The Big Flaw in Capitalism- and why they won’t tell you.
After 200 years plus of capitalism, I am surprised the ordinary worker doesn’t see it; I am surprised that capitalism lasted more than 50 years. See what; why this broad statement? Easy; capitalism doesn’t work. Here’s the reason.
Picture reproduced under Creative Commons licence
As we all know, no matter how hard politicians try to reign in capitalism, however hard they try to control it or, on the other side how hard they try to allow it to do as it pleases, capitalism inevitably results in boom and bust.
Whatever the capitalists tell you, the people who suffer most during the ‘bust’ periods are the poor, the employee and the disenfranchised. The people who suffer least are the speculators, factory owners and entrepreneurs who have amassed great wealth by underpaying the proletariat for their labour and overcharging that same proletariat for goods and services.
Conversely, during the ‘boom’ years the people who benefit most are the same speculators, factory owners and entrepreneurs while those that benefit least are the same poor, employee and disenfranchised.
This is why capitalists must underpay for labour and overcharge for goods and services. Because they know the good times won’t last forever and they need to amass their personal fortunes at your expense to survive them in the luxury to which they have become accustomed. Meanwhile, the proletariat can struggle on in the filth they so love.
The wealthy capitalist knows and understands all this. They do not want you to know, much less understand it. (Which is why they so love to tinker with your state education system, while their public school system has stood the test of time and barely changed since its inception.)
Capitalism continues as the worlds favoured economic policy because these same capitalists have convinced the proletariat that through capitalism, you can have the same slice of the cake if you work hard enough.
Tell that to the cleaning lady, the road sweeper and the shoe-shine boy, and try to do it without a wry grin.
SMILING CARCASS'S TWO-PENNETH 
Reblogged this on Vox Political.
Mike Sivier
29/09/2013 at 4:51 PM
Thanks for the reblog.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 5:41 PM
Sharing this on my FB page, hoping some people will see the obvious.
George Berger
29/09/2013 at 4:58 PM
Thanks, George
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 5:41 PM
“A spectre is haunting Europe. The spectre of Communism” accept it isn’t, the Communist system brought Stalin’s gulags, Mao’s Cultural Revolution and the general supression of the individual. Thankfully it never triamphed in Europe. The mixed economy is the only way forward, anything else is whistling in the wind.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
29/09/2013 at 5:07 PM
The spectre of communism was used by the capitalists to scare little children and old women and to persuade them that socialism was the same thing.
Perhaps you could name me a country in which communism was actually instigated- please, not Stalinist Russia or Maoist China.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 5:37 PM
For a doctrin to be implemented and to constantly fail indicates that there is something wrong with the theory not merely with the way in which it was implemented. Communism took different forms in various nations but the ideology ultimately failed in all of them due to it’s intrinsic flaws. In a world of scarcity and imperfect individuals some form of market economy is inevitable as is exemplified by the fact that it kept creeping back under Communism, sometimes officially tolerated, at other junctures persecuted but none the less it kept coming back.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
29/09/2013 at 5:56 PM
The failing is in the human condition, not the doctrine which is why a strong and apparently repressive regime is necessary in socialism’s early beginnings until the greed of capitalism is ousted through cultural change and re-education- terms which, I know have unsavoury connotations, but the greed of a few individuals must not be allowed to foil the better future of the many.
Capitalism fails on a regular basis- but there are always those prepared to shore it up for another quick profit before the next fail.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 7:29 PM
That is precisely the argument used by Stalin to justify his purges which, as you know included the killing of many Communists besides other opponents of the regime. Your view leads to the gulag and the death camp.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
29/09/2013 at 8:56 PM
No, Stalin was a megalomaniacal power-seeker, warned against by Lenin and Trotsky, which is why elected members of the politburo were killed and replaced by appointed members who would not disagree with Stalin.
As Tony Benn once said, “The Marxist analysis has got nothing to do with what happened in Stalin’s Russia: it’s like blaming Jesus Christ for the Inquisition in Spain.”
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 9:37 PM
You make me laugh. It is with the greatest respect the only response to your views.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
29/09/2013 at 9:47 PM
Well, no it’s not the only reply; but perhaps the simplest. I could, for example have said we need strong laws to nationalise and control the means of production to be better able to redistribute the wealth. We need laws to control people (tell me a state that doesn’t have that!) to prevent the amassing of huge wealth to the detriment of the people. We need laws that will prevent any one person taking control of the state we create.
