"The Waning of the Modern Ages"

[JackLuis]

Well folks the end is near, or so some say.

Time to Abolish the American Dream

Interestingly he cites Climate Change as the "End of Capitalism."

“The corporate quest for scarce resources will become more rapacious, more violent. Arable land in Africa will continue to be grabbed to provide food and fuel to wealthier nations. Drought and famine will continue to be used as a pretext to push genetically modified seeds, driving farmers further into debt. We will attempt to transcend peak oil and gas by using increasingly risky technologies to extract the last drops, turning ever larger swaths of our globe into sacrifice zones. We will fortress our borders and intervene in foreign conflicts over resources, or start those conflicts ourselves. ‘Free-market climate solutions,’ as they are called, will be a magnet for speculation, fraud and crony capitalism, as we are already seeing with carbon trading and the use of forests as carbon offsets. And as climate change begins to affect not just the poor but the wealthy as well, we will increasingly look for techno-fixes to turn down the temperature, with massive and unknowable risks….As the world warms, the reigning ideology that tells us it’s everyone for themselves, that victims deserve their fate, and that we can master nature, will take us to a very cold place indeed.”

It is a long article but provocative.

 

[fair_warning]

Good article.
Capitalism is unsustainable. Eventually, we will have to transition to a post-growth society.

 

[renard_ruse]

Sure, catastrophe is coming but that doesn't mean that just "capitalism" will go, it means liberalism will go.

By that, I mean all post-enlightenment thought, both classic liberalism (including "capitalism") as well as the modern social democrat culturally degenerate version.

There will be a reaction against bourgois [ie liberal] cultural [ab]norms including the Gay Agenda and feminism. That non-sense will be the first things to be swept away when it becomes a fight for survival of the fittest.

Liberalism will eventually be swept away just like all ideologies, and with it all bourgois lifestyles, including lesbianism.

 

[eyer]

As capitalism is the natural order of true economy, capitalism will effortlessly thrive in the chaos of any end times...

...as chaos is the natural order of the universe.

 

[Bert Notorius]

it's just a blip.

fucking fear mongerers.

 

[fair_warning]

Sure, catastrophe is coming but that doesn't mean that just "capitalism" will go, it means liberalism will go.

By that, I mean all post-enlightenment thought, both classic liberalism (including "capitalism") as well as the modern social democrat culturally degenerate version.

There will be a reaction against bourgois [ie liberal] cultural [ab]norms including the Gay Agenda and feminism. That non-sense will be the first things to be swept away when it becomes a fight for survival of the fittest.

Liberalism will eventually be swept away just like all ideologies, and with it all bourgois lifestyles, including lesbianism.

Hahaha, I like your last statement, it is curiously weirdo...so, what about non-bourgois lesbianism, or, homosexuality (bourgois or non-bourgois) for that matter?

As capitalism is the natural order of true economy, capitalism will effortlessly thrive in the chaos of any end times...

...as chaos is the natural order of the universe.

Pffft! where did you get this nonsense from? Capitalism may be the true religion of most economies, but it sure as shit won't survive.

 

[eyer]

Pffft! where did you get this nonsense from? Capitalism may be the true religion of most economies, but it sure as shit won't survive.

Capitalism is simply you being a producer of something, I - a consumer - need. Your charge me whatever price for your product I agree to pay...

...deal done, win-win.

I, on the other hand, am a producer of something that another consumer needs...

...we repeat the same win-win transaction.

That's it...

...that's all capitalism is.

Anything else you deem to add to it is much more indicative of your own warped, socialist politics than its natural state.

Again: in apocalyptic times, individuals conducting business with each other for producer and consumer profit - capitalism - will be naturally the norm in the natural chaos of such times.

Freeloaders like yourself will be even more miserable...

 

[fuckwaffle]

Capitalism is simply you being a producer of something, I - a consumer - need. Your charge me whatever price for your product I agree to pay...

...deal done, win-win.

I, on the other hand, am a producer of something that another consumer needs...

...we repeat the same win-win transaction.

That's it...

...that's all capitalism is.

Anything else you deem to add to it is much more indicative of your own warped, socialist politics than its natural state.

