hmmm...I'll take una casa in Italia et una piccola Fiat. That would be enough. Everyone else can battle it out over all that other stuff. Mi piace molto l'Italia.

Ezeflyer & KathyDot, right on about the STRESS factor. It's been chronicled. Even Pavlov found that dogs did better doing WITHOUT food, rather than being placed on a destabilizing "random interval reinforcement" schedule. I notice this even with animals in the wild. Every living being wants and needs a home, that's the basis for security. From its home it seeks out food, and most species also need and direct energy towards companionship or community. When the texture of life in a new place challenges these basics (and the health care element comes into this, too), then the STRESS draws up internal chemical levels of overload.

Heck, life for slaves is "hard but uncomplicated". If you like being a slave, I guess this is OK, but for the rest of us....

Incidentally, I sleep like a baby at night...

It is incredible that with so many anti-capitalist voices in the USA we can't figure out constructive ways to build a real political alternative to the diaster and utter moral collapse unfolding under bush and his fellow war criminals. Shame on them but also shame on us. Was it Franz Fanon who wrote that sooner or later the people get the leadership they deserve?

as a white cracker male in Capitalism, inc. here in D.C., i can tell you capitalism ain't so good for the males here either.

I agree with POWERSLAVE that nothing definitive can be drawn from the reasoning of this article, and the real cause of this statistic probably lies outside economics BUT I still agree with its contention. As a male living in Silicon Valley exposed to a constant stream of status symbols and expectation that how you feel about yourself should reflect success, I can tell you that it doesn't do anyone any good, male or female. And I think men are particularly susceptible. If you aren't making 150K by 30, a VP and driving a beamer by 35, a millionare with beautiful kids by 40 and independently wealthy with a house in Italy by 45 -- well, you suck.

Studies have shown that it isn't status that determines happiness but how a person views himself as compared to peers. I think even THAT mindset is screwed up. A person should look within, and ignore the surrounds. Easier said than done.

Corporate dronemanship requires compliance and surrender of will, The
natural rise of anger or incredulity in today's brutal office is tempered
by the increasing use of psychoactive substances. The prescriptions are
beneficial, because they are tied to profit. Unfortunately, this give
and take on the human body will shorten lives. It is the cost of status
quo, or at the very least, paying the rent.

Uncontrolled capitalism displaces labor for the purpose of lowering wages. This increases stress all around and pushes some people into lower than healthful poverty. As less people can buy goods, wages must be lowered further. When the locals won't work for that low wage capitalists find someone who will - by moving the person or the job. There is of course no safety net in true capitalism.

The average person is bright enough to see it coming but can't get out of the way. It is like getting run over by the NASA rocket hauler.

Imagine that causing stress and shortening life - GO FIGURE.

Capitalism is bad for Russian's health? More like rampant alcoholism and AIDS are bad for mens health. Following this logic, since the life expectancy for South African males has plummetted lately (Thank you, AIDS) we should assume that apartheid was good for South Africans' health.

See "Sicko" and see how unhealthy capitalism can be. It kills the body, mind, and spirit.

Capitalism definitly puts a lot of stress on men especially as the primary bread winners in most households here in the US. Have to agree with Ballsy there. Hard to make ends meet with the rising costs of housing, education and healthcare in the United States especially when the loan sharks and insurance companies make record profits. Heartattacks, I think, are the number one cause of death for American males. Now I am not for communism by any means..I believe its a failed idealogy, but the current capitalism that we have needs to change. People need more time to spend with their families, they need more vacation time, and more flexibility on the job. Women who have entered the work force in droves in the past generation or two may start to show the same stresses also especially as they age and a study should be done about how this impacts women too.

Americans in many ways are forced to live to work and not work to live.

dcbeltway, no one is "forced" to do anything. I do not the ammounts ipenek discusses above, yet I am debt free and travel to South America every year. I just choose not to live in a "statusy" area, nor do I replace my car every two years, and I was very careful not to have any children out of wedlock, so no child support. That so many Americans CHOOSE to live to work is a reflection on them, not capitalism. Capitalism lets me live my lifestyle fine...

Then powerslave you are amongst the lucky few.

Capitalism works for some people, that is a fact.

Feudalism also worked for some people, but it is not around any longer.

The world is not totally a subjective place. There are objective laws that operate outside of one's thinking.

