Is Capitalism Moral?

[lilpixieofterror]

Exactly jordanriver. Helping the poor is one of the major themes of the bible and of the gospels. Jesus seems to have been somewhere around the location of Karl Marx on the left-right political spectrum on economic policy.

And yet, Karl Marx talked about destroying religion and every time his polices have been put into practice, they seem to be only capable of producing dead bodies, oppressed people, economic wastelands, a starving population, and a hand full of wealth elites; that live in grandeur while their subjects live in horrible conditions must worse that their capitalist enemies. It seems almost as if Karl Marx's policies are a disaster that has killed millions, but for some strange reason, people seem to ignore reality and keep trying the same failure, over and over again, somehow expecting different results to happen if they try it yet again. Best part is when they try to warp the teachings of a religious leader, to fit into their world view, by using the teachings of a man that hated religion and wanted to destroy it. You're quite entertaining, in your nonsense dimbulb, but as always, you seem to never engage your brain and think. How many more people need to die before you'll admit that Karl Marx and his policies are a total failure and need to be thrown away into the dust bin of history?

It's a very strange world in which so many so-called "Christians" see extreme free-market capitalism as compatible with their faith.

A few things I've done for the poor, just this year:

Gave hundreds of dollars, worth of baby cloths, to women who needed cloths for their babies, but couldn't afford it.
Worked with the church group at soup kitchens.
Helped people fix their cars, who couldn't afford to have their cars fixed.
Babysit for a singer mother, so she could go and interview for a job.

Now, what have you done for the poor, this year or did you just whine that the government wasn't doing your job for you? Now please Dimbulb, please explain how the two are incompatible because free market capitalism is simply an economic system that doesn't have to exist independently from giving. I know it might blow your little mind, but it is quite possible to believe that capitalism is the best economic system out there and be a giving person, at the same time. Explain how that is a contradiction please. Thanks!

[jordanriver]

If Communism is so great; why did the eastern block end up collapsing while the capitalist west continues to exist?

?

I don't know if its "great", it's never been given a chance to succeed without outside interference, you already asked this before, :

I guess if we ignore the mass arrest and mass murders that took place under the USSR, it was a lovely place to work and live that those evil capitalist brought down. (plus, you seem to ignore that the USSR also helped to sabotage western efforts around the world too IE the Korean War, Vietnam War, the Chinese Revolution, etc, so it isn't as though the USSR was innocent of meddling in affairs at the expense of their competition.) In reality, most of the USSR's problems were caused by internal problems. Such as Stalin murdering and purging off his competition and ensuring that the Soviet Union was poorly prepared for an invasion by the Axis Powers (just to name one example). There's also the created famines (such as the Ukraine one during the 1920's), oppression of religious rights, mass deportation to Siberia, poor leadership, poor infrastructure planning, etc. that plagued the Soviet Union for decades (and in fact, still causes problems for modern day Russia too). Again, if we ignore that stuff, the USSR was an awesome place. Seriously, where are you getting this 'history' from?

ok I guess you never got an answer yet
I learned this from Colin Powell, ....Heritage.org, ....Alexander Haig, Former Secretary of State,...Anne Coulter, ...Rush Limbaugh, ...Sean Hannity, ...Mark Levin:

Source: Colin Powell, Interview on the Sean Hannity Show June 2004

Sean Hannity:Yeah. Well, you know, Gorbachev, last week, was quoted in one newspaper, I forget where I read this, that in all the talk that it was Reagan's arms race forcing Gorbachev to look for some arms reductions, whatever, and I said that's not serious, that the Soviet Union could have withstood any arms race. We know that that is not true, and Reagan really brought the former Soviet Union, with your help, to its knees
Colin Powell: I saw that statement by President Gorbachev and I had to smile. I think the point he was trying to make is that many things brought about the change in the Soviet Union, but one of them certainly was the simple reality that America had the ability to defend itself and did defend itself under President Reagan's leadership and it was from that position of strength that President Reagan was able to reach out to the Russians and say, you know, you really want to change.

What Gorbachev was not acknowledging in his statement was that, yeah, they could build a first-class army and they could keep building it, but they were destroying their economy and so doing it they would never have anything but a fourth class economy. They could not afford guns and butter; we coul
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Source: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism Heritage Foundation

There is one Western leader above all others who forced the Soviets to give up the Brezhnev Doctrine and abandon the arms race, who brought down the Berlin Wall, and who ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield. The one leader responsible more than any other for leading the West to victory in the Cold War is President Ronald Reagan.

