Why Capitalism?

[Jabberwocky]

DG please go shove your kitten up your ar*e

No capitalism defines success in terms of material wealth, fuelled by a free market economy.

[sasguru]

No capitalism defines success in terms of material wealth, fuelled by a free market economy.

Intense man! Pass the joint, will ya?

[Dundeegeorge]

DG please go shove your kitten up your ar*e

Moody or what!!!
And I disagree anyway.
surely some capitalism must define success in terms of material wealth, fuelled by a free market economy.
Punctuation, matters! ;man?

[stackpole]

I look forward to the day when we are all equal, with exactly the same possessions, living in exactly the same sized houses, sitting in identical deck-chairs, happy in the knowledge that no-one is cheating.

Except that I'd want a new car.

[xoggoth]

"The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism"

Partly on your side. Systems that work are those that go with human nature, i.e. pursuit of one's own happiness and that of immediate family above those of others. Laissez faire capitalism fulfills many of these major requirements and is a damn site better than unworkable socialism.

To say it fulfills all is ridiculous. "Capitalism" is only about material wealth. It has no other dimensions. Material wealth, beyond immediate necessity, is far from being the only need people have. Pursuit of wealth to the exclusion of all else gives us what we have, a miserable and meaningless society with no sense of belonging or identity or purpose.

[expat]

The ideal political-economic system is laissez-faire capitalism.

To be precise to the point of pedantry, you are speaking of laissez-faire liberalism . Capitalism is not a political system, but is the method of raising capital investment independently of a single rich person, i.e. by having people buy shares in companies. It is a prerequisite for the generation of national wealth as we know it (though Adam Smith disagreed), but it is potentially independent of liberalism although they tend to go together - capitalism really needs liberalism or it is not likely to be allowed. Liberalism doesn't need capitalism but is bound to allow it, once invented (it is not so long in human history since capitalism was invented).

Liberalism is a perfect system in theory; but so is socialism.

[sappatz]

capitalism

the only good capitalism is rockfeller's capitalism, the world government of bankers and BIS. After bankers are better at knowing what is good for humanity rather than all those poor mortals.

or Bill gates capitalism, steal someone else ideas, establish a world monopoly to sell crappy products which everyone enjoy (its like the communist system, you can have any OS for your PC as long as it is Windows, there are even several versions of them - well there is linux also but the target audience is not the same, more like geeky nerds)

[DigitalMan]

So how do you explain the invasion of Iraq?

He's describing laissez-faire capitalism, not actually existing statist capitalism.

[DigitalMan]

To be precise to the point of pedantry, you are speaking of laissez-faire liberalism .

Yes, what he means is laissez-faire liberalism or really just liberalism in its original sense. Capitalism is merely a consequence. However, liberalism does not oblige everyone to pursue material wealth above all else. It merely obliges everyone not to stop those who want to pursue material wealth above all else - provided they do so only by voluntary trade.

BTW, for those who are unaware, John Galt is the hero of Ayn Rand's novel, Atlas Shrugged.