Do you think Democracy and Capitalism

[qwertyMike]

are the same thing?
Freepers do.

[undergroundpanther]

1. No

Democracy and capitalism are incompatible,basically because competition leads to extortion haves and not haves and this stifles participation in power for the powerless trying to scrape by, or it fosters competition for more power among those who have it.
Capitalism if it does not break up strangleholds and monopolies that'sucesss' brings..it leads to oligarchy if competition forms"winners"and it rewards winners too much.
Democracy fails if the minority voices are stifled..Democracy can be formed into a sick kind of elitism if the claims of majority rule becomes the dominating dishonest force,of a minority masking as if it is a majority(moral majority)that is anti-democratic bullies that shut out other opinions and voices while claiming to be what they are not to a bunch of apathetic people looking to make ends meet in their daily harried lives, real democracy is basically dead...it'sd a democracy for the majority of the few oligarchies.

So for neo-cons the two concepts are the same because they are referring to the sickest forms of democracy and capitalism gone rancid.For neocons they live relatively free of poverty,threats and they do not fear being harmed by their own bully kind they are a huge old boy network..

[checks-n-balances]

2. You mean some of them, or they have some official statement about it?

Do tell.

Simply put, anyone who has had an eighth grade civics class knows (which may explain freeper confusion) that democracy is a form of government, and capitalism is an economic system. They are usually compatible together, but sometimes one is in tension with another. That probably explains the need for so many laws & regulations to make life fair, yet profitable in the U.S.

[JHBowden]

3. No.

Democracy is a system of rule by the ruled, which can either be direct or through representatives. Capitalism is a fuzzier term like "socialism" and usually refers to an economic system where the convention of private property exists, commodities are produced, a system of currency is in place, etc.

One can have democracy without capitalism, though it would get pretty ugly really fast. The majority would decide whether I listen to Brahms or some pop junk, or worse -- elected representatives could make production decisions for all. On the other hand, capitalism without democracy looks like a totalitarian state where corporate interests merge with the government -- Chile under Pinochet, Germany under Hitler, Indonesia under Suharto, et cetera.

I conclude that while democracy and capitalism are not the same thing, their conjunction is more preferable than only one in isolation.

[vote independent]

4. Democracy and Capitalism not able to work together

First of all, just to clarify, we are a Constitutional Republic.

We are NOT a democracy no matter how hard the Republicans and Democrats try to push that on us. Democracy is MOB RULE. That means if 51% of the people decide that they want to take my home away from me because they don't like my political beliefs, they can. If they want to allow corporations to desroy the environment, they can. All it takes is a slight majority to destroy everything we hold sacred.

Second, Capitalism is a sound system. Free enterprise generates wealth, which allows us to spread the money to those who need it more than others.

Throughout history, people who have turned away from Capitalism have ultimately failed. The Communist nations that currently exist are only able to because they have slowly phased in free trade/property rights and gone away from Marxist ideals.

[IrateCitizen]

8. Nonexistent either/or dichotomy alert!!!

First of all, just to clarify, we are a Constitutional Republic.

No argument here. In fact, I agree with your reservations concerning full democracy, as it would inevitably be a nightmare. However, we have effectively moved government so far away from the "common man" in this country that he/she is able to have little or no effect on its goings on. Part of having a sound democratic republic is maintaining the effect that citizens are able to have on elected leaders -- as soon as the citizenry-at-large loses much of this effect, then the system naturally moves toward oligarchy (which is largely where we find ourselves now).

Second, Capitalism is a sound system. Free enterprise generates wealth, which allows us to spread the money to those who need it more than others.

