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Why isn't capitalism regarded as utopian?

heres the deal, capitalism is kinda like nature where the strong survive and the rest suffer, thats whole idea is that you weed out the people that cant compete. the thing is capitalism sucks if u suck at life, but if u can figure out how to live, you basically get to be in complete controll of your own life, choose to be unemployed or choose to do what it takes to get rich as fuck. i think people dont like capitalism because then they have to be accountable for their lives and choices.
 
as someone who has studied sociology (society) for 4 years now.... i must say that that last post is the most misinformed, false, and yet most prevelent view of capitalism. I could argue with you, but it would be easier if yyou just picked up any soc 101 book. I'm not trying to sound condecending, I just don't know how else to respond to such a blatently wrong and still important statement.
 
^^^
Well, he did make a good point about capitalism...a point which many people agree with.

I'd say that capitalism is less about "natural selection" than it is about simply producing stuff (or sometimes, stealing it).

Where tiger-bunny is wrong is the part about personal accountability. People hate capitalism, not because they aren't "responsible," but because some aspects of a capitalist economy make it extremely difficult to even BE personally accountable. For example, if you work for a company that doesn't give a shit about you.
 
^^^
The part about "if you can figure out how to live, you get to be in complete control of your life."

It's a good point, because that's basically what most people in a liberal, capitalist society do.
 
u·to·pi·a (yū-tō'pē-&#601) pronunciation
n.
1.
1. often Utopia An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.
2. A work of fiction describing a utopia.
2. An impractical, idealistic scheme for social and political reform.


cap·i·tal·ism (kăp'ĭ-tl-ĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.


Fair enough? now what is it that you're asking? these two concepts are categorically different and capitalism is to utopia as produce market is to the horn of amalthea




skjalff
 
>>u·to·pi·a (yū-tō'pē-ə) pronunciation
n.
1.
1. often Utopia An ideally perfect place, especially in its social, political, and moral aspects.
2. A work of fiction describing a utopia.
2. An impractical, idealistic scheme for social and political reform.


cap·i·tal·ism (kăp'ĭ-tl-ĭz'əm) pronunciation
n.
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.>>

This is patently ridiculous. I could use this same method to show that my white bike is, in fact, not white. :)

>>The sharing of technology was bartered for with manpower, the alliance formed with the promise of greater survival for both.>>

Was it, or was it merely shared? You are projecting our current set of economic relations (based in exchange) onto paleolithic society, which was based in a sort of primitive communism. In short, we did not begin by bartering.

>> Knowledge and its practical twin, power, are still traded for labor, only now the myriad of transactions every day are so entwined, you could spend a lifetime learning how to work it to your advantage, and some do. They are called capitalists.>>

This, I will give you, sort of. Knowledge (of the machinations of the market and the social networks of the capitalist class) and power (based in a claim over the means of production via private property rights) is exchanged for control of labor. This is far removed from technological innovation, which is not rewarded as handsomely.

>>Capitalist's are the peak of human evolution having created, or been given and grown, a complex power producing machine consisting of a series of interwoven 'pseudo-species' working in harmony towards one purpose, greater survival for both.>>

Right now, they appear to be working towards production at an unsustainable rate, at the cost of poverty of many.

>>The government's of countries mean little to capitalists, they are a set of do's and don'ts that require understanding and subsequent circumvention. Even communism could not contain them. They are as omnipresent as any force of nature and they should be classified as such because 'The Man', the corporate alliance, will continue to exist despite any concerted attempt to kill it bar human extinction.>>

No, the state can not contain them. They weild the state as a tool. Are they part of human nature? Perhaps, insofar as human nature is widely mutable.

ebola
(more to follow later)
 
>>^^^
The part about "if you can figure out how to live, you get to be in complete control of your life."

