.It would seem that Capitalism has avoided much of a taint in the face of the excesses and greedy theft that has brought the worlds economy to the brink. I myself am convinced that what we see is the natural evolution of the capitalist system, yet my views are certainly a minority . Most, hopefully, will be willing to concede that the restoration of regulatory mandates to our government is a necessity if we hope to avoid such as this in the future.

The real damage will not be done to the wealthiest among us, it never is, but to the social programs that benefit those who need our help the most. As Capitalism is viewed as the only way of doing business, every effort will be made to ensure the survival of those most responsible for this economic collapse, and at the expense of education, welfare, infrastructure, social programs, new and clean energy technologies, etc.
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We see things, not as they are, but as we are.
Anais Nin

Capitalism will certainly eventually end up on the trash heap of civilization. It's a matter of when, not if. The longer it takes, the more painful it will be.

Mr. Ashe refers to the study of "Happiness" as a new thing, but he is mistaken. Studies regarding such things as the marginal utility of money, various measures of measuring "production," and on the real nature of "consumption" have been around since at least the 60s. See EF Schumaker. British retail economics alsu utilizes these concepts. These ideas are challenging to the standard tenants of continual-growth-is-neccessary econmics. In fact these contrarian viewpoints, if taken seriously, would lead us to believe that the basic principals of classical economics may be wrong. Obviously supply and demand and other functional concepts are valid, but the motivational concepts may not be sound. Human society has been around a lot longer than economics, in fact the field is very recent. Unfortunately, economists and economic theorists have become so full of themselves that they are blind to what went before investment banks and corporate structure of enterprises. The old three factors of production still matter. And production of goods that are useful to human beings is what it is still all about. Over the long haul, you can't outrun compound interest. It is time for a very back to basics re-think.

Let's see, the poorest 90% can become much poorer, or the richest 1% can admit they were wrong about capitalism and come down off their perch---gee, I wonder which the ruling class will choose.

My wife, children, and I have been used to living in poverty status for the past decade and we've been doing our darndest to avoid the dangers of capitalism. Half the country is already in worse than Great Depression mode.

Terrance Mitchell
Redfield, South Dakota

Capitalism has become a truly sick and broken system. There's no reason anyone should have so much when so many have nothing.

Check out http://warongreed.org/ for videos and more...

Especially "Henry Kravis and his homes"

or at youtube.com

"Henry Kravis makes $51,369 PER HOUR. You pay more taxes."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N8RsFwsODzE

He didn't make it all by himself without help from others.
He just happened to be the biggest hog at the trough.

Crapitalism is as crapitalism does.

Whatever new system is devised has to contend with 'human nature'. However, the answers are simpler than you think. True democracy and true capitalism should do the trick - at least in the interim, until we figure out some better way to organize society.

True democracy would allow us to question EVERY decision made 'on our behalf', replace suspect institutions such as the Fed with something more legit, devise a monetary system that actually works for the majority of the people, put in place a more equitable tax system, and prevent running up an out-of-control national debt 'in our name'. True democracy would, as a byproduct, actually make us more secure and at a substantially lower defense budget.

True capitalism would shift the costs of 'defending' our oil supplies on to the oil companies - so we would actually pay way more for gas - automatically triggering better alternatives, including a revival of public transportation. The so-called 'free trade' would be replaced simply by trade - to import what we don't produce or grow at home, to be paid for strictly by what we produce as a surplus.

Of course, there will still be winners and losers - but there will be fewer suckers for propaganda.

And, if true democracy and true capitalism were actually to spread worldwide, there will be less exploitation of other nations and less destruction of nature - so people everywhere would actually have to get off their behinds and do their job. Of course, there will be lots of job losses - especially jobs that produce nothing; a lot of 'experts', 'entertainers' and 'media professionals' may have to find other jobs - but that's a small 'price' to pay.