Again: in apocalyptic times, individuals conducting business with each other for producer and consumer profit - capitalism - will be naturally the norm in the natural chaos of such times.

Freeloaders like yourself will be even more miserable...

Then there are those who will take by force...they are called thieves or as we know them today...government.

 

[JackLuis]

Please be civil, it is only good manners.

I was interested in the aspect that the "Capitalists" are bound to cause the extinction of mankind, and lots of other species, when the earth revolts to the pollution of the natural carbon cycle. They can not help themselves but to sacrifice mankind's future for next quarters profits.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Good article.
Capitalism is unsustainable. Eventually, we will have to transition to a post-growth society.

Nonsense. You have no idea what capitalism is or how it works.

Growth is limited by three conditions: Insufficient resources, insufficient innovation, and excessive regulation. Lack of imagination and government harassment are the principal malefactors.

A while back I hatched an idea for a planned community that seriously reduces the need for energy and conventional transportation. Then last nite I discovered that my idea is from the 1930s and originated by Albert Speer, Hitlers Minister of Armaments. Speer built a complex such as I imagined. A midrise building that incorporates homes, commerce, public works, recreation, agriculture, and manufacturing under one roof. If you wanted to play golf you took an elevator to the roof, if you needed to mail a package you took the elevator to another floor.

 

[richard_daily]

Capitalism is simply you being a producer of something, I - a consumer - need. Your charge me whatever price for your product I agree to pay...

...deal done, win-win.

I, on the other hand, am a producer of something that another consumer needs...

...we repeat the same win-win transaction.

That's it...

...that's all capitalism is.

Anything else you deem to add to it is much more indicative of your own warped, socialist politics than its natural state.

Again: in apocalyptic times, individuals conducting business with each other for producer and consumer profit - capitalism - will be naturally the norm in the natural chaos of such times.

Freeloaders like yourself will be even more miserable...

No, capitalism is "I hire someone else to produce something, and pay them less than they earn from doing it, and keep the profit".

Capitalism is the definition of freeloading.

 

[rosco rathbone]

Capitalism isn't going anywhere, but automation and AI are the biggest threats to capitalism-as-we-currently-live-it.

In his eBook "Lights in the Tunnel" Martin Ford predicts a future where the current situation of companies firing their own employees and selling their products to the still-employed employees of other companies who haven't yet caught up in the automation cycle has come to its logical endpoint.

He proposes a sort of guaranteed income so that technologically redundant citizens will be able to sustain the teaconomy.

I think we may be moving in this direction, in a half assed fashion. Maybe these extended unemployment benefits will morph into something like what Ford is talking about.

 

[LiFeNdEaTh]

interesting

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Capitalism isn't going anywhere, but automation and AI are the biggest threats to capitalism-as-we-currently-live-it.

In his eBook "Lights in the Tunnel" Martin Ford predicts a future where the current situation of companies firing their own employees and selling their products to the still-employed employees of other companies who haven't yet caught up in the automation cycle has come to its logical endpoint.

He proposes a sort of guaranteed income so that technologically redundant citizens will be able to sustain the teaconomy.

I think we may be moving in this direction, in a half assed fashion. Maybe these extended unemployment benefits will morph into something like what Ford is talking about.

Uh, no. Workers displaced by robots with brains will do some other work, thats how it always is. The ink was hardly dry on the Emancipation Proclamation before machines replaced niggaz in the cotton fields. The nigga found other work to do.

Imagination always stays ahead of progress, like the rabbit at the dog track.

 

[TonyClifton]

Well folks the end is near, or so some say.

I agree with you.

 

[fair_warning]

Nonsense. You have no idea what capitalism is or how it works.

Growth is limited by three conditions: Insufficient resources, insufficient innovation, and excessive regulation. Lack of imagination and government harassment are the principal malefactors.

Capitalism is a economic/political model based on free markets and the protection of property rights. It is a consumer of resources, both ecological and social. As capitalist structures consume resources, they in turn require their outputs to be consumed.

When you say in your post 'insufficent resources" I take it you are referring to both the consumable resources that capitalism needs for growth and the market that consumes the output?

