Young People and Capitalism

[LDAHL]

I saw a poll today claiming that a near-majority of young Americans disapproved of capitalism. Leaving aside for the moment the design of the poll or the degree to which young people understand what “capitalism” means, I found that troubling. It made me feel like something of a dinosaur, comparing my view of the world to theirs.

I approve whole-heartedly of capitalism (recognizing its imperfections) both in theory and personal practice. The world works best when people compete, even if I sometimes lose.

I’m more suspicious of what government can do to me than I am confident in what government might do for me. I’m more grateful for what I have than I am resentful of what other people haven’t given me.

I feel buffeted by large impersonal forces, but not necessarily helpless.

I think good people can have bad ideas. That doesn’t make them my enemies.

[creaker]

Capitalism is a tool - and whatever can be used can be abused. Especially when capitalism leverages government. The devil in the details is how capitalism is being done, and I think that's where much of the disapproval comes from. I also think painting it with a single brush really doesn't portray an accurate picture.

[Williamsmith]

I saw a poll today claiming that a near-majority of young Americans disapproved of capitalism. Leaving aside for the moment the design of the poll or the degree to which young people understand what “capitalism” means, I found that troubling. It made me feel like something of a dinosaur, comparing my view of the world to theirs.

I approve whole-heartedly of capitalism (recognizing its imperfections) both in theory and personal practice. The world works best when people compete, even if I sometimes lose.

I’m more suspicious of what government can do to me than I am confident in what government might do for me. I’m more grateful for what I have than I am resentful of what other people haven’t given me.

I feel buffeted by large impersonal forces, but not necessarily helpless.

I think good people can have bad ideas. That doesn’t make them my enemies.

You used the word "compete". That single word is the most offensive word to the near-majority of which that poll speaks. They believe the world would be a wonderful love fest of mutually shared assets were it not for the evils of "capitalism." As evidenced by their riotous protests.....the not-near-majority are willing to commit violence and use force to prove they are right. The will have to learn to "compete" more effectively to get their way.

[ToomuchStuff]

You used the word "compete". That single word is the most offensive word to the near-majority of which that poll speaks. They believe the world would be a wonderful love fest of mutually shared assets were it not for the evils of "capitalism." As evidenced by their riotous protests.....the not-near-majority are willing to commit violence and use force to prove they are right. The will have to learn to "compete" more effectively to get their way.

Because everyone should get participation trophies.>8)

[iris lilies]

Fortunately, I am old and won't be around decades longer, and then people will run the world the way they wish to run it. So be it. Dinosaurs die out, that is ok, someone/something comes along to take their place.

It will be fine. They will be fine.

[ApatheticNoMore]

What does one even compete for in any real sense. (alright someone might answer women).

I mean one could compete for any number of things in one's own head, to eat the most green leafy vegetables or something, but the rest of the world really doesn't care. For jobs, in theory yes, in reality they will interview a handful of people and hire or not hire for a job based on reasons you'll never ultimately know. The only jobs with very clear cut competition seem to be things like civil service (if they are basing it on exams - so there is an objective ranking there at least among those they choose among) and well maybe being the next American Idol.

[Ultralight]

What does one even compete for in any real sense.

Life.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I really think it's meant to be competition between companies and thus talk about "participation trophies" is pretty silly (I mean the imagery is pretty hard to imagine - "and this businesses gets a participation trophy". Although I guess those Too Big To Fail banks did get their participation trophies afterall come to think of it).

[ApatheticNoMore]

Life.

I suspect the chances of winning big or losing big (dying in a gutter maybe) there are so improbable as for this not to be much of a way to occupy one's spare time.

And people will then seek real (not entirely fictitious) ways to occupy their thoughts and time (that's a real need there, things to think about and try to do), even if it's competing on eating the most leafy greens ... or even if it's something non-competitive.

[Teacher Terry]

Societies do better when there is a big middle class. When too many people are poor and most of the wealth is at the top 1% that is when there starts to be unrest, etc

[Rogar]

I am partially disconnected to our current education system, but have a long held belief that a solid economics and personal finance course should be a mandatory part of it. There is a possibility that capitalism among the younger generations is not as such, but is associated with a larger group of core theory or political or social group. I wonder how the poll results would change if the word capitalism were replaced by free market economy.

