ruffrecords said:
And because other systems do not have risk you lose the motivation aspect which simply leads to stagnation and everyone gets poorer.
That is your assertion. I don't think it's true. It's actually pretty easy to come up with many reasons for why one would do labor in a non-capitalist system.
And by the way, the usual argument that pro-capitalists make isn't that it is risk that motivates but profit. As a matter of fact, I'd say it's exactly the opposite in reality: The lower the risk with higher profit the better, in a capitalist system.
In addition; I feel compelled to point out that the notion of "risk" is a bit silly in these arguments in the context of talking about magnitudes of wealth, because we are all human and risk has a pretty much equal lowest bar. This is to say that a person who makes $30,000 per year with $10,000 in savings is risking far more when he's investing all his savings than a person with $10m in the bank risking $1m. The latter can lose his investment and still be a multi-millionaire yet the former would have zero savings. So "risk" kind of points out the absurdity of the system when viewing it in the context of inequality.
ruffrecords said:
Wealth inequality occurs in all systems. It is not a unique feature of capitalism. In fact all kinds of inequality exist in most systems. Again, it is the implementation not the system that is at fault. A lot depends on how you measure wealth inequality and really whether it is an important measure at all. If, say, capitalism leads to 80% of the wealth in the hands of 20% of people, the real question is just how well off are the 80% of people with just 20% of the wealth. If they are better off with capitalism than they would be under any other system then capitalism is the better system. It is not perfect or optimum but it is better The problem with all other systems is they fail to beat capitalism in this respect. So i would argue that the absolute wealth of the vast majority of people is the real measure of a system, not its wealth inequality.
I would never use absolute wealth as the real measure of any system's success, I would measure health, happiness, longevity etc. Your assertion that capitalism makes people better off than other systems is the typical argument which completely ignores technological advancements made during this period, advancements which would have been made anyway. It is science and technology that drives increased productivity which in turn increases wealth, not capitalism. The only question is how that is managed.
And I don't think it's a matter of a flaw in implementation. There is nothing in capitalist theory that I'm aware of that places restrictions on its implementation. So, implementing capitalism "absolutely" would pretty much be close or equal to laissez-faire capitalism. That's its purest implementation. Nothing flawed with that, it's just what it is, and that's my point. The purest essence of capitalism will lead to capitalist interests moving towards whatever maximizes profits. For anyone not profiting as much that seems like "poor implementation", but really it's at the root of the system. It's a feature, not a bug.
ruffrecords said:
I disagree. The system is unfair if it makes me poorer than another sytem.
Phrases like 'two people working equally hard' are not helpful because it is impossible to define hard work absolutely. In addition, people's talents differ and, if hardness of work could be defined, two differently talented people working equally hard would produce different amounts of wealth.
Ok, so it reads as if you think it's ok to have a system that promotes the well being of some people over that of others rather than a system that tries to give all equal opportunity.
And in an Anarchist system hard work could equal the fruits of
your labor, thereby directly equaling your work output by definition. In other words this philosophy that you're supporting, the one where talents and onerousness of one's work yields different levels of wealth is
exactly what you could get in an Anarchist system. The reason you and others
don't want that direct correlation between work and wealth is because then you can't profit off of the work of other people. That's what capitalists want: The fruits of other people's labor.
I will grant you off course that placing a value on someone's work is a difficult issue, but the question is really whether that should be decided for you or with you. The notion that we somehow consciously decide this value is nonsense, yet it is at the heart of the argument in favor of capitalism. The argument goes that the correct value of something is whatever the market decides it is. However, that most likely does not really equal what human beings really think about it. And so there is a disconnect between the actual value people place on things and what the market says it is. It's easy to understand how this can be the case, because let's face it; essentially nobody finds out how the revenues generated by your purchase are divided. So since you have no clue about that you have also made zero comments on how value should be divided throughout society (using the market value). All you know is that you need this medication, toothpaste, piece of meat or whatever, and you pay for it. That's it. But there's no decision on your part about how labor should be properly valued.
ruffrecords said:
I don't see how my vote for capitalism boxes you in. Other systems are available to you in other parts of the world.
You do realize that we don't have free movement across borders, right? You essentially just said "Yeah, if you stay here my vote leads to you having to live a certain way, but if you don't like it you can leave". I don't find that a convincing rebuttal to what my point was.
ruffrecords said:
As I said, capitalism is not perfect but it is a whole lot better for the majority than any other system.
No it isn't.