Many millions of people are not going to be able to live within the objective laws of capitalism. What should we do with all these people?

Capitalism won't end because, I want it to. Capitalism won't end because. you don't want it to.

There have been studies done demonstrating that the overall health of young and middle-age U.S. citizens is also declining.

Remember, between the late-1940s to the late-1960s, unskilled/semi-skilled factory workers could usually afford to buy a house, have the wife stay at home, and save money for their childrens higher education. Many blue collar workers had access to decent health and retirement plans. Even though there were temporary layoffs, most workers felt that they were employed for life. And when they were about to retire, they were allowed to do less stressful and less demanding jobs.

Today, a married couple of well-educated, skilled white-collar workers can barely afford much of the above. Of course, those who do work, have to work many more hours than those working the 25 years after WWII.

In addition, today's skilled white-collar employees (as well as those holding the remaining blue-collar jobs) feel the constant stress of possible outsourcing, regular job evals, intrusive micromanaging (using the newest workplace "spy" technologies), etc. Forget about having any job stability, a long-term relation with a stable community,in-house advancement, or workplace power. Hey, if you complain, there are always other places to outsource to.

Of course, the our plutocratic government abides and abets this growing breakdown of economic stability, workplace rights, and social cohesion.

Last, there is always going be those who, through anecdotal means, will state that the present decline in various social and economic indices is caused by individual behavior. That is a typical response of those well indoctrinated in the general plutocratic culture of radical individualism.

Powerslave July 1 6.32 pm, Ipenek et al

In Africa, where heterosexual sex is a far greater cause for AIDS transmission than male homosexual sex is, there is a larger percentage of women getting AIDS than men. That is because in heterosexual sex it is easier for women to catch AIDS than it is for men.

However, if for some reason the South African males don't fit the pattern of most of Africa, trying to compare South African figures with Russian figures and putting it all down to AIDS and alcoholism is a bit crass. Alcoholism in the USSR was always a factor and AIDS is getting worse now even as the Russian male life expectancy has again been rising.

Agreed, the USSR centrally controlled economy was weak in the latter days, but inefficient industries still provided work. Government providedWelfare, Healthcare and Housing were still available under the old USSR system. What the Western economic advisors got Yeltsin to do caused enormous dislocation, unemployment, poverty and suffering in the nations of the old USSR. Yeltsin practically gave away huge parts of the economy as he "privatised", selling dirt cheap to the vultures who put profit ahead of whatever pain it would cost the workers etc in the immediate short term. These ruthless post communist radical "free market" policies caused the sudden lowering of the Russian male life expectancy. It was so very bad that Putin is now reaping the harvest of a post Yeltsin backlash - Russian people have rejected the Western prescriptions of "laissey faire" capitalism after their first nasty taste of it under Yeltsin.
.

A factor that this article did not mention, and no one else here has either, is the utter contempt for any concept of environtal responsibility by the Communists. Chernobyl, the Aral Sea, the closed cities in Siberia, the legacy of communism is not simply a bad environment, but a poisonous one. One that is, today, manifesting itself by killing Russians.

Jan, reread my post, please. I am not pointing fingers about AIDS, but rather making a point that, if we selectively manipulate figures, we can say that ANY government or economic system is good. Or bad.

Again, free market policies have had very little to do with Russian life expectancies. Booze, AIDS, an unhealthy environment, suicide, these factors and more are killing the Russians. And, frankly, the statistics were not much better under Communism, especially when you factor out the AIDS.

I agree with the posters who claim overemphasizing capitalism as the cause of these social ills is exaggerated and overly simplistic. It is a factor no doubt, and few would disagree that Russia transitioned from communism to capitalism way to quickly.

I strongly disagree with the American version of capitalism. One of the problems with American capitalism is its "socialism", but it is a socialism for the rich, and maybe a few crumbs for all the rest. "Free market capitalism" is what the masses generally practice, although the rules are made by those rich beneficiaries of socialism, who in turn benefit from the capitalism forced on the masses.

We do have choices. We can choose to play their game, and possibly "win" or lose. Or realizing the materialism of mainstream society is spiritually and morally and socially bankrupt "drop out" and live on a commune, or try to reduce our spending, or move to a country more to our liking.