What's preventing this from happening? Simple - a lack of understanding of what democracy means, and what it can do. And a lack of understanding of how the so-called capitalism actually works today, lacking elementary knowledge of economics, money supply and such.

And this doesn't even require any idealism! Imagine the changes that can happen when enough idealism and concepts such as fairness and equity catch on as well!

Educate yourself, think for yourself, and never underestimate the power of the individual or the minority to bring about changes!

Highintel: Can we do better?

"Either a large part of humankind has to be excluded from the benefits of prosperity or our way of life has to change."

----

I vote for way of life has to change, but again, as I'm fond of saying, there's a fallacy in this assumption that ALL people must live in one global monoculture. THIS is what is getting us into trouble right now. We need to live in smaller community with more local "economies". No more crap made in China. In fact, no more crap not made in your home country at all.

Nature has a way of eliminating efficiency.

A mass extinction may be on the way.

Capitalism??? Happiness??? What can possibly equate one with the other??? Really, as a society and culture, we ought to have learned better by now. The fact that we have not says, well...... Stupid, dumb Americans??? Maybe so. There's still time.

It is interesting that Timothy chose to reference a Chinese economist that discussed how the Asian financial crisis lead to a more "market-oriented" reform of the economy. For those of you who have not had the chance, you may be interested in reading The Shock Doctrine by Naomi Klein... I have not yet finished the whole book, but it is about how neoliberal policies are often precipitated an economic crisis that creates an environment in which harsh "free market" reforms are able to be forced upon a people who would normally be resistant to such policy, and the role that the Chicago School economists have played throughout the globe in creating, supporting, and accelerating these crises in order to push through radical capitalism... we need to consider just what creates these "crises", for they may hardly be natural...

Unfortunately, discourse surrounding whether "pure" capitalism, or the role the market forces should play in our society, is often distorted by inaccurate reporting and dialogue, and our lexicon itself has led us to irrationally support processes that harm the greater number of us - for those who have not yet considered alternatives, such as the role that a truly representative government could play in ensuring that the market does not leave so many of us behind, may be only considering the information presented by the mainstream media or traditional dialogue that consistently praises capitalism. Regulations, mixed economies, some protectionist policies, government intervention... these ideas may burn some just because of the dialogue we have grown used to.

I think that many of us will be willing to accept some sort of limitations or sacrifice in order to ensure that we all have the basic necessities and a decent standard of living, but in order to get to that point, we have to be able to determine what is creating the conditions that are setting us up to fail.

The studies of happiness that Ashe refers to come out of the field of social psychology. It's a legitimate field of study, and at least within Psychology, the studies are generally well done. In itself, this research has little to do with economics, and unfortunately, it looks like some have misapplied the approach. It's silly, for example, to compare the US to Canada, without controlling for the huge differences in quality of life between the rich and the poor in the US.

I know that Socialism is quite a dirty word in the US (and in the UK to a certain extent), but some form of progressive/democratic Socialism has to be better than the present system, which has caused a World economic crisis. The fact is, that hundreds of millions of people are at the mercy of a system which relies on extortion to maintain the economy. The free market economy as we see it today, is built around greed and short term personal gain, huge rewards for those responsible for the boom bust cycle. The Soviet Union, China and North Korea are not examples of true Socialist/Communist regimes but totalitarian dictatorships, who treat the people like slaves.
Perhaps we need to simplify our lives, and become more self sufficient and less materialistic. The Worlds natural resources are running out, and our gluttony, sloth and envy are responsible for damaging the planet beyond repair. We have the technology at hand to relieve the World of famine and disease, but choose to spend those funds on war. We should be trying to educate people, to encourage less well off nations to improve themselves, instead, we bomb them and set up dictators who will do our bidding, and allow us to pillage their country's natural wealth.
Capitalism in its present form cannot survive.

