Is capitalism even a "dirtier word" today?

Rebelheart

You know, now that the arch capitalists of the western world, bankers, are getting enormous state handouts from the governments of the same western world, it must be asked is capitalism still a dirty word, or it it worse than ever?

It's clearly not better than ever!

The number of so-called capitalists who are largely dependent on state handouts never fails to astound. Even Michael O'Leary and Ryanair earn tens of millions per annum in handouts from states across the EU and threaten to pull out from regions when those handouts are not forthcoming. "IDA grants", "Enterprise Ireland" grants and the whole shebang of state subsidies to enhance the wealth of "capitalists". How many barristers and lawyers are earning huge amounts of money from this state per day?

Anois, cailíní agus buachaillí, is capitalism an even dirtier word in Ireland today than it was, say, 40 years ago?

Atlantic Dawn

Rebelheart wrote: »

Anois, cailíní agus buachaillí, is capitalism an even dirtier word in Ireland today than it was, say, 40 years ago?

40 years ago the country was as backward as you can get, we were living in a state controlled economic zone that limited imports through taxation to keep our own outdatted and unprofittable industries aflot.

PanchoVilla

I think this latest economic crisis has shown that capitalism is an unworkable system of economics. It encourages corruption, greed, and exploitation as well as a complete disregard for health and the environment. It's fairly obvious that some people will do anything to acquire wealth, which is why we need a more regulated economic structure.

Einhard

PanchoVilla wrote: »

I think this latest economic crisis has shown that capitalism is an unworkable system of economics. It encourages corruption, greed, and exploitation as well as a complete disregard for health and the environment. It's fairly obvious that some people will do anything to acquire wealth, which is why we need a more regulated economic structure.

Capitalism and regulation are far from mutually exclusive. I'd also argue that any system, whether economic, political, or even (especially?) religious, is bound to become corrupt, unjust, and exploitative, unless checked by some regulatory framework. Capitalism is far from unique in that.

Rebelheart

Einhard wrote: »

Capitalism and regulation are far from mutually exclusive. I'd also argue that any system, whether economic, political, or even (especially?) religious, is bound to become corrupt, unjust, and exploitative, unless checked by some regulatory framework. Capitalism is far from unique in that.

Capitalism, as it has been promoted in Ireland by McCreevy and his ilk, was very much one which rejected all but the most minuscule degree of regulation. It was McCreevy who had the gall to give out about there being too much regulation:

"Don't try to protect everyone from every possible accident ... Leave industry with the space to breathe and investors with the freedom to learn from their mistakes." He boasted of how "many of us in this room are from the generations that had the luck to grow up before governments got working and lawyers got rich on regulating our lives. We were part of the 'unregulated generation' - the generation that has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem-solvers and inventors."

That mentality is the reality of capitalism in Ireland. It is a failed ideology as we've known it from McCreevy, Ahern, Harney and the like. Utterly failed.

Amhran Nua

Are we going to get another Rage Against the Machine sonnet here lads, don't let us down. Free Ché t-shirt to the first one who quotes "bullet in the head".

Sand

"Don't try to protect everyone from every possible accident ... Leave industry with the space to breathe and investors with the freedom to learn from their mistakes."

This is the part that was forgotten about. The first part doesnt work if the second is not understood to be true. Liberals dont say there will never a recession, they say that bad business will fail (Anglo, AIB, BoI...) and good business will thrive.

The Irish policy of lack of regulation allied to bailing out of bad business at taxpayer expense is just cronyism, nothing more.

djsomers

Habakkuk Ehrenstein wrote: »

Capitalists and bankers create money and jobs, what do these anti-capitlist idiots propose that we do instead of capitalism?

Capitalists and Bankers create money and shed jobs when they can. Pushing for more productivity at the expense of workers rights and health, etc. etc.

Co-ops work quite well where workers own the companies they run. Productivity increases because you work for yourself, everyone in the company shares in the profit and equal voting rights set the salary scales and positions within the company. This is just one small example.

Clawdeeus

I was under the impression that it was the socialising of the massive lossess of the banks that is really irking people.

Rabble Rabble

Ireland is still one of the richest countries in the world. Thats capitalism. It was piss poor when it was autarkic and socialist - i.e. the astounding 65% confiscated from people who had the audacity to earn just above 13K a year. People emigrated to better, more capitalist climes. ( The number of people emigrating permanantly to communist States is invariantly zero. People who love the US, or Australia actually leave for these places, the lovers of Cuba love it at a safe distance).

Now, most of the socialists in this thread will quote their heroes McWilliams, and Kelly on the Irish crisis, and rightly so - but both are economists, both are right wing.

What they want is what MCCreevy wanted - the banks to be given to the debtholders, make them responsible for their capitalist debts, this is wanting people to fail - but what we are getting is financial service socialism. Rail against that all you want, but it is still socialism.

"IDA grants", "Enterprise Ireland" grants and the whole shebang of state subsidies to enhance the wealth of "capitalists".

All government money, to the last cent, comes from capitalists, or workers employed by capitalists. A tiny amount is transfered to other capitalists. Most is spent by bureaucrats.

And is capitalism a dirty word? For every SWP march against capitalism with 17 smellies there are thousands marching for capitalism by trading, tens of thousands shopping, thousands more showing the love of the system online.

And if you really want to see a riot bring back your "socialist" airlines and ban RyanAir. Before RyanAir the Cheapest Aer Lingus flight to London was about two weeks average industrial wage, more than 1000 euros now. It was capitalism which made us rich, and proud, and connected to the modern world.

Good luck with you socialism, Capitalism is more powerful that you can imagine. The modern world - China, US, India - is capitalist, the fallers back are social democratic, and the backward dystopian failures are communist.

We are staying in the modern world. If you like medieval life, there are two true communist societies still around, we'll be seeing you.

nesf

djsomers wrote: »

Co-ops work quite well where workers own the companies they run. Productivity increases because you work for yourself, everyone in the company shares in the profit and equal voting rights set the salary scales and positions within the company. This is just one small example.

If Co-ops worked really well we'd see a lot more of them, no?

The big problem with Co-Ops is that there is a huge incentive to maximise wages rather than anything else. This sounds like a good thing but it isn't really since a company needs to make decisions that don't immediately benefit workers in order to achieve long term goals (i.e. stay in business and grow).

Where Co-Ops work well is where everyone is a producer and the co-op sells their goods, i.e. the farmer and creamery model. Then each farmer reaps their own rewards, i.e. get paid for the milk they make. Introduce an equal split of profits to all farmers regardless of how much milk they individually produce and you get a very inefficient system as the incentive is to do the least amount of work in the group. There's no point in working hard because you only get the same as the laziest ****er in the co-op.

That's the problem with co-ops. They don't work well when profits are equally split and few industries lend themselves to per-part pay rates because people will cheat their numbers if they get a chance and it's possible. You can measure milk yield from a farm easily and fairly. You can't do this in most industries.

K-9

Clawdeeus wrote: »

I was under the impression that it was the socialising of the massive lossess of the banks that is really irking people.

This. Capitalism seems to be grand when loads of money is being made and socialism gets knocked. When crises hit they all go running to the State!

Permabear

This post has been deleted.