First a few definitions and terms.
Capitalism is an ideology, that is if you agree with economist Robert Heilbroner.
Second, there exist a finite amount of resources on the planet and in any particular geographic area.
Next, all economic systems/states organize themselves and exist to distribute and allocate wealth and scarce resources. So, whether you live in a feudal state, a socialist state or a capitalist state, each has a differing means of distributing wealth and resources.
The trick is what means are to be used to distribute wealth and resources. Feudal states used raw power and inherited land ownership to allocate wealth and resources. Those who did not inherit land worked for those who owned land and who used force.
In a socialist culture, in theory a bureaucracy voted into office determines the allocation of society's wealth and resources.
The USSR and China degenerated into tyrannical oppressive regimes, especially under Stalin and Mao.
In a capitalist state, risk-takers and those with a highly developed acquisitive impulse (greed), are allowed to gather and keep as many resources for themselves and their in-group and exclude and/or exploit those with an under-developed acquisitive impulse. Eventually, the "wealthy" organize and decide who should share wealth with them. Come to think of it, in its late period or phase it tends to behave much like a feudal state.

Capitalism most definitely works for the 1-5% of the population that are so affluent that their investments alone can support them in lavish style. As it happens, these same people hold the strings of power and control the media. Hmmmm. The rest of us schmucks are left holding the bag. And for that top margin, their solitary task in life is to maintain the system that basically makes every day a leisurely Sunday. It's all rigged.
People who haven't reached those echelons and defend it secretly want to reserve a place for themselves in the "let them eat cake" society (oh yes you do). Don't want to pop your bubble, but the chance that you will ever arrive there is miniscule. I say tax the crap out of them and share the wealth. (Guess you can see what side of the aisle I walk down.)

powerslave...
Of course "booze and suicide" are methods by which Russian males killed themselves, adding to deaths due to poverty and insecurity caused ill health and death...and no doubt booze and suicide were also big problems before Yeltsin took away any semblance of social security. But the sudden plumeting in social conditions after Yeltsin started his "Reforms" would have rapidly lowered male life-expectancy. Medical records of why people died would confirm that.

What Yeltsin introduced WAS NOT CAPITALISM as we know it in most of the West. It was destruction of the old with nothing really existing in its place. MANY naive Russians who didn't know capitalism were conned by criminals with crooked schemes and lost all their money enriching the very few. It was a disaster for most Russians just like the forced implimentation of World Bank austerity programs was a disaster for the poorest nations of the world. Leaders in wealthy nations have quite a deal of responsibity for pushing Yeltsin to unleash such disasterous changes on the Russians resulting in the current backlash of anti Western Russian nationalism. In much of South America and Russia they have seen through the World Bank/ U.S. agenda and some can do something else because of the rise in prices for their oil exports

By the way, powerslave, what gives you the idea I was blaming any one group for the AIDs. I was simply countering your idea that AIDs figures had anything to do with the relative lower life expectancy of men in South Africa and Russia.

Under unrestrained capitalism, booze and drugs are most rampant and lowest priced in the ghettos and slums of the world. Do you think that is by accident? It is by design. By actual dollars, the poor pay more in modern free market capitalism, because they depend upon credit and frequent visits to the store. There is so much evidence of unrestrained capitalism being the root of most evils it is quite astounding. It is time for us to pay attention. Recommended Reading:
"The Poor Pay More" (can't remember the author)
"Savage Inequalities" (Johnathon Kozal)
"Why Americans Hate Welfare" (can't remember)
"One World, Ready or Not" (William Greider) or
"the Soul of Capitalism"
plus so many other great books that do a great job of laying out what we all know instinctively about capitalism when not controlled. Capitalism itself is not evil, but what it does when left to its own natural instinct is indeed evil.

Powerslave you are a self centered shell of a human being with no empathy for people suffering around you. I sincerely hope you have nightmares of the innocents you scorn, may they haunt your dreams forever.

I'm sure there are multiple reasons for the plummet in life expectancy, but one big cause is stress. I know of one Russian emigre community in the US where most of the middle aged men ended up having multiple bypass heart surgery within five years of coming to the US. I knew one of them well, and he was constantly distraught over the confusing new pressures in his life. Having come from the USSSR where life was hard, but also uncomplicated, he felt constantly threatened by the bureaucracy in the US - banks, insurance, DMV, you name it. From his mindset, they had the power to ruin his life.

