Good arguments against capitalism?

[Grayson Walker]

What are some good arguments against capitalism that can easily be won?

[tuwix]

1. Millions died and dying due to famine, when capitalism is dominant system; much more than died from so-called 'communism' that has nothing to do with communism.
2. Basing on ideology of impossible economic model - free market; due to its own definitions, free can't exist.
3. Enormous stratification of wealth; in range of 1 mile one can has millions and other one suffer a famine.

[midnight888]

I dont know where to start! There must be hundreds of good reasons...

For starters capitalism needs consumption which in general is usually a waste of resources. It needs people to keep on shopping. If everyone decided to become a saver all at the same time, then millions of people would lose their jobs.

Think of people buying a latest gadget (like a phone) and then 1 year later buying the upgraded gadget even if the current gadget is working fine... Waste of resources..

Another way it creates waste is because of labour costs. Imagine your dvd player breaks down. Do you spend $40 for someone to repair it or do you buy a new one for $50 and throw the old one out?

Where i live there is 2 major airlines. Both fly up and down from here within 45 minutes of each other and the planes are usually half full. Waste of resources again...

Capitalism needs poor people otherwise the consumption part mentioned earlier wont happen. For example, imagine minimum wage in china/pakistan/india increased to our levels. The products we are currently buying would also increase, meaning we would consume less. Our $20 made in china shirt would all of sudden cost $80 or more!

Capitalism creates a lower standard of living for most of the worlds people, including me and you. The average working week currently is say 45 hours a week. With todays technology we can reduce that to (im guessing) half. Most of todays jobs can be automated and under communism many jobs would not exist.

What about poverty. Most of these starving people have food and water within walking distance but can not afford to purchase them. Same as medicines.

Capitalism creates competition amongst us which also creates waste. If i have more than you, than im doing better than you. So i will buy a boat that i will use 3 or 4 times a year. Or girls will buy several handbags because they dont want to be seen on FB with the same bag twice.

Capitalism makes sick people which in turn creates jobs. Its cheaper to use plastics and other poisonous crap on our products but their is a trade off... Cancer and other illnesses. Also the health companies dont release cures for an illness. Instead they release long treatments making you sometimes a life time customer.... All for money...

What about wars?? 99% of all wars are about money. Do you really believe wars are about bringing liberation to the people? They are about money. Example is the Iraq war. The big companies who make tanks, helicopters, jeeps etc make a fortune from wars. Then there is the oil... More money to be made. Who rebuilds the war torn nation? Usually the country who "helped".

Just look at the madness around us. In the USA, for every homeless person, there is 2 or 3 vacant homes! Where i lived in the past was a tourist destination. No one would rent me a house for an entire year as it was financially better for them to rent it to tourists for 3 months instead of to me for 12 months! So the local people have to resort to either paying ridiculous amounts for rent or stay in caravans!

Capitalism creates crime! Think of how many people are in jail because of money. Bank robbers, burglars, counterfeiters, drug dealers etc Im guessing the majorty of people are directly or in directly there because of money. Would they do these things if everyone had a house, a tv, computer etc? If there is no scarcity then there is no need to commit an offense to get those things.
This list can go on and on...

[Always Curious J]

There are two that I especially like. One is that capitalism internalizes barriers to the very growth necessary for its survial, which causes cyclic crises that harm millions upon millions of people. The other is that it necessitates infinite growth on a finite planet, which is obviously impossible and therefore problematic.

[exeexe]

Capitalism is theft or robbery
Democracy is one voice one vote. Capitalism is the more money you have the more power you have, so its antidemocratic.
Capitalism is alienation. If workers could decide by themselves how their work conditions should be they would be a lot better.
Capitalism creates instability to society
Capitalism is hierarchy, a worker has to obey orders
Capitalism support nationalism
Capitalism is emotionless :blushing:

[#FF0000]

Capitalism is hierarchy, a worker has to obey orders

why can't they just walk away?

[exeexe]

why can't they just walk away?
I was not talking about child labour...

[Grayson Walker]

Against a nihilist AnCap who tells me that "value is subjective, therefore the labor theory is wrong", what should I respond with? And how does one measure value?

[ralfy]

Capitalism requires continuous economic growth, something that cannot be sustained in a world with physical limitations. We are currently seeing the effects of that reality.

[Diogenese]

Yes what ralfy said, capitalism functions on perpetual growth, unless they're gonna find another planet full of stupid slaves to buy their crap and expand their markets then it is doomed and will devour itself. Argument accomplished, suck it capitalists.

[Torie]

We have all the resources we need to feed everyone on earth. Because of capitalism, these resources are unequally distributed. Many have too much, many not enough.

There is a price on basic human needs such as medical care, water, housing, and food. Those who happen to have more money (which often isn't even due to personal merit) get to have better health. The medical care issue is worse in some countries than others, but it is still a problem.

Another food-related one: we have enough food to feed everyone, but instead, we feed a large proportion of it to farm animals whose meat feeds far, far less than what the food they were given would feed. This is resource-inefficient and inhumane- both to humans and animals.

People's quality of life is mostly just an accident of birth. A reasonable quality of life should be seen as a human right, not dependent on where you were born, what job you can get, or how much money your family has.

