So how do i explain to my friends the faults of captalism

[Davie zepeda]

Well help me explain to my friends that capitalism is bad and what are the bad parts about it.

[kromando33]

Overproduction simply.

But seriously just take the time at least to read the Communist Manifesto, that should help.

[midnight marauder]

There are lot of ways you could go about doing this, but your mileage may very depending on you and your friends personal situation. Remember that the best way to teach something anything, whether it's math or revolution, is to relate it to their life.

I've always been a fan of the Socratic Method. I think having a stimulating, critical dialog is one of the best ways a person can learn something I've found to be thought provoking:

-Surplus value and surplus labor sound scary, but they are really pretty easy concepts to understand. We all know we're getting screwed, but these ideas serve to identify and articulate specifically how and why that happens. If your friends work, explain to them how they're being exploited. For example, if I'm paid minimum wage to build computers, and I turn around and sell those computers for a few hundred dollars each, where does that profit go? Why, the boss of course! If I'm the one making them, he's making a killing off my labor. Talk to them about the discrepancy between the profit that they make and the amount of money that they get to keep. That discrepancy is called surplus value, and is one of the basic units of capitalist exploitation.

This old anarchist cartoon does a great job at explaining the principles behind anti-capitalism:

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/6128/capitalismig1.jpg

-Explain how inefficient capitalism is. Everyday at work we throw out tons of good products and supplies simply because we can't make a buck off of them. These items, which could be going to good use by people who need them, will get piled up into a landfill somewhere because we have no use for them. That's a waste. Of course, it's so bad when we're just talking about printers, but when we're talking about food, clothes, and shelter, it's a big deal.

-Do you live in a bad neighborhood? If not, take your friends on a drive through a lower-class neighborhood, ghetto, or barrio; it's a real eye opening experience for most people who haven't been exposed to that sort of thing before. Make note of what the millions of people who live in these impoverished, dilapidated communities have to go through on a day to day basis. Talk about what that means not only from an economic standpoint (as Brother Malcolm X said, “When you live in a poor neighborhood, you are living in an area where you have to have poor schools. When you have poor shcools, you have poor teachers. When you have poor teachers, you get a poor education. When you have a poor education, you can only work at a poor paying job. And with a poor paying job you can only live in a poor neighborhood. It's a very vicious cycle.”), but also from an individual standpoint. Talk about how that inequality directly leads to problems like gangs, drugs, domestic abuse, sexism, racism, and other social maladies. Point out that the problems people no different than you or your friends have to struggle through are systemic problems that arise out of the natural workings of capitalism, not through any fault of their own.

-Do you live in a suburb? Talk about how the social problems that come with a suburban middle class lifestyle. Talk about how the origins of the suburbs are deeply intertwined with racism and racial politics. There's a direct relationship between the racism of modern suburbs, modern racial segregation, and the "white flight" of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Talk about hypersegregation, or the virtual apartheid between white Americans and residents of other races, and its effect on crime, health, and education. Talk about how the suburbs, through gasoline consumption, deforestation, overdevelopment, and other factors impact the environment in tremendously negative ways. Talk about how depression, drug usage, apathy, cliques, bullying, and alienation are related to the secluded life of the 'burbs.

-Talk about how capitalism, despite Democrat and Republican rhetoric, necessitates poverty, and how poverty is one of the most important tools in the capitalist's arsenal. Politicians, in what some would term 'poverty pimping', will always try to appeal to working men and women by campaigning to "end poverty" or to "help the poor". Understand how this is mutually exclusive with the idea of capitalism. In the pursuit of profits, capitalists will always yield as little as possible to gain as much as possible. Capitalism requires a lower class to remain poor in perpetuity in order to function. It thrives on that cheap, available labor. Any and all concessions the capitalist class gives us is because we, the people, the masses, pushed for them with our blood, sweat, and tears. As Karl Marx wrote: "The English bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest; it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a bargain with the poor, saying: 'If I spend this much upon benevolent institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall despair unseen, this I require, this I purchase with my subscription of twenty pounds for the infirmary!'"

