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So like, Ong, I'm a graduate student in economics. And listening to you talk is making my brain hurt; I had to skip a great deal of it. All I gotta say is, I'm sorry you feel that way. You've clearly made up your mind on this issue and there's nothing in the world I could tell you to make you feel otherwise. That's why I asked about your assumptions in the first place.
But you are unequivocally wrong on a lot of points:
I hate the way the capitalist world works. Corporations put profit before anything else, including environment and human life. The bigger the company, the more tax they pay, the more they can get away with disregarding what's important to the majority of us... our land and families.
I disagree that paying taxes somehow allows companies to circumvent laws and regulations in order to "get away" with things. Does the government let you commit crimes if you're in a higher tax bracket? I'll assume what you meant is that bigger companies have the means to bribe or lobby their way into favourable legislation being enacted. If that's what bothers you, then there's a reason you live in a democracy; you have the power to remove corrupt officials from office. Regardless, I don't think this is as big a problem as you're making it out to be.
Aside from that, consider that while firms are profit maximizers, the government exists as a means to correct any market failures or distortions that occur (these, as you can imagine, happen quite often; see 2008).
A good example is legislation related to environmental issues; cap and trade systems, straight up taxes on pollution, etc. Some people get upset when they hear of such schemes. But they represent real efforts on the part of the government to limit pollution and negative environmental impacts, and, shocker of shockers, they actually work.
I could probably go on. Actually, I will, just for this one comment though:
Any world leader with the strength to move his nation towards a different system gets marginalised and slandered by the west. What's your impression of Fidel Castro and Hugo Chavez? These guys are revered in their nations. But we'd be led to believe they're tyrants. That's because the west do not want their economic models to spread, it would be a serious threat to the big corporations.
Capitalism represents everything wrong with humanity.
Part about revered is just wrong. Have you been to Cuba, btw? I wouldn't typify Cubans as excessively happy. At least not the ones living in slums earning 1/50th of what most Canadians do in a day. And certainly not the ones who beg for change from tourists, perpetually launching into a sob story about how one dollar makes such a big difference for them and means so little to you.
I'm not sure where you get this idea that countries like Cuba and Venezuela are marginalized because of their form of government or economic models... Cuba is a special case indeed, there is a background there with the Cold war and so on that I'm not going to go into. But Venezuela marginalizes itself. Listen to a Chavez speech one of these days, I implore you. He didn't need much coaxing to get the way he is, either. By the way if it weren't for the exploitation of natural resources, Venezuela would probably be in just as bad a situation as Cuba, economically.
To wrap this up: I mentioned I'm a grad student in econ. I want to say that a lot of my colleagues do not feel the same way as I do; you'll find plenty of environmentalists and others who take issue with pure free-market systems and so on. Some feel like our system is inherently flawed and that vast changes are required in order to close income gaps (income gaps have been increasing in recent years). Others feel like the priority should be on the environment and an emphasis on cleaner resource extraction (a big deal in Canada). These are pretty close to the ideas you're hinting at.
Thing is, none of them use the arguments you're using, and that is because your arguments are pretty much unreasonable and poorly founded; you are essentially spouting rhetoric and half-truths and none of it adds up. Even the biggest lefty in my program would admit that elements of free market competition are necessary in today's economy. And certainly, no one would ever spout off communist catch-phrases like "Capitalism is the reason why this country is going to shit" a lot is objectionable in that phrase, and not just the part about capitalism. Is your country really going to shit... really?
tl;dr: that's enough, ong.
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Originally Posted by sauce123