[Red Economist]

Consumerism: The mind numbing dullness of living purely to buy stuff and the perpetual dissatisfaction of always wanting more because of a conditioned sense of inferiority. The way our lives are wasted sitting in front of TV being told what to think, how to feel, how to look, how to dress, who to go out with based on appearances. How the difference between consumer choice and corporate control is barely distinguishable and individuality is expressed through what we have not who we are or what we have done. How we are alone because people put their jobs and their money before their friends and family. How our constant insecurities drive us to eat too much or too little, smoke cancer sticks to look cool or relieve stress, drink to excess to try impress other people, do drugs to escape from work, work too hard to escape from life, spend more than we have to live in a fantasy world where we can have and be what ever we can buy. How we are turned into anti-intellectual mindless zombies by the mass media because thinking means we might actually stop and wonder if this sh*t can or should go on?

http://http://www.virgin.com/sites/default/files/legacy/zombie_2-16441.pnghttp://summaorthodoxiam.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/zombies-vs.jpeg

Shouldn't it worry us a bit that this is what it happens when you actually HAVE money in this system?:confused:

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Consumerism: The mind numbing dullness of living purely to buy stuff and the perpetual dissatisfaction of always wanting more because of a conditioned sense of inferiority. The way our lives are wasted sitting in front of TV being told what to think, how to feel, how to look, how to dress, who to go out with based on appearances. How the difference between consumer choice and corporate control is barely distinguishable and individuality is expressed through what we have not who we are or what we have done. How we are alone because people put their jobs and their money before their friends and family. How our constant insecurities drive us to eat too much or too little, smoke cancer sticks to look cool or relieve stress, drink to excess to try impress other people, do drugs to escape from work, work too hard to escape from life, spend more than we have to live in a fantasy world where we can have and be what ever we can buy. How we are turned into anti-intellectual mindless zombies by the mass media because thinking means we might actually stop and wonder if this sh*t can or should go on?

http://http://www.virgin.com/sites/default/files/legacy/zombie_2-16441.pnghttp://summaorthodoxiam.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/zombies-vs.jpeg

Shouldn't it worry us a bit that this is what it happens when you actually HAVE money in this system?:confused:

So you fault TV programs for telling people "what to think, what to feel, how to look..." yet your argument against capitalism is that some people are living their lives in a way you disapprove of? The problem is not that some people have "too many" things, or rather that they have the things they want, but that most people do not have the things they want.

[Red Economist]

So you fault TV programs for telling people "what to think, what to feel, how to look..." yet your argument against capitalism is that some people are living their lives in a way you disapprove of? The problem is not that some people have "too many" things, or rather that they have the things they want, but that most people do not have the things they want.

consumerism causes mental and physical illness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence

And it is not simply a question of 'choice'. Television is basically Pavlovian conditioning, so there really isn't anything remotely like 'free will' at work there.

it is not simply 'what I disapprove of' (but I recognize the totalitarian implications of taking it to it's logical and absurd conclusion), it is that is so contrary to what makes us happy, healthy and fulfilled human beings. The whole purpose of consumerism is to sufficiently condition, or more crudely 'brainwash,' people to buy more, so they consume more, so companies make bigger profits; it is a product of capitalism and is not an innate or 'natural' feature of human behavior. it is conditioned.

Out of the 7 billion people on this planet only about 2 billion have above subsistence living standards (if memory serves). The problem is that whilst 'failure' in this society is a physical attack on a person by denying them their most basic needs, even 'success' is actually a crippling condition- it's just not as bad as going hungry or being impoverished.

So no, this isn't an argument against capitalism that can easily be won.

[Redistribute the Rep]

consumerism causes mental and physical illness.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_of_affluence

And it is not simply a question of 'choice'. Television is basically Pavlovian conditioning, so there really isn't anything remotely like 'free will' at work there.

it is not simply 'what I disapprove of' (but I recognize the totalitarian implications of taking it to it's logical and absurd conclusion), it is that is so contrary to what makes us happy, healthy and fulfilled human beings. The whole purpose of consumerism is to sufficiently condition, or more crudely 'brainwash,' people to buy more, so they consume more, so companies make bigger profits; it is a product of capitalism and is not an innate or 'natural' feature of human behavior. it is conditioned.

Out of the 7 billion people on this planet only about 2 billion have above subsistence living standards (if memory serves). The problem is that whilst 'failure' in this society is a physical attack on a person by denying them their most basic needs, even 'success' is actually a crippling condition- it's just not as bad as going hungry or being impoverished.

So no, this isn't an argument against capitalism that can easily be won.

I think we can sum this up with the phenomenon of the falling rate of profit, which would be a better thing to use in an argument IMO because it's more all encompassing. It also explains other things like imperialism, forcibly opening up markets in other countries, unnecessary wars, etc.

[Remus Bleys]

Why don't you read marx, engels, some lenin (maybe some kautsky and trotsky, mixed in with ultraleft writings, for good measure) take a look at what the left communists (both the Germans and (mainly) the Italians) had to say and develop an understanding of communism, and with that you will be able to figure this shit out on your own. Nothing was ever won by a debate and really all communists should be to just demolish all arguments that find their base in bourgeois thought rather than historical materialism.
Nothing is more annoying than that leftist who has no understanding of Marxism, yet goes around "debating" regular people - often poorly, and usually arguing for anti communist positions, sometimes even intellectually compromising with the bourgeois thought in order to convince the other person.

Revolutionary workers don't debate, they come in solidarity with each other and other workers, pushing them to act in their own interest.