From: chuckb-AT-pseud.pseud
Date: Mon, 29 Nov 2004 23:08:06 -0700
Subject: RE: M-INTRO: Capitalism sucks, so what now?


I think that their would exist flaws in any economy, because the greed factor of
man takes over and whenever their is an oppurtunity to make a quick buck anyone
will do it.

There could be an impending crisis with the US dollar, change could be better.
Something has to change the US too many people are starving in our own country
and maybe a couple years of crisis would help us re-evaluate the condition of
our country. What I would like to know is what would happen in this crisis?
Does anyone have expert opinion on possible social and economic situations?

Quoting toomuch-AT-pseud.pseud:

> Sure we can see that capitalism does seem to have some serious flaws.
> Unfortunately, I see three problems with moving from capitalism.  The first
> is that the majority of people under capitalism do not see the flaws.  This
> is especially true in America because we are the "Land of Opportunity".  I
> would say that a very large majority of the middle-class in America feel
> that life in the upper-class is attainable.  This idea is propogated by the
> media and other sources (late night infomercials showing real estate
> investing, stock trading, etc).  It would be practically impossible to get
> the middle-class to give up the quest for riches.   The second problem is
> that most people don't see the flaws of capitalism.  I am a perfect example.
> Before this class I was completely in the dark.  Educating the masses is a
> monumental task.  Finally, the biggest issue seems to be what type of
> socio-economic system to move to and how to do it.  Marx suggests that
> eventually the centralization of capital will cause the prolitariat to rize
> up and put the ownership of the means of production back into the hands of
> society.  It certainly does seem that the ownership of the means of
> production is getting much more centralliy located with multi-national
> corporations and huge conglomerates.  However, the fact that the
> middle-class feels like they can rise to the upper-class stops any sort of
> uprising because they would be going against what they believe they can
> attain.  The size of the middle-class is shrinking.  As the capitalists get
> richer, the poor get poorer.  The size of the prolitariat grows.  This may
> end up creating some sort of uprizing.  
> 
> There are also many other factors in place that could begin this process.
> It's going to be increasingly important to keep an eye on the value of the
> dollar.  It is not unthinkable that the U.S. could experience
> hyper-inflation, effectively making the dollar worthless.  Nothing sparks
> change more than economic crisis.  
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU
> [mailto:owner-marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.Virginia.EDU] On Behalf Of
> Rugdoctor-AT-pseud.pseud
> Sent: Sunday, November 28, 2004 6:45 PM
> To: Marxism-intro-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu
> Subject: M-INTRO: Capitalism sucks, so what now?
> 
> After reading Marx's Capital, I can now see how inefficient and undesirable
> the capitalist system can be.  But what do we do now?  For example,
> socialism in the Soviet Union failed.  What went wrong, and what needs to be
> done to make socialism work? Or do people think another system altogether is
> better?
> 
> 
> 
> 
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