yellowperil
Diamond Member
In this country it is still not cool to criticize capitalism. With the exception of college campuses and certain urban areas, if you attack capitalism you are going to be branded as a red, a commie, anti-American, an over-idealist, a bleeding heart. I believe many of these attitudes are left over from the Cold War. Many point to the fall of communism in the former Soviet Union as proof that capitalism is the best way, indeed, the only way. Let me first acknowledge the benefits of capitalism.
Capitalism is ideally based on personal achievement and hard work. According to Max Weber this stems from the Protestant work ethic. It says that people work the hardest and achieve more when they compete for resources. Research shows this seems to be the case. Even in nature we see this effect. Ants work harder in the presence of other ants. Cockroaches navigate mazes faster in the presence of other cockroaches. Chickens peck grain faster when other chickens are around, even when the others cannot access the food. When individuals are forced to cooperate in groups, there is a definite decrease in performance, even when they claim to be doing their individual best. People in a group tug-of-war don't pull as hard as when they pull alone. Rewarding individual accomplishments efficiently increases performance. Not to mention that capitalism promises limitless opportunity, freedom of will, and the great American dream.
One of the reasons why Monopoly has been such a popular board game, from the Great Depression until now, is that it embodies the capitalist ideal. Everyone starts out with the same amount of money, with the same amount of property, with the same six-sided die. With careful planning, and a bit of luck, you could own all the property from the Mediterranean to Boardwalk. You can collect rent until you're blue in the face and put your competitors into bankruptcy. You can live the American dream.
However, in real life, we all don't start out with the same amount of money. Some of us own property (and a few of us own a lot) before the game begins, and some of us don't own any. Some get to roll the dice twice, some only once, others get their turn skipped. Some people are the bankers and others aren't, and a select few get to make the rules of the game as they see fit. It appears that there is an imbalance of equality.
So the real issue is, how much individual freedom do you want, versus how much equality can you tolerate? You can try to deny that inequality exists by saying that those at the bottom are lazy, but what about people who are born poor? What about women and minorities who are born into a society where they are discriminated against? How do you compete in Monopoly if you start off with $500 while your competitor starts off with $5000? If you are OK with this, and think, "well, that's just life", that may be fine for your lifestyle, but it doesn't do anything to address the issue. There's a difference between personal lifestyle and public policy. In personal lifestyle, you can say "I don't care as long as I get mine", but in public policy, you have to be a little more prudent in your decisions. Other people don't care what you want, they want to get theirs.
Capitalists argue that inequality exists only in the minds of the poor/minorities/women, that they use inequality as a crutch to get benefits without earning them. First of all, the idea that poor people are lazy is a myth. Yes, it is true in some circumstances, but if we are comparing rates of poverty, and not the guy who panhandled you for change this morning, the idea of laziness doesn't come through. Most poverty in this country is short term. Being laid off your job, a woman recently divorced and without a job, an emergency situation which puts you in debt, these are all short-term causes of poverty. The turnover rate for poverty is about 1/3, meaning that a third of the impoverished move out of poverty while others take their place. Poverty in this case refers to a state of income where the family finds it difficult to subsist. In these temporary poverty cases, where external circumstances lead to poverty, I don't think we can classify these individuals as 'lazy'.
As for people in long term poverty, before anyone criticizes them, think about the situation. No one wants to be poor forever. Why would someone rather stay poor than work their way out of poverty? Unless something was blocking them from believing they could work their way up, there is no reason they wouldn't. Everyone says that poor people should work themselves out of poverty, but what incentives are we providing for them to do so? If you need welfare to get you out of the hole, and the government cuts off welfare as soon as you cross the poverty line (which is what, $17-18K for a family of 4, hardly liveable), what incentive do you have to cross that line? It's not like you're going to stop being poor after you earn above the poverty line, earning $8 an hour, working long hours with possibly little or no benefits.
Another capitalist argument is that society needs poor people to survive. Who else would flip the burgers? Who else would fill all the menial jobs for low wages? In fact, in order to become a successful capitalist you have to find a way to pay people less than they're actually worth. This way you can keep profits high and prices down. In fact, poverty is created by macroeconomic policy. If inflation and unemployment are inversely related, and in recent U.S. history inflation has been targeted at 2-3% while unemployment at 4-6%, it suggests that the U.S. would rather create poverty than have higher inflation rates. The U.S., as a capitalist society, believes it is necessary to have poverty. It does not treat it as a problem. It treats it as a source of cheap labor, a source of police jobs, and a scapegoat for all the problems in society.
So in essence, if you can suppress your conscience by blaming the victim, or claim about our system, "it's not perfect but it's the best one we've got", then I think America's not trying hard enough. When limitless opportunity for a select few comes in conflict with a more level playing field for all, capitalists will argue for the former, because after all, that's 'what's best for me'. The true flaw in capitalism is a lack of decency, that even though we live in a communal society, we still feel the need to step over another to reach the top.
