[Politics] Capitalism - for better? Or worse?

[Withdean and I]

I’ve just got BT Sport for the first time as it’s free for 3 months with a new contract.
But watching the Champions League matches this week has reminded me how they were all free to air on ITV only a few years ago.
I do often feel like ‘the system’ just keeps squeezing more and more cash out of everyone, as western nations supposedly get more wealthy.
It’s like gigs.....it used to be that those who queued longest got to the front, but now unless you pay crazy money for platinum seating or standing you can’t.
Segregating audiences at concerts on racial grounds was banned in USA years ago and rightly so, but we all seem to accept segregation on wealth grounds these days.
Any more thoughts on Capitalism’s good or bad points or indeed how we could improve or alter what we have now?

 

[Tesco in Disguise]

The amount of wealth you have is PURELY determined by how hard you work. So how could anything be wrong with that?

 

[Bakero]

The amount of wealth you have is PURELY determined by how hard you work. So how could anything be wrong with that?

 

[Weststander]

I went to countless gigs in the 80’s when admission was £2, because they were promoting albums at £5. Musicians successfully in the game for a while, still became well off, unless robbed by a record company contract. Sickening these days to see £90 per ticket for the O2, and that’s before touts/secondary markets have inflated the price. I just don’t pay it. I feel so lucky to have experienced a golden era.

But I can’t see how that could be altered. If U2, A-Ha, A.Grande, Springsteen, set the price at £90, it’s a free world so they can.

With football, that was just a brief free phase. In all the decades up to about 1990, live football was a rare event on BBC or ITV, just England games, FA Cup finals and the odd league match.

Yep, more and more money is squeezed out of us, especially if we’re keen on something. Never before in history does it appear to pay earn a great income.

The days of all and sundry making up 2,000 watching a gig at the Dome or Suite, at an affordable price, are well and truly gone.

 

[beorhthelm]

capitalism or more importantly market economies are a form of democracy. vote with your money. want want to go to a gig you pay, or dont pay dont go. tickets are a scarce resource, not everyone can go, so the market determines what value people put on that thing. really its not capitalism, thats the ownership, its the market economy, and most are happy with that when it works in their favour. certainly there are excess and injustices, though the alternatives are worse. worst system except all others we've tried, as someone said.

 

[Tokyohands]

I believe larger companies should be more of a co-operative set up so employees benefit more from the performance, not just investors.

 

[dangull]

A stream. Then socialism has won.

 

[ExmouthExile]

The amount of wealth you have is PURELY determined by how hard you work. So how could anything be wrong with that?

I work bloody hard and i’m a volunteer, I don’t get paid, so how does that theory work?

 

[Shuggie]

capitalism or more importantly market economies are a form of democracy. vote with your money. want want to go to a gig you pay, or dont pay dont go. tickets are a scarce resource, not everyone can go, so the market determines what value people put on that thing. really its not capitalism, thats the ownership, its the market economy, and most are happy with that when it works in their favour. certainly there are excess and injustices, though the alternatives are worse. worst system except all others we've tried, as someone said.

Is the stubborn refusal to use capitals some enigmatic postmodern critique of Capitalism?

 

[Blue3]

The amount of wealth you have is PURELY determined by how hard you work. So how could anything be wrong with that?

The truth is oftern the opposite in that more wealth you have the less hard you need to work

World's 26 richest people on earth today own as much as poorest 50%, of all the people says Oxfam

 

[Blue3]

Extract from Guardian article 2019 of Oxfam report into global inequality

The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.

In an annual wealth check released to mark the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, the development charity Oxfam said 2018 had been a year in which the rich had grown richer and the poor poorer.

It said the widening gap was hindering the fight against poverty, adding that a wealth tax on the 1% would raise an estimated $418bn (£325bn) a year – enough to educate every child not in school and provide healthcare that would prevent 3 million deaths.

Oxfam said the wealth of more than 2,200 billionaires across the globe had increased by $900bn in 2018 – or $2.5bn a day. The 12% increase in the wealth of the very richest contrasted with a fall of 11% in the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population.

As a result, the report concluded, the number of billionaires owning as much wealth as half the world’s population fell from 43 in 2017 to 26 last year. In 2016 the number was 61.

Among the findings of the report were:

In the 10 years since the financial crisis, the number of billionaires has nearly doubled.
Between 2017 and 2018 a new billionaire was created every two days.
The world’s richest man, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon, saw his fortune increase to $112bn. Just 1% of his fortune is equivalent to the whole health budget for Ethiopia, a country of 105 million people.
The poorest 10% of Britons are paying a higher effective tax rate than the richest 10% (49% compared with 34%) once taxes on consumption such as VAT are taken into account.

 

[Blue3]

Capitalism has failed to deliver for billions of people, it has remained the leading economic force as it dose work very well for some and OK for others predominantly living in the West (happy accident of birth) but for Billions of others it has failed them.

Capitalisum is based on a very unpleasant human character flaw that being greed however the good news is Capitalisum as does everything have a life cycle and Capitalisum is entering its later life and will eventually die to be replaced by?

 

[Chicken Run]

Capitalisum as does everything have a life cycle and Capitalisum is entering its later life and will eventually die to be replaced by?

State salary of 50k pa to everyone over the age of 14, as long as they keep the Red Flag Flying.

 

[Blue3]

State salary of 50k pa to everyone over the age of 14, as long as they keep the Red Flag Flying.

Capitalisum will be replaced by somthing else I have no idea what with it could be a system as yet unknown and untried

 

[southstandandy]

Supply and demand I'm afraid. I don't like the price these days of football or gig going but there will always be someone who will pay the prices they charge.

If people really did decide to vote with their feet then something would have to change. Can you imagine The Amex with only 2000 supporters?

Even though capitalism shows huge divides between the rich and poor, socialism just seems to show people are more equal but equally poor. What's best?

 

[knocky1]

Is the stubborn refusal to use capitals some enigmatic postmodern critique of Capitalism?

Excellent.

 

[BN41Albion]

I work bloody hard and i’m a volunteer, I don’t get paid, so how does that theory work?

I think you might have been whooshed

 

[LowKarate]

Without CAPITALISM the POSTS of Enrest would be seriously LACKING.

If that is not ENOUGH to justify its continuity then I don’t know what is.

 

[beorhthelm]

Is the stubborn refusal to use capitals some enigmatic postmodern critique of Capitalism?

its what ever you want it to be. for me its just an idiom on NSC that reflects the informality

 

[beorhthelm]

I believe larger companies should be more of a co-operative set up so employees benefit more from the performance, not just investors.

that would be a better model for many companies, and many do have large share option packages for employees. also natural monopolies such as utilities under non-profit structures raising cash through bonds rather than equity would be better.

Extract from Guardian article 2019 of Oxfam report into global inequality

The growing concentration of the world’s wealth has been highlighted by a report showing that the 26 richest billionaires own as many assets as the 3.8 billion people who make up the poorest half of the planet’s population.

what Oxfam and the others campaigning against inequality fail to note is much of this wealth is a product of capitialism, its the consequence of valuing shares on a market restricted supply and applying that to all shares available. Bezos holds billions in shares of the company he built and much of the value is tied up in those shares. if you distributed them or sold those shares, the value would reduce. its not like land or physical assets that could be shared among the population. other wealth in the bank is being used by others in the economy, loaned to invest in business large and small. if you got rid of capitalism the value of shares and assets would disappear, we'd all be poorer.