I'd like to add that Timothy ends this on a note that would probably reverberate with many people - he admits that changes will need to be made in order to ensure that everyone is able to have a decent standard of living and have the basics of stability, and while they may make his life less pleasant than it currently it, he would at least like to know what they would be. This is the sort of dialogue that we need to begin to engage in - discussing what sort of extreme materialistic aspects of our society we simply don't need, and the sorts of "sacrifices" we need to make.

For example, do we really need some people driving cars that cost two or three thousand dollars, while others are driving cars that are worth more than double the first person's salary? Do CEOs really need to be making insanely more than the average worker? We don't need million dollar salaries to be happy.

It also comes back to Alcyon's points - people just aren't aware of how the financial system works, or what democracy really should be like. We don't discuss these sorts of things enough in our everyday lives to arrive at a consensus about what we really expect from our system. I admit, I should know more as well.

How annoying all the pabulum about a "free market." No such thing has ever existed and no such thing ever could exist. The powerful players in the market bend the rules to suit their interests, in part by bending the governments by influencing the minds of those running them to create or interpret rules to suit the interests of the elites. And we know from experience that over time powerful players arise and do not easily or quickly fall, but instead form alliances with other powerful players. And as they continuously form connections with each other for their mutual benefit, they attack socialism based on the fear that the common people may form alliances through creating a socialist government that may challenge the elite capitalists' power to control the economy and the society.

The capitalist system is simply a more sophisticated and less obviously abusive and oppressive system than the royalist systems that preceded it (that with universal education came to be seen as too unjust, oppressive, and abusive to continue). Still the bullies -- the aggressive, ruthless, well-connected, and avaricious -- accumulate power and manipulate and overpower others to maximize their own welfare in capitalist systems. But this class of bullies appears more palatable to the educated masses as some slim justifications may be offered, and repeated endlessly, for the class structure that results (e.g. they "earned" it). And they often top off their justifications with some claims of "democracy" that offer some illusion that the masses actually have a say, making it easier for the common people to be convinced that the system is not abusive and is indeed utilitarian.

If human society can continue to evolve, then soon, within a few decades, capitalist systems will be regarded with the same distaste as royalist systems are today. But the danger is that a number of elite capitalists may accumulate the power to stop this evolution and permanently install themselves and their progeny in secure controlling positions (even using genetic engineering in the future to separate themselves further from common humans). And I believe that danger is great.

Capitalism is dead. We are in free fall now and it is to late. We are overpopulated and will not be able to think our way out of this. All we come up with anymore are band aids. Every one has an opinion and nothing will work for very long. We waited to long. Tough.

Change our way of life? A large part of humanity is already being excluded for
our way of life. Gee just observe people. The vast majority at my supermarket
cannot even get themselves to bring their own bags. What a sacrifice that would
be...... and what politician has the guts to tell people about the changes that
need to made? Giving up privilege, in the absence of so much personal happiness,
tends to produce rage. People aren't fools. A lot of them understand that we
went to war in Iraq for oil. There is a barely suppressed complicity. I have
heard people on numerous occasions say it's our oil.

I cannot count the times I have heard decent middle class people begrude other
Americans, especially if they have foreign sounding names, social services or
medical care.....

I hope I am wrong...

"The Hugo Chávez model of socialism depends on capitalists buying his oil"

This is such a stupid thing to say that I didn't finish the article. Venezuela, like EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH, depends on trade to thrive. The ideology of neither the buyer nor the seller country matters--it only matters that trade occurs, in which case both countries benefit. This is true whether the buyer/seller dyad is capitalist/socialist, socialist/capitalist, capitalist/capitalist or socialist/socialist.

You might as well have said that the "Augusto Pinochet model of capitalism depended on capitalists buying his copper."

You also could have said that the "American model of capitalism depends on socialists selling us their oil."

Both are equally true, and equally trite, as what was said about the "Hugo Chávez model of socialism."

Without trade, countries fail, utterly regardless of how they organize their economy/society internally. That the author of an article failed to grasp this, essentially the most basic premise of international political economy, didn't exactly motivate me to read his speculations on the future of capitalism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage