The problem with capitalism

I get quite annoyed when I read arguments from pedantic right wingers, so I'll do my best to cover everything now. Here's my $0.02


Reactionaries are quick to sing the praises of those who do the least work, eg. Large business people, politicians, church leaders, Royalty etc. The reality is the USA state that calls itself the worlds seat of 'democracy' has little to offer the world in the way of example. Unelected privatised companies with power over essential services (transport health etc) have taken accountability away so that the vote has but no true meaning. This is why the remedy is blanket nationalistion, to ensure these essential services are brought back into accountable government hands. Already the US companies are becoming so huge they have leverage in affecting the democratic processes of other nations, particularly in the 3rd world.
In the UK we are sleepwalking towards a non pluralised plutocratic dictatorship as all 3 major parties sing from precisely the same right-of-centre hymn book.
Communism/Socialism (in my view at least) does not take away the apparatus of plural democracy, on the contary it was this mistake that led to the downfall of revolutions of yore. There is no reason to deny the reactionaries equal forum, the idea is their arguments will be irrelevant in the face of proletarian prosperity which is precisely why they so fear a shift in the status quo.
Capitalism is also guilty of wasting resources, not just mineral (which is an important point I'll come back to) but also human- Vast numbers within the workforce, many of whom are ex-graduates are syphoned off into forms of employment which have little or no relevance to their education or talents, and are there purely because of the demands of the 'market'. Clearly the focus should be on guiding them into areas where they will be of maximum benefit to society, the arts, and the sciences. This brings me onto my final point, science. Reactionaries accuse communists and other progressives of being backward, regressive etc. Clearly the opposite is the case whenever you consider we live in an age where various forms of renewable energies are available yet our primary source of transport is still dependent of the 4-stroke cycle. Rather than upset the apple cart, government leckies shuffle their feet when it comes to approve new technolgies which can run independent of the multi-billion dollar black juice and the obvious environmental catastrophe involved.

accountability in the private sector comes from competition usually. i haven't seen much evidence that government, at the national level atleast, is more acountable than a number of firms in a given market.

The Government will not be automatically more accountable but it stands to reason that they will. If ulster is referring to "democratic socialism" as I think he is, his argument makes sense. The governments number one aim would be to get reelected right? so they will naturally try to run these services better. A campaign on issues is always good . If the government handles the services well they will be elected. If they do not they will not be elected as the opposing party can say "look they ran your services amok"
Hence there is more accountability than say a company or a CEO that does not necessarily need the the support of the people especially when he controls a monopoly.

But I also think he has alluded to the problem with "democratic socialism" but I believe If we apply Marx's theory of permanent revolution we can avoid this.

What competition? In all Capitalist Markets the exists a tendency towards the centralisation of Capital as more advanced and efficient firms are able to purchase the assets of companes that may be facing financial insolevency, as as a market tends towards monopoly, dominant firms are able to establish barriers to entry. This is especially true in markets where there exist large economies of scale. As a result of monopoly, you cannot describe markets as 'accountable' in any respect. If you examine the UK transport network most notably the underground system, since privatisation, one will see that in the absence of public control there exists inefficieny and the exploitation of consumer and worker.

The buick of that 'accountability' stops as far as the best way of making more profit, as opposed to the interests of whoever needs your service. If I own a big company whose interests are being threatened by my competitors, I can simply buy them over giving me back my de facto monopoly and we are back to square one.

Which presuppose that monopolies are inevitable and aare rule rather than an exception. They're actually quite rare, so they're not the rule.
The one being propped up on government money?
Assuming it was efficient before it was privatised, which it wasn't. If it was pulling a profit, it wouldn't need to be propped up on government money; you had to pay for public transport before it was privatised and you obviously still have to pay for it now, so how is it any more exploitation now than it was then? What a ridiculous argument.

the occurances of monopolies in most markets is extremely rare, and usually short lived. obviously transportation such as road networks and subways will be easily monopolized simply because of geography, i'd much rather those be publicly owned for that reason.

but that rarely ever happens. why do you think this is?

