You guys crack me up!

Actually, socialism seems to be working pretty well in Venezuela. Chavez has a 70 plus percent approval rating, unlike our lame-duck president, with only 36 percent. And, it is possible to have a socialist-like setting that is also supportive of capitalism (Canada). You shouldn't be so black and white.

Capitalism is essentially an institutionalised extention of natural law.

The most basic of natural laws is that things evolve and change. Naturally capitalism is not essentially anything as nothing natural is beyond change. There is no essence within natural law, which is to say that everything is subject to changes.

There is no natural law that makes it so a product must be sold at a profit and that money has value, which are the central tenets of capitalism. Capitalism is a human concept that is not a necessary part of the human animal. It's was happenstance, not a certainty, that we developed it and it's due to our cooperation that it works, if at all.

Regardless, capitalism IS as good as it gets

Capitalism is not as good as it gets.

The truth of capitalism is that it's a way to compel people to work, against their will, which it would seem is a necessary evil.

The dream of capitalism is that everyone can be rich and that it levels the playing field making everyone equal. But if everyone were rich then what value would your money have? Who would you pay, if everyone were rich, to clean toilets? For capitalism to work there have to be poor people to do the work that no one, including them, wants to do

Socialism (and every variant thereof: communism, feudalism, etc) are only as good as the homo sapiens who guide/control the belief..

The same is true of any economic or political system. There is nothing natural about capitalism. It may work or not work, but to say it's a certainty to work because it's a natural law makes absolutely no sense. Unless your arguing that humans can't, no matter what they try, make capitalism stop working, then you'll agree with me on that point if none other.

It all comes down to ANIMAL NATURE

Animal nature is not necessarily to compete against it's own species. Human nature is most certainly not.

What "needs" need to be taken from the one to benefit the many?

Nothing needs to be taken from rich or anyone else. The rich are not generating their wealth in a vacuum. Simply, less needs to be taken, not more. less needs to be taken from the poor and rich and everyone between. What you're talking about is not capitalism, it's greed. Greed does not work in a capitalist system. And here's why:

A candy bar, from manufacturing to sale, costs approximately 1/3 to 1/4 of what you pay for it at the register. The remaining 2/3 to 3/4 is a completely artificial profit. The value of the dollar, which is central to the capitalist system, is based on what can be purchased and for how little. When a candy bar cost a penny, and now costs a dollar, that's a roughly 100% decrease in the value of that dollar. Reduce the profit and suddenly the dollar has more value. Like if you only had to pay 40 cents for that same candy bar.

Greed, which is what artificially inflating the profit on a product is, ruins the capitalist market. It devalues the dollar. But business doesn't care about capitalism. If this we're a feudal system the same types of people would just be land owners and dukes, or if this were a communist system they would be party members or farm owners.

We institute these systems to make life easier. But when they're exploited it just ends up defeating the people who trust them and should, by all that's sane, be the ones who reap the rewards. Capitalism, taken to the extreme you're talking about, doesn't work in any sense. It both defeats itself and doesn't make life easier for people, regardless of the few hundred or so that do seem to be enjoying their plundering of it.

What you seem to be arguing for is unchecked greed. Good luck with that.

Norman, you make some good points. Some friends and I spend a lot of time arguing about various forms of gov't, plato's cycle of gov't, etc.

But I think that all of these arguments ignore one base fact: why are we subject to government at all?

I was born in America; I support our gov't, and I think that things definately aren't perfect, they are pretty damn good, especially compared to other governments, past and present.

But why am I subject to American laws? I never agreed to it. I never signed anything that said: "I agree to abide by the laws of the United States of America."

I would not be opposed to signing such a document, but in the mean time, how does the government have power over us that we didn't give it?

i read it in eric idle's voice while singing the words you wrote to the tune of "always look on the bright side of life". pretty impressive, huh?

I think you have a different notion of the term "socialism" than I have. Socialism and capitalism go very well together. Just look at the USA, the epicenter of capitalism, and quite socialistic. or look at Belgium, very socialistic, best welfare system in the world, and a fairly capitalistic industrialised country. Socialism is not communism, it's about protecting the weak.

I never ceased to be amazed at how little people know about Socialism in the US. Joseph McCarthy did a great job, I have to credit him. You have a completely warped view of Socialism.

