Debate: Capitalism vs. Democracy
Side: democracy

I was not sure whether to click "dispute" or "support" here.I do not have the knowledge to seriously debate a War on drugs Vs Decriminalization. From personal experience I have seen more bad than good in the drug world.Should people just be chucked in jail if they are found with a nug of weed? Probably not. Should they be simply given the option to take a drug course? Good start, but I suggest that is simply not enough. What IS enough may never be decided. Why it may never be decided? Most/all opinions in the drug debate are clouded by experience and this "self-interest". Everyone projects their own experience as the objective truth.I would place myself between the apathetic and recreational group. I'm a fence sitter. I don't have the answers.AS FOR CAPITALISM... I agree: cheating is bad, lying is bad, false advertising, unsafe products, bad bad bad. Common sense regulation is still regulation. Common sense comes from a majority of people thinking something is sensible. So common sense regulation could be seen as Democratic regulation. I agree with you completely, re:democracy should regulate capitalism.As for competition and self-interest getting the consumer the best product. I agree in part. The consumer gets a good product yes. Whether it is the "best" is debatable, but I'll leave that for now.The Businessman succeeds and the consumer gets an increasingly better product.But what about the by-products of this alarmingly fast developing dynamic? Like the dramatically increasing unequally distributed wealth? The poverty? The limited resources we have on this planet, and the rate we are consuming them?Response: oh sure, but poverty has always been around! If capitalism is such a good thing, why hasn't it beaten out the badness of starvation, poverty, war... I suggest that is because of something that has always been around: competition and self-interest. Or could we call that selfishness and ethnocentrism (Mandeville's central human traits). You correctly state that these(self-interest, competition) are central to capitalism. Is that what the world needs? You are so empathetic to the losers in the drugs war, but what about the losers in the capital war? I have been to/lived in central Asia and seen starvation first hand. It makes my opinion somewhat subjective.Response: the resources were always going to run out! Should we be developing in a way that makes them run out faster? Maybe the future is in space travel to other resource-rich planets, that we can rape? If so, who do we leave behind? I'm sure there wont be a spaceship leaving, like a modern day "Noah's arc", or "wall-e", with a capacity of 7-9 billion.While capitalism is not the worst, it is definitely not the best. We should be finding a better solution rather than blindly glorifying the one that is NOT working to the advantage of the human race as a whole.I fully agree with your last statement: "...Microsoft, Apple and Starbucks. Let's face it, no one truly needs what they're providing, so why let greedy business compete to take over their markets?"If there was an option of "Keep Microsoft, Apple and Starbucks(and to be realistic include a ton of other big money sucking competitive self-interested businesses)" vs "Government approved system that meant wealth is distributed equitably (I do not mean equally, equitably)" and this was put to a global democratic vote, I wonder who would come out on top?At least Bill Gates gives back enormous sums on a global scale with his charity. Now he does not feature so high on the worlds wealthy list. Thats not Competitive OR self-interested!