Putting Profits over People is Mad...

[AZ Progressive]

And yet that's what the Democratic Establishment has subscribed to. NAFTA, TPP, supporting Wall Street....

And of course this, from Hillary...

“It's time for the United States to start thinking of Iraq as a business opportunity," she said in a 2011 speech.

- http://www.ibtimes.com/campaign-2016-hillary-clinton-pitched-iraq-business-opportunity-us-corporations-2121999



And Jerry Brown has done this in California as well, putting profits over people with support of fracking there.

[socialist_n_TN]

1. It might be mad, but it's the system we exist under.........

It's called capitalism.

[AZ Progressive]

2. Capitalism is (or should be) about entrepreneurs coming up with innovative new ideas making companies

with them that employ workers and make life and this world a better place, not about predatory big corporations making money with lots of people being sacrificed just to keep that big corporation going...

[socialist_n_TN]

13. The "entrepreneurs" of capitalism were always only one sliver of the system.........

Those are a major part only when there's room for expansion. When opportunities for expansion have been fulfilled, the other aspects take over. All of the other parts of capitalism are about "private" property (read: the means of production) staying in the hands of a small percentage of the population who get and pass on to their offspring the vast rewards of the value that the working class has created. Corporations are the logical result of the system. It's built for funneling wealth upwards by means of the profit motive and inheritance of the means of production.

Even Marx thought that capitalism was a progressive way to organize society compared to feudalism. But just like feudalism, ANY system outlives it usefulness and become regressive after a time.

And capitalism has ALWAYS been about making profit. Any benefits that result for society like those companies that employ people are merely a byproduct of that primary motive. It's NEVER about society, it's ONLY about profit.

[Exilednight]

5. We don't live in a capitalist society. Capitalism has an even playing field, but we live in a

Society where corporations tilt the laws to their favor.

[AZ Progressive]

6. Money is uncontrolled, and a few people can not only accumulate so much of it...

but use it to buy up politicians and tweak the system to their benefit, at the expense of the rest of us.

[Exilednight]

7. Exactly, and that's not capitalism.

[socialist_n_TN]

14. Wealth has ALWAYS, in ALL societies, had an outsize influence.......

on society at large. It's no different with capitalism. Why do you say that capitalism has an even playing field? Haven't capitalists always bought each other out in order to increase market share and profit levels? The big fish eats the small fish for a reason and it isn't for the good of society, it's to increase their wealth, power and influence.

[Exilednight]

17. capitalism, in its textbook form, can only work in a vacuum.

Capitalism doesn't allow for patenting to prevent competitors from making the same item at a lower cost. It doesn't allow companies to sue cities to prevent competition in the marketplace.

There's a lot of things capitalism doesn't allow, bit our government does. In true form capitalism we wouldn't subsidize oil companies, but we do.

[alc]

8. It can change under capitalism

Look at the net worth of everyone who says this (think Michael Moore and all the Bernie donors and unions, ... Bernie's money is tiny)

I've worked in big compakes, startups, wih VCs, and owned LLCs. There is enough money out there by "supporters" if they give 10% of their wealth profit-free for 10 years to a fund
* 30% to start profit-free franchises (McDonalds)
* 30% to buy failing businesses to rehabilitate profit-free instead of sell of parts
* 30% for VC that pays the founders well then becomes profit-free
* 10% for admin and lawyers so they aren't shut down by anti-competition laws

"Profit" is split between feedback to the fund and employees. It won't change anything tomorrow. But it can grow like any other rich capitalist's businesses and in a few decades can be a huge non-profit/pro-employee economy. Better chance of success (guaranteed with enough starter money) than depending on elections or changing the caitaist system, since it is capitalism. Depends on people to use their own money instead of talk.

[socialist_n_TN]

16. That ain't happening.......

Not under capitalism. As an example: "You first"

[msongs]

3. then tell your candidate to quit spending so many billions on propping up the killing machine nt

[AZ Progressive]

4. In other words, you approve of the current policy...

[AZ Progressive]

10. The relative silence from Hillary supporters shows that they are complicit

It must also be crickets when it comes to American imperialism and using slave labor from other countries.

[eastwestdem]

11. I said the exact same thing when I saw Sanders begging for money again on the news!

Can you believe he is still trying to sell his "long shot" candidacy as dependent on contributions from his mostly student supporters? The same people he has already milked for his year of adventures (including a trip to Rome), and from what I can see, not the people who can really afford to be funding a losing candidate.

[AZ Progressive]

12. And how is Sanders profiting from this?

Nice deflection attempt btw

[ucrdem]

15. Lower prices at the gas pump progressively benefit lower income earners.

So there's that.