Anti-Capitalism... what does it mean?

[CogitoErgoSometimes]

It can't be just me that keeps seeing 'anti-capitalism' referenced but doesn't understand what it means in practice. To me, any system that involves individuals buying and selling goods is capitalism so, short of going back to a system of barter and exchange, I'm not sure that's what's being proposed. Is it the socialist model of placing all businesses and utilities in public ownership perhaps ... a sort of Chinese style state-sponsored capitalism rather than no capitalism? If it's the kind of capitalism of international financiers buying and selling money that's the bete noire is the proposal that, to prevent speculation, we deposit our money (assuming we still have money, that is) in a bank and they keep it in a nice box, never touch it and give it back when we ask? The end of loans? Interest? Investments?

So that's the discussion point. Please... no links to great long internet passages by way of explanation. Laymans terms thanks. :)

Niceguy I wish your "best and brightest" would just bloody well leave. Do you actually believe that argument?

Who does the public's money get redistributed to?
To the banks and the planetary plutocrats - not the poor.

They are the 1%, the public is the 99%

In fact, aren't the greens the shining example of anticapitalism?

www.martindurkin.com/blogs/secret-global-warming-posh-anti-capitalism

But never forget that it was elites and billionaires who were instrumental in forming green movements early on. They are the 1%, the public is the 99%.

igi999 - I think you'd miss the surgeons, lawyers and dentists. You'd probably miss having a UK based fashion, film, TV and music industry. You might even miss the football premier league or our token tennis champion (or maybe not).

The entrepreneurs and their funders can go elsewhere - if you are prepared for long term negative economic growth and our dc's to be on average poorer as adults than we are.

We should never have allowed them to take control in the first place, money is freedom, we should embrace the coin and note and reject the card, the banks have us by the balls because we cannot even claim benefits now days without a bank account.

it's all a scam so they can cream off the interest.

I don't think they should be protesting about capitalism, but the bastardisation of capitalism we have now. If we had true capitalism, we would have true competition in the energy markets instead of the virtual cartel we have now. If we had true capitalism, the banks would not have been 'too big to fail', they would have failed, leading to a slimming down of the industry, proper competition for jobs and a knowledge that if those banks behaved as they did previously, there would be severe consequences for them and not just for the rest of the country.

They can't all go abroad. Monaco is only so big.

Agree noeyedear. It's not real capitalism, it is the 1% capitalism.

But isn't that true capitalism? it's a dog eat dog world and if the dogs get with each other, there is nothing in the rules to say they can't form a gang to fleece us.

But the dogs shouldn't be getting with each other, they should be eating each other- otherwise the market model doesn't work. That's why we have useless competiton commissions and the like.

But thats just all a smoke screen for the truth that the MPs who create such bodies have a vested interest in the acquisition of wealth by such companies, shareholders, board members, promised jobs at the end of a cabinets reign etc.

All in all there are no rules in capitalism, there is no moral compass built in, only the accumulation of wealth by any means possible.

People always have a go at America. But America has rules and regulations. It has a Freedom of Information Act and many big financiers like Bernie Madoff are in jail. America has these rules because it wants free and fair competition so that giant companies can't stop what were once little companies like Microsoft and Apple succeeding.

America is capitalist, but it is regulated and crooks often go to the jail.

America also has a vibrant democracy, with ordinary people like the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street protesting and campaigning against corporate greed and fraud.

Durkin's article on the greens is excellent. They are the modern-day anticapitalists. He has it spot on and mentions how so much of the aristocracy (the 1%) is really behind the movement. What is the movement all about? To keep ordinary people down.

Why does most of the world head for the United States? They want the American Dream, they want to better themselves under a capitalist system that allows ordinary people to rise and gain riches based on merit, not on who you know, but based on what you know.

'The tragedy (for the Reds) was that capitalism didn?t play ball. Instead of getting poorer, ordinary folk got richer ? much, much richer. For the simple reason that capitalist mass production must necessarily go hand in hand with mass consumption. What the new-leftists call ?consumer society?.

But these days, anti-capitalists are coloured Green. They campaign not in the name of the working class, but of ?Earth?. Instead of giant factories, they dream of little handicraft workshops and organic peasant farms. They complain not that capitalism will impoverish the workers, but, on the contrary, that capitalism has made them too rich. It is the very success of capitalism that seems to upset them.'

He then goes on to show how many of teh leading greens didn't go to comprehensives like the 99%, but rather to Eton etc. like the 1%.