Reagan directed his national security team to come up with the necessary tactics to implement his victory strategy. The result was a series of top-secret national security decision directives (NSDDs):
..NSDD-32 declared that the United States would seek to "neutralize" Soviet control over Eastern and Central Europe and authorized the use of covert action and other means to support anti-Soviet groups in the region, especially in Poland.
..NSDD-66 stated that it would be U.S. policy to disrupt the Soviet economy by attacking a "strategic triad" of critical resources--financial credits, high technology, and natural gas. The directive was tantamount to a "secret declaration of economic war on the Soviet Union."
..NSDD-75 stated that the U.S. would no longer coexist with the Soviet system but would seek to change it fundamentally. America intended to roll back Soviet influence at every opportunity.
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Source: Alexander Haig on "HANNITY & COLMES", June 7, 2004

Well, I think there is no question that Ronald Reagan's policies brought an end to the Soviet Union, but history did the same. Because the internal contradictions in Marxist Leninism is really what brought the Soviet Union down.

But it wouldn't have happened at the pace that it did except for the policies of Ronald Reagan, in my view

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Source: Anne Coulter What Would Reagan Do Sept 2005

"....Apart from toppling the Soviet Empire, Scalia remains Reagan's greatest triumph..."
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Source: Rush Limbaugh's Tribute to Ronald Reagan June 2004

"....Mid-90s I attended a lecture given by Lady Margaret Thatcher at the Waldorf in New York. She made a point of saying it was Reagan, not Gorbachev, who brought down the Soviet Union primarily by proposing SDI. It was at that moment that Gorbachev knew it was over because he knew we Americans could do SDI and his country couldn't...
.....You know, Reagan did not "hasten the Soviet collapse." He was responsible for it, and he was practically alone in his confidence that Soviet communism would fail, and his reason for believing it would fail was simple, folks, and it's a reason that is eternal. He knew the Soviet Union would eventually collapse of its own immorality if pushed in the right places, so he pushed..."
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Source: Mark Levin's Facebook page Nov 2013

Reagan defeated the Soviet Union. Obama and his former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton brought it back. Hillary 2016?

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from the gitgo, the Western Powers were not going to allow the Marxist experiment succeed;

Source: Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War WIKIPEDIA

Severely short of troops to spare, the British and French requested that President Wilson provide American soldiers for the campaign. In July 1918, against the advice of the United States Department of War, Wilson agreed to the limited participation of 5,000 United States Army troops in the campaign, this force, which become known as the "American North Russia Expeditionary Force" [5] (a.k.a. the Polar Bear Expedition) were sent to Arkhangelsk while another 8,000 soldiers, organised as the American Expeditionary Force Siberia,[6] were shipped to Vladivostok from the Philippines and from Camp Fremont in California. That same month, the Canadian government agreed to the British government's request to command and provide most of the soldiers for a combined British Empire force, which also included Australian and Indian troops. Some of this force was the Canadian Siberian Expeditionary Force; another part was the North Russia Intervention. A Royal Navy squadron was sent to the Baltic under Rear-Admiral Edwyn Alexander-Sinclair. This force consisted of modern C-class cruisers and V- and W-class destroyers. In December 1918, Sinclair sailed into Estonian and Latvian ports, sending in troops and supplies, and promising to attack the Bolsheviks "as far as my guns can reach". In January 1919, he was succeeded in command by Rear-Admiral Walter Cowan
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[jordanriver]

Fascinating, you found a book that told you everything you wanted to hear and you swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Let's start here...

