Technology has changed capitalism.

[kentuck]

That is why the tax structure needs to be re-invented.

Productivity increased exponentially with the new technology. So did profits. Less workers were needed because computers and robots replaced workers.

But prices did not go down and the wealth did not go to the workers. It went to those at the very top. It has been reported that some wealthy capitalists can now make as much money in a minute as their average worker will make in a year. That is obscene.

Capitalism is not meant to create wealth for just a few people. If that is its purpose, it has failed. It is meant to create a better and more equitable society.

The wealth created by the new technology has never been addressed. If it cannot be shared with those that create it, the workers, then it should be taxed for the needs of our society, including infrastructure.

[multigraincracker]

1. Paradigm shift.

At first the idea is rejected out of hand, then it starts to make sense. It catches on and pretty soon accepted.

[kentuck]

2. Indeed!

It's a new and different world.

[RKP5637]

3. Yes!!! K&R!!! n/t

[FalloutShelter]

4. Aside from the undeniable fact that workers have been

systematically denied compensation for value added to their employers enterprise, the growing problem going forward is that we are on the verge of having to deal with the prospect of a jobless society. This is why progressive nations are experimenting with a guaranteed income.

I have no idea how capitalism deals with this eventuality, as robotics and technology wipes out jobs in key sectors of the economy- especially in the service and retail industry.

[RKP5637]

5. The GOP will never likely comprehend any of this ... n/t

[FalloutShelter]

7. One more reason that they are staggering like dry drunks towards irrelevance.

The CEO's of corporations are certainly aware. I think this is partially why they will begin to move away from the GOP.
Big business will need an honest partner in government to deal with this paradigm shift.

The GOP are bad for business.

[RKP5637]

10. GOP, Bad for Business, and Bad for the Nation! n/t

[FalloutShelter]

11. Dems really need to hammer away at this slogan.

I see this on hats and tee shirts!

[RKP5637]

13. It would be a good one! n/t

[kentuck]

6. That is one viable solution.

The guaranteed income.

It is either that or there will need to be large jobs programs (socialism) to keep people working and to keep our society productive, in my opinion.

[FalloutShelter]

8. So right, Kentuck.

[kentuck]

9. Congress needs to live in the real world...

...and address these problems before they turn into a crisis, in my opinion.

[RKP5637]

12. Absolutely!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The economic engine that fueled capitalism is going away, as no

money will be pumped into buying power ... that fueled the old capitalistic model.

[Yavin4]

14. "Capitalism is not meant to create wealth for just a few people." Ummm...correction

Capitalism is about creating wealth for those that hold capital.

[Wounded Bear]

15. Have to agree with Yavin4 here...

Technology has basically put the bad aspects of capitalism on steroids. Supply side economics did more of the same.

Getting close to pitchforks and torches time.

[Yavin4]

16. A lot of people have major misconceptions about capitalism

Things like capitalism creates a middle class. Wrong. Govt intervention in the labor law is what created the middle class. Capitalists do not care if some poor schmoe owns a home or not.

Or that capitalism means factory jobs in small midwestern towns. Wrong. That factory job moved to Mexico because the owners of that factory get a higher return on their stocks.

Capitalism only cares about maximizing returns on capital invested. If that means that H1B visas workers are imported from India to work in the U.S., then so be it.

Americans have to learn to see themselves as laborers and protect themselves as such.

[kentuck]

17. Also, capitalism is an economic system...

...not a political system. It has nothing to do with democracy, although it has adopted itself to the system of democracy in America, it can do very well in China under a communist political system.

[Yavin4]

20. Precisely.

Anti-Communist propaganda from the 1950s conflated capitalism and democracy as if they are one in the same. Capitalism is simply an economic system where the means of production are held in private interests for their benefit.

Not national benefits. Not societal benefits. Not environmental benefits. Private financial benefits. If you want these things, you have to use your democracy to force the capitalists to give them to you.

[kentuck]

21. The People permit the capitalists to run their democracy.

Rather than the other way around.

[PETRUS]

18. Thank you.

For anyone following along who is interested in better informing themselves about the logic and history of capitalism, here are a few reading suggestions:

The Great Transformation, by Karl Polanyi
Empire of Cotton, by Sven Beckert
The Origin of Capitalism, by Ellen Meiksins Wood
A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, by Rajeev Charles Patel and Jason W Moore


Enjoy...

[Klaralven]

19. One of the innovations of capitalism was the wage labor system.

The urban capitalist can hire labor when needed, and when labor is not needed, he has no further interest or responsibility for the laborer. This resulted in a great increase in economic flexibility and efficiency.

This contrasts with rural capitalist economies based on agricultural, rather than factory production. These most often used slave or serf labor.

In the case of slaves, the owner of the plantation also had lots of capital tied up in slaves, and if they were not needed either had to be supported or sold.

Serfdom was an even less flexible system. The serfs were tied to the land, so a Lord owning a manor got the serfs along with the land. The serfs were obligated to work the lands of the Lord and to support themselves by subsistence farming on plots. In over populated Europe, serfs had no market value, in comparison to the New World, where laborers were scarce and had market value.