Pros
Capitalism allows anybody to become rich through hard work
There are so many success stories of people who began with nothing and built their wealth and empires to sizes beyond what they could have imagined. Richard Branson with Virgin, Steve Jobs with Apple, J.K. Rowling with Harry Potter, Oprah Winfrey and her chat shows, Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook.
These success stories inspire people to do what they can to build their own wealth. Capitalism gives everyone the opportunity to make their dreams come true.
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Hard work means nothing. Some people work hard all their lives and get nowhere. They go through life at the same level making no progress.
Success requires innovation at the very least. The success stories mentioned previously all began by giving people something that had not been seen before.
Not everybody is capable of this. Not everybody is intelligent or skilled enough to come up with ideas that will change the world and change their own lives.
Capitalists think it is right that someone who works hard for up to forty hours a week at a thankless task should be rewarded less than someone who creates an idea, sells it for millions, delegates the workload and then does nothing for the rest of their life.
People who become wealthy in Capitalist societies have earned their position
The wealthy have worked hard to get their money and power. Through their studied skills and intelligence they have built their profits by themselves and deserve every penny.
They should not be required to give any up to anybody.
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You will tend to find that many successful people are quite dishonest. They have reputations to protect and so on. The reputation that is needed to be protected is usually a fabricated one. There would be no need for a false front if honesty was used all the way along. Often you will find big companies paying off people who could spill some dirty behind the scenes secrets that would ruin their public image.
This can be seen right down to the very lowest level. Take the routine of job interviews. On applying for a job and attending the interview a successful candidate is likely the one who embellished their skills on their CV and hid their flaws from an employer. An honest individual who is able to admit shortcomings will fail.
Even the clothing worn is dishonest. Everyone knows that a professional wears a suit. So when people go to interviews they were a suit so that employers will think that they are professional. In reality, it should not matter in the slightest whether a person wears a suit or jeans and a tee shirt. The worker is the person under the clothes. Surely the person wearing comfortable clothing has more sense than the person forcing themselves into impractical wear just for the sake of fashion.
Of course, this is not the case with every rich person. Many are generous and do their part for the greater good, but the majority seem to be self centred and care nothing for those beneath them.
Capitalism improves the economy providing more wealth, greater standards of living and more leisure time for all
Capitalism encourages innovation and production which increases the wealth of a nation by creating produce which can be turned into profit. The more production there is the more jobs are made. The more jobs and production, the more money is made to pay for the jobs and increase production thereby creating more jobs. The more money is made, the more workers can be paid. The more workers are paid, the less they need to work. Everybodys standard of living is raised by the greater amount of money circulating.
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That’s a lovely fairy story. It would be great if it was true.
In reality it breaks down at every level.
In reality, the more production there is, the harder the current workforce are made to work. The people in charge do not employ anyone else because it is a cost to them.
The more money that is made by the people who are working goes to the pockets of the people in charge, leaving them to continue plodding on day to day.
The people in charge gain more leisure time while having their workers earn all the money for them.
The people in charge gain a greater standard of living, while the workers continue as if nothing has changed.
The unemployed stay unemployed throughout because no jobs have been created for them.
Eventually innovation invents a new technology which makes the workers obsolete. They all become unemployed and have no earnings. The people in charge let the company run as business as usual.
Capitalists who believe that the poorest people in the country are well off are clearly out of touch with reality.
Competition is the best way to encourage production
By having several companies all creating similar products, people will do their utmost to create the highest quality items at the best prices. In this way, we will continue to progress and things will be kept affordable.
If companies price their items too high, people will go to cheaper alternatives. On the other hand, a company which creates a better quality item can charge more than a rival with an inferior product.
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The idea is that through wanting to earn profits, people will work their best at the lowest prices possible.
In reality, people find plenty of ways of getting around this honourable plan.
One way that tends to occur in electronic goods is that the companies will build items that are designed to fail after a certain amount of time. Usually just in time for a new upgraded model with better features to be released. The consumers will then be paying twice for the same thing.
If the company had built a device that lasted and included the features to begin with, the public would be happier, but they would receive less profit. Basically, the desire for wealth outweighs caring about the publics needs.
Similar techniques are used in computer games and DVD sales. A release date for a new product will be announced. Consumers will be excited about the release of something that they have looked forward to. They may buy on the release day or soon after. Increasingly with games lately, companies will release an unfinished product and rely on putting patches online for download at a later date to resolve issues. Sometimes they will charge for these updates. A year or so later, a ‘special edition’ may be released containing the original game with all updates. A DVD may be released with bonus features. Consumers might buy the same product twice in order to get the best version. So really, when a release date is announced, it is best to add a year to it.