So I think that when the old Soviet system fell apart, the rules all changed, everything became chaotic and the men became very stressed. Women get stressed, but they have coping skills men don't. They tend to gather together, nurture children, and release large amounts of oxytocin which counteracts the effects of stress. A very good UCLA study by Gale Berkowitz documents this. Men don't have this outlet.

I agree that putting too much blame on capitalism might be a little shallow, but I do think that capitalism may have its own pequliar pathology - a fatal flaw, if you will. At its best, capitalism is wildly creative, rapidly adapting, ingenious, problem - solving... Allowing people's self interest to propel a dynamic system. The problem, as the system evolves over time, seems to be some sort of avalanche effect in that as money accumulates, it becomes easier to accumulate more money... a kind of positive feedback that is like steering farther off the road to correct a slide... one way or another it's going to crash the system.

Whats lowering life expectancy for males are these long blogging posts....

Keep it simple...easy does it...go on a holiday...smell the pollution, errr I mean roses....

some of you apparently didn't even read the article (powerslave). how do you explain a massive, multi-country, society wide collapse in the health of 50% of the population? that occurred at the exact same time truly radical changes were made to the economic organization of society? these economic changes created massive unemployment, destroyed the pensions and livelihoods of millions of people, eviscerated the gov't provided social services (police, hospitals, etc., etc.), and established the worst forms of crony capitalism (ie, gangsterism) as the social rule. an astonishing transfer of wealth from the many to the few occurred in a manner of months, all cheered on by the west, of course.

now pass me some fucking vodka.

" how do you explain a massive, multi-country, society wide collapse in the health of 50% of the population? that occurred at the exact same time truly radical changes were made to the economic organization of society?" Probably the same way you explain a massive society collapse in the health of 100% of the population, as happened in South Africa after the arrival of democracy...as a result of outside factors. The economic changes in Russia did not bring AIDS. They did not poison the environment, and that is why people are dying.

I wonder why the source of this news is an article in the French press. Could it be that the US media doesn't wish to disturb our rat race?

"Capitalism lets me live my lifestyle fine…" You nail it, young man Powerslave, a subjective core of worldview of so many an American. However, "The world is not totally a subjective place", as medic6869 so correctly states. This is the quintessence of our debates.

"Capitalism is an ideology", as Socrates points out, as well as Socialism or Communism. The very fact that word 'ideology' became taboo or subject of ridicule in our public discourse speaks volumes. If enemy of my enemy is my friend, I will use word 'ideology' 24/7/365.

Now let's compare the stated First Principle of those two ideologies: "providing the highest return on capital" or "from everyone by one's capability and to everyone for one need". Read it carefully and choose for themselves. And please do not confuse 'need' to 'want', as critique of socialism so often does.

"The USSR and China degenerated into tyrannical oppressive regimes, especially under Stalin and Mao." So did the Republic of Farmers, as it was envisioned by Thomas Jefferson and others. Difference being that latter degeneration was caused by imposed from above fear of few thousands radicals, whereas both USSR and China were encircled from the Day One of their respective Revolutions by all too real strangulation by all too real imperial powers, of which Nazi Germany was but only one part.

Capi-Decease
Fisrtly, there was a conflict between the russian and the western, a conflict called the cold war, during this era people died and died, then an another era comes, the USA leads the world that means the capitalism is leadind, the rest of the world is lagging, people continue to die, in the past the ghost was called communism, now it is called capitalism, every thing has changed, and people still die, you may ask why, and the answer so easy, the capitalism is a tsunami leading the world taward an "abracadabrante" future, even the supports given to the third world countries are hybrid.May the day of seeing the world living in a good situation? perhaps, and this case will happen when the capitalism disappear. when equality reigns, the capitalism withers.

The last response to well argumented post by powerslave is reminiscent of ol' Russian saying, "Pee him unto his eyes and he says, 'It is God's dew'."

Yet, save for very few contributors, like abovementioned, this site as a whole is balsam for this born again Socialist.

Capitalism and communism are good for the health of those with the wealth or the power. Communism in Russia had an edge over Capitalism because even as people were poor, they didn't have to worry about the basics like becoming homeless, paying for food and education, or not getting healthcare. It all comes down to stress levels, I think, which conservatives are good at increasing.

After watching Sicko, I felt like moving to France or Canada. Even Cuba is starting to look much better.