?

well, a few books actually

a little context first, The Cotton Gin

Source: The Timetables of History by Bernard Grun

1793 (page 369)
"U.S. law compels escaped slaves to return to their owners"

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....and just in time too, they're going to need a lot of slaves because:
"Eli Whitney (1765-1825) invents the cotton gin"
source [/cite]

Source: World History People and Nations by Anatole G Mazour, John M Peoples

p 492
"Most of the imported raw cotton came from the southern United States. At first, cotton cultivation had not been profitable there because it was difficult to remove seeds to prepare the cotton for market. By hand, one person could clean only one pound (.45 kilogram) of cotton a day. In 1793 Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, a machine that could do the work of 50 people. Equipped with Whitney's invention, the southern United States met the demands of the British textile manufacturers and became the cotton-producing center of the world."
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Source: THE WORLD'S HISTORY by Howard Spodek

p 501
"The textile revolution also generated spin-off effects around the world. Britain's new mills required unprecedented quantities of good quality cotton. The invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitey (1765-1825) in 1793 meant that a worker could clean 50 pounds (23 kilograms) of cotton in the time it had taken to clean one. The plantation economy of the United States revived and expanded, providing the necessary raw cotton and giving slavery a new lease on life. American cotton production rose from 3,000 bales in 1790 to 178,000 bales in 1810; 732,000 bales in 1830; and 4,500,000 bales in 1860 (Fogel and Engerman, p 44).
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Modern American Capitalism's ROOTS in Slavery:

Source: THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism Edward Baptist

p 116-117
The best-known innovation in the history of cotton production, as every high-school history student knows, is the cotton gin. It allowed enslavers to clean as much cotton for market as they could grow and harvest. As far as most historians have been concerned, the gin is where the study of innovation in the production of cotton ends--at least until the invention of the mechanical cotton picker in the 1930s, which ended the sharecropping regime. But here is the question the historians should have asked: Once enslavers had the cotton gin, how then did enslavers produce (or have produced, by other hands) as much as the gin could clean? For once the gin shattered the processing bottleneck, other limits on production and expansion were cast into new relief. For instance, one constraint was the amount of cheap, fertile land. Another was the lack of labor on the frontier. So enslaver-generals took land from the Indians, enslaver-politicians convinced Congress to let slavery expand, and enslaver-entrepreneurs created new ways to finance and transport and commodify "hands." And, given a finite number of captives in their own control, entrepreneurs created a complex of labor control practices that enslaved people called "the pushing system." This system increased the number of acres each captive was supposed to cultivate. As of 1805, enslavers like Hampton figured that each "hand" could tend and keep free of weeds five acres of cotton per year. Half a century later, that rule of thumb had increased to ten acres "to the hand."
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Source: Cotton and Race in the Making of America: The Human Costs of Economic Power by Gene Dattel

p 63-64
"The decade of the 1830s was central to the ascendancy of the cotton economy, with more than twenty million new acres made available in the cotton growing states. The expansion was financed by capital from the North and from Europe, and cotton, in turn, became the critical underpinning of America's ability to borrow money. European capital flowed to America because of its financial system, cotton exports, and perceived investment opportunities. From the beginning America had depended on foreign capital and in particular on European banks, which had extended the new republic $130 million in loans to finance American businesses, canals, and railroads. All the Erie Canal bonds were sold to Europeans. By 1850 foreigners still owned half the federal debt and 20 percent of all U.S. securities. The deep involvement of foreign investors gradually became a flashpoint of Northern anxiety and Southern confidence, and one of the factors that pushed the country toward war.
In 1836, Treasury Secretary Levi Woodbury confidently explained the preeminence" of American cotton in world trade. He believed that America would remain dominant because of "good cotton land enough in the United States and at low prices, easily to grow, not only all the cotton wanted for foreign export...., but to supply the increased demand for it, probably for all ages."

p 66
"The euphoria ended with the banking crisis of 1837, an event that began in London when interest rates were raised to stem the outflow of money and gold. Three Anglo-American banks--Wildes, Wiggins, and Wilson, commonly known as the Three Ws--failed. New York felt the impact, with interest rates rising from 7 percent annually to 2 to 3 percent per month. As the value of U.S. securities plummeted, the New York Stock Exchange experienced bedlam. The weakening price of cotton "wrecked whatever remained of public confidence" and left cotton merchants strapped for cash.
In March 1837 several New Orleans cotton banks failed as the price of cotton continued to fall.
The collapse of American stock and bond prices caused several states to default, leaving Europeans holding tens of millions of dollars in lost loans and investments. James Rothschild, head of the Rothschild bank in Paris, supposedly excoriated an American treasury official, Duff Green: " You may tell your government that you have seen the man who is at the head of finances in Europe and that he has told you that they cannot borrow a dollar, not a dollar." Financial memory, however, is notoriously short. By the beginning of the Civil War, a little more than twenty years later, Europeans had forgotten about American financial foibles and were lending money and selling arms to the Confederacy. Cotton was the direct or indirect basis of these loans and sales in the 1860s, just as it was in the 1830s."
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American Slavery Beginnings for Modern American Capitalist Institutions


