Capitalism + Democracy = Myth

Had an interesting discussion with a good friend of mine regarding capitalism and its negative impacts in modern world:

• Greed is the selfish desire for the pursuit of money, wealth, power, food, or other possessions, especially when this denies the same goods to others.

• In capitalist systems, goods and services, including those regarding the most basic necessities of life, are produced for profitable exchange.

• The first principle of democracy is that all members of the society have equal access to power and the second that all members enjoy universally recognized freedoms and liberties

Im sure we can think of one or two industries that would easily fit into the "greed" explanation, quite comfortably!

Is it not fair to say that any ideal that's mainly built around money and rewards people with more money (at the expense of those with less) is an ideal built on encouraging greed.

In essence , in capitalism if you have enough money you can generally do whatever you want without repurcussions. You can also influence those in power, to your needs.

In any democracy, the party that gets the most money to canvass has an upper hand, not because they are the better candidate but because they can spread the most propaganda. Normally big sums of donated money comes from interested business partys with their own agendas.

And nobody can tell me I have an equal chance of being voted into power if I am up against the child of an existing TD! Also if I am a working class person that doesnt want to be associated with a specific party, I already have huge expenses to compete on the "propaganda" front to get my word around.

In a capitalist democractic society if you take a huge legal case against a large organisation (I have seen this up close from somebody close to me) who have wronged you what they can do, is drag the case as long as possible until it gets to court and just settle. The idea is that they hope the person cannot afford the legal costs. In some cases even winning a settlement in a black and white case can bankrupt a winning party as it may barely just cover the legal costs. Once again money wins . . .

People can argue technical points on democracy or capitalism but at the end of the day, while there are small exceptions (cant think of any off the top of my head) they are just that exceptions.

Democracy coupled with capitalism makes democracy null and void. We are all slaves to the system, either play the game or suffer its ills as an outcast.

Wasnt sure if this was great financial debate or letting off steam ! !

The theory of evolution is what drives life. Getting a competitive advantage over other beings of the same species is what its all about. Without it, life on earth is doomed, and that includes the human race. The reason capitalism thrives and socialism doesnt is down to darwinism. Socialism is against the natural order of things.

It is said that necessity is the mother of invention, but the same argument could be made for capitalism.

No system is perfect but capitalism allows anyone to make and create wealth - no-one is excluded from 'making it'.

Democracy is not much more than a loose idealised concept - the law of the land is what dictates what is 'fair' and powerful people have always been able to circumvent the law and always will do.

Much crime is capitalism at it's rawest and it will always exist - whatever the system may be.

True guys, In all fairness, I havent a better alternative , just an interesting discussion I had with a strong capitalist backer, who also strongly agrees with the democracy that we currently enjoy.

I came to the conclusion that we are living in a world thats just the best of a bad bunch of ideals. Kind of like the government in Ireland!

What’s the line about democracy being about the worst system of government except for all the other ones we have tried.
Here’s a question NorthDrum; can you name one democracy that is not capitalist? As long as the people control the wealth the government is subject to their will. Once the government control the wealth (Communism) the people need no longer be consulted.
A good example of that is seventeenth century England where Parliament gained (almost) all of the power to raise taxes from the king. He still controlled everything else but in practice it was meaningless as he couldn’t pay for anything without the consent of Parliament.

To sum up; he who pays the piper calls the tune and in a capitalist democracy the people pay the piper. Some of the people pay a larger share than others and so have a louder voice but with a progressive taxation system this imbalance is limited on a macro level.

Interesting thread BTW.

At the moment it seems that the current model of global capitalism is broken, indeed if a global socialist system failed so spectacularly many commentators would be rushing to pronounce it dead for good!

The solution of the world's leaders is to use socialist/state intervention to get the same old capitalist system back up and running. After the second world war America did such a great job of welding the ideas of democracy and capitalism together that today the two seem interchangeable. They are not but political parties in Western Europe believe it, as is illustrated by the EU's belief that capitalist reform will bring about social and political reform in China even though this policy has completely failed in Russia.

