.

    The Murder By Spreadsheet Industry is not alone here. Many industries and big businesses claim they can not survive without there special little exceptions around basic decency and common sense.

    Some examples are

    Mountain Top Removal Coal Mining

    You can call this Environmental Disaster Capitalism

    First off, these companies will NEVER invest in Green Technology and Green energy, because that costs money and any initial investment towards progress will hurt their profits, and that makes Executives cry.

    Never mind the fact that there are other, less destructive ways to mine for coal, but that costs money, and is less profitable than the Super – Profits that can be made by wrecking the place. Never mind the fact that coal is toxic, toxic to the air, the rivers, everything around it. That is not important, making money, now that is what is important.

    Labor Unions

    If companies do not have the ability to bust unions, how will they make their Super Profits? Can large employers like WalMart get by when their employees can demand better wages and benefits? Of course.

    Will they admit that? Hell no!

    What costs more, making TV ads or actually paying employees more? Do the long term benefits to society and our economy outweigh the initial costs? Of course not, that would get in the way of making a killing. What are you, some kind of socialist?

    Well, yes, if by socialist you mean something other than an unfettered free market capitalist. If that is what you mean by socialist I am guilty as charged.

    Wall St

    This one is so big I will not get into it too much, suffice it too say that they are certainly making a killing on Wall St. I have yet to hear when the Wall St Bailout will be paid back

    No matter how bad the risk, the people who take those risks never feel the pain of their failure. They are Too Big To Fail. You are not.

    Socialism for the rich is fine, just don’t go getting socialist on the rest of the proletariat. If you feed them once you will never get rid of them.

    War and The Military Industrial Complex

    This is true Disaster Capitalism at work, and the heart of all class warfare. War is class warfare.

    If we do not have wars to fight how will we ever justify spending a quarter of our federal budget on our military, plus supplemental spending and all the other goodies we hand out to the MIC year to year?

    And if there are no actual wars to fight, we can just invent them with a little help from the Corporate controlled media