Is Capitalism Just?

[phk]

Is Capitalism Just?

[Alcon]

Oftentimes no.

But nothing that complicated and pervasive is.

[dazzleman]

There's no such thing as justice in this world.  The best we can get is a rough approximation of justice within a limited sphere.

Is it just that some are born to good parents and some to bad?  That some are born with limited intelligence, and others with great intelligence?

No human system can ever really be just.  The realy question is, which system produces the best results for the greatest number of people?

The answer is that a free market system, with appropriate regulation, has allowed for an unprecedentedly high standard of living for a large percentage of the population.  Everybody does not share equally in the fruits of the free market system, and some seem to come upon benefits without really deserving them.

Still, other systems that have been tried have produced far worse results.  We have yet to come up with a better system, so I favor sticking with the one we have.

[12th Doctor]

No, but it is the most just economic system that has existed to this point.

[A18]

Capitalism is the only moral economic system.

[Emsworth]

To paraphrase Sir Winston Churchill: Capitalism is the worst economic system, except all the others.

Capitalism may not yield perfect results, but it is better than any other system.

[John Dibble]

In principle, I would say it is very just - those who work get to keep the fruits of their own labor, and those who don't work suffer the consequences of their sloth.

Now, in practice it is not perfectly just - there's just too many variables. Pure meritocricy is just not possible, there are certainly people that can't survive easily in the system without help(for instance, the physically disabled), and sometimes people get more or less than they deserve. However, I would say that among all economic systems that have been conceived, it is the most just as well as the most practical. Further, people do try to correct some of the injustices within the system through private charity.

And so, I leave you with this:

"The capitalist engine is first and last an engine of mass production which unavoidably means also production for the masses. Electric lighting is no great boon to anyone who has money enough to buy a sufficient number of candles and to pay servants to attend them. It is the cheap cloth, the cheap cotton and rayon fabric, boots, motorcars and so on that are the typical achievements of capitalist production, and not as a rule improvements that would mean much to a rich man. Queen Elizabeth owned silk stockings. The capitalist achievement does not typically consist in providing more silk stockings for queens but in bringing them within the reach of factory girls in return for steadily decreasing amounts of effort." - Joseph A. Schumpeter

[The Dowager Mod]

Not even close

[FerrisBueller86]

My answer: sometimes but not always.  However, no better system has been tried and implemented on a large scale.  While Communism may work on a small scale (like among small groups of aboriginal people), it fails miserably on a large scale (Russia, Eastern Europe, North Korea).  In a small aboriginal group, everyone knows everyone else.  In a large Communist nation, no given person can know more than the tiniest percentage of the other citizens, so the cooperative spirit is lost.

I don't think Communism ever posed as much of a threat to capitalism as the injustices and excesses of it.  Communism would never have taken over so much of the world in the 20th century had it not been for the robber baron days of the 19th century.

[Beefalow and the Consumer]

Capitalism is only unjust in principle if you subscribe to the labor theory of value, which I do not.

Capitalism can be unjust in practice because the means to employment, profit, self-improvement, and wealth are easily monopolized in an industrial society.  Capitalism in practice requires government intervention to prevent a two-class economy in which the unmonied class are completely blocked from mobility.

Statism is unjust in principle, but a little bit of Statism in practice can mitigate against the practical injustices of Capitalism.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Depends what you mean by Capitalism; every new generation gets a new definition and assumes all previous ones were the same (well, almost)

[opebo]

The concept of 'justice' implies a belief in objective morality, which of coure is nothing but a fiction belived in by individual subjectivities.

However I voted 'no' simply because it is not beneficial for the great majority of people.  Of course when harnessed by very high taxes, redistributionist government programs, a comfortable social safety net, and stringent labour regulations, it could be marginally tolerable for most people.  In other words the sort of thing approximated in the USA of the 1960's or the current situation upon the Continent.

[Bono]

Yes capitalism is just, and the only moral economic system, as well as that which produces most results.
But we don't live in capitalism, we live in a mixed economy.

[opebo]

Yes capitalism is just, and the only moral economic system, as well as that which produces most results.

And the 'most results' that it produces are vast wealth for a tiny minority and servile toil for the rest.  How is that different from, say, ancient Egypt, feudal Europe, or any other social heirarchy in the history of man?

[John Dibble]

Yes capitalism is just, and the only moral economic system, as well as that which produces most results.

And the 'most results' that it produces are vast wealth for a tiny minority and servile toil for the rest.  How is that different from, say, ancient Egypt, feudal Europe, or any other social heirarchy in the history of man?

Tell me opebo, is ignorance really bliss?

[dazzleman]

Yes capitalism is just, and the only moral economic system, as well as that which produces most results.

And the 'most results' that it produces are vast wealth for a tiny minority and servile toil for the rest.  How is that different from, say, ancient Egypt, feudal Europe, or any other social heirarchy in the history of man?

Tell me opebo, is ignorance really bliss?

It is as long as you can live off a trust fund.  Heaven help him if his money runs out, or his parents leave their estate to the Cat Foundation.

[minionofmidas]

No, of course not.
But then justice is probably a chimaeric goal anyways.

[Giant Saguaro]

Yes, it's the fairest system currently in existence. Capitalism rewards innovation and hard work, and people who are willing to be innovative and work hard should do better than everyone else. Is it without flaws? No. Are there exceptions? Sure. But overall, it is the fairest system. I am very adverse to a system in which no one gets behind but no one gets ahead either - that is what is not fair, IMO.

[jokerman]

Unregulated capitalism- no, it is not.

[MaC]

I agreewith opebo in the respect that economic systems aren't really, able to have a quality of justice.  However, Phillip points out that capitalism is the only moral system.  This I agree with.  We can only achieve our highest potential when there is no regulation upon it, and to hinder our ability to do as well as possible would be immoral.  However, we don't have a capitalism right now, it's more of a quasi-socialism mixed economy

[© tweed]

No, but it works.  As 'fair' as communism and socialism are in principle, they don't work in the real world.

[PBrunsel]

"My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope."
- Herbert Hoover

These words best describe why capitalism, especially American Capitalism, is just.

[Speed of Sound]

"Those who produce should have, but we know that those who produce the most - that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and most menial tasks, have the least."

"Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment to do for myself but because I am not satisfied to make myself comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught under the old ethic that man's business on this earth was to look out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become of your fellow man. "


--Eugene Debs

These quotes best describe why i believe that capitalism is unjust

[opebo]

"My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope."
- Herbert Hoover

No wonder the lower classes were so angry at Hoover during the Depression - the man persisted in peddling Horatio Alger nonsense.

[Bono]

"My country owes me nothing. It gave me, as it gives every boy and girl, a chance. It gave me schooling, independence of action, opportunity for service and honor. In no other land could a boy from a country village, without inheritance or influential friends, look forward with unbounded hope."
- Herbert Hoover

These words best describe why capitalism, especially American Capitalism, is just.

If he liked capitalism so much, why did he started to destroy it?