In the final analysis, freedom is to be cherished and the aim of any responsible government. Today, I do not feel free. I am controlled by the need to work and much of my time and energy is focused on producing goods that have made a very, very few men very, very rich. I want that time and energy, if it must be to produce goods, to be rewarded according to the value of the goods I produce, not some arbitrary figure a selection of very wealthy men have decided I’m worth and they can spare from the huge profits my blood, sweat and tears produces.
I am prepared to forgo the freedom to amass huge wealth in exchange for a more equitable redistribution of that wealth. There are other freedoms I currently enjoy that am willing to give up in exchange for working towards a country and a world where greed has been eliminated and we work not for ourselves but for our communities and our fellow man. In that world there will be no want unless we all want.
It may sound a little utopian, and perhaps it is. But that doesn’t stop me wanting it.
You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one. John Lennon.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 10:08 PM
“I am prepared to forgo the freedom to amass huge wealth in exchange for a more equitable redistribution of that wealth. There are other freedoms I currently enjoy that am willing to give up in exchange for working towards a country and a world where greed has been eliminated and we work not for ourselves but for our communities and our fellow man”. What other freedoms are you prepared to give up? I’d disagree with your assessment of how the value of goods and services is determined. In a market economy it is the laws of supply and demand which largely determines the price of goods and services. Of course you can get monopolies but, generally speaking it is the interaction of millions of consumers and producers which determine the price rather than the action of producers unless they engage in illegal price fixing.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
30/09/2013 at 6:35 AM
If you’ve ever seen a board of directors and buying/selling staff fixing the price of a new product, you’d know what I mean. It goes something like this-
Q- How much does it cost to produce?
A- £1
Q- How much will the market stand?
A- £8
We’ll market it at £7 and they’ll think they’re getting a bargain!
You don’t need a monopoly or price-fixing to have extortionate prices, totally unrelated to the costs of production, let alone wages.
The only market force involved is how much they can screw out of you.
Smiling Carcass
30/09/2013 at 1:54 PM
The mixed economy, market economy call it what you will is imperfect as is every system invented by man. However the fact remains that material prosperity flourishes under the market. I am not saying that poverty and injustice don’t exist, however the average condition of the average person is better from a material perspective under the market economy than is the case under Communism. I employ a lady to clean my flat. The fact that there are many individuals and service providers offering to provide domestic cleaning services means that I, as a purchaser have a great deal of choice which helps to keep the price I pay afordable. Likewise if the lady who cleans for me does not feel that I’m paying a fair price for her labour she can negociate with me or, if we can’t agree she is free to sell her labour to someone who will pay more. I live in London and the rates paid for a cleaner range from the minimum wage to £10 an hour (occassionally more) so there are people offering this service who can make good money. Likewise in my locality there are a variety of restaurants many of them independently owned. The competition is quite fearce (I’ve seen quite a few restaurants come and go) but those which offer good food, service and charge reasonable prices have, on the whole done well. The competition between restaurants is undoubtedly good for their customers. The market economy also has the advantage of helping to foster freedom. WordPress operates in the capitalist economy but you can find a wide variety of views expressed on the platform ranging from supporters of anarchism right the way through to neo-fascists. The fact that WordPress is, ultimately driven by profit helps to ensure that freedom is fostered as they wish to attract as many people as possible to use their services.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
30/09/2013 at 6:29 PM
mixed economy – what, like the one where the bankers fuck the country and the poor pay for it?
you really are david cameron and I claim my £5 bn
jed goodright
29/09/2013 at 7:24 PM
I’d rather live in a mixed economy than a Communist or Fascist society in which millions have been murdered (Nazi Germany, Stalin’s Russia, North Korea). There is an excellent book, Hitler and Stalin Paralel Lives, by Alan Bullock which I’d recommend reading if you haven’t already done so. The society in which we live is imperfect but that is the nature of human society.
drewdog2060drewdog2060
29/09/2013 at 8:53 PM
Take a look at the ATOS death statistics, to name but one.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 9:39 PM
Reblogged this on wrjonesblog.
wrjones2012
29/09/2013 at 7:08 PM
thanks
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 7:24 PM
Free-Marketcapitalism is, by it’s nature, parasitic;it requires infinite growth which, given the finite resources provided by our planet, is unattainable.Ultimately, it will sow the seeds of its own destruction
Colin M. Taylor
29/09/2013 at 8:03 PM
You’re probably right, Colin but their devastation will affect us all, leaving us a depleted planet and the few survivors living in the stone age.
Perhaps not a bad thing, necessarily. I often wonder how much happier we might all be without the computers, TV’s, greed and need to forever improve one’s lot.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 8:22 PM
I believe that it was Ghandi who said: There is a sufficiency in the world for man’s need but not for man’s greed.