It's a good point, because that's basically what most people in a liberal, capitalist society do.>>

I don't think you believe this, protovack.

ebola
 
ebola!: i just went for the radical solution, the fact of the matter is that Utopian society is by definition perfect and capitalism isn't. The initial question doesn't seem like a particularly deep one and as such may have non too deep an answer

skjalff
 
there is a lot implicit in the initial question. The question is, I think, why don't we regard those who advocate severely deregulated capitalism as some sort of panacea as utopian thinkers?

ebola
 
Speaking as a "utopian" capitalist I can say that my arguments for severely deregulated markets have nothing to do with greater good arguments such as higher efficiency. Instead, they revolve around the amount of force and coercion that is inherent is one economic system compared to others. Capitalism is predicated on the idea of voluntary interactions. That the sum of these interactions adds up to what is often (but not always) the greater good for an entire society is simply a convenient corollary.

Capitalism does not produce a more aesthetically pleasing society or a fairer society (in the equality of result sense that many people mean) - instead it produces a free society. Free of the violence that any sort of planned economy inevitably requires. I would agree that this is utopian in the sense that I will probably never live to see a state perfectly free of coercion but I do struggle to see my society asymptotically approach this ideal.

dm3 - your comments are especially interesting. You state that countries that embrace free market capitalism the most are also the most impoverished. Care to back this up with some data and/or examples? Keep in mind what embracing free market capitalism entails in terms of rule of law and governance as well as the fact that the standard you are measuring against is comprised of those countries who have rejected free market capitalism. How many people did Stalin and Mao starve to death in the name of this rejection?

Your comments about water reminded me of an article in Reason a few months ago. You can read it here.

Segerfeldt shows that even imperfect privatization efforts have already successfully connected millions of poor people to relatively inexpensive water where government-funded efforts have failed. For example, before privatization in 1989, only 20 percent of urban dwellers the African nation of Guinea had access to safe drinking water; by 2001 70 percent did. The price of piped water increased from 15 cents per cubic meter to almost $1, but as Segerfeldt correctly notes, "before privatization the majority of Guineans had no access to mains water at all. They do now. And for these people, the cost of water has fallen drastically. The moral issue, then, is whether it was worth raising the price for the minority of people already connected before privatization in order to reach the 70 percent connected today."
Click to expand...

Ozymandias
 
The part about "if you can figure out how to live, you get to be in complete control of your life."

It's a good point, because that's basically what most people in a liberal, capitalist society do
Click to expand...
I don't think you believe this, protovack.

ebola.
Click to expand...
No I do :) I just believe that many of the "normal" citizens in the capitalist system are unaware of the consequences suffered by people outside of their own private utopia, such as terrible working conditions around the world, theft of native resources, etc...

You cannot attack capitalism only by looking at the United States. You have to look around the world and observe how different societies are constantly being used up and tossed in the garbage as capitalists transfer their base of production around.
 
"You cannot attack capitalism only by looking at the United States."

I beg to differ. Just look at all the psychological distress that our mass media brainwashing causes...

It's mass hysteria, but its repressed mass hysteria, because no one wants to look bad by advertising their insecurities. So instead we have drug addicts, compulsive shoppers, wife-beaters, emotional abusers--you name the neurosis, we got it in plenty! Just need something to fill that hole...

In this country the image that money can buy is our GOD.
 
^Thats perhaps because we all agree.

I consider capitalism as utopian FOR it's flawed and therefore temporary nature. Life is only worth living when it's components are subject to evolve, change and/or end.
[/my beloved hippy bullshit]
 
^^^That sounds like the Marxist concept of historical inevitability. So if you consider the capitalist stepping stone to be 'utopian' simply because it's subject to change, wouldn't you have to consider all stages of Marx's concept to be 'utopian' (thesis, antithesis.) It seems to me by that logic it would be immpossible for a society to ever be 'non-utopian'....
 
I think the big mistake here is the view that somehow material wealth and utopia are synonymous. As I see it, the desire for material wealth is the one thing standing between humanity and the utopian ideal.
 
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