Capitalism may enhance material productivity more than any other system.
However, material productivity does not necessarily equate to a happiness or safety in life, as the American experiment has proven. People in America presently work longer hours for less buying power than they did 50 years ago. The price of a house or car as a function of annual salary has risen. The average American now works 50 hours a week on average with less than 2 weeks vacation each year on average. Soon people will be taking out 40 year loans so they can buy houses. Then 50 year loans.
Physical slavery has been replaced by economic slavery, using chains made of credit.
America's amazing productivity has led to tons of product, but much of those products are unnecessary, if not counterproductive. Do you need a flat screen tv? A pentium 4 instead of a pentium 3 computer?
The theory behind capitalism getting the right amount of the right products made, is that demand will dictate supply. So the society votes with their pocket book on what will be produced. However, advertisers have thrown a wrench in the works because it is now apparent that skilled advertising is more important than product quality, and manufacturers can CONVINCE people to demand their products with good advertising.
Personally, I think capitalism would be a million times more efficient if we banned advertising. It would be a tricky ban to enforce. You'd have to let some advertising-like messages slip through to avoid banning other forms of speech that should remain free. However, in the absence of advertising, people will actually have to use their brains to judge the quality of competing products. Word of mouth and consumer satisfaction will become much more powerful in determining whether a product succeeds whereas now it can depend on just getting the right celebrity endorsement.
Advertising is like a psychedlic drug designed to distort a person's perception of reality in a way that makes the person think a particular product is necessary for a happy life, for sex appeal, etc. That distortion has screwed up the normal mechanism by which capitalism encourages survival of the fittest products.
Also, capitalism works best in an even playing field. However, rich people and corporations actually tilt the playing field in favor of the wealthy so that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is short-sighted on the part of the rich because it will eventually catch up to them. I guess at that point they will buy an island and run away from the poverty that has led to overwhelming violence and political unrest in their former country. Sort of like looting the store and then running away. For example, look at the medicare fiasco on prescription drugs, in which free market negotiations are PROHIBITED between the government and the drug manufacturers, with the result that the government pays sometimes twice what other parties (who do negotiate) pay for the same drug. Costing both medicare recipients and the taxpayers (who subsidize those recipients through medicare) millions or billions of dollars that are profit to the shareholders and high placed executives in the big drug companies.
Pure capitalism may lead to economic survival of the fittest, but once you make your fortune, then that system is actually working against you. Because you want to stay rich and get richer, but what if your streak of fortune is over? What if your kids are lazy idiots? Once you make your fortune, you now want to manipulate the politics of the nation to make it hard for rich people to lose their wealth. You create counter-capitalist laws and regulations. Some poor people still ascend to the ranks of the rich, but once there they do not blow the whistle because at that point those counter-capitalist laws are in their best interests. Some rich people are also stupid enough to lose their fortunes and descend to the ranks of the poor despite the favortism of the laws. Well, you can't save everyone. And, besides, it is good publicity to make people think that the playing field is still level.
Anyway, I'm not sure you can have a permanent level playing field with capitalism. A society based on the profit motive will engender selifshness and materialism in its people. They, in turn, will do what they can to gain and keep material wealth, which includes skewing the playing field to better protect their interests. Though "one person, one vote" should preclut this, the bottom line is that money talks and can sway public opinion. Once again, advertising undermines the proper working of a capitalistic society.
You know, we don't even need to abolish advertising. We should just hold advertisers to a MUCH higher standard. Any implied lie or exaggeration should be fraud and grounds to close a company down.
AM/PM has a commercial out right now where a girl talks about the evolution of humanity and how after becoming the dominant species over the course of evolution, she is now reaping the benefits...AM/PM hot dogs and hamburgers... Does anyone think that that kind of food is a reward for winning the battle of evolution? I mean, don't we all acknowledge that as some of the cheapest, crappiest food around? Shouldn't they really be talling us, "It's not very good, but it sure is cheap and convenient."
And I saw a commercial for cable or satellite tv that talked about living the good life. They showed kids riding their bikes, then swimming, then playing tennis, then a guy flying a kite on the beach... Not only were none of them watching tv, but they were actually doing the OPPOSTE of watching tv. They were engaging in physical recreational activity outside. WTF?? I'm sure some advertising study showed that they can sell tv to people by playing on their desire to NOT be couch potatoes. "Yes, this study shows that people will feel better about buying cable television if we link it with images of people outside playing, because most people deep down would rather be outside playing than watching tv. We confuse their subconscious by putting these images together until they don't know what they want to do, and so they will do the easest thing which is watch tv."
How can unhealthy, greasy, nutritionally bad food be packaged with a toy and sold to kids as "Happy Meals?" Are we trying to turn our children into fat slobs with clogged arteries?
What about a shampoo commercial? Shouldn't it be required that the actor or model in the commercial with the amazing shiny hair, really have USED that hair product -- and only that hair product -- to get that look? Should be. Yet, more than likely, that person has some super expensive hair treatment and they film it and then use it to advertise a totally different hair product. Much like restaurants taking pictures of FAKE food in their ads.
People like to think they are smart enough to see through the crap in advertising. That is dangerous because it is false. Advertising has become a study, based on the latest cutting edge research on mind control, brain washing and human psychology. You think most people can stand up to that? Not likely. We have an industry whose sole purpose is to figure out how best to lie to us. The industry needs to be dismantled or cut back to its roots and bound so that it cannot grow into a monster ever again.
Then we can see just how well capitalism works. Perhaps some other issues will arise and corrupt the system as it has been corrupted in America. Or perhaps capitalism can lead to a better lifestyle when it is done right. I'd be curious to see.
~psychoblast~