.I have enough to meet my and my Familiy’s needs for food, Warmth etc. I have no need for the latest and newest. The only indulgence i allow myself is the occasional model kit, Although it costs, say £10, I can spend several months building and painting it.from this activity I derive great satisfaction and relaxation and i harm no-one.
I have taught my child to know the difference between wanting and needing.
Colin M. Taylor
29/09/2013 at 9:39 PM
Wonderful, Colin.
Smiling Carcass
29/09/2013 at 9:42 PM
Apologists for captalism – an ideology principally involved in the worship of money, selfishness and death, which has caused more human slaughter, misery, and environmental destruction than any other social or economic system ever devised in the history of humanity – usually bring up Stalin and Hitler, and the spectre of gulags and concentration camps when any intelligent person mentions socialism or – help me, mummy, some nasty poor people are trying to take away all my toys – communism. No-one ever mentions that concentration camps were invented by the British and that labour camps existed all over the British Empire, not least in the Dominion of Canada. Think how many children work and die in sweatshops today all over the world. How about all the millions of people working long hours for very little in unsafe mining, construction or factory conditions? These people are basically slaves. Yes, slavery exists even today and it is a necessary precondition of capitalism.
Even amongst the Western youth of today such as myself (brought up under World Bank-IMF-Thatcherite-Reaganite policies broadly translating to ‘exterminate the poor through disease and starvation’) there is still an extreme awareness of such a thing as CLASS, often (deliberately) overlooked by those who love capitalism and their ‘freedom’ to buy fancy shoes and other useless items. The class character of a government defines whether it is ruled by or in the interests of the capitalists or the workers (the proletariat). Hitler was a fascist, but fascism is just an extreme form of capitalism. Hitler loved his own bourgeoisie and they made millions out of his slave-labour camps. Hitler ruled in the interests of his own beloved bourgeoisie – the capitalist class, the profiteers and speculators. To emphasize this point. HITLER was the classic CAPITALIST. He hated women, workers, poor people, foreigners, immigrants, gay people, gypsies, disabled people. In other words he was very similar in outlook to the people who rule the world today and quaff cognac in the Bilderberg Group. He also seems a lot like the Pope, doesn’t he? Religion is big business after all and the Vatican is one of the richest corporations in the world.
Capitalism is the root cause of the majority, if not all international wars and invasions. Every single person who died in WWI and WWII died because of capitalism – imperialist expansion. Everyone who died as a result of slavery died because of capitalism. Everyone who died as a result of colonialism died because of capitalism. Everyone who dies of starvation and treatable diseases every day dies because of capitalism. What is driving the destruction of the ecosystem? Capitalism. People need to wake up and start using their brains and realise that the materialist culture many people take for granted is destructive, backward, and produces inferior ‘thinkers’ who enjoy their own slavery and wallow in their ignorance.
In any case I enjoyed the original post. Good job.
Kim ☭
30/09/2013 at 11:23 AM
Great post, and brilliant ‘bat and ball’ comments as well. I have to get in on this one Mr Carcass, so here is my own take on the debate. http://redflagflying.wordpress.com/2013/04/26/the-only-good-commie/
Regards, Pete.
beetleypete
30/09/2013 at 4:30 PM
The graphic at the top of this post should indicate the most sane way forward, as it is from the IWW, Industrial Workers of the World, founded in 1905 and still going, and growing. Not allied to the TUC it is not hamstrung by the reformist and sell-out policies of the mainstream trades unions, and increasingly frustrated and conscientious activists from the mainstream trades unions are also joining the IWW. The IWW advocates workers controlling their own industries, and also the societies in which they live, but if does not advocate any political party or ideology. Only workers are eligible for mambership, which means that no-one with the ability to hire and fire can be a member. The IWW is run and controlled by it’s membership and not by paid bureaucrats (indeed, that is prohibited). The IWW is truly international, but in Europe it has most of it’s strength in the UK and in Germany.
I agree with most of your analysis, but I would strongly disagree with the need for a vanguard party to lead the way: workers are quite capable of organising things for themselves without the need for oppressive party apparatchiks. The hands of both Lenin and Trotsky were bloodstained too, and whilst maybe not as monstrous as Stalin, they remain symbols of state oppression.
Not until we have gotten rid of government entirely will we be truly free, and we don’t need any kind of false prophet to show us the way, (and imprison and kill us if we disagree).
sibrydionmawr
30/09/2013 at 6:48 PM
Anarchist then Sibry? Do tell…
Nice stuff, anyway.
beetleypete
01/10/2013 at 9:42 PM