Socialism is not dead by a long shot. They are good chees players in Russia and in chess you can win by sacrificing some of your pieces, the opponent looks very happy and takes the queen, but finds himself chess mate in the next few draws. That is the cold war, right there. The Russians chose to abolish communism and open up the country for foreign capital, because today they have to play the global economic free market game. Now they have harmonised the political and economic systems in all former communist countries with the European mixed economy, and the Socialists are still in power.

They had to accept some of the rules of capitalist free market economy, but they're gaining a lot. Foreign capital is flowing into the former communist countries, Eastern Europe and other poor places. Capital flows out of USA and other rich countries and factories are built in poorer countries. This makes the material levels more equal all over the world, this is a good effect.

Note that Latin America is no longer in the hands of USA. Now they can be Socialists, and can even nationalise foreign industries without being invaded by USA. The US looks officially stronger than ever, and they have won the cold war. But if we look at real effects in the world USA has lost power, and is losing the respect of the world.

Two small parts of the world, USA and the middle east are culturally backward, violent and religious cultures, and now they are fighting each other. The big part of the world is living in peace. Europe, ex-Soviet union, China and India are the big part of the world, and we are building the society of the future in Eurasia. When we are the one's in power, where the Capitalists were before, THEN we'll see if Socialism works or not.

To the original poster:

You bring up some interesting points about capitalism vs. socialism and a few years ago I would have argued very strongly towards socialism. I will agree with you now, that Capitalism could be one of the best systems for a fair way of life: given a few caveats:

1) What we have today (in the USA or in Canada - my home country) is not capitalism. You assume that everyone who works hard will move up the economic ladder. Imagine you have two people: one, a white male born into a wealthy family, who can afford the best schools and has the ability to put their children into contact with powerful people. The second person is a black female (genetically destined to be a lesbian) born to a single mother addicted to crack and on welfare, living in the worst neighbourhood in the country. Now, I'm not saying the black female is not going to amount to anything (she most certainly could beat the odds) and that the white male will become president of the USA (it's probably easier to beat those odds), but I'd have a hard time believing anyone who says that these two people start off equally. There are several issues that keep people down, including a (lack of) inherited wealth, prejudices, and (lack of) opportunities. Given equal opportunities I think hard work should be an indicator of success.

2) Adam Smith (often misunderstood) did not advocate for a small government and no taxes. Read up on him a bit and you'll see that the man who first suggested the "invisible hand" believed in taxing the rich more than the poor. He is also misquoted as saying that people acting in their self-interest is always good. The truth is that he argued that it is not always bad (and I'm sure most people could agree).

To say a bit more about taxes, I just want to point out the purpose for certain taxes. Here's the bit that's going to make you think I'm a hippy. Carbon taxes have a few purposes, but the economic purpose is simple: the tax interalizes an externality which is very relevant. When a gas company sells you gas, you pay for the extraction, refining, etc. and you give them a bit for profit. But the gas costs much more than that to the world. We pay for the environmental damage caused in it's use from extraction to burning in your vehicle (and probably until the CO2 gets converted back into Oxygen, etc. through photosynthesis). By placing a tax on this, we see a truer (depending on the amount of the tax) cost of gasoline and thus our choices are guided that way. The taxes are there because everyone who buys gas (well, most people) or decides to drive instead of walk/bike/run/take the bus, only looks at the dollar amount. Thus taxes are a part of capitalism (which actually keeps the system going longer I would argue). As a side note on carbon taxes. The idea would then be that if a carbon tax were implemented, other taxes (income tax?) would be reduced - in theory.

3) Another issue with capitalism is land (at least to me). Like the carbon taxes I talked about, most companies can buy land and do pretty much whatever they want to it (mine it to death, farm it to death, etc.). Capitalism does not have anything in it to stop an uneducated person (or an educated person for that matter) to destroy their soil/land/etc. in a few years time in order to get higher profits now.

In summary of my post: Capitalism can work, but must have socialist elements to level the playing field (though we could debate for much longer what actually does this - some radical thinkers might suggest removing parental influence from children and standardizing child rearing as everyone would have an equal opportunity to do well.... hmmm... sounds like an old idea). I think someone else said it somewhere on this board pretty well though: if everyone bases their decisions on greed and personal success over everyone else then the world would not be a happy place. This movie (Bulworth) was all about trying to get people to rethink the world.... Please try not to think of capitalism as right wing and socialism as left wing (what do you really mean by all that - how can you sum up all of your views in a single phrase)... I think common sense needs to prevail sometime or things could get much worse....

Win. Just win.

That's hilarious. Especially using Mr. Idle's voice. All we need now are those two peasants from Holy Grail making comments and we would have ourselves a skit.