Lehman Brothers
Lehman Brothers Holdings filed for the largest bankruptcy in history and triggered a global market meltdown

Source: Bloomberg Business May 22, 2014

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Source: Capital of Capital: Money, Banking, and Power in New York City, 1784-2012 (Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism)

Capital of Capital: Money, Banking, and Power in New York City, 1784-2012 (Columbia Studies in the History of U.S. Capitalism)by Steven H. Jaffe, Jessica Lautin
p 97
"...Also from Bavaria, Henry, Emanuel, and Mayer Lehman ran a merchandise store in Montgomery, Alabama, and a cotton brokerage business in New Orleans and New York City before starting the investment bank Lehman Brothers.
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Source: Evolving Financial Markets and International Capital Flows: Britain, the Americas, and Australia, 1865-1914 By Lance E. Davis, Robert E. Gallman

p 303
"...Finally, the Lehman brothers (Henry, Emanuel, and Mayer) had been peddlers and cotton brokers in the South before and during the Civil War. After the War they expanded the scope of their brokerage business to include coffee, sugar, grain, and petroleum, as well as cotton. It was not until the 1880s, when the sons of the founders became partners, that Lehman Brothers became an investment bank."
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Lehman, and Aetna and Wachovia and JP Morgan Chase ,

Source: How Slavery Led to Modern Capitalism: Echoes Bloomberg View Jan 24, 2012

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CITIBANK

Source: American Sugar Kingdom: The Plantation Economy of the Spanish Caribbean by Cesar J Ayala

p83
"Several important facts about Cuban American Sugar Company and its directors help us to understand the significance of the distinction between these notions of finance capital. Among the top stockholders in the corporation not listed above was James Stillman, who held 670 shares. Stillman had helped to subscribe a loan of $200 million to finance the Spanish-American war. James Howell Post, president of NSRC (National Sugar Refining Company Group in Cuba), had served on the board of directors of City Bank since 1898. The link with City Bank is additionally revealing because of the bank's historical role in financing the Cuba-U.S. sugar trade since the days of slavery. Moses Taylor, an important nineteenth century New York merchant, made a fortune trading in Cuban sugars and joined the board of National City Bank in 1837. Under Taylor, City Bank expanded into a banking institution of prime importance in the United States. In addition to the historical ties of City Bank to the Cuban sugar trade through Moses Taylor, Stillman and City Bank were already involved with the sugar refining interests in the 1890
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GLOBAL CONNECTION , Baring Brothers, Barings Bank/Baring Brothers & Co, (the one that financed The Louisiana Purchase--the largest land purchase in history) 1762 till its 1995 collapse

using slaves as collateral to raise capital overseas where the cotton was needed, then use the capital to build the C.A.P.L. (Consolidated Association of the Planters of Louisiana) that would be controlled by enslavers themselves.
(I learned of this reading Baptist's book The Half Has Never Been Told)

Source: THE HALF HAS NEVER BEEN TOLD Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism Edward Baptist

p 246
Lenders always wanted security, though, so how would the C.A.P.L. assure potential investors that the bonds would be worth their face value plus interest? Thomas Baring of Baring Brothers helped Lavergne and Forstall (New Orleans politician-entrepreneurs) to convince the state legislature to back the C.A.P.L.'s bonds with the "faith and credit" of Louisiana. If loan repayments from planters failed and the bank could not pay off the bonds, the taxpayers of Louisiana were now obliged to do so. The state's commitment convinced the European securities market. In 1828, the C.A.P.L. received from Baring Brothers, its European brokers, the first receipts from bond sales that would ultimately total $2.5 million in "sterling bills" redeemable for silver at the Bank of England. The bank started to lend out $305 million in new C.A.P.L. notes, printed by a London engraver, to planter-stockholders...
...The financial product that such banks such as Baring Brothers were selling to investors in London, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Paris, Philadelphia, Boston, and New York was remarkably similar to the securitized bonds, backed by mortgages on U.S. homes, that attracted investors from around the globe to US financial markets from the 1980s until the economic collapse of 2008...