Currently, both of these resources are under threat. Capitalism is a economic/poltical model that has reached it's use-by date. The twin killers, climate-change and natural resource depletion will finish it off.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Capitalism is a economic/political model based on free markets and the protection of property rights. It is a consumer of resources, both ecological and social. As capitalist structures consume resources, they in turn require their outputs to be consumed.

When you say in your post 'insufficent resources" I take it you are referring to both the consumable resources that capitalism needs for growth and the market that consumes the output?

Currently, both of these resources are under threat. Capitalism is a economic/poltical model that has reached it's use-by date. The twin killers, climate-change and natural resource depletion will finish it off.

When John D. Rockefeller created Standard Oil Company in 1870 whale oil illuminated the world at 95 cents per gallon. Rockefellers kerosene cost 5 cents per gallon, and people dropped whale oil like a hot rock. When the hardwood for oil barrels was depleted in the East Rockefeller created steel drums to ship his oil in.

 

[richard_daily]

I'm sure the Whigs and the Federalist party never thought they'd ever see their power wane, and eventually burn out completely...

We're at a crossroads. Companies are producing products that we don't need, and shoving them down our throats, all while people have less and less discretionary income.

For the short-term, they can move their marketing to developing countries... But what happens once those countries have developed?

What can the next capitalist frontier be?

 

[fair_warning]

I'm sure the Whigs and the Federalist party never thought they'd ever see their power wane, and eventually burn out completely...

We're at a crossroads. Companies are producing products that we don't need, and shoving them down our throats, all while people have less and less discretionary income.

For the short-term, they can move their marketing to developing countries... But what happens once those countries have developed?

What can the next capitalist frontier be?

Spot on.
The capitalist model only works when there are consumers. What amazes me is that so many people just....don't get this.

 

[richard_daily]

Spot on.
The capitalist model only works when there are consumers. What amazes me is that so many people just....don't get this.

What amazes me, is that these neo-industrialists will create conditions that are counter to the human spirit, and then blame the cause of those conditions on the very people they are doing it to...

Then, you have a huge swath of the population actually believing in their transparent scape-goating.

 

[fair_warning]

When John D. Rockefeller created Standard Oil Company in 1870 whale oil illuminated the world at 95 cents per gallon. Rockefellers kerosene cost 5 cents per gallon, and people dropped whale oil like a hot rock. When the hardwood for oil barrels was depleted in the East Rockefeller created steel drums to ship his oil in.

This kind of thinking is common. Like Mr Macawber in Dickens David Copperfield...a belief that "something will turn up."

In part you are correct, something will turn up, and it will be change. And that change will herald the end of many things we currently take for granted. Capitalism being but one thing.

For the most part, change will be incremental - we're not talking apocalyptic.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Spot on.
The capitalist model only works when there are consumers. What amazes me is that so many people just....don't get this.

Everyone is a consumer, there's no getting around it.

Whats more, command economies always fail to satisfy consumer demand. Only capitalists satisfy consumer demand. Black markets erupt in every command economy.

If Michelle Obama puts America on a strict water and carrot stick diet, others will find ways of selling donuts and whoppers to the kids.

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

This kind of thinking is common. Like Mr Macawber in Dickens David Copperfield...a belief that "something will turn up."

In part you are correct, something will turn up, and it will be change. And that change will herald the end of many things we currently take for granted. Capitalism being but one thing.

For the most part, change will be incremental - we're not talking apocalyptic.

The thinking is common cuz things really do turn up. In a nation of 300 millions things oughta turn up all the time, when they dont its cuz the government actively opposes innovation.

 

[fair_warning]

The thinking is common cuz things really do turn up. In a nation of 300 millions things oughta turn up all the time, when they dont its cuz the government actively opposes innovation.

Well then Mr Johnson, we agree then.
You say something will turn up and I say yes it will, and that something is a change from the commonly accepted capitalist way of doing things.

 

[JackLuis]

So what does this mean, "Our Economy will evolve to meet the challenges of the new reality?"

Do we place limits on Capitalists?

Allow a free market, but not a Casino, like Wall Street wants to run.

Do we socialize medicine and yet allow a free market for "Boob Jobs" and other elective care?

Should we reconsider the value of the latest dodads and save our money, what does that do for the consumer economy?

Life's a bitch and then...