Competition also requires things such as patents and copyright, so that others may not use ideas or technology to develop their own. This can restrict other companies from advancing in their field as they are not legally able to implement certain things. Each company copyrighting their best ideas prevents the public from getting a product that has the best from everyone. If all similar companies worked together on a project, the best parts of everything could be brought together.
The reason that competition creates wealthy business is the drive for profit. The priority is making as much money as possible. Whether or not they truly have the best product or service is irrelevant. As long as they are able to market it well, they will win their earnings.
A popular online marketing technique is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). A website will create a number of pages each with a certain key word or phrase in it that relates both to their product and to what people are typing into search engines such as Google. Someone might type in something like ‘best computer repair services’. The site that will reach the top will be the one that has that exact phrase written all over it. It will not necessarily actually be the best service. The best service might not even have that phrase on its site and so will fall to lower rankings. The worse service gets a customer, while the customer gets a bad service. The good service gets nothing. To succeed in a Capitalist society, you have to learn how to manipulate. Being good at what you do is less important than maintaining an outer appearance.
Capitalism allows people greater freedom to choose what to do with their lives
In a Capitalist country everybody is free to choose their career, their education, what they buy, how they spend their free time and who they spend it with. No other society can offer this level of freedom.
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If by ‘free’ you mean: ‘free as long as you can afford to’. Capitalism offers most people about as much freedom as slaves. People must work in order to survive. They must work enough to earn enough money to live off. Often they will have to earn enough to provide for a family or relatives.
There is no freedom to choose not to work or at least to work less. There is a choice to do so, but the choice is similar to the decision whether to commit suicide or to not commit suicide.
Enjoying the time when not at work is difficult. Most people wake in the morning, go to work, come home to relax for a couple of hours in the evening, go to bed and repeat daily. The weekend will usually be spent either recovering from a tiring week or doing something enjoyable that will increase the level of fatigue.
Earning money is not something people can choose to do. It is a necessity. Everyone is forced to become a slave to money because they can not live without it.
Because of this choosing the job that you want becomes secondary to taking a job that you can get. If it is long hours for little pay, that is tough luck. You can not express discontent to superiors because they could just fire you and find someone else who does not speak up. The only option is to stick with the dead end job, hoping you can scrape enough pennies to pay your bills and be thankful for it.
The Market is decided by the Consumer
As the consumer buys items, the people in production know what is being bought and therefore what there is demand for.
The production companies can continue to make the products or provide the services that the consumer public want.
Things that are not desired and do not sell are no longer made.
In a Socialist society, everything that is produced has been ordered by the state. The people have no say in what they may buy.
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What about ‘limited editions’ and so on? More marketing ploys from greedy corporations who realise that there is a demand for a certain thing and therefore make only a few and charge top prices for them.
They know that people are going to buy them, because they know that people want it enough. It does not matter to them that most people who want one go without. All that matters to them is that they made their large profit.
Things that are produced are not the same as what people want. The media tells people what they want through the manipulative marketing techniques used by salespeople and advertisers and then proceeds to sell it to them once they are convinced.
Truly great things get lost under tides of rubbish that the public are fooled into believing that they need.
TV chef Jamie Oliver spoke about how Turkey Twizzlers were unhealthy. The media was excited by the hype of a celebrity talking about a specific brand. Eventually the Twizzler was banned because of its poor publicity.
Five years on, there are still members of the public crying out for the return of Twizzlers. The people want them. They do not care that they are not healthy. It is their choice if they wish to eat them and there are plenty of other unhealthy foods on the market as well. The only reason they are banned is due to media hype.
Firefly was a fantastic sci-fi TV show. It had a brilliant cast, deep characters, exciting and interesting storylines and awesome action. It received poor ratings due to marketing failure. The advertisements were dull and did not accurately portray the tone or depth of the show. Because of this, few people tuned in. After one series the show was cancelled because it was not bringing in the money. However, on DVD release sales rose incredibly proving that the Capitalists had got it wrong. They had not supported a great show and had allowed it to disappear despite the strong fan base it had gained through word of mouth and online sharing and so on.
On one hand this tragic loss is allowed to happen. On the other hand, year after year of terrible reality shows and talent competition filled with the countries biggest idiots plague our screens. The media shove it down our throats and even if you are not interested you end up hearing at least half of the contestants names. You then feel as though you might be the only one who has the sense to not be interested.