....the faith bonds of the 1830s generated revenue for investors from enslavers repayments of mortgages on enslaved people. This meant that investors around the world would share in revenues made by hands in the field. Thus, in effect, even as Britain was liberating the slaves of its empire, a British bank could now sell an investor a completely commodified slave
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BROWN BROTHERS
Brown Brothers Harriman & Co. (BBH) is the oldest and largest private bank in the United States. In 1931, the merger of Brown Brothers & Co. (founded in 1818) and Harriman Brothers & Co. formed the current BBH.
(I first learned of the Brown Brothers also from Edward Baptist's book, p 272 , and how during the approaching panic of 1837 they kept the credit flowing to merchants) ..but i'll cite a different book this time. (don't want to print the whole of Baptist's book here of course)

Source: Empire of Cotton: A Global History By Sven Beckert

One American firm, Brown Brothers, would eventually join the ranks of the world's most important cotton merchant houses. The Browns were immigrants from Ireland. Alexander Brown founded a modest linen business in 1800 in Baltimore, then branched out into the cotton trade. As part of this diversification, Alexander sent his son William to Liverpool in 1810 to open a house for the importation of American cotton and the export of cotton goods. He sent his other sons to other port cities. Most important of all, in 1825 son James went to New York, with the goal of promoting "the interest of Messrs. William & James Brown & Co., of Liverpool, and of affording greater facility, and the choice of markets, to our southern friends who are disposed to give...us their business. By the 1820s, Brown Brothers was among the largest cotton traders between the United States and Liverpool.
From the 1820s to the 1850s, Brown Brothers involved itself in all aspects of the southern cotton trade. The firm offered cotton growers and factors in the South advances on future crops. It arranged shipping to Liverpool; indeed, the Browns themselves owned a number of ships. It provided insurance on cotton in transit. It sold huge quantitis of cotton on commission (typically, Brown would advance about two-thirds of the market value of cotton on these consignments), procured from New Orleans, Mobile, Savannah, and Charleston. Even though the Browns favored the less risky commission business, at times they bought cotton outright and shipped it to Liverpool for sale. In addition, and ever more important, the Browns provided credit and exchange facilities (converting various currencies) to southerners to enable them to trade crops grown by slaves. In the 1830s they advanced $100,000 to New Orleans cotton traders Martin Pleasants & Co., and a $200,000 line of credit to the New Orleans banking house of Yeatman Woods & Co. They also moved capital into a variety of southern banks, among them the Planters' and Merchants' Bank in Mobile, Alabama, and the Merchants' and Traders' Bank of Mississippi. The Browns made themseves central to the global cotton economy and so they became rich. In the flush times of the early 1830s, it has been estimated, Brown Brothers made profits of more than $400,000 per year--enough to buy thirteen one-hundred foot yachts, or thirteen hundred carriages

google books source Amazon source

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and lets not leave out
The Brooks Brothers (they've outfitted 39 of the 44 American Presidents)
wiki

Source: Gateway To Freedom The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner

p 45
"Dozens of boat companies sprang up in the 1820s and 1830s, their vessels gathering southern cotton from Charleston, Savannah, Mobile, New Orleans, and other Southern ports and bringing it to New York for shipment to Europe. New York banks helped to finance the crop as well as planters' acquisition of land and slaves; New York insurance companies offered policies that compensated owners upon the death of a slave; New York clothing manufacturers such as Brooks Brothers provided garments to clothe the slaves. New York printers produced stylized images of fugitives for use in notices circulated in the South by owners of runaway slaves. On the eve of the Civil War, J.D.B. De Bow, editor of the era's premier southern monthly, wrote tht New York City was "almost as dependent upon Southern slavery as Charleston"
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Source: Working-class America: Essays on Labor, Community, and American Society By Michael H. Frisch, Daniel J. Walkowitz

p 83-84
"The garment trades prospered in the 1820s, as city merchants captured the lucrative "Southern trade" in slave clothing from the British. The tariff of 1816 and cheap textiles from New England mills allowed New York merchants to undercut British prices. With an assured market for slops, employers began to take on more women to sew the work which journeymen preferred to do only in their slow seasons. By the 1830s, some shops employed as many as 500 women, and coarse "Negro cottons," as they were called, were regular cargo on southern-bound packets. From slave clothing, the trade diversified into a luxury trade in fine linen shirts and vests for southern planters, and firms also began to keep high quality ready-mades in stock for local customers, travelers, and gentlemen visiting the city on business....

