good short read clarifying a common misconception
Does capitalism cause poverty? --- weforum.org/agenda/2015/08
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Forgive heavy-handed analogy: that analysis is on the level of saying major organ failure can't be attributed to cancer in one part of the body.
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Not saying capitalism in itself causes extreme poverty, but the argument he gives is not even on a relevant level of analysis.
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(It's also structurally similar to "They didn't do the National Socialism/Communism correctly," which is a telling form of self-absolving arg.)
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i agree he fails to note any of capitalism's shortcomings but it's hard to argue against the central premise that in places where capitalism is embraced poverty tends to decrease and avg standards of living tend to increase significantly
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We tend not to question e.g. Communism's ability to generate jobs, housing & free public services.
Rather its ability to generate prosperity & support for those systems, & problems with individual liberty.
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Similarly, only a fool would question capitalism's ability to generate economic growth and proliferation of commodities.
But so what?
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good points. i think when "generate economic growth" amounts to "allow most everyone in a society to have a standard of living our ancestors could never have dreamed of" you have to give capitalism a fair bit of credit. for all its flaws it's done miraculous things
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I am very reluctant to "give it credit".
This is something we do with people/orgs for relational reasons. Capitalism is not a person.
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from my vantage the reason to "give it credit" is because for many it's become a shorthand/bogeyman for everything that's wrong in the world --- many think all we need to do is Tear Down the Corrupt Capitalist System but haven't thought through what that would entail
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it's worth pointing out to such ppl that capitalism isn't as bad as ppl think it is, in fact in many ways it's amazing, and that there are far more ways to break a hyper-complex system than improve upon it (especially if you're thinking in terms of abrupt revolutions)
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