Profits drive Economic Growth
The more that is being produced and the more money being made makes for a better and more stable national economy.
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What does that matter? What does it even mean? I have asked a lot of people questions like ‘What good does boosting the economy do?’ and ‘What is inflation for?’.
The best answer I could get is that it is something to do with encouraging production. If things cost more to buy, people will make more to sell so that they have more money to buy the things that they used to be able to afford.
What really seems to happen though is that prices go up and wages stay the same. Meaning that people are just unable to afford as much and quality of life is reduced.
There is absolutely no need for inflation. The raised prices are completely made up numbers that represent nothing.
Money itself has little meaning, so it is ridiculous that the government keeps changing what it is worth.
Money should merely be a simple means for exchanging goods or services. Not a commodity to be strived for.
A lot of Socialists would like to see money abolished. This is not really practical. Here’s an analogy to describe it:
One man catches fish for a living. A second man makes wheelbarrows. The second man enjoys fish dinners. He goes to the first man and trades a wheelbarrow for a fish dinner. The next day the second man wants another fish dinner. He goes back to the first but the first has no need for a second wheelbarrow and will not trade.
To solve this problem, society invented money. An amount of money represents the worth of a product or service. The second man will sell his wheelbarrow for money. He will then use that money to buy fish. He may sell one wheelbarrow to the fisherman, but after that he can still sell to other people and receive money in return. He can use that money as many times as he likes to buy fish.
That is all money should be about. The abstract figures that come from inflation and interest and so on confuse it unnecessarily and should be done away with for simplicity.
Every country that has tried Socialism has proven that it fails.
Every country that has adopted socialism, such as U.S.S.R., Korea and Germany experienced a drop in their standard of living. There was a lack of goods and food. People lost their civil rights and freedom. Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler were all self-described socialists.
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Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler were all Dictators. The very idea of a dictator contradicts what Socialism is about. In fact a single leader with ultimate control over all a nations people and wealth seems to be a position of the ultimate Capitalist: someone who has swindled their way to complete and undisputable wealth and power.
In a social based society, one man would not have control over all others. Power would be spread as evenly as possible. There would be no single head of state, no King, no Emperor, no Supreme Chancellor, no Prime Minister, no President. There would be a Council which represents the people. They should be democratically voted for, so that they truly represent the public and are there for their merits, not because they bought their way there. They would be in charge of maintaining the country, but should they prove incompetent the public should be able to vote them out.
The current system seems to offer a poor choice of individuals whom the public are forced to choose a High Commander from to be Leader of the country. There are no alternatives. These individuals are focused on gaining power and keeping it. Improving the lives of the public are secondary to this.
Socialism promises Equality and Freedom but delivers Slavery
Socialist supporters claim to be Liberals calling for equality and a better standard of living for all. In reality, every Socialist state has proved to be nothing more than a prison, sentencing its people to live as slaves to their government. Socialist society regulates what people may do, buy and where they must work.
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Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler were all Dictators. Oh yeah… I did this already.
Socialism encourages intolerance and the culling of those who do not fit in
Hitlers Nazi (National Socialist) Germany taught people of the evils of the Jews, the inferiority of the handicapped and black community and encouraged the extermination of them all. Similar atrocities have been carried out in all Socialist countries. Socialists believe that the best way to remove opposition is to destroy it. They believe that the best way to make everyone equal is to kill those who are not the same.
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Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Hitler were all Dictators. I sense a pattern here. They had their own prejudices which they wished to see satisfied. They also found it useful to create scapegoats of certain types of people in order to fabricate support from their public.
In short, these people were not Socialists. Just because I say I am an elephant does not make it true. They called themselves Socialists because it is an attractive system. It is an attractive system because it revolves around kindness, generosity, charity, equality and freedom. Anyone with a good nature would be attracted to this system. The Dictators were smart enough to manipulate their people into believing their actions were for a greater good. Unfortunately not enough of the public were smart enough to realise the mistake.
A society led by good people with the right intentions would not have caused a Holocaust. Simple logic.
In clarification, I’m aware that a great number of German people opposed the Holocaust and fought against it. There have also been a huge amount of psychological tests to determine why people may follow orders that they know are wrong. Sometimes, it’s ignorance, sometimes it’s fear, sometimes it’s respect for authority. Either way they were manipulated by their leaders.
