What would make YOU consider voting Conservative?

[Conrod]

So what happened to get civilisation to the point of capitalism? Did the wheel fail because nobody was willing to invest in it? No.

 

Society doesn't need capitalism, it is just one theory. I'm neither anti-capitalist nor pro-capitalist, but to argue that without it everything would fail does no good at all.

It probably comes back to 'what is capitalism'.

Without it, I don't think there would have been anything like the development we have had over the last few hundred years, if not thousands.

The incentive to make profit goes back much further than modern corporations - would we have had so much trade along the Silk Road? Would Romans have bothered with the UK and taught us so much without a few resources to make a profit from? Would pioneers have ventured across the US to stake their claims? What about organisations like the British East India Company?

Bring it forward - without organisations like IBM and Microsoft, we wouldn't be having this debate.

 

I think capitalism has pretty much formed the world we live in, throughout human history.

[Chris_Sleeps]

Without it, I don't think there would have been anything like the development we have had over the last few hundred years, if not thousands.

The problem we have here is that we have capitalism and industrialism inextricably tied together. The steam engine still does the same job whether it is working for the state, the Lord of the manor or the industrialist. Soviet Russia took massive leaps forward because Tsarist Russia failed to industrialise properly, which can't be attributed to the power of capital.

 

Re; the incentive to make profit - that isn't capitalism. That is trade, or merchantism. That happened under feudalism, and it happened under monarchy. It happened under the power of the Church in Europe and the Islamic empires.

 

The birth of modern capitalism came with the East India Companies, and to be specific the dutch model. It was the first time that one could invest not just in a voyage, but in the company itself. It was the birth of "shares", and thus then the shares had a value in themselves, and what the company was dealing in had a market and a futures market. This was quite located aswell, and was specific to protestant nations. Flanders and Holland, Northern Germany and the the UK. The Catholic Church crippled it in most of Europe, and Britain had to have a civil war for the power of the merchant class to grow. France was still behind until post-Napoleon, and Russia never got into it for Tsarism was equally as anti-capitalist as the Soviets. America benefited from the puritan flight and the birth of a new nation to become extremely capitalist, and then immigration only fuelled it.

[Magilla]

I think capitalism has pretty much formed the world we live in, throughout human history.

 

It has (or at least the concept of making lots of profit has), there's simply do doubt about it.

[Conrod]

The problem we have here is that we have capitalism and industrialism inextricably tied together. The steam engine still does the same job whether it is working for the state, the Lord of the manor or the industrialist. Soviet Russia took massive leaps forward because Tsarist Russia failed to industrialise properly, which can't be attributed to the power of capital.

 

Re; the incentive to make profit - that isn't capitalism. That is trade, or merchantism. That happened under feudalism, and it happened under monarchy. It happened under the power of the Church in Europe and the Islamic empires.

 

The birth of modern capitalism came with the East India Companies, and to be specific the dutch model. It was the first time that one could invest not just in a voyage, but in the company itself. It was the birth of "shares", and thus then the shares had a value in themselves, and what the company was dealing in had a market and a futures market. This was quite located aswell, and was specific to protestant nations. Flanders and Holland, Northern Germany and the the UK. The Catholic Church crippled it in most of Europe, and Britain had to have a civil war for the power of the merchant class to grow. France was still behind until post-Napoleon, and Russia never got into it for Tsarism was equally as anti-capitalist as the Soviets. America benefited from the puritan flight and the birth of a new nation to become extremely capitalist, and then immigration only fuelled it.

Ok, back to 'what is capitalism'. So, it's merchantism with public shares, or whatever - it all makes little difference. What does make a difference is that it's trade on a large scale privately owned - that's what generates incentive, and it's incentive that generates development and pioneering individuals.

[Chris_Sleeps]

What does make a difference is that it's trade on a large scale privately owned - that's what generates incentive, and it's incentive that generates development and pioneering individuals.

There is always incentive though. We don't need capitalism, which was my point earlier. Capitalism is a theory, so if it is working or failing is irelevant - we can change it to work better if it is broken, or we can try new ideas. There was incentive for human beings to enter the bronze age, because metal tools were better. Not everywhere had the metal though, and trade developed. That didn't make their society capitalist.

 

There is a difference between wealth and capital, a vast difference. The "socialism/communism" vs "capitalism" debate is a dichotomy that has died. It should be a choice of 'what works' vs 'what is failing', and a world where the bank is forclosing on hard working farmers (USA's dustbowl era) or putting hard working people into poverty isn't working.