I would like to distinguish the differences between the journalism article, and the scholarly article before I would hope one would postulate what some of the stressors are and how these have increased mortality in the male populations.

Interestingly, the title of the scholarly work is as follows, Economic transition, male competition, and sex differences in mortality rates, by Kruger, D.J., and Nesse, R.M.

The main thesis is about transition, and male-male competition, and how male mortality is higher than females. While Kruger is indeed saying "...capitalism does lead males to behave in ways that are detrimental to men's health.", he also distinguishes the point, or rather qualifies his statement with, The inequalities in status and resources that can come with capitalism

Male-male competition is discussed in the first pages of the article published in Evolutionary Psychology, citing sex role distinctions in several different species. Partly, the Kruger and Nesse synopsis is dependent on the transition. Indeed, they states pre-transitional, transitional, and post-transitional figures. One of the distinctions they notes is the differences between the 14 countries they studied. The references are former Eastern Germany(GDR), and to the former Czech Republic. GDR had support from Western Germany, and the Czech Republic had low numbers of unemployment. Both showed lower mortality rates.

Behavior -increased risk behavior of the male. Disruption- economic uncertainty. Transition. Post-transition.

Here is the last sentence of the article abstract:
The impact of the transition on the magnitude of mortality discrepancy across countries varies considerably and likely reflects conditions particular to each country. These findings illustrate how traits shaped by natural selection interact with environmental conditions to influence male psychology and ultimately mortality patterns.

observer,
"Yet, save for very few contributors, like abovementioned, this site as a whole is balsam for this born again Socialist."

Yes indeed, I started reading this site as a social democrat, hoping to fix the system, now I am a firm believer in Socialism.

Hey Powerslave:

You continue to display your enslavement to the plutocratic culture that indoctrinated you.

(i.e., I gain power by enslaving others.)

Hey guy. If a group of Masters (or Oligarchs)controls access to the material resources everyone needs to survive, you have slavery. It doesn't matter whether you call the stratification system capitalism, socialism, fascism, communism, or jism.

Your hungry and go to the grocery store and put the stuff you need into "your" grocery cart. And you then procede to walk out of the store with all of the goodies you chose. What do you call this activity? Unauthorized shopping!

AH! You forgot to show the resource controllers (grocery employees) your ticket...money. And now where do you go to get access to money? To those that control it!
Who are they? Our masters!

And you suggest...What? Communism? that worked real well. Socialism? You will still have to work to survive. SOMEONE is always going to control resources. And, so far, capitalism has proven to be the best way to ensure that those resources grow and are distributed as widely as possible. Communism only produced equality of poverty. European style socialism is still based on capitalism. Fuedal societies like Burma and kleptocracies like Zimbabwe starve.

Powerslave
"SOMEONE is always going to control resources"

Not necessarily so, be creative.

But even if so, so what, it could be regulated and distributed with the whole society in mind.

European capitalism in Norway say is not like in the USA, increase their social contributions even more and you might end up with a viable version for real socialism.

The way centralised Communism was implemented was probably the most anti-Communist way of doing it, who needs another comrade Stalin?, and probably why they failed. That does not mean centralised planning in a rational and democratic way is necessarily doomed.

"capitalism has proven to be the best way to ensure that those resources grow and are distributed as widely as possible." what planet are you living on powerslave? the dickensian hell that marx was righting in response to was not created by communists. if capitalism had been so great, we would never have had stalin (or mussolini, or hitler, or mao, or pol pot or nixon or dumbya or hirohito).

marx was a response to two things, 2 contradictory things: the staggering growth in the productive capacities of humanity due to industrialization (one person could now feed hundreds), the equally staggering increase in inequality and misery for most of the world.

this is the situation of the world today, the undisputedly capitalist world. half the planet lives on a dollar or less a day. and the world is getting poorer, not richer, despite all the incredible advances in technology since marx's time. despite all the wealth, the poor are getting poorer, not richer. and more poor are being created every day.

fuck capitalism.

