Capitalism (Reboot)

Society1. There is a large incentive to work hard and be successful.In Capitalism, you're not given an incentive to work, you're forced to work. Those who can't work, even with the help of economic reforms supporting them, live in persistent poverty. The "incentive" you speak of actually encourages those with money and thus more greed to push their attempts for more capital to a higher point.2. The difficult jobs are paid highly compared to low-skilled jobs, this provides an incentive for people to train for the jobs that are a large asset to society.The amount of skill required for a job doesn't directly effect the pay one receives for working that job in Capitalism. For example, a C.E.O. who performs little to no labor and is at the top of a hierarchy receives more pay than, for example, someone who works on an assembly line. This laborer who works on the assembly line has to train themselves to memorize a pattern of assembling a product and they must do it as fast as they can. This laborer also, depending on the product being manufactured, is putting themselves in more danger compared to the C.E.O.In contrast, in a communist society there is no reason why someone should want to train to do a difficult job when they could get the same pay for doing an easier job. This leads to a shortage of people to do difficult jobs such as doctors or lawyers.In Communism, there is plenty of incentive. That incentive is also quite natural; to survive. Humans all have their dream jobs. Dream jobs are not usually correlated with the income associated with that job. In Communism, the incentive to be a doctor, for example, is to help people who are in need of medical help.It should also be pointed out that in Communism, there is no currency, as currency leads to a class society. Communism instead uses trade based on utilitarianism. EconomicsCapitalism is a remarkably self-regulating system.Capitalism relies on the government to systematically oppress the population into accepting Capitalism. This means that Capitalism cannot self-regulate as it requires a state as well.The balance of supply and demand is efficiently maintained in a capitalist system. Let us say that product X is suddenly in demand; suppliers will rush to produce X due to the potential profits. Similarly, if product Y is no longer in demand then suppliers will cease production of it under threat of potential losses. This also avoids wasted resources that could be lost to the over-production resulting from failing to respond to falling demand.While this is true, it also has an effect on the population. Using the same process of supply and demand, food demand will go down with a low population, and supply of food will go up. This means that the population will also rise dramatically. This leads to mass starvation and poverty, because the demand for food will spike too sharp for producers to match and food supply will drop dramatically causing the aforementioned starvation and poverty.Adapting to demand is much less efficient in a communist system as any potential profit to be made by meeting rising demand is dampened by state redistribution of wealth. And any losses that are suffered from failing to adapt to demand are softened by state economic support.What you are talking about here is State Capitalism. In Communism, there is no state, nor is there currency. With a lack of currency, no profit can be made because there's no supply and demand process either. The state can't own the means of production because there's no state to do so.Moreover, the quality and affordability of products is regulated by capitalism. If a business is selling poor quality products or is guilty of overpricing then consumers will simply go elsewhere. This means that only sellers of good products at affordable prices survive, which is beneficial to a quality economy as well as the quality of life of consumers.This paragraph proves that the people regulate the quality and affordability of products, not Capitalism. Capitalism is focused on the people making consumer choices, and thus not only relies on the state, but also the people. Therefore, Capitalism is not self-regulating, it relies on systematic oppression offered by a state and consumer choices.Finally, capitalism allows for significant economic growth. Retention of profits allows more money to be reinvested into the economy to generate more wealth. This can cause exponential growth.Communism is not concerned about economic growth, as Communism is focused on the people, not money. Human NatureAn economic system must be pragmatic in order to work, and a system can only be pragmatic if it is in accordance to human nature.Considering that currency and the Capitalist system in general has only been around for 200 years compared to the near 1,000,000 years of human existence(1) (or 6,000 if you're theist), it's only logical to think that Capitalism (or something similar to it) would have appeared much sooner to human creation/beginning if it pertains to human nature. But this is not the case, because humans have been observed to practice altruism. Altruism in humans negates the argument that humans are naturally greedy.Capitalism is arguably the most suitable economic system considering human nature, as we fundamentally seek to accumulate resources (we evolved from hunter-gatherers (1)). Man is not suited to having the fruits of his labours taken away by the state and given to those who have worked less hard.It's true that humans seek to accumulate resources, but keeping these resources to ourselves instead of sharing our resources with the others was not what happened. As hunter-gatherers, we would hunt and gather food and share it with the entirety of the community.Communism doesn't take the resources that one person makes and gives it to someone else. What you make is yours. Of course, there will always be surplus, and that surplus is given to those who are incapable of creating their own goods. "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."Capitalism is also a very free system of economics; anyone can achieve success simply by hard-work, perseverance and resourcefulness. There are no unassailable class barriers to achieving material wealth.This is what Capitalists say, but we don't ever see it happen. This is because you must have a sufficient amount of money to start a business, therefore those who are poor and thus no money to spare are left with a class barrier that prevents them from being an entrepeneur.Freedom is embraced, which is beneficial because people can develop best when left to grow laissez-faire and allowed to make their own mistakes.Laissez-faire Capitalism is the Capitalism in which the government doesn't intervene. Most notibly with working conditions. The early 1800s is the best example of laissez-faire Capitalism, with child labor, six day work weeks, and 14 hour work days(2).Evidence of the humanistic benefits of capitalism is that people in capitalist countries such as the USA are generally happier than those in socialist countries such as China (2).This is because the U.S. has many more Socialist reforms than China. China is State Capitalist, and also a dictatorship. That is why people are unhappy there, because China isn't Communist. Nor is Cuba, North Korea, Vietnam, etc. Prevention of Tyranny'The government runs the country. It has the responsibility for developing and implementing policy and for drafting laws.'The government must also convince people that Capitalism is the way to go. This is why the modern day educational system has a fixed and inflexible agenda.Essentially, the government is a law-making institution and is separate to the corporate world. If the economy is completely under the thumb of the state then they have a monopoly of power.Yes and no; what you speak of is State Capitalism. However, the state is not completely separate from Capitalism, otherwise we would live in laissez-faire Capitalism under which the average lifespan in cities would be about 17(3).They can tax businesses heavily just because they can get away with it (due to state centralisation). In capitalist countries the government's power is limited by the free market. This can prevent corruption and damaging economic policies; companies can simply move to other countries. In this way, the government is prevented from abusing its power.Abuse of state power can't be stopped by something that relies on the state. Capitalism requires the state to limit corporate power to prevent monopolization of industries, such as the purified water industry.Looking at other countries, socialist countries such as North Korea, the USSR and China all have/had very controlling governments, bordering on tyranny.These State Capitalist countries are/were tyrannical by far. What you speak of is actually Authoritarian Socialism, not the Libertarian Socialism that we speak of. Authoritarian Socialism, as seen in the USSR, is often associated with Libertarian Socialism simply because these Authoritarian Socialist countries are under the name of Left-Libertarian ideologies. Maoists, for example, are actually statist. Stalinists as well. Notice that the leaders of these countries have ideologies named after them, instead of being simply Communist. This is because they aren't actually Communist.Citations: Any highschool textbook. Again, any highschool textbook should mention early Capitalism. ^