So the title of this thread could read:

Capitalism = Democracy = Myth

Purple said:

What’s the line about democracy being about the worst system of government except for all the other ones we have tried.
Here’s a question NorthDrum; can you name one democracy that is not capitalist? As long as the people control the wealth the government is subject to their will. .

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Agreed. The reason I put Capitalism and Democracy in the same thread was because I thought in modern world they go hand in hand.

Im just making the point that the people holding the wealth (as a majority) are not the people, but select few who have enough wealth to change governments and legislation.

In the U.S. look at Republicans. Backed by large industries, last 8 years Bush has been working for their benefit (voted in by the public, generally unaware of the whole dynamics of politics and political will).

Now lets look at our boys. Rumblings about the tent in Galway forced them to shut it down. But lets be honest, many policys brought in are not in the interest of the general public. Even the ones that are brought in are because as a society we have to do these things under pain of death -

• Bail out banks, a necessity because our economy requires banks to function. As a result cocky high rollers are still trying to "negotiate" better terms with the govt at the expense of us all!!

• We cant tax the rich too high or they will go elsewhere! This seems to be a given, but the same goes for large corporations. Again the system is set to force us to give advantages to those in privelaged positions already.

• No limit to propaganda funding around elections. So in essence he who hath the most funding, hath already handicapped hith opponent.

I just think that money is at the route of power in democracys going the capitalist way. This means in essence, the people are not in power. I can vote for whoever I want but will I vote for Joe Nobody who I have never seen on TV or Bradd Pitt whos all over the tv and on doorsteps (oh hes such a nice guy!). Remember a large portion of the polulation are ignorant to politics and will vote for whatever candidate they have seen the most. Yes, this is democracy, but its brought to us by the rich, sponcored by the larger industries , with the odd peanut of favourable legislation thrown down to us lucky lucky "free" people, just to keep us not asking too many questions so we will be nice little drones. . .

NorthDrum said:

Remember a large portion of the polulation are ignorant to politics and will vote for whatever candidate they have seen the most.

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I think that this is the nub of your agreement. As a citizen of a democracy (in my opinion) you have a duty to be politically informed.

Capitalism does not necessarily lead to democracy but democracy cannot function without capitalism.

Purple said:

I think that this is the nub of your agreement. As a citizen of a democracy (in my opinion) you have a duty to be politically informed.

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Yeh, i think as much as you have a duty to be politically informed, its the duty of those in power to inform you accuratly and impartially which we know is not necessarily the case.

I assume most would agree that the German nation would be considered a fairly intelligent race yet the questions on how Hitler managed to fool them into mass genocide will rumble on. Believing in propaganda is not just about being intelligent or informed, one can be programmed or forced into believing a concept that is fundamentally and morally wrong.

On an extreme note, I just think of some of the republican techniques used to "inform" the public of their opponents should be highlighted. One in particular highlighted on CNN was particularly "funny". It was a voicemail sent in cuban to US citizans saying voting for Obama was like voting for castro ! ! It would be a perfect skit on saturday night live and would be a great joke were the ramifications not so serious. Comparing Obama to Islam was another one.

A friend of mine who lives in the U.S. loves politics, particularly U.S. Politics. What he told me about Walker Bush was astonishing. A large majority of his votes in 2005 were from people who actually just felt sorry for him (as a complete moron) and thought that Kerry was far too intelligent for his own good! This coupled with the fact that republicans had been scaring the hell out of the country for the previous 4 years "encouraged" dimwits to vote for him.

He also said that around election time, republicans drive into ethnic estates and burn cars to discourage them to vote (by taking their eyes off the election and forgetting to vote!). Do any of us really believe that the republicans arent capable of anything underhanded to win elections?

Democracy working at its finest. On one hand it is great that a complete idiot can be the leader (as it sort of prooves the whole "anybody can get to the top" theory) of the country, but on the other hand this idiot scared the hell out of voters into voting for him.

This is part and parcel of the mud slinging that goes on in most elections in democracys but that doesnt necessarily make it acceptable. Its actually winning election by default.