Before I was interrupted. Methods of wealth distribution are neither evil in themselves nor good.
They're merely the processes or methods chosen by the majority, or those with power as to how they will allocate scarce resources. In a geographical region of abundance such as the US--with its near unlimited resources--it took a while (200+ years) before the Malthusian factor kicked in. Historically, in the US there were enough resources and land to support both the greedy and the needy with no one being the wiser and scarcity not felt by most groups on the "lower end of the economic scale." However, certain resources remained constant such as arable land, forests(?) while others diminished, i.e. drinking water, fossil fuels, minerals. And then populations "exploded."
So it falls on law-makers and administrators to allocate these ever scarcer resources. And those who have access to both, i.e. corporations and multinationals.
In the US, everything from currency to water to land to fossil fuels and other commodities are distributed according to how individuals are willing to toe the corporate party line, how much risk they are willing to take, how strong their acqiusitive impulses are and how many resources can be distributed beyond the reserve the administrators keep to, and for, themselves ("supply and demand").
Those who toe the line can range from those willing to sacrifice all to get MBA's and attend elitist academies to those workers who look at the growing unemployment numbers and settle for minimum wages ("disciplining" of the workforce through high unemployment)...
Meanwhile, in the USSR, China, India, etc., where resources tend to be inadequate to meet population demands and those of the administrative "elites"--certain choices have to be made: from declaring war to criminalizing certain behaviors to exporting surplus labor to tolerating poverty and starvation. And, in some places, ruthless draconian measures such as prison slave labor under conditions guaranteed to shorten the life-span of the imprisoned "surplus" workers.
US policy at present is expedient. It criminalizes and imprisons 100's of thousands of young men and women who would otherwise be unemployed and underemployed. The method used? Drug laws. Within prison walls consumption of the most elemental resources are regimented and tightly controlled: Flour, starchy foods, water, utilities, "surplus" farm commodities and clothing.
The poor also make great war-machine recruits, especially with the economic incentives for joining.
Those who choose to remain outside (the military and prison) and compete in the capitalist treadmill to "get ahead" in a world where their savings are depleted by inflation and an eroding currency, must surely intuit their plight.
Those lucky, resourceful and greedy few blessed by evolution with a highly developed acquisitive impulse and low empathy impulses must surely thrive under the capitalist ideology. The rest must learn to survive with the scraps that fall from the masters' tables.
Finally, under the myths perpetrated by the high priests of this ideology and reinforced by that consumer-propaganda vehicle, TELEVISION, the middle and lower classes remain convinced that it is they who are to blame for their plight. As if the under/un-employed were the ones responsible for unemployment rates, job deportation/out-sourcing, fed interest rates, inflation and other man-made causes that range from government investment policies to corporate subsidies to war.
Naturally, those who toe the line reap rewards and the infamous "status symbols." And as for those who don't or can't and are made to believe under this ideology that THEY ARE TO BLAME?
There you see: alchohol abuse, drug abuse, depression, illiteracy/innumeracy, sleeplessness, poor health, under-nourishment, stress, strokes and heart attacks. Teen pregnancy and STD's. After all, what are the cheapest and simplest pleasures left to those who can't afford St. Moritz, Vail, the Riviera, the Hamptons, Bora-Bora, the Louvre, Monte Carlo, Royces, Cartiers, Armani's or GS's to gambol about? Orgasms, drunkenness and "temporary" but addictive lotus-eating escapes...
The ill-effects, doubtless, are the direct consequences of economic oppression and the ruthless competitiveness imposed by an un-examined capitalist ideology.
The cited studies--by my experience--are on point. Then, again, history bears those same findings out...
Good luck, my friends.

POWERSLAVE!
"Heck, life for slaves is "hard but uncomplicated". If you like being a slave, I guess this is OK, but for the rest of us"….
"Incidentally, I sleep like a baby at night"…

AFTER BU$H was told 655,000 Iraqs died Bu$h said that the study by the 2 Professors at John Hopkins University and that he "I slept like a baby at night"…

The words spoken by a PSYCHOPATH....like Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Hitler, Pol Pot, Idi Amin etc

Powerslave be careful what you say, there are some highly intelligent and qualified people posting here....

"Good luck, my friends." Good luck indeed. Thanks Socrates for very valuable analysis. It could come too soon. Thanks also to powerslave, who sparked lively debate. He played role of George Bush in miniature to highlight an essence of mindset, to which we own the pit we are in.
After collapse of the USSR, Marx "lost" his credence for all those, who thought about him as economist or, worse, as a founder of Communist States. Nothing could be further from the truth. I rediscovered Marx in 1998, when I bought Communist Manifest, reprinted to celebrate 150 years anniversary of the first print in 1848, the year of the first all-European Revolution. I recommend everybody to read, or refresh their memory of, this remarkable essay: better description of our current globalization is yet to be written.