[catherine]

I saw a poll today claiming that a near-majority of young Americans disapproved of capitalism. Leaving aside for the moment the design of the poll or the degree to which young people understand what “capitalism” means, I found that troubling. It made me feel like something of a dinosaur, comparing my view of the world to theirs.

I approve whole-heartedly of capitalism (recognizing its imperfections) both in theory and personal practice. The world works best when people compete, even if I sometimes lose.

I’m more suspicious of what government can do to me than I am confident in what government might do for me. I’m more grateful for what I have than I am resentful of what other people haven’t given me.

I feel buffeted by large impersonal forces, but not necessarily helpless.

I think good people can have bad ideas. That doesn’t make them my enemies.

I wasn't going to enter this discussion because my thoughts would be open to widespread criticism and I don't have the energy or the ammunition to address those criticisms. But what the heck--

I don't disapprove of capitalism but "capitalism" is a broad term. I disapprove of what Pope Francis calls "unfettered capitalism." Because of what you rightly point out--competition being the core of capitalism--there are so many inherent opportunities for exploitation and abuse. By its very nature a company has to stay loyal to its shareholders over and above the general welfare. Look at tobacco companies that knew they were killing people. Look at Monsanto that needed a place to use its chemicals that were used in warfare so they put them in food. Look at the abuse of workers in countries where there are no child labor laws or unions--saving a few pennies is more important than the health of the workers.

I really feel that our love affair with capitalism is a case of Plato's Cave. We are SO brainwashed that capitalism is the ONLY way and the BEST way that we don't even question it. I don't mind choosing capitalism if it's approached with an open mind after fully exploring all the options, but the fact that we were born and bred into it, and were taught that ALL OTHER OPTIONS were BAD (i.e., Communism) tells me that a better option may exist but we're too content to sit in our cave.

I also challenge the that humans are hard-wired for competition over cooperation. I think that may be a myth fostered by capitalism. If you think of the family as a microcosm of society there are times when members of a family compete, but a family does MUCH better when it cooperates with each other. In the natural world you see animal species cooperating with each other mostly.

Unlike you, I'm more suspicious of what our corporatocracy (which is what we've become essentially) can do to me than I am confident in what that corporatocracy might do for me.

Just because I feel we can do better doesn't mean I'm not grateful. It doesn't mean I resent others. Let's not get into that argument again. Choosing something over capitalism, or for restraints on capitalism, is all about making things BETTER for ALL. When we're talking about political systems, can we keep socialist cartoon stereotypes out of it? Let's just talk about the merits of different economic/political systems.

If I have criticisms about capitalism, that doesn't make me helpless. That being said, I believe heartily in our interdependence on each other.


ETA: Just for one example of an alternative to capitalism, here's an article pulled from--not The Guardian or HuffPo--but the American Conservative. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/distributism-is-the-future/

[Ultralight]

I really wonder if the US is just a hopelessly divided nation. Left vs. Right.

Each side has hits nutjobs (Trumpkins on the right; SJWs on the left).

[catherine]

I really wonder if the US is just a hopelessly divided nation. Left vs. Right.

Each side has hits nutjobs (Trumpkins on the right; SJWs on the left).

Funny, I was actually thinking the same thing, just yesterday. After watching both sides react to Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, I actually wondered if we should have actually gone to war to keep the country together in the 19th century. We're like two completely different cultures. Confirms the importance of state's rights to a certain extent.

[Ultralight]

Funny, I was actually thinking the same thing, just yesterday. After watching both sides react to Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accord, I actually wondered if we should have actually gone to war to keep the country together in the 19th century. We're like two completely cultures. Confirms the importance of state's rights to a certain extent. Warring over slavery is worth it.

But I think it might be time to divorce. Though this will never happen or even be considered by anyone with any political stroke whatsoever.

[Rogar]

I agree on left vs. right and how various concepts or ideologies have been politicized. Capitalism has encouraged entrepreneurship and competition which has given us many things that we enjoy every day at affordable prices, but it also needs regulation in the form of anti trust, child labor, environmental protections, and so on. But it seems like there is a larger division between conservatism and liberalism where on one hand the government is allowed to control many things and the other hand business has a heavier hand in the balance of controls. Neither works perfectly, so we have divisions that associate "capitalism" with conservationism and socialism is tagged with liberals. There is a good balance in the middle but we are so divided that compromise is hard to reach.

