Barack Obama

[jdawg]

Capitalism often times fixes itself, this is true. What we need to figure out is whether going from crisis to crisis is healthy. Any system that requires bubbles to burst from time to time to such devestating effect on the people isn't a system I want to support.


Now we can also get into the question of whether capitalism can ever be reformed enough to where there isn't a recession every 20 years. I don't believe so. That's not to say that I don't believe in markets completely, I'm a Proudhonian syndicalist, but I don't believe that with our current structures of power we will ever reform this system or any system. In fact reform doesn't work anyways. Revolutionary action is the answer. Not violent revolution, but a complete change of thought and structures for society.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by jdawg

Capitalism often times fixes itself, this is true. What we need to figure out is whether going from crisis to crisis is healthy. Any system that requires bubbles to burst from time to time to such devestating effect on the people isn't a system I want to support.


Now we can also get into the question of whether capitalism can ever be reformed enough to where there isn't a recession every 20 years. I don't believe so. That's not to say that I don't believe in markets completely, I'm a Proudhonian syndicalist, but I don't believe that with our current structures of power we will ever reform this system or any system. In fact reform doesn't work anyways. Revolutionary action is the answer. Not violent revolution, but a complete change of thought and structures for society.

Never heard this term so here is a brief quote.
"What Proudhon really objected to with respect to private property was the earning of income from the labour of others through such means as rent, interest and wage labour. After paying employees their wages, the capitalist retains the remaining profit without contributing any productive labour himself. Associated together, the workers create a productive capacity greater than the sum of their individual powers, but it is the capitalist who reaps the benefit. The workers acquiesce in their own exploitation because their only alternatives are starvation and misery."
This is essentially my complaint about capitalism. The capitalists will exploit the workers any way they can (look at China). The role of government should be to control and restrain the exploitative tendencies of capitalism. Capitalists would be very happy if all there workers were slaves and they kept all the wealth created by the labor of the workers. A democratic society needs to see to it that the capitalists share the wealth with their workers.

[jdawg]

Proudhon was indeed against that, but he came to a different conclusion than yourself. After service in the 1848 government he realised representative democracy was no better than any other system before it. So he became an anarchist. His conclusion was that the workers should control everything as a whole through purely democratic means.



with all of the words like "plutocracy" that you use, you might like anarchist thought. It should be noted that they can be quite outrageous at times and some anarchists were just as socially conservative as the christian right, but overall the writers of the 19th century were amazing.

[randolph]

Originally Posted by jdawg

Proudhon was indeed against that, but he came to a different conclusion than yourself. After service in the 1848 government he realised representative democracy was no better than any other system before it. So he became an anarchist. His conclusion was that the workers should control everything as a whole through purely democratic means.

with all of the words like "plutocracy" that you use, you might like anarchist thought. It should be noted that they can be quite outrageous at times and some anarchists were just as socially conservative as the christian right, but overall the writers of the 19th century were amazing.

Should workers control everything? Not necessarily, there are good examples of worker run companies like Winco and cooperatives like Tillamook the workers at GM are going to have a good stake in the new GM. Capitalists are needed to develop a credit system which enables the economic system to expand. Capitalism can work well when the workers get to participate in the expansion. Henry Ford realized that when he gave his workers five dollars a day wages, it helped build the middle class. In order to maintain a strong middle class we need a fair taxation system and a rational credit system. I am becoming very disappointed with Obama and his financial buddies, they are allowing the financial system is manipulate the funding and vastly expand our tax liabilities. It seems very little of it is going to help people who are laid off and losing their homes.

Yes I feel like an anarchist when I see how the government bends over and lets the capitalists have at it.