I'm not saying that capitalism _ought_ to do any of these things - I'm just saying that it _doesn't_.
"And by saying that the impression from such statements is that you are saying it should."
I'm not saying anything of the kind.
and assumes that everyone else is playing the same game.
Not at all, it’s a completely voluntary system that assumes that those playing the game play by the same rules... and there are plenty of other games in town.
Capitalism only works if everyone is abiding by the rules of capitalism. If nobody accepted your dollars, there would be no point working to earn them. It only optimises for value of things on the assumption that both parties to a trade are trying to get the best deal for themselves. If one of them doesn't care about money, they trades' value judgement becomes massively skewed.
The bank doesn't give you a mortgage because it cares about you or your family, and thinks that they need a house and financial security - it gives them a house because they make money from lending you cash.
But why should it care about your family and your desire for financial security? Do you think the average prospective home buyer thinks the same thing about the banker giving the loan? “Who is this man in the fancy suit, does he have a family, what about his financial security? What will he do with the money he and the bank make off of this loan?” Of course not! They are conducting a business transaction and should both sides go in understanding their responsibilities, agree them and make good on them... ‘caring’ about the others family is irrelevant.
I'm not saying it should! I'm saying it doesnt!
If you fail to make your payments, the bank will happily put you on the street. That's not moral - it's _amoral_,
So it’s... immoral for a business (or individual) to expect all parties of a contract to abide by the terms? Is it then... moral for someone to default on their loan?
I said AMORAL not IMMORAL.
and if left unchecked the individual is at the mercy of such corporations and businesses.
Only under the terms of whatever agreements were voluntarily entered into on both sides. Don’t like the terms? Don’t sign the bloody piece of paper!
The terms are laid down by capitalism - oh and those contracts you're referring to are a form of regulation which you're arguing against.
The Boss of HBOS, which narrowly escaped bankruptcy two weeks ago by doing a shotgun-sale to Lloyd's TSB at a massive underevaluation, left with a golden parachute of 26 million pounds (50 million dollars). 1500 staff have so far been told not to come into work because they can't be paid.
I’ll never defend such actions, especially any such actions that take place due to force or fraud. We’ve even had a couple of similar cases here in the states, including an interesting case with Washington Mutual where outright fraud may have been involved. Ask yourself though... given these people acted so poorly… is that a sign of a few bad apples in a larger system that is largely good... or a sign that the entire system is corrupt and needs to be scrapped/overhauled/regulated up the wazoo?
It wasn't due to force or fraud. His company negotiated large golden parachutes for all of the members of the board as part of the deal with Lloyds TSB. No crime was committed because there is no regulation on these issues.
Capitalism doesn't help the little guy
So no one on the assembly line of a factory is helped? No one who designs the products are helped? No one who is employed is helped? What about the guy who... carry’s the golf clubs of the super rich business executive or clean his yacht who are almost certainly the little guy... they don’t benefit... at all?
Capitalism doesn't care whether they are a person or a robot. If the owner of the plant can replace them all with robots for half the price, then capitalism says he should put all of those workers back on the job market, even if there are no jobs on the job market for them to go to, and if they lose their house, or stave to death capitalism doesn't care. Capitalism doesn't try and help people. If people are helped by capitalism, it's simply a consequence, and not a cause. That's why it's amoral.
it's not moral
You keep saying that and yet have not been able to give any clear reasons other than because ‘fair’ (by your definition), ‘nice’ or other trivialities which are largely discounted by the tremendous good done by it.
There is a difference between immoral and amoral. Actively drowning kittens is immoral. Not caring whether kittens are being drowned is amoral.
and it doesn't have your best interests at heart.
You’ve yet to say clearly WHY it should have your best interest at heart?
I'm not saying it should - I'm just arguing that the reverse assumption (i.e. that it does have your best interests at heart) is dangerous. If capitalism is moral then it won't screw you over without warning. If it's amoral it might. If you believe that the markets can sort themselves out, or that deregulating the market will be what's best for the people of your nation, then deregulate away! The market will never let you down because it's a moral entity and it cares. On the other hand, if you constantly remind yourself that Capitalism couldn't care less whether your industries all move to China and your people starve to death and can happily reverse all of the happy effects that it's had on your nation in just a couple of years, then you might think twice about deregulating all of the financial institutions.
And if you're seriously arguing that deregulating the financial institutions further is a good idea, then you should probably switch on the news, because the deregulation of the financial sector has meant that behaviour that to an individual would seem "unfair" (such as deliberately repackaging an investment to look better than it actually is, without committing any kind of fraud) has run rampant, and is leading rather inevitably to a 700 billion dollar package to stop the entire economy failing.
It's easy to come up with the "regulation is bad because government is stupid/evil" argument, but you forget that things like contract law and monopoly legislation are examples of regulation in the financial sector. It protects megacorporations from charging what they like for water, computers or petrol, underpricing to destroy competitors. Even trade-unions are explicitly there to regulate the otherwise unpleasantness of capitalism. Regulation isn't bad if it stops worse things from happening.
All it's good at is turning human greed into action,
Absolutely right. No other good comes out of it. Lets just ignore some greedy * creating a service or product that people want, not just because it’s hip and trendy, but because it helps them in some way and makes their lives easier. The telephone, printing press, radio, television, countless drugs and medical treatments, computers, the internet (just to name a couple things), all made possible through capitalism.
No benefits whatsoever to humanity.
Something happened between me saying "it turns human greed into action" and it arriving into your head as "Capitalism is just greed! No benefit at all to humans! God bless the USSR!". If you re-read my sentence I mention that it turns greed into action, there is a lot of greed, one can derive that capitalism creates a lot of economic action.
You mention some of the side-effects of capitalism such as greater levels of invention and lower levels of total poverty, but be under no illusion that capitalism is either nessisary or sufficient for these to take place. People starve to death or die from lack of healthcare every day in capitalist societies. The Soviets were also not devoid of invention. As well as a large number of military advances they helped pioneer eye surgery, child psychology, game theory, number theory, cryptography; they also built the first music synthesisor, nuclear reactor, space station and invented Tetris, as well as systematically thrashing the west at chess, gymnastics, music, literature and ballet.
One can further undermine your point by noting that the Internet was developed by the US Military, computers were developed by the British military and Soviet television and radio broadcasting appeared long before it did in any of the western nations.
But all of these are beside the point. The Soviets broke their economy through over-regulation to the point that hard work was massively under-rewarded. The Bush regime has broken the US economy by over-borrowing and under-regulating the markets, allowing the immoral (but not illegal) behaviour of investors and banks to take money from the honest, hard-working Americans and using it to line their own greedy pockets. The way to stop this isn't to drop capitalism - it's to regulate it so that immoral behaviour on the markets becomes illegal. Capitalism - an amoral entity - does not attempt to stop behaviour that everyone in society can see is wrong and unfair, and without regulation to prevent the obfuscation of complex bonds and the deliberate deception (but currently not fraud) by fiddling the ratings of said bonds, this 700 billion dollar bailout won't be a first - Wall Street will be coming back to the American tax payer year. They'll take your house, your job and use it to buy a yacht, because capitalism says that if he can screw you over, that's fine, so long as he's got more cash in his account afterwards.
WindowsClient: New WPF Showcase Addition: Enterprise
