Capitalism is the opposite of democracy

[BelgianMadCow]

The essence of capitalism is not that it has markets. Socialism and communism have markets, too.
Neither is the essence that it has private enterprise (as opposed to public enterprise). There's plenty of public enterprise in capitalist societies.

What IS the key defining characteristic of capitalism, is that it has a small class of owners that decides what is produced, where it is produced, how it is produced, and what to do with the profits. The majority of people spending their time in producing the profit, or in other words the surplus fruits of their labor, have ZERO say in all these decisions.

Why is it that we hold democracy in such high esteem, but accept that it ends at the door to our workplace?
Capitalism and democracy are opposites.

inspired by

as posted here.

It's also an answer to the question "How can we change the dynamics" - imagine worker-owned cooperatives popping up, giving you the power to vote with your wallet. It's the only vote we have left that has any meaning.

[RKP5637]

1. Far too many are brainwashed to believe capitalism and democracy are

inexplicably intertwined, go hand-and-hand and to think otherwise is un-american ... basically, because so many are information limited by choice. We have morphed into a system wherein the majority have little say in our oligarchy rule ...

[Locrian]

2. capitalism

Is also the elimination of any and all 'values' except turning resources into commodities, and commodities into capital (money).

That makes it a very 'shape-shifter' system, as it can take on any guise as long as it's 'useful' for extracting money from resources.

[PETRUS]

3. K&R

[gulliver]

4. False

Ask the Sovient Union, China, Cambodia, etc., what happens when an economy is "centrally planned" by "workers." You just get corrupt, paranoid, idiot thugs running things, and a government spy in every neighborhood. Capitalism is natural, but it needs to be harnessed and managed for the good of the people of the democracy. Read The Gardens of Democracy. It says it all for me.

[PotatoChip]

6. None of the countries you mentioned were

"centrally planned" by "workers'. Iow, they never achieved what Marx had in mind.

[gulliver]

7. Their leaders would disagree.

And you would not like the result if they were your leaders. Your opinion of what Marx had in mind would not matter at all.

[PotatoChip]

9. Not true.

While I am no fan of Lenin, he admitted just prior to his death that they, the Soviets, had not achieved their goal. He said that what they had was State (Government) run Capitalism. Iow, he was admitting that he had failed.

This is not 'my opinion'. I am going by what the economics professor in the OP said.

[socialist_n_TN]

10. So what? Just because a worker's state degenerates or.......

is born deformed doesn't make the idea of a worker's state invalid.

Capitalist apologists are always quick to separate the political system from the economic system when Hitler or Pinochet rules the political system, but they won't separate the leadership of a worker's state from the economic system.

Trotsky-the Marxist road not taken.

[NuclearDem]

15. Just because a government claims itself to be "socialist" or "communist" doesn't make it so.

If that were true, the Democratic Republic of the Congo would be the freest place on earth.

[BelgianMadCow]

14. I understand if you didn't watch the video, but Richard Wolff did lay it out

the Soviet system and the one in China now are examples of the small owner class not being private individuals, but a small group of state functionaries. Which can then proceed, as you described, to become corrupt thugs or something like that.

Richard Wolff calls Soviet Russia and China state capitalism.

That's still very different from the majority actually having a say in what/where/how to produce and what to do with the profits.

Do you not agree that we need much more of that?

Anyway, thanks for the reading tip.

[MNBrewer]

16. Watch the video, then come back and discuss it like an adult.

[MNBrewer]

17. corrupt, paranoid, idiot thugs running things

Describes lots of places. Texas, Louisiana, Michigan, Florida.

[Starry Messenger]

19. Please show an example of Capitalism existing in nature in pre-human Earth.

Tnx. in advance.

[el_bryanto]

5. There have been small scare socialist experiments that have worked well

But on a large scale capitalism, particularly a well regulated capitalism, has generally out performed.

Capitalism isn't the opposite of democracy anymore than butter is the opposite of anchovies. One is an economic system the other is a political system. They aren't equivalent.

Capitalism is good at solving some kind of problems. Very good (and certainly better than command economies). But it has tendencies towards monopoly and abuse of workers mean that it has to be regulated carefully.

Bryant

[Buns_of_Fire]

11. I think the problems arise when the political system starts to dominate the economic system

or vice-versa. Today, we have the economic system (capitalism) beginning to dominate the political system (democracy) to the point where the political system can't function efficiently.

I know, pretty simplistic, but I have to put things in such terms so that I can understand them.

[el_bryanto]

12. That actually makes a lot of sense. nt

[BelgianMadCow]

22. Well said

I think also along those lines. And, more generally, that power is very corruptive if you hold on to it for long. Therefor, all pyramid type power schemes are destined to fail in producing equitable results.

Which is why I'm in favor of much more direct democracy, both for political and for economic questions. I mean, all these divides make it look complicated. In the end, they're all questions about human life and we should all have an equal say.

[BelgianMadCow]

20. You have a point - I should have used "is antithetical to" or "are mutually exclusive"

but, I wasn't arguing for a command economy.

Rather, imagine the decisions are taken by everbody involved, not some small owner class. And the fruits of labor are equally distributed. Everything else can stay the same.

[socialist_n_TN]

8. Yep. I don't know why this simple proposition is so hard.........

for some to comprehend. The easiest way to look at the differences is to look at corporate boards. If one owner has 1000 shares he/she has 1000 votes. If another owner has 1 share, he/she has 1 vote. The ideal of democracy (even a bourgeois democracy) is one person, one vote. THAT should let people know that capitalism is incompatible with democracy.

Now you can say that this inequity is only in the economic system and not in the political one, but history shows that this is NOT a true proposition. Those 1000 shares (or more aptly those 1 million shares) buys an extremely undue influence over society throughout , from MSM influence in what information is READILY available to the citizenry all the way through purchasing the political system through purchasing the players, from hiring the lobbyists who write the legislation to buying off the politicians who vote on the legislation through campaign contributions.

[former9thward]

18. The problem with socialism is that one person has all the votes.

[socialist_n_TN]

23. Not really. Depends on the socialist system.........

Stalinism surely. Trotskyist no.

[Cryptoad]

13. Unpluged Capitalism

is a better friend to Plutocracy than to Democracy!

[Romulox]

21. We now have fascism in the US, where the forces of gov't and corporations have joined. nt