'It is more than ironic that the anti-consumption rant comes from people who are, by global standards, rolling in the stuff and from a superior social class. Take a look at Al Gore and Prince Charles, at Jonathon Porritt, the old Etonian friend of Prince Charles, son of Lord Porritt; or the old Etonian Baron Lord Peter Melchett, former head of Greenpeace, or Ecologist editor Zac Goldsmith, another old Etonian, son of the billionaire James Goldsmith, and nephew of yet another old Etonian the Green guru Edward Goldsmith; or ?eco-warrior? Mark Brown, who was acquitted of leading the ?Carnival Against Capitalism?, who is a member of the fabulously wealthy Vestey family; or the founder of the Soil Association Lady Eve Balfour, daughter of the Earl of Balfour; or the author of the Global Warming Survival Handbook, David de Rothschild, and so on, and on. Charles Secrett, former executive director of Friends of the Earth helpfully explains, ?Among the aristocrats there is a sense of noblesse oblige ? a feeling of stewardship towards the land.?

Brendan O?Neill says in The Guardian, ?It is remarkable how many leading environmentalists come from wealthy or aristocratic backgrounds.? And adds, ?There is something irritating - actually, let's not beat around the bush - there is something monumentally infuriating about rich people telling the masses that they should live more meekly.?

?Among the aristocrats there is a sense of noblesse oblige ? a feeling of stewardship towards the land.?

That's the key. It is about land and resources and they don't want ordinary people using them up. Nothing's changed from the days of serfdom and the Potato Famine. Their land is more important than people.

If you consume, you are using up their resources that they steward. That's why they don't like capitalism. Under capitalism, an adopted child like Steve Jobs can be adopted by an ordinary family and end up running the planet's most profitable business. They don't want that. They don't want consumption and the working classes assumption. That's what they call presumption.

The American dream is a lie, another smoke screen they are worse off then us the benefits for the unemployed worse, the stigma for them worse, families left living in cars because they couldn't afford insurance for homes and health.

the wealth in the US is spread over a smaller demographic then it is here.

The dream is their only to stop the masses protesting and what has democracy to do with capitalism the two are not strictly linked, thats another load of propaganda to frighten people into sticking with the statues qua.

"Anti-Capitalism" is just a very lazy blanket term used by lazy hacks inventing sound-bites for lazy readers of pre-digested pap. It doesn't MEAN anything. It's like saying all political demonstrations are organised by "anarchists" and attended by "rioters".

It's not a lie. You ask people across the planet studying to enter US universities, if it is a lie. Look at the list of Silicon Valley millionaires, many who came from abroiad with nothing.

It's the destination that people all across the globe head to. Yes there is still much poverty, but there are also great riches to be made. People like Steve Jobs weren't born with a silver spoon in his mouth. America is dynamic and the source of so much of the world's entertainment and inventions. Not everything is rosy, but it is still a beacon of hope for the world.

Democracy and capitalism go together, because capitalism is about free competition. That freedom means that ideas can be challenged, that teh status quo can be challenged and that people can protest against their leaders and the law upholds their right to do so. Freedom of ideas leads to innovation which is the spring from which capitalism is sustained. Freedom of thought means freedom of speech and teh First Amendment. That's why capitalism and democracy go together.

Is the US trying to shut down protests based on 'elf and safety' regulation. I doubt it, because its people are free to challenge the status quo and many of the Silicon Valley millionaires probably support them.

America is the land of the people. Yes there are crooks there too. But in the end, America and its people win through.

Anti-capitalism is pointless when there is no better alternative, and we don't live in a pure capitalistic society anyway otherwise there would be no welfare, it would be dog eat dog with anyone or anything not able to pay their own way allowed to 'fail'.

But we do fail, we fail so that the rich remain rich, we are stuck in an endless cycle, HB needed even by those in full time work because rent is too much, the people paying via taxes to support themselves so that the rich can get richer by keeping prices high and wages low.

I can't remember which channel I saw it on, but there was a woman Chancellor or something like that of one of the Universities in California on TV. She is a millionaire, gained through biotech. The interviewer asked her "what do you think about these Occupy protests?"

She said she understood them and the people protesting, because they are fighting for the American Dream. They won't accept nothing less. They won't sit back and watch their jobs destroyed and she supported their struggle, because that is the struggle for the American Dream.

They showed the sad stories of people being deported from the United States. One man had been deported 4 times and was being deported again to Honduras. He had two girls and an American wife who could stay, but he had to go. He said he will try and enter again. America is not perfect, but it's a lot better than most other places on earth.

It's not capitalism which has failed, it's government regulation which has failed.

Noone advocates a completely pure capitalistic economy. Otherwise there'd be no NHS, no benefits, no police, no fire service etc.

The government are supposed to regulate markets. What's failed is not the system per se but weak government led by politician's who have successively failed by pursuing short term policies and consistently spending more money than we have.

So if you want to demonstrate, demonstrate at them. Don't blame the system. Don't blame the bankers. The latter has been a godsend to the politicians as they've been able to shirk their responsibility and someone else is getting the blame.

It's capitalism and the opportunities it provides ordinary people that is teh attraction. Unlike the greens and anticapitalists, America is about growth and that's what attracts people to America.

But the Government runs the system, they allowed all the loop holes, they creamed off the wealth and helped themselves and their mates.

Anti-capitalists are not saying bring on communism (for the most part) they are simply saying bring on change and a far system.