.....In 1860, the renowned Brooks Brothers employed 70 workers inside and 2,000 to 3,000 on the outside, and another of the largest concerns employed 500 and 800 workers on the inside and outside respectively.
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[klaus54]

when i got tired of being a dupe.


i wasn't a fundy Christian before, ...I only thought I was.

i looked closer

Acts 4:31-35
31 And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
32 And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
33 And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
34 Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
35 And laid them down at the apostles' feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.

sounds almost like

Karl Marx 'Critique of the Gotha Programme' 1875
"....and society inscribe on its banners: From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs!"

for the good of the many

2 Corinthians 8:13-14
13 For I mean not that other men be eased, and ye burdened:
14 But by an equality, that now at this time your abundance may be a supply for their want, that their abundance also may be a supply for your want: that there may be equality:


...with the collective policing eachother
2 Thessalonians 3:10
10 For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.

(*note* "would not work" implies willingness or not willing to work, this does not refer to those who truly cannot do physical labor)

Holy Moley...

[klaus54]

I am not sure how material value is related to morality.

It should be obvious even to the casual observer...

[klaus54]

The fact that Starlight amen-ed JordanFluss speaks volumes of the Libtard agenda.

[Dante]

It should be obvious even to the casual observer...

From my observation as a Christian, they often have an inverse relation.

[KingsGambit]

From my observation as a Christian, they often have an inverse relation.

I think Jesus had something to say about serving God and mammon, too.

[jordanriver]

You are aware that industrial capitalist, of the early 20th century, had much to do with standardizing the 8 hour work week, 5 days a week, with providing a living wage, right?

Oh, yeah...out of the kindness of their hearts.

yeah, they did their part, they GAVE IN.

Of course, you can say, "But some of them hired strike busters, so there!" I don't recall ever saying that ALL of what they did was great or that ALL of them were necessarily good people, did I? Nope, that is a strawman of your own creation and a pretty bad one that goes against the evidence itself. Why would they want to crush the very group that is responsible for their rise to begin with? Poor people can't afford iPhones and other such items, so what sense would it make for the industrial capitalist to crush the middle class? Busting up strikes has nothing to do with 'crushing the middle class' and has everything to do with producing products because if you don't produce products; you don't make money. Can you come up with an actual response to this clear failure in your own logic or do you want to continue to show your history is very selective?

whoa, whoa, where did I say "want to crush the middle class"
Now you are creating a strawman.

There was no middle class to crush yet, they did everything to prevent it, but the unions fought, died , and eventually won. (now they are losing though, as modern capitalists can just outsource to contractors and move their factories overseas)

and you stack the deck, ...I notice how you add the qualifier "of the early 20th century" to ignore the decades of the 19th century that give context to events of the early 20th century.

example: the "magnanimous" Henry Ford doubling pay and cutting shifts to the 8-hour day, so that his employees could have a better life and purchase automobiles for themselves.

...as if he didn't notice the unions had been winning 8-hour days for the previous 50 years.

according to Forbes, Ford gave in because his workers kept quitting

Source: Forbes/Tech March 4, 2012

The Story of Henry Ford's $5 a Day Wages: It's Not What You Thinksource

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[jordanriver]

I don't know what the dupes for Capitalism are worried about though.

I'm probably not going to change anything, I am just one vote, (actually since we live in a Representative Republic, and I don't have a billion dollars to donate to "representatives" , ...I am zero votes)

That's why I believe we would (we the sheep, not we the 1 percenter-plutocrats who own the "representatives") ...would be better off with a direct democracy.

Let the people vote, we don't need somebody else to vote for us.

[lilpixieofterror]

well, a few books actually...

Sorry, but I'm not debating 101 thousand articles and books JR. If you want to hurl elephants, I'll find somebody else to talk to because I could produce 101 thousand articles and books that disagree with you too. Besides, Eli Whitney (the guy that invented the Cotton Gin) was from the industrial north and not from the south. Kind of proving my point that slavery has a way of stiffing innovation and technological progress.

[lilpixieofterror]

Oh, yeah...out of the kindness of their hearts.

