Capitalism - Good or bad ?

[Mairead]

59. Imagine, if you will, what the knock-on effects would be of four relatively minor changes

"Minor" in the sense that they wouldn't involve heavy machinery or a breakthrough in physics.

1) Shift to political democracy: everyone is their own legislator, if they want to be. Or, if it takes all their time just to live, they could delegate someone to vote on their behalf.

2) Devolve all decisions that don't impact civil equality to their effective level. E.g., decisions about school curricula would be made at the community level, not in DC.

3) Shift to economic democracy: disallow all forms of business except individual/immediate-family proprietorship, and cooperative corporation.

4) Make land-use, food, shelter, healthcare, and education public utilities available to all, like roads, rather than luxuries as they are today.

All those could be accomplished by lawmaking, but the effects would be immense.

Wars would stop because, as Smedley Butler pointed out, there'd be no money in them.

Government corruption would stop, because we'd all be the government and, as Jefferson humorously observed, we'd each have to bribe ourselves.

Vast fortunes like those of the Kochs' would go away, because they'd no longer be able to skim value from other people's work.

Education would probably improve, because there'd be no reason to keep training kids to be obedient work-units.

All the jobs dedicated to making the few richer would go away, freeing up an immense amount of time for more enjoyable work.

The cultural standards would go through the roof because of all the extra time available. People rarely notice it, but the wealthy elites almost never contribute to cultural richness. It's working people who play fiddle for dancing, repair the loved-to-pieces library books, paint the pictures, act in the plays and films, and sew the beautiful clothing. One of the things the anthros found is that most people in those original-flavor societies spend most of their time in cultural activities --music, dancing, conversation, and artistic craftwork. Time that we are forced to spend keeping the wealthy elites in idle luxury.