[Williamsmith]

"Capitalism" does not exist in the United States. One cannot refer to the system we employ here as "Capitalism" and denounce it as a failure. A Central Bank is not part of capitalism. We have no savings. Our contracts are mostly non voluntary. Regulations, price and wage controls, subsidies and privileged contracts based on military or overseas interventionism or imperialism......these are not integral parts of Capitalism. The federal government usurping local and state rights to govern.....not capitalistic. Don't examine what we have here and now and deduce that capitalism has failed.

To be sure.....those who would like to have more control will attack capitalism but this is a charade. True free- market capitalism just simply has nothing to do with the politically connected economy you are a part of today. A national bankruptcy, lower standards of living and the loss of freedoms for us all will not be on account of capitalism......it will be because of a failure to hold true to the hallmark traits of true free market capitalism.......which evaporated a long time ago here in the USA.

[ToomuchStuff]

Warring over slavery is worth it.

But I think it might be time to divorce. Though this will never happen or even be considered by anyone with any political stroke whatsoever.

That war was over economics and being told what one could or had to do (states rights verses federal rights). Forced slavery was outlawed, but don't think that we don't still have voluntary slavery. We do with debt.

[Tybee]

That war was over economics and being told what one could or had to do (states rights verses federal rights). Forced slavery was outlawed, but don't think that we don't still have voluntary slavery. We do with debt.
very true. . .

[LDAHL]

Warring over slavery is worth it.

But I think it might be time to divorce. Though this will never happen or even be considered by anyone with any political stroke whatsoever.

I don't see it. I don't think the population as a whole is as divided and mutually antagonistic as many professional and amateur rabble-rousers would have us think. There's plenty of diversity of opinion over common goals, even in certain Arizona postal codes. We're rude and argumentative, but we aren't Yogoslavia.

I do think, as IL points out, that the anti-capitalists could well win by outliving me and my antique ideas.

[BikingLady]

Fortunately, I am old and won't be around decades longer, and then people will run the world the way they wish to run it. So be it. Dinosaurs die out, that is ok, someone/something comes along to take their place.

It will be fine. They will be fine.


Oh iris lilies that seems to be my sad outlook on so many things lately.

[iris lily]

This guy was not much of a fan of capitalism:

1754

The text reads

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions." ---A. Hitler, 1927

I realize this doesnt prove anything since evil people can say anything, and can torque whatever philosophy into unconsciousable action, but it is nteresting. There is controversy about this Hitler Quote as to context, but like dJ Trump, it doesnt change that he said it.

[creaker]

This guy was not much of a fan of capitalism:

1754

The text reads

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are determined to destroy this system under all conditions." ---A. Hitler, 1927

I realize this doesnt prove anything since evil people can say anything, and can torque whatever philosophy into unconsciousable action, but it is nteresting. There is controversy about this Hitler Quote as to context, but like dJ Trump, it doesnt change that he said it.

Shows how much the message can change when you're trying to come into power - and when you actually have it. Like Trump's preelection rhetoric it's not a goal, just a message to the rally the folks that think they are being screwed by those better off.

[catherine]

This short video talks about why some people are disenchanted with capitalism, and also speaks to my own concerns.The destruction / extraction from the natural world to create capital is winding up in the pockets of just a few people. It's now an illusion that "a rising tide lifts all boats."

The video is very simplistic, but if it's more than 2 minutes, nobody will watch it. But I think it suggests some of the reasons that the Golden Cow of Capitalism is not as revered as it used to be.


https://youtu.be/jA1_vcqvoFs

I'm not anti-capitalism, and I'm not a socialist in the Hitler/Marx sense of the word, but I think any good thing can be be taken to an extreme, and I think that's where we are now--at the fringes of a system meant to benefit everyone, but we need to ask ourselves if it's REALLY doing that now.

[Chicken lady]

Dd bought a "new" car. To replace their second car which has a $300 scrap value now that her dh is starting a full time job and they need two reliable cars. Heart daughter had her tires slashed this weekend, so dd gave her the old car. She would have done the same for any friend. Her social group seems to have a seperate economy. A "We work for the industrial capitalist patriarchy in order to get resources from them that we then share among ourselves" kind of thing.

[LDAHL]

I like that. I'm going to put "Industrial Capitalist Patriarch" on my business cards and LinkedIn profile.

I enjoy how every generation thinks they invented sharing (along with other things). Working to get stuff so you can share it with your friends and family seems to be constantly relabeled.

[catherine]

I like that. I'm going to put "Industrial Capitalist Patriarch" on my business cards and LinkedIn profile.