Socialism has cost hundreds of millions of lives
Socialists kill off those who oppose them so that they may gain power. The nation is then reduced to poverty allowing the poorest to die through being unable to afford the things that they need to live. Attempts to escape the country are met with execution.
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Dictators yeah?
True Socialists are not fans of slaughtering innocents ok?
Capitalism however is a system which takes care of the rich while allowing the poor to suffer claiming the excuse that it’s their own fault.
If someone is poor and unable to afford the cost of living, ending up homeless and sleeping in bins on the street in a Capitalist society, it is their own fault apparently. Or maybe it was because they were not smart or hard working enough to succeed, so it is a case of survival of the fittest.
If a nurse has to work double shifts back to back getting paid little more than minimum wage in order to afford her costs it’s her own fault for not choosing a more profitable career. That’s how a Capitalist would have you see it.
A person who works hard 9 to 5 in a factory for years becoming a master of the machinery becomes obsolete when new technology is brought in to do the work of him and the rest of his team. He loses his livelihood through being worse than a robot. He then can not afford his rent and bills. A Capitalist would say that he was a fool for not saving in case he lost his job. If anyone has ever tried saving on minimum wage, they would know that the Capitalist is a moron.
These people are punished for simply trying to make their way in the system. Not trying to escape or cheat their way through.
Millions may have died under Socialist regimes (Socialist in this sentence read ‘Dictator’), but in Capitalist systems millions are left in poverty whether or not they work hard to avoid it.
On top of that you have those dying on the streets because of homelessness. People might die because they are unable to afford healthcare that they need. They may never see justice because they can not afford a lawyer.
This aside, see the thousands that die every day in Third World countries because Capitalism will not provide for them.
Capitalisms body count must surely be leaps and bounds ahead of that of Socialism. The worst part is that they hide behind flimsy excuses. At least the so-called ‘Socialist’ Dictators were honest about the people that they didn’t like. But then again as a Dictator is really a Capitalist, you can add their murders to the list of Capitalist kills.
Socialism can never work because of the human nature of greed
People are always looking to gain as much as they can for themselves. If a person can gain the same amount of profit doing nothing as they can by working, they will choose to do nothing. This will result in everyone choosing to do nothing.
In Socialism, two men might be given farms. One may work hard and produce a bumper crop. The other may sit back and do nothing. At the end of the season, half of the hard workers crop will be taken and given to the layabout. This will upset the worker who will realise that he could have avoided working and received as much of a crop as the next man. Next season he may stop working and wait for his free lunch to come in. This further reduces the amount of crops produced nationwide.
Capitalism provides a way of fighting against this. Capitalism tells the two men that whatever they produce is theirs. They will receive nothing from the other farm. In this season both men work hard and produce as much as possible so that they are not left short. The likelihood is that both will produce far more than they need and are able to sell some for profit elsewhere. Neither is left short and neither is punished for their work.
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So Capitalism is a system that is based on greed. Capitalism booms because of greed. People keep producing so that they can have as much as possible. They produce more so that they can sell it and make even more gain for themselves.
The reason we must all work is because people do not want to share. Or they feel hard done by if their profit is taken from them and given to layabouts.
That is fair enough. People are within their rights to keep what they make for themselves. They should not expect to have it taken from them. And it is true that it is greed that makes Socialism fail.
This is the one and only reason why Socialism can never work.
Socialism takes away peoples rights to property and makes everything owned by the state so that it may be evenly shared out.
This is not fair to those who have worked for it. People should be allowed to own their own property.
Fortunately, there is a simple solution to this problem. By following the ideas of John Maynard Keynes.
We should build a system which stands somewhere between Capitalism and Socialism.
Those without work should be given a basic allowance so that they can afford the cost of living. Things like basic requirements for food, shelter, education, transport and healthcare should be provided by the government. Those who do work should be given this same allowance PLUS their wages.
This negates the hard feeling of having a bulk of their produce taken for layabouts. People in employment pay at least 20% on the earnings as it is now. This could easily go towards the nations welfare.
In this way, people who do not work are able to survive, but those who do earn their living are able to gain more by doing so. Usually when Socialists say that Capitalism is based on greed, Capitalists will respond by saying that it is not greed but ambition which is encouraged. In a half way system, this would be true.
This is not equality as Socialists see it, but in reality it is fair that those who earn their money should be able to keep it. There will still be a divide between the richest and poorest, but there may be more people on the wealthier side while the poorest will not be left poverty stricken.
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