-If your friends live a relatively comfortable life, never let them forget that there is a direct relationship between the luxuries of the so-called "First World" and the vast poverty and exploitation of not only workering people in their own country, but also of the "Third World". Every time you hear the media parrot ideas about poverty in Asia, Afrika, Central & South America and other parts of the world a flag should go off in your head: "Capitalism! Capitalism! Capitalism!" Talk about how debates over immigration are inseparably linked to capitalism. Learn about neocolonialism, the process by which world powers like the United States dominate poorer countries ("developing nations" is a code-word for these places) through the dollar where centuries ago they used the fist.

***

These are just a few ideas to help you get started exposing your peers to the problems of capitalism. Above all, never stop learning. History is important, if you want to know why things are the way they are, read! The materials are all out there for you, you just gotta look for it, 'cause the same people that control the government and the corporations control the media, the education system, the prison system, and any other avenue where people tend to get their information. Always be critical, and never be silent in the face of discrimination or exploitation. Be kind, considerate, and reasonable, but never be shy when it comes to your politics. Stand up and speak out. People will listen!

[midnight marauder]

Moved to learning.

[Joby]

The harder you work, the less you get.

A mexican comes to america to work a 10-hour day and earn $20.

Paris Hilton is a millionaire.

Obviously, this encourages people under capitalism to do the least amount of work for the highest amount of compensation

Materialism has replaced morals, spirituality, and equality as characteristics of a 'good' person by most of society.

This creates a nation thats obese, lazy, ignorant, and in a lot of credit card debt.

[Davie zepeda]

all good to me love it i understand i need to read more it's just well i wanted to show how other's are feeling about this not only me we got in a debate saying well don't you want to be rich and i said why for what purpose and he said you know just to be rich and live comfortably .now i said theres other ways to live comfortably .

[mikelepore]

Well help me explain to my friends that capitalism is bad and what are the bad parts about it.

I can't think of a single social problem that capitalism doesn't either make much worse or cause entirely.

[blackstone]

"Do you live in a bad neighborhood? If not, take your friends on a drive through a lower-class neighborhood, ghetto, or barrio; it's a real eye opening experience for most people who haven't been exposed to that sort of thing before."

Wtf? I'm not an animal in a zoo.

[RedAnarchist]

This old anarchist cartoon does a great job at explaining the principles behind anti-capitalism:

http://img108.imageshack.us/img108/6128/capitalismig1.jpg


I've actually posted that cartoon on a few non-political forums, asking them for their opinions.

[midnight marauder]

Wtf? I'm not an animal in a zoo.

Didn't mean to suggest "you" were. My point was that for a lot of privileged young people in suburban America the problems of capitalism are hard to conceptualize because they seldom are exposed to them, or at least feel as though these problems do not effect them. In my experience, young people from better-off backgrounds in my city almost never pass through the impoverished urban core, and when they do, it's always an enlightening experience.

Why are you offended by this?

[More Fire for the People]

Tell him to drive around town. I can think of two instances that are illuminating: (1) I am from what Osha Gray Davidson calls a 'rural ghetto': cheap labor, low-paying work, & drug addicts galore. Every street is one-quarter run-downed and another quarter in the process. The buildings that aren't rundown are divided between cheap apartments and the homes of the well-to-do (policemen, small-business owners, commuters, etc.)
and (2) I wish I had a photo, but in St. Louis I saw a two story house where the second story had collapsed in: people were living in the first story.

[manic expression]

Make them watch multiple episodes of "My Super Sweet 16" (with Soulja Boy videos in between). That should do the trick.

Seriously, take them to see impoverished areas near you. Better yet, have them volunteer for a local homeless shelter/soup kitchen. Even having them work a regular job could be enough if you show them how work could be better under socialism.