Considering the U.S. is widely accepted as the shining beacon of capitalism and democracy, it only further highlights what is wrong with the implementation of both. The truth is that there are ignorant and idiotic people out there who believe the shameless propaganda tools used to get their votes. People who get voted into power using these underhand techniques are not being democratically elected, more elected on false pretenses.

Billy Bragg made the point at his excellent gig at Vicar St last week that 'Democratic Capitalism' is oxymoric by definition, like 'military intelligence' and 'self regulation'.

Complainer said:

Billy Bragg made the point at his excellent gig at Vicar St last week that 'Democratic Capitalism' is oxymoric by definition, like 'military intelligence' and 'self regulation'.

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Poor Billy never quite got over the shock of seeing his beloved Berlin Wall fall.

ubiquitous said:

Poor Billy never quite got over the shock of seeing his beloved Berlin Wall fall.

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Perhaps you have Billy mixed up with someone else?

From [broken link removed]

The Berlin Wall comes down as Billy tours the States with Wiggy and the rest of the Red Stars. Relieved at the bloodless overthrow of a repressive police state, but dismayed by the West’s crowing, Billy decides he should examine more closely some of the Communist and socialist ideals that had been expressed in song. And so The Internationale mini-album came into being - which included The Red Flag and Blake’s Jerusalem among other uplifting songs.

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All of the rights we take for granted in our 'democracy' were concessions demanded and won by either the Trade Union movement internationally or campaigning political groups. It would never the case that a group of kind hearted Capitalists had a chat about the inequality staring them in the face and made decisions to change their world for the better.

The 8 hour working day
The 5 day working week
Obolition of Child Labour
Security of Employment
Pay Equality
Universal Healthcare
Universal Sufferage
Old Age Pensions
Free and Transparant Elections
and so on

None of the above were handed to us on a plate, yet so many of us take them for granted and sneer at the workings of the TU movement, would never blink before crossing an official picket line, failing to make it to the polling station on the day of an election...I guess we believe the Boss has our true interest at heart after all!?

Complainer said:

Perhaps you have Billy mixed up with someone else?

From [broken link removed]

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No, actually. The rest of Europe made up its mind about the usefulness of "Communist and socialist ideals" about 20 years ago. Not our Billy.

gillarosa said:

yet so many of us take them for granted and sneer at the workings of the TU movement,

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Perhaps this is because what remains of the TU movement today is more about protection of powerful vested interests, and "jobs for the boys" (eg Fás) than the lofty ideals espoused by their predecessors?

gillarosa said:

...would never blink before crossing an official picket line

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Slightly OT, but I think this is a large part of the overall problem, this suggestion (not necessarily by gillarosa, but I think her comment hints at the attitude) that somehow the integrity of a picket line should not be breached by anyone, at any time, no matter what.

The validity or otherwise of any industrial action should be judged on an individual basis IMO - I don't see that this sense of blind, tribal solidarity regarding picket lines does anyone any good ultimately.

Of course intimidation from within the union doesn't help either.

ubiquitous said:

Perhaps this is because what remains of the TU movement today is more about protection of powerful vested interests, and "jobs for the boys" (eg Fás) than the lofty ideals espoused by their predecessors?

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I agree and that is unfortunate, but I also think its important for us to remember that what we have wasn't handed to us!

gillarosa, Bismarck brought in the first old age pension. He's not known as a communist (or even a socialist). In fact he saw the socialists as a threat to the state and introduced anti-socialist laws. He also brought in the first workers compensation scheme for sick pay and accidents at work.

jaybird said:

[/list]If this is the first principle of democracy, then we don't live in one. How could anyone argue that all members have equal access to power?

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Exactly . . .

Before anybody says anything, I dont necessarily have an alternative way of living , Im just throwing it out to the forum that the world we live in is really a "tiered" democracy.

U.S.A - E.U. - Ireland - Rich people - the rest of us.

Now as a matter of speaking at these factors above can change the way we live with or without or agreement (notice we are the last mentioned, we being the majority of these nations, but with lessor influence).