Whatever the outcome of the neck-and-neck Greek referendum on EU-imposed austerity, the real verdict is clear: capitalism is a bankrupt, redundant economic system that has become a scourge on humanity....
Over the past two decades, capitalism has degenerated into a financial casino system, driven by the decline of profits in manufacturing and real production. It is no long a system that provides for human needs. It has become a form of financial parasitism, stock market and currency speculation, dictated by banks and fictitious capital. The system has become divorced from the real world – a realm where the global one per cent thrive while the vast majority of humanity struggle to exist.
Driven by neoliberal ideology of deregulation and regressive taxation where the wealthy pay less and less in tax, whole countries have now found themselves in a form of debt slavery. That has in turn decimated social security through austerity on the unemployed, pensioners and workers. The collapse in economic production has been concealed by the spawning of fictitious capital, which results in the parallel universe of seemingly roaring stock markets and banking. But in the end, it is all debt that is dumped on wider society....Finian's got his Irish is up, as they say, and well he should considering the fate of Erin before Greece. Anyone see a pattern developing?
Sputnik
Bankrupt Capitalism: The Real Greek Verdict
Finian Cunningham
5 comments:
Load of nonsense. The Eurozone is not a “capitalist” creation: it was created by politicians and bureaucrats.
Is Sputnik a mouthpiece for Putin and his henchmen?
imo they are neo-Marxists over there Ralph...
So there is some affinity for the old Soviet type systems there hence your picking up on the Putin (former Soviet) angle...
imo you have your left-libertarians (sputnik type people) vs the right-libertarian people (defenders of Marx's "capitalism") engaged in a libertarian civil war right now ...
Maybe hopefully they will kill each other off...
Ralph, false dichotomy. There isn't 'capitalism' on one side and 'politicians and bureaucrats' on the other. Politicians and bureaucrats are part of capitalist system.
IMO 'capitalism' (at least what was coined and is known as capitalism) and 'market economics' are two different things, than happen to co-exist to some degree. Capitalism was born during the enlightenment from the bourgeois class. It devolves into corporatism and oligarchy which is what we have now, it's a capture of the state by the economic elites (the EU was a project for those elites from the beginning, who else could have the stupid idea of removing monetary sovereignty to discipline labour? that and reducing any political barrier to 'trade'). Capitalism is basically pro-business, anti-competition/market, the markets are just a feature/mechanism needed for private accumulation of wealth.
Market based economies are an evolution of a basic human interaction (exchange) and can happen in most economic systems, except maybe on really doomsday scenarios. Even in North Korea there is trade and markets probably. Monetary-based economies with markets and exchange are more "recent" (a few thousands years) but are an evolution of the former.
Capitalism is based on the assumption that among the factors of production it the scarcest and most valuable (especially when land is included with capital as it is now), and therefore capital must be privileged over labor. So labor must be prevented from gaining bargaining power in order to improve its position relative to capital. Capital share is to be privileged over labor share institutionally.
Where this interfaces with markets is that markets need to have all their imperfections favoring capital, folding rent into profit, with labor brutally competing in an environment of abundant labor with no bargaining power other than at the individual level.
Politically, taxes must be low on capital and workers must bear the brunt of taxation. Government intrusion musts be reduced to the minimum needed for market operations, such as commercial law and national defense and protection of the interest of domestic capital abroad.
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