I enjoy how every generation thinks they invented sharing (along with other things). Working to get stuff so you can share it with your friends and family seems to be constantly relabeled.

haha.. maybe your LinkedIn friends would endorse you for that!

I don't think it's a perceived invention of sharing. I think we need a constant reminder, and these "beatniks," "hippies," "back-to-the-landers," "Occopy-Wall-Streeet-ers" are simply trying to remind people that life doesn't have to be dog-eat-dog--because I think we forget. After all, you were the one that said the best economic model is the one that fosters competition--not cooperation.

[LDAHL]

haha.. maybe your LinkedIn friends would endorse you for that!

I don't think it's a perceived invention of sharing. I think we need a constant reminder, and these "beatniks," "hippies," "back-to-the-landers," "Occopy-Wall-Streeet-ers" are simply trying to remind people that life doesn't have to be dog-eat-dog--because I think we forget. After all, you were the one that said the best economic model is the one that fosters competition--not cooperation.

I think the best system fosters various groups cooperating to compete with other groups. I think a Hobbesian dog-eat-dog scenario is every bit as unrealistic as the entitlement mentality.

[ApatheticNoMore]

Working to get stuff so you can share it with your friends and family seems to be constantly relabeled.

it does seem a fast path to personal bankruptcy, are they at least trying to get jobs that pay enough to live off of? I know enough people potentially heading for poverty, but it's a bit much to personally bail them all out.

[creaker]

it does seem a fast path to personal bankruptcy, are they at least trying to get jobs that pay enough to live off of? I know enough people potentially heading for poverty, but it's a bit much to personally bail them all out.

If you're the only one with means in that kind of a living situation, you're doing it with the wrong people. They are also supposed to be working to share with you.

[catherine]

If you're the only one with means in that kind of a living situation, you're doing it with the wrong people. They are also supposed to be working to share with you.

Exactly. In the situation Chicken lady described, people work for "the man" but then pool some of their resources (time and money). That "separate economy" that Chicken lady daughter is experiencing provides each other with exponential resources as well as security in the community. Of course it's nothing new. Look at Israel's kibbutzim and the Amish.

My particular complaint is that if life goes around like players in a Monopoly game and only 8 people wind up with over half the wealth among 7 billion people on the planet, it makes it harder for the rest of the players. And it's not like all of the money was "earned" in the sense that money used to be earned and circulate. Hedge fund managers do not contribute to the general good the same way a blacksmith used to, or a teacher or a local shopkeeper does. There are vast amounts of wealth passed on to generations--wealth that was created by illusory games played in the stock market. Value of money is more and more warped. That shift in wealth becomes a shift in power. And now we're in a situation where money, not democracy, speaks. And money then is the ultimate endgame, trumping the well-being of the citizens and the earth that sustains us.

LDAHL and others who want government to stay out of the natural course of the free market have a right and a reason for that. But too often history has shown that the natural course of unfettered capitalism and wealth concentrated in the hands of the very few is rebellion and war.

[LDAHL]

it does seem a fast path to personal bankruptcy, are they at least trying to get jobs that pay enough to live off of? I know enough people potentially heading for poverty, but it's a bit much to personally bail them all out.

I tell that to my 10 year old daughter and 81 year old mother all the time.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I tell that to my 10 year old daughter and 81 year old mother all the time.

for the 81 year old at least there is a system that works although minimally like social security. Because if I had to support my mother, that would not work very well, supporting other people is mostly not viable. I may have to at some point (if SS and etc. is not enough) but it will bankrupt me pretty much. "because they can't support themselves" doesn't mean their kids will have the resources to do so, just doesn't.


Exactly. In the situation Chicken lady described, people work for "the man" but then pool some of their resources (time and money). That "separate economy" that Chicken lady daughter is experiencing provides each other with exponential resources as well as security in the community.

it provides maybe additional resources (so does having roommates though if that's all that mostly amounts to), and being part of a community, it doesn't provide security - that's provided to a degree by being part of the mainstream economy.

[catherine]

f

it provides maybe additional resources (so does having roommates though if that's all that mostly amounts to), and being part of a community, it doesn't provide security.

I think if people in a community have a sharing mindset, it makes you more secure because you can count on each other to pitch in if needed. That's security to me.

Sorry, another video that I like:


https://www.facebook.com/SustainableMan/videos/10154935832907909/