But the real turning point were the works of Eric Fromm (To Be or To Have), from which Karl Marx had emerged as founder of Existentialism. Those who still struggle with the word 'Communism' are well advised to examine their priorities in life, to have first, and then to be; or vice versa. So the main thrust of Marx is reexamination of man's place in the grand scheme of things, nothing short of that high call. In a word, Marx buried so called 'economic' man in the dust heap of history. With his dictum that his only dogma is rejection of any dogma, Marxism will only resurface as Neo-Marxism the same way as Neo-Platonism or Neo-Kantianism did over the centuries.

Then, of course, come physical-political interpretations of Marx's critique of 'economic' man and his alienation from his own life, alienation we all experience so profoundly to-day. To reduce alienated men to industrial proletariat, whose descendant live comfortable life at least in so called post-industrial countries, and thus to write off Marxism as failed prophecy, is an act of utmost intellectual dishonesty, the art of which is so highly developed even by the best of us.

So "wealth distribution', as Socrates rightly pointed it out, is not a function of this or that political system; it is, as Marx has had it, a byproduct of every functioning society. Abundance of resources on the "new" continent with open frontiers had masked close connection between mode of production and mode of distribution in this United States for more than 300 years, which fed a legend of the American Exceptionalism. But frontiers were closed more than 100 years ago on this continent, which had cause oversee expansion of basic American system. We call it Imperialism; other may call it the flight from Malthusian law. Call it what you like, good or evil individuals have very little to do with what I would call The Second Law of Humodynamics.

My hope is, that with the wide public acceptance of Climate Change, Oil Peak, &c, we would live through the beginning of public acceptance of the world wide transition from the economics for profit to economics for subsistence. Some accommodation of anarchistic and individualistic habits of American people that flourished so wildly in the era of abundance will be in order.

But there is another, personal factor that may smooth the transition to future Communist Order: the awakening of day dreamers. Even those with 150K by their 30 and "financial independence" by their 40 are still members of proletarian class, lest they have no collective memory of those wonders, which capitalist collapse a la Great Depression can deliver to well to do. Worse, for those who bet their lives on individual delivery, collapse of the system would not be worst thing. Collapse or no collapse, the selling of their brains to the highest bidder, which is what the main business of IPO, is the only first stage of the downfall. The second stage will be the mindless accumulation of status symbols, not necessarily material. Than comes the third stage, realization of sad fact that Being was lost at the expense of Having.

Capitalism may work for people for a time. But those comfy middle-class folks had better hope that the rug doesn't get pulled out from under them.

You can do everything right.

You can go to school.

You can stay out of debt.

You can save your money.

You can get that great job.

You can invest for retirement.

You can buy that house, or at least mortgage.

But you just never know what might happen to you.

And there's the rub of capitalism.

When it's working for you, things can be a-ok.

But screw up, and you'd better watch your ass.

Capitalism is an unforgiving friend. His love is not unconditional.

Cold war paranoia and free-market fantasizing are partly what keep socialism from truly taking a hold in this country, despite the fact that most Americans embrace socialism in one form or another.

"Hey Powerslave:

You continue to display your enslavement to the plutocratic culture that indoctrinated you.

(i.e., I gain power by enslaving others)"

No, powerslave is just being duped. He's not powerful enough to enslave anyone.

Incidentally, as a fan of The Music Everyone and Their Mom Loves To Hate, methinks "powerslave" took his handle from an album and song by the great British heavy metal band Iron Maiden, a band whose lead singer is very much anti-war among other things. The song is inspired by Egyptian mythology and is a metaphor for how greed and lust for power can destroy oneself.

Ohhhh yeah big bad capitalism is the real evil in todays world. if it wasn't for capitalism, communisum would still be around doing just fine. Like for instance, grocery stores that have no food, gas stations with no gas and doctors with no medicine...Yeah Capitalism really sucks
Hey Mira, stupidity is bad for your health, you should get it checked out....

More Cold War era delusions.

Take a look at Sweden. Do their groceries have no food? Do they have no medicine?

Socialism doesn't have to be like Russia. Some people still don't get it.

I'm all for no gas though. We should all be riding bikes or walking to work if we can.

