Forum Post: Adam Smith Is Not God. Capitalism Isn't A Religion To Be Worshipped.
Posted 12 years ago on Nov. 12, 2011, 1:09 p.m. EST by JohnsonJaimes
(260)
from Sanibel, FL
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
Let's Try "Darwinian Economics", AKA; Evolutionary Economics. I am not an economist, but as far as I can tell from what I've read about it, it is very similar to Capitalism with survival of the fittest being the main theme. It advocates letting businesses that can't compete to die. Fine with me. The big difference between the two is the fact that the successful winners better society as a whole, not just a small percentile. Any entities that were not beneficial to the society as a whole will eventually wither and die.
Anyone willing to take this bait?
I think Sweden has a functional mix of socialism and capitalism. It has few problems with bubbles, a well invested social benefits net and a working democracy.
Yes, that is the model of all of the Netherlands. I believe this is why they rank all in the top ten on the happiness scale, with very strong, albeit much smaller economies. Oddly though I think I heard that they also are near the top for suicide and alcoholism. Any theories on that?
No, but people should understand economics. It is not rocket science. See my article on banking theory, it is clear and simple and can be downloaded at the SSRN for free: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1908310
Hi Niccolo, I read and enjoyed all 8 pages, and it left me wanting to know more. I especially like how you explain the evolution of banking from the practice of saving or hoarding grain for future seasons tin the Neolithic Age, o the complex mess we have today, all in 8 pages. Questions: Is John Law's claim that all money belongs to the king or state the primary reason that the few Monarchial governments left still retain and gather royalty payments for things like mining, agriculture, etc.? I assume this may be why England refused to join the euro-zone. Lastly, are countries that were once controlled and dominated by England still considered dominions of Queen Elizabeth, and are they still paying royalties to the monarchy?
Dear Johnson: I am not informed on Monarchial history or the relation to property. i do think, though that in theory Cromwell's Parliament severed the right of kings of England to the ownership of all the realm. I do not think that the Restoration reversed that act.
I thought so. On a previous post I made, someone claimed that Canada still made payments to the crown of England. They sent links to arcane government verbiage and Wikipedia pages that didn't spell it out, but with references of payments to the "crown". I contended that Canada has her own monarch who also happens to be named Elizabeth, and royalties paid are to her, not the old lady in England. They also claimed this was the fact with Australia. Now, having known a few Canucks and Aussies, I didn't think that they would be still putting up with that.
does this have anything to do with this topic in particular?
If you want to guarantee a corporation benefits society as a whole, make sure the whole society owns the corporation. Then we all get paid when it succeeds, and we all have a hand in the corporation's decisions. Have you ever banked at a credit union? It's a totally different experience, because when you become a customer, you become an owner. It's a way out that doesn't require us to re-engineer our entire system, too.
I agree. There are some employee owned companies out there that are very successful. Enterprise is one that comes to mind. They are successful because all employees are more than just "stakeholders", they are shareholders with a vested interest in the companies increasing it's value. It' called incentive.
If I'm not mistaken though, if society as a whole owned most or all of the major business, that would be Socialism, or perhaps even Communism. I don't want to go there, I hate being told what I can or can't do.
As far as banks go, I used to be with Washing Mutual (it was a "savings & loan"). For ten years I was never charged a single fee on my "free" checking and savings accounts. Now they are Chase, and I'm being nickled & dimed to death with new fees.
It's only communism/socialism if it's institutional. What I'm talking about is modding capitalism slightly to give it the benefits that a successul socialism (something I'm not sure the world has ever seen) would bring about, without giving up the enormous benefits of a capitalism when it functions properly. We incrementally engineer our technologies to work for us. Nobody complains about that. Why not apply the same methods to our economy?
I'm behind you 100%. We as a nation have figured out most of the advances that have benefitted modern society first, I hope we figure out what you propose first as well.
Take your money and run.
Oh I plan on it for sure. I'll be banking with one of my local credit union soon
Excellent!
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good link, thanks.