Why Capitalism doesn't work. You can only break the law so long. [View All]

[Sirveri]

Capitalism (noun); An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

But why does it not work. To understand that, we must understand what money is, or at least what it represents. Money is energy, packaged into a form that we can transfer between multiple parties. The farmer exchanges the energy he put into the field for food. This food is then traded to another for objects that the farmer requires to grow and survive. The object used as the middle man for these transactions is money. All it is is the passing of energy from one to another.

But, money, like energy must follow some basic laws. And capitalism by its very nature breaks those laws. Capitalism requires continuous growth to work, without which it falls into disarray, depression, and collapses in upon itself. The problem with this is that one can never escape the second law of thermodynamics. All energy moves to a state of entropy. Entropy being the fundamental force of balance. There is only so much energy passing thru the earth, and our species can only capture and harness so much of this energy. That said, in our economy, there is only so much 'wealth'. Thus it is not possible for a company to have infinite growth, because doing so violates the second law of thermodynamics.

The very energy stored by these companies will if possible escape in order to seek true balance in the society. This fundamental law of physics can not be broken, and those who are arrogant enough to believe otherwise are soon shown the error of their ways. When the people who become rich in energy resources accumulate so much energy that there is not enough energy left to allow allow the energy poor people to survive, these people do the only thing they can. They balance the structure. They enforce the second law of thermodynamics.

Capitalism would have one believe that resources never run out. That even if they did it would be irrelevant, as a replacement would be found. But one can not replace energy. They continue to produce products to make profit. But fail to understand, that if their customers do not have the energy resources to purchase their products, then their company will fail. A pure violation of the first rule of thermodynamics, that energy is conserved. You can't get any more energy out of a system than you put into it.

By continuing to put less money into the market which purchases their products, they undermine their ability to sell those products. Every factory moved to a cheaper locale in the name of profit displaces the money going into the population that you would have buy your product. Every person fired contributes less energy to the economy as a whole. All done in the name of cutting costs in times of crisis.

In the end, the greatest period of economic growth in recent years occured because of one single thing. Entropy. Companies which did NOT make a profit. This money was taken from the rich and distributed to those with less, these people then spurred a growth of epic perportions. Before that the government took money from the rich and spread it out amongst the poor. The made the economy turn over and begin to roll forward again. The enforced the second law of thermodynamics and spread that money out over a greater populace.

Does marxism work? Maybe not, but it is clear the capitalism does not work either. Perhaps the answer lies somewhere between the two poles. One ignores human nature while the other ignores the basic laws of the universe. If this rollercoaster that is our society is to survive the next depression, then we must quickly learn where this sweet spot is. And do our best to move into it. Or we can continue upon the tragic cycle of crashing and waring. Ever more into the future.