In my experience, monopolies were and are still more common than you suggest. Under the Thatcher cabinet in the UK, British telecom had a monopoly over telecoms (as a rule of thumb they still own the vast majority of UK phone lines) and british gas its own respective industry. While resident in Manchester, my commute to college was blighted by First buses and its monopolised route to Rochdale. Without either your beloved 'competition' or state influence to keep tabs on them, they were free to charge me extortionate fares for what was frankly, a piss poor service. On that note, Manchester also suffers from a private monopolised tram service who are every bit as bad and as expensive. I dare say my experiences are a microcosm of what goes on in every other major british city. While I accept you acknowledge it will be a common occurance in transport (and its shortcomings), it doesnt really validate your claim that it is 'rare'. Nor does it give the concept of privatisation any moral favour, especially over such a bread and butter issue. Also dont United Utilities have a monopoly over UK water billing? my goodness, the list goes on...

industries which depend on geographically limited infrastructure such as transport and telecom are infact easier to monopolize (although with the increases in wireless technology this is no longer true), but outside of that i can't think of any recent significant occurances of monopolies at anything other than the local level for any significant period of time.

less competitive markets can usually be attributed to government protectionism, although not always. i don't know much about markets in the UK, but i'm sure you're government isn't doing much to help.

It really says more about their own brand of neo-liberalism, rather than any contribution theyve made to socialism; contrary to popular belief.

You seem to think you're pretty smart. Let's begin:

Start of a sentence CAPITAL FUCKING LETTER.

Also 'you're government' reads 'you are government' what you mean is 'your government' as in the ownership of something.

Finally if you don't know much about UK markets, how can you be sure the government isn't doing much?

Ah the joys of pedantry. I enjoy using the instruments of bourgeois society against itself.

So British Telecom only had a monopoly after they were privatised? What did they have before, when it was state-owned? And how is that any different from a monopoly, in practice? Use some common sense.

That is an inane argument. Monoplies are harmful primarily when they are under the control of the private sector, for the simple reason that firms aim to maxomise profits, and so in the absence of market compeition they will raise prices because consumers do not have an alternative choice.

When companies are managed in a manner that aims to maximise public welfare, this does not occur - in fact, one of the main arguments put forward in support of the nationalisation of transport is that it is often non-proftable to service isolated areas but it is necessary to do so in order to ensure a reasonabke standard of welfare for the inhabitants of the areas in question.

The flipside of that is that a government operated monopoly has no incentive whatsoever to minimize costs; in fact, for political and budgeting purposes, it often has an incentive to inflate them as much as possible. Runaway costs will be a huge drag on any economy.

So how is a public sector monopoly any different? (Apart from the fact that, unlike the private sector, it's capable of forcing you to be it's customer whether you use its services or not, under threat of criminal prosecution.)
Except when it doesn't, which is most of the time. You make it sound like nationalisation of transport is something new that's never been tried. Public transport was no better prior to privatisation.
Or in electoral terms, Pork.

The thing is with private companies is they all fucking suck - look at Transport for a good example. You may be able to try another company, but they might not be the same one that owns the track/road and would therefore have more trouble. Privatisation fucking sucks.

Actually most of the stuff ran on time and, more importantly, no one was forced to pay through the fucking nose. Seriously fucking show one example of how private companies are better.

Your pork barrel shit is only popular among a small group of libertarians, most people like to have free stuff on demand.

http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y13...t/eatmyass.jpg

Oooh, yeah...I'm going to have to sort of...go ahead and "disagree" there. UPS, Federal Express, DHL - all of them are almost always far better for shipping than the USPS. For freight, privately owned rail and privately owned trucking concerns do a perfectly good job. The privately owned Megabus can get me from city to city for US$3 or less, while it costs me more than $3 just to take a government owned-and-operated city bus from one side of the city to the other. And since deregulation, airline prices have gotten much cheaper even as fuel has gotten much more expensive.

Now maybe you were talking about infrastructure and not actual transportation service, in which case you might have a point. But private transportation does a great job, at least in the U.S.

what the fuck are you blathering about? this isn't an acedemic journal, it's a goddamn forum.

Hahaha... Jazzrat's brilliant in his insults.