I can't understand how free universal health care and education as well as living wages mean the death of America to some people. If anything, it's capitalism and the inequality that it creates that is destroying America.

The gulf between rich and poor keeps getting larger. Is there any way to reverse that under capitalism?

If we let slip the reigns as the libertarians would have us do, will it just get even larger?

Unless you are wealthy, capitalism truly isn't in your best interests. You guys will never be rich. Robert Kiyosaki and his ilk are liars and frauds. They serve the elites by making the masses think that they'll someday eat at their table, therefore supporting capitalism. After all, they might hit the lottery someday. Or end up on American Idol or 1 Vs. 100.

Power slave does it ever occur to you that the well to do such as yourself are as much slaves to property as the destitute?

"Property not merely has duties, but has so many duties that its
possession to any large extent is a bore. It involves endless
claims upon one, endless attention to business, endless bother. If
property had simply pleasures, we could stand it; but its duties
make it unbearable. In the interest of the rich we must get rid of
it. The virtues of the poor may be readily admitted, and are much
to be regretted. We are often told that the poor are grateful for
charity. Some of them are, no doubt, but the best amongst the poor
are never grateful. They are ungrateful, discontented,
disobedient, and rebellious. They are quite right to be so.
Charity they feel to be a ridiculously inadequate mode of partial
restitution, or a sentimental dole, usually accompanied by some
impertinent attempt on the part of the sentimentalist to tyrannise
over their private lives. Why should they be grateful for the
crumbs that fall from the rich man's table? They should be seated
at the board, and are beginning to know it."

Oscar Wilde the soul of man under socialism

http://www.online-literature.com/wilde/1309/

As long as we remain mired in hierarchy, greed, and materialism, we will also be mired in cruelty, , mean spiritedness, and pettiness. And I believe in the long term the way we will throw off our chains is not through state socialism, but co-ops, farmers markets, strong unions, and anarchist syndacalism.

SOCRATES2 and observer, great points. I'd like to add something on this "blame the victim" mentality. Thoughts are things, beliefs move people to action or inaction or we would not all invest our time writing in this forum. With that being said, as a writer who's had some success mostly with magazine columns, I've pitched a number of books and the various editors and agents I've dealt with ALL see money as the bottom line. Publishing is a business they say; but the same buy-out of radio and television stations has also profoundly affected print media. And the reason I am relating this is it's quite clear to me that MUCH that sells under the heading of NEW AGE (and it IS a large niche in publishing) I have come to call "Republican spirituality." Generally these books tell the INDIVIDUAL how to progress, make life's quality primarily about INDIVIDUAL attitude, and completely disregard to the point of inane denial, the CONDITIONS of the society at large. Furthermore, like "the programmers," as in Dr. Phil, many of these books are formulatic at elementary levels, promising the "7 steps to success" and so forth. They constitute smoke and mirrors, pabulum for minds sincerely searching for answers/explanations in these times of radical uncertainty and moral inversion. While I do believe that we as individuals are responsible for making healthy, life-affirming choices, this is an impossible dream to the extent society at large undermines these incentives; and that of course does not begin to mention the twisted priorities of our nation "at war" with unelected dangerous fools at the wheel, etc. ad nauseum.

I believe the title of this article. Capitalism, unless regulated by whatever Government adopts it, inevitably creates a have/have not society. Capitalism also favors the minority from a financial standpoint in most cases to the detriment of the majority of citizens in said society. Unfortunately, not everyone can be millionares in one country. Of course, someone has to be dirt poor in a Capitalist system and better the majority than the minority to a pro-Capitalist. When you contrast this to Socialism or some other egalitarian system that shares wealth and resources of a nation with all the citizens of that country, the have/have not gap is not as wide, as it were.

Capitalism really is fine for a nation to adopt,it just needs to be controlled by the Goverment depite objections by multi-millionaires. Pro-Capitalists may object to this control saying that it is not fair that a doctor or a lawyer will not make significantly more money than a grocery clerk in a Socialist or tightly controlled Capitalist nation. Granted - but is REALLY fair that in the United States a NFL star makes more money then these same doctors lawyers and teachers most of the time?

Personally, I prefer some egalitarian political or economic system than ones that guarantee a have/have not society or ones in which a minority based on finance can exploit the majority of a given nation. The former demonstrates more compassion and is morally sound than unbridled capitalism in my humble opinion.