Common misconception as to the true goal of a capitalist (or any other) economy. The definition of economics, which you can find at almost any university dept. of economics homepage, is the study of how to most efficiently allocate scarce resources. Even Adam Smith rightly recognized this basic truth when he said, "The health of a society may be judged by the health of the least within it." Of course, this opens up the debate as to which method is the most efficient toward ensuring that all participating members of a society have their most basic needs met -- taking care of those basic needs FIRST, or allowing the accumulation of wealth by the lucky few, who then will spread that wealth around. Based on historical trends of the way that societies have operated, particularly vis a vis the Gilded Age and the current state of affairs, I would argue that the first course is the more prudent one to take, one which values people first and profits second. Of course, I'm also a democratic socialist, so it's probably predictable we'd disagree.

However, for an economic system to move past its initial goal of the more efficient allocation of resources and instead place its goal as the mere creation and accumulation of wealth, is to lose it true stated purpose and eventually result in its collapse.

Throughout history, people who have turned away from Capitalism have ultimately failed. The Communist nations that currently exist are only able to because they have slowly phased in free trade/property rights and gone away from Marxist ideals.

This is a false dichotomy, a strawman. Just as some communist nations have begun to gain economically because they adopted market reforms, neither has unbridled capitalism been a measured success. For instance, if you want to look at the "success" of unbridled capitalism, you need look no further than some of the most impoverished nations in Latin America.

The true path to a successful economy lies on the middle ground between capitalism and socialism. Western Europe understands this. So does Canada, and Japan as well. The reason that this is so misunderstood in the United States is because we have been conditioned over time to so violently reject anything resembling socialism, that it has blinded our judgement to accurately assessing some of its better features while refusing to adopt some of its unworkable ones.

Championing free enterprise and unbridled capitalism as the only path to success is just as dogmatic, unrealistic, misinformed and ultimately wrong as those who still insist on the idea that communism has never been "truly tried" and therefore we have no idea how it would work in a pure form (a pure form that can never truly exist).

[TexasSissy]

5. No, but they're linked.

[IrateCitizen]

9. Please expand.

I personally don't believe that democracy and capitalism are linked in the least. One is a system of governance, and the other is an economic theory.

What I KNOW, however, is that political democracy will ultimately fail if not accompanied by economic democracy -- and there are few institutions in the world that exhibit more UN-democratic tendencies than modern-day corporations. As they have solidified their control over the American economy, political democracy has suffered as a result.

[samhonk]

6. I'd add...

There's no really clear distinction made among democracy, capitalism, and Christianity for a lot of people in the USA. The three are all just sort of mooshed together as facets of "the American way of life."

[wadestock]

7. I see the point of your post.....

The irony of it all is that the Reagan-nit-wits truly believe that if capitalism is "dialed up" to a no-holds barred state, then we theoretically are operating a level of maximum efficiency.

Capitalism has a sheer statistical effect of pumping money to the top. A progressive tax system is REQUIRED to prevent capitalism from self-destructing.

I've read that the upper class will literally own the entire country and the middle class will have collectively achieved less than zero assets in about 35 years if things are kept in their present adjustment.

Oddly enough, all we have to do is "tune" our progressive tax system to somewhere between 40 to 50% on the upper echelon and we get "our cake and eat it too"...by keeping the capitalistic portion humming along but also paying for infrastructure and social programs.

The corollary to your statement is:

"Do you think socialism and communism is the same?"
Freepers do.

That's the real problem we face as the Reagan-nit-wits have ingrained in the average person's mind that "social engineering" is a bad word and that all we have to do is give any real thought to some good social engineering and we risk sliding down that slippery slope to pure socialism. And to the unsuspecting student, the definitions of communism and socialism seem too much alike and so much far removed from what they think capitalism should be that they tend to appear one and the same.....

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

10. Nope. In fact, they are antithetical.

The simple fact is that those who have the money exert more influence in a "democratic" society. Example: You donate $10 to your candidate and some corporation donates $100,000. Guess who gets listened to?

The same is true for justice. Example: You make $20k a year and are tagged for speeding. Your fine is $100. Another guy making $200k a year is tagged for speeding, his fine is $100. Who get's hurt the more? Equal justice? I think not.