the end of capitalism

the capitalist system brought to society great advances, in past times. but many factors have changed, and, contrary to popular belief, its not anymore the optimal system of social organisation.

in the stellar days of capitalism, many factors made it a successful option of social organization. some point of interest are:

- scarcity of technically skilled people: capitalism offered attractive rewards that motivated big efforts to increase people skills. uneducated people somehow recognized that rewarding the skilled individual was motor to society economy growth.
- regional fragmentation: limitation in transport and communication, created lot of opportunities. there was an abundance of opportunities to reward skilled individuals who successfully exploited them. this fragmentation fostered competition, and in many cases prevented excessive concentration of power.
- capitalism tend to reasonably self regulate. so it operates decently well in conditions of scarce information.

with the step of time, condition changed, and capitalism ceased to benefit society. some factor in play to this are:

- power concentration: trough competition, gradually the dominant absorbs the weakest, until end with a few mafias dominating everything.
- abundance of technically skilled individuals: in most areas, there is not anymore a need for elites. many ones can “do it” well. example: the Microsoft mafia dominates and profit from IT industries. others truly capable individuals, often better skilled, are forced to give their product for free (open source) to have any hope of competing with the dominant mafia.
-- globalization: advances in communication and better transportation, have destroyed the regionalism. so mafias are growing to global scale, increasing the power concentration.
- mass media: mafias control mass media, and shamelessly use it to convince people that capitalism is great, while in reality this is false. the analysis of this point is too long for this text goal. some points: promotion of individualism, ridiculisation and scoff at alternate views of society, promotion of approbation of the excessive rich individual’s obscene waste of society resources, denigration and ridiculisation of common people, predication that wars are great or necessary, convincing people that social evolution has ended, massive lies, example: white house mafias destroying world trade center, and accusing muslim, to create a situation of heir own benefit. this plan was possible, through control of mass media.
- proliferation of information technology: with the proliferation of information technologies, the door is open to create better more efficient system of social organization than capitalism. despite mafias try to hidden this fact.
- incentive to government corruption: the capitalist system is the great motivator of government functionaries corruption. how is supposed that a government functionaries will work toward social progress, when mafia will bribe them, and society promotes richness as the highest individual goal. is hopeless to think they will resist for his honor, or something similar. this prevention should be inherent of the established social organization system.

mafias that control the world, using all the ways they can, try to prevent the research of alternative social systems. society should be allocating resources to do this research. joust to offer a suggestion of some of the many possibilities that could be investigated, I would point this:

- establishing limits to the amount of resources a person may consume: excessive individual consumerism wastes society resources, promotes corruption and individual degradation. all this will be solved by setting a limit. capitalism has show that is great that society rewards people that benefit society, but it is excessive and unnecessary to transform them into aristocrats and imperators.
- reinforcing the power of the state: private enterprise is great, but state enterprises don’t have to produce profit, so are inherently more efficient. because of this they are attacked by mafias by means of sabotage, negative propaganda, bribing managers, etc. also, states have the goal of benefit society, witch is a better goal to society, than looking for individual profit.
- actual antimonopoly laws are useless. concentration of industrial sector should be enforced in a larger scale. giant industrial sector ruled by a few entities, should be broken into hundreds or thousands of entities.

there are many more. these are joust some suggestion, that need research, to start the design of alternatives systems.

While I find your ideas interesting, I can't agree with your conclussions. We use capitalism because it works, and has to date performed better than any other system. If capitalism is no longer the optimal system, as your thesis suggests, you need to demonstrate that there exists a more effective system. I understand that this would be a bit much to do here, but perhaps there's a website you could link to that covers an alternative to capitalism. Despite what you may think about "mafias" trying to prevent research of alternative social systems, there are many experts who are constantly studying economic systems and proposing alternative approaches. It's one of the strengths of our society that people can challenge existing ideas.

Of course, even if there were a strong alternative to capitalism, America (where I and Manifesto Games reside) would not be interested. We're capitalist to the bone, its worked really well for us and coincides with many of our cultural values. (Consumer limits run directly counter to individual freedom, and would be unconstitutional if nothing else) So until the day comes that we're living in squalor, we just won't be changing the fundemental concepts behind our nation. Of course you may be located elsewhere, in which case I'm courious how things are done there.

You do raise valid concerns about power concentration, globalization, and mass media, but power concentration isn't new, neither is globalization or political corruption. I view these as emerging issues that we'll have to deal with, much as the urbanization of the industrial revolution brought a great deal of social change. On their own they certainly don't convince me of the fall of capitalism. Nor do your alternatives of individual spending limits and government run economy appeal. (Isn't government corruption one of your listed problems?)

As a side note, you really should consider your terminology more carefully. While rebellious non-intellectualls may respond to the word "mafias", it really doesn't suit the context or further your argument. If capitalism is overthrown, based upon research into a superior form of economy, I'd like to think that the leaders of the revolution will have proper capitalization. In short: you've got a tough position to argue, considering the preponderance of evidence against it, I recommend a bit more polish in the delivery. Even if you don't convince anyone to rise up in arms, at least you'll look good. :)

P.S. I'm pleased and entertained that this sort of thread can be found here at Manifesto Games. It seems like a good thing, but maybe I'm crazy. :P

Tear down those corporate walls my friend. Smash those chains of capitalism. You should start a pirate site that offers nothing but torrents of manifesto games and really stick it to the man!

I dislike capitalism and be far from supporting it, but I indulge in no delusions such as its wishful demise.
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Black Sky
We'll breach the 2D game engine conventions yet!

I love capitalism in the way Objectivists and Libertarians do, and also love this site and its purpose and mission. I think this site will succeed because of capitalism, not in spite of it.

Radical Poesis Games & Creations

I feel about capitalism the way that Churchill felt about democracy... It's the worst of all possible systems, except for all the others.

Nice summary, Greg.