I never claimed they did anything out of the kindness of their hearts. That is your own strawman that you build to attack because you can't refute what I actually said. The bottom line is that the industrialist only can survive with a middle class to sell many of their products to. Products, such as iPhones are not something poor people are going to be buying because they need to use a larger percentage of their money to buy essentials (such as food, clothing or housing), but those who have disposable incomes will more likely buy stuff they do not need because they want it and not because they need it. Without a class able to buy things they want and not just things they need, the entire system comes apart.

yeah, they did their part, they GAVE IN.

A bald assertion, that you seem unable to prove beyond making up strawman to attack and ignoring simple economics and reality, to try to make your dreams of a communist utopia, come true. It's pretty simple logic really. Most of what industrialist supply isn't stuff that is essential to living. Nobody ever died from a lack of iPhones, TV's, or toys, but they did and do from a lack of food, clothing, or housing. If the majority of the population has to spend most of it's money on essential items, that's less money to buy new iPhones and other such products and the industrialist ends up losing money and may even end up in the poor house themselves. A fact you keep ignoring. Why?

whoa, whoa, where did I say "want to crush the middle class"
Now you are creating a strawman.

Hey, that is the logic you are coming up with.

There was no middle class to crush yet, they did everything to prevent it, but the unions fought, died , and eventually won. (now they are losing though, as modern capitalists can just outsource to contractors and move their factories overseas)

That is because unions have become greedy themselves and have pretty much priced themselves right into unemployment. Go find somebody that has worked for a union, for any amount of time, and see what they say. It could take 3 or 4 people to do the job that should take 1 or 2 people to do because the union often blocks things. For example, if a machine broke down in an auto plant, it could take 2 or 3 mechanics to fix it because the mechanics are not allowed to do things beyond their precise job description. If you have somebody who is suppose to work on mechanical, but they need to remove something electrical, they have to get an electrician down there to remove that part and reinstall that part once they are done, so what should have taken one person and about 30 minutes to accomplish, ends up taking an hour to accomplish while work builds up behind them. Perhaps the unions should actually work on protecting their workers instead of being greedy themselves (why is it that communist tend to ignore people are greedy and pretend greed only a sin of the rich is beyond me; perhaps you can explain that).

and you stack the deck, ...I notice how you add the qualifier "of the early 20th century" to ignore the decades of the 19th century that give context to events of the early 20th century.

And you ignore that the US didn't become the power it is today until after slavery ended. Besides, the major reason that 8 hour work days did not become standard, until later on, is because innovations that would make the 8 hour work day possible didn't come about until the early 20th century (IE the assembly line shorted the time it took to make a product down enough to make this possible and since everybody only did a tiny part of the whole picture, it was easier for a shift change to happen because the worker only had to take over for a small job and not the entire thing meaning turn overs can be done much faster).

example: the "magnanimous" Henry Ford doubling pay and cutting shifts to the 8-hour day, so that his employees could have a better life and purchase automobiles for themselves.

Can you please show where I claimed this was true because I sure didn't because I've read that article and agree with it. He gave the workers something they wanted and they gave him something he wanted in return. Capitalism, in action or are you not aware that labor and skill is as much of a product, with a price attached to it, as a car is?

[jordanriver]

I'm sorry JR, but Capitalism, as we know it today, really started to get off the ground at around the time the US civil war was taking place (at least in the US). In reality, the slave trade was the result of European powers colonizing the America's and not having enough labor to cover it all (besides, the slave trade started during the time Mercantilism was the major economic theory of the time and came into decline as modern Capitalism came about). Might want to grab some history books and stop with the nonsense already.

uhhh, okay

Sorry, but I'm not debating 101 thousand articles and books JR. If you want to hurl elephants, .................

[lilpixieofterror]

I don't know what the dupes for Capitalism are worried about though.

Because communism has lead to more death and destruction than any other system, ever devised?

I'm probably not going to change anything, I am just one vote, (actually since we live in a Representative Republic, and I don't have a billion dollars to donate to "representatives" , ...I am zero votes)

I seriously doubt that they give billions of dollars to a campaign fund every other year.

That's why I believe we would (we the sheep, not we the 1 percenter-plutocrats who own the "representatives") ...would be better off with a direct democracy.

Which have never been shown to ever work for any nation larger than a single city.

Let the people vote, we don't need somebody else to vote for us.

Than run for office, if you think you can do a better job.

[lilpixieofterror]

uhhh, okay

You want to debate a point, go from one at a time. I'm not debating 101 thousand articles and books. I got other things to do.