Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Capitalism: Side-effects may include greed, pollution, and crimes against humanity

Capitalism is a failure. There are plenty of disasters across the world that could have been prevented or their after effects could have been greatly relieved but thanks to greedy corporations and the capitalist ideology, these disasters occur and are never fixed.

Capitalism definition:
An economic system based on a free market, open competition, profit motive and private ownership of the means of production. Capitalism encourages private investment and business, compared to a government-controlled economy. Investors in these private companies (i.e. shareholders) also own the firms and are known as capitalists.

The main issue that I have with the Capitalist system is the 'profit motive' system of running things. If your main objective is profit, then ethics and humane actions are less important. Some examples would include global climate change, New Orleans & Katrina, West Virginia mining explosion, the BP oil spill, Bhopal chemical disaster, etc. To the corporation, there is no benefit or reward in fixing these disasters. In the capitalist system, when you spend money to fix something like this, your stock prices go down and you lose business and profit. In other words, you are either punished for helping people or rewarded for doing nothing. I have nothing against small businesses and the process of making profit, but it's when a business commits a terrible crime to humanity or the environment and does nothing for the sole purpose of keeping profit and income coming into the company. That peeves me off.

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