Comments on: Ethics of Time and Place http://www.sharecentric.com/blog/2005/09/06/ethics-of-time-and-place/ What does it mean? Sun, 10 Jan 2010 02:19:39 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Tom M http://www.sharecentric.com/blog/2005/09/06/ethics-of-time-and-place/comment-page-1/#comment-4 Tom M Thu, 22 Dec 2005 02:00:51 +0000 http://www.sharecentric.com/blog/?p=9#comment-4 Capitalism seems to be a recurring theme as a scapegoat for the world's ills for you, so I will try to address it here. Capitalism, as defined by wikipedia: In common usage, the word capitalism means an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated, and in which the investment of capital and the production, distribution and prices of commodities, goods and services are determined mainly in a free market. Also, profit is permissible (some consider it essential to a definition) and wage or salary may be paid for labour. It seems fairly innocent, but let's look a little deeper. There seem to be two essential aspects, private ownership and free market pricing. The problem must be with private ownership, surely we would be better off if someone we could trust owned all property. Let's see who the candidates are, the government...too much big brother, the collective...what is that anyway?, big media...right?. How about the people, truly the people, not an oppressive regime that claims to represent them, but that's not possible, is it? Is it possible to build such a system? I would say it already exists, we call it the stock market, where I can go and buy pieces of (or stakes in) private property that I believe will succeed in the future. Not just me, but all the people who hold the same outlook and through the capitalistic institution of the corporation we have public ownership of private capital in a manner that allows everyone to control what their society is investing in. Well then, maybe the system is failing us in free market pricing. How can an incohesive mass of sellers and buyers set reasonable prices anyway, this is where control is truly needed. And who better than the government, but wait, that's always the wrong answer. How about...cartels? monopolies? astrologists? Again, capitalism affords us the best solution of allowing the price to be agreed on by what one is willing to pay and what the other is willing to let it go at. Most of the complaints have to do with the short-sighted policies that capitalism seems to inspire, but I would argue that these are because of improper project analysis, or rather, maybe not so much improper as irresponsible where a corporation may not have to factor in environmental damage into their figures, than a problem with capitalism itself. As far as government policies that hurt poorer countries, that's what those are, and often times they hurt the people of the guilty country as well, with the aim of protecting a minority producer at the expense of all the other consumers of that country. Capitalism seems to be a recurring theme as a scapegoat for the world’s ills for you, so I will try to address it here.

Capitalism, as defined by wikipedia:
In common usage, the word capitalism means an economic system in which all or most of the means of production are privately owned and operated, and in which the investment of capital and the production, distribution and prices of commodities, goods and services are determined mainly in a free market. Also, profit is permissible (some consider it essential to a definition) and wage or salary may be paid for labour.

It seems fairly innocent, but let’s look a little deeper. There seem to be two essential aspects, private ownership and free market pricing.

The problem must be with private ownership, surely we would be better off if someone we could trust owned all property. Let’s see who the candidates are, the government…too much big brother, the collective…what is that anyway?, big media…right?. How about the people, truly the people, not an oppressive regime that claims to represent them, but that’s not possible, is it? Is it possible to build such a system? I would say it already exists, we call it the stock market, where I can go and buy pieces of (or stakes in) private property that I believe will succeed in the future. Not just me, but all the people who hold the same outlook and through the capitalistic institution of the corporation we have public ownership of private capital in a manner that allows everyone to control what their society is investing in.

Well then, maybe the system is failing us in free market pricing. How can an incohesive mass of sellers and buyers set reasonable prices anyway, this is where control is truly needed. And who better than the government, but wait, that’s always the wrong answer. How about…cartels? monopolies? astrologists? Again, capitalism affords us the best solution of allowing the price to be agreed on by what one is willing to pay and what the other is willing to let it go at.

Most of the complaints have to do with the short-sighted policies that capitalism seems to inspire, but I would argue that these are because of improper project analysis, or rather, maybe not so much improper as irresponsible where a corporation may not have to factor in environmental damage into their figures, than a problem with capitalism itself. As far as government policies that hurt poorer countries, that’s what those are, and often times they hurt the people of the guilty country as well, with the aim of protecting a minority producer at the expense of all the other consumers of that country.

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