Cyprus-Forum.com

[boomerang]

The problem is one of how much we "benefit" from this and this is where it varies from person to person. Most people do not have a problem with capitalism at some level - mine is on having it completely unregulated, as it has become.

GIG when you say you have a problem with unregulared capitalism in which ways would have it regulated?...

my thoyghts, i would prefer direction and not regulation...
for example, force investments that benefit a nation rather than restrict it...ie...protectionism rather than large corps, read modern day slave trading under the guise of wto....a win win situation for state and capitalism...

capitalism in itself is innovation...some bad but generally pretty good...end of the day it needs re-channeling...

[Me Ed]

The was a documentary about the three main trains of thought called the Masters of Money:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mzqw9

In each of the three episodes, it discussed Keynes who said governments should control capitalism, Hayek who said capitalism should be unregulated and Marx who said it should be abolished altogether.

Although Hayek's ideas are lauded throughout the western world, no government has had the balls to implement them, always defaulting to Keynes ideas.

[tsukoui]

The was a documentary about the three main trains of thought called the Masters of Money:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01mzqw9

In each of the three episodes, it discussed Keynes who said governments should control capitalism, Hayek who said capitalism should be unregulated and Marx who said it should be abolished altogether.

Although Hayek's ideas are lauded throughout the western world, no government has had the balls to implement them, always defaulting to Keynes ideas.

I met a British economist who worked in Cuba and he commented that he was surprised that all the Cuban economists wanted to read was Hayek.

Hayek's critique of the Soviet Model is very insightful. Basically the market acts like a democracy to ensure that what is produced is actually what is demanded. Every time you spend money it is as if you are voting. The problem with Hayek is that the capitalist market is a greatly unfair democracy. Those with the most capital have the most votes. We are still waiting for a solution to this problem.

[B0B]

Capitalism failed beyond repair. It's a global crisis precisely for that reason. Printing more money just prolongs the agony of it. Right now corporations are sitting on the necks of governments. Why are we supposed to help failed banks? No government will help me if I go bankrupt. And when you have corporations running the governments... well that's not capitalism - it's Corporatism... which so far took two major forms - communism and fascism...

[B25]

Yes there is a way to regulate capitalism, its called Communism!

[Jerry]

Yes there is a way to regulate capitalism, its called Communism!

And it works well in North Korea.

Perhaps the Chinese have got it right, a communist government but a capitalist economy.

[cyprusgrump]

Capitalism doesn’t need to be regulated.

The very essence of capitalism is that it is self-regulating. It provides products and services that the market wishes to buy. Make bad or expensive products and the market will buy elsewhere.

The problems arise when governments seek to control the market as they inevitably distort it. Governments simply cannot know the market as well as the people that run businesses.

As soon as you start to apply illiberal laws, controls, restrictions and subsidies to the market it goes wrong.

A perfect example is the energy market in the UK. Supposedly run and owned by private companies, it is riddled with interference from the government in the UK and laws from the EU. The net result is that everybody pays more than necessary for their electricity and the country faces blackouts in a year or two.

Communism fails because it is the ultimate demonstration of government control of business.

The other downside of government interference is lobbying. It is inevitable that when government controls how companies operate, what they can sell and for how much those companies will try to cosy up to government in the hope of being looked upon favourably.

The recent revelations about how close the Murdochs were to government in the UK are a perfect example. The government controlled how many newspapers he could own, how much he could sell them for and how many TV stations he was ‘allowed’ to control. It is somewhat inevitable under those circumstances that management in the media group would try and be ‘close’ to the government ministers that controlled them.

The way out of the financial disaster that we face is small government, low taxes and let the market get on with it.

What we have is huge governments (national and EU) seeking to control every aspect of our lives and huge taxes required to pay for the huge government. And stagnation.

[supporttheunderdog]

Yes there is a way to regulate capitalism, its called Communism!

And it works well in North Korea.

Perhaps the Chinese have got it right, a communist government but a capitalist economy.

Jerry North Korea is not working - the population is virtually starving - they are looking at introducing certain capitalist ideas such as aloowing the farmers to keep and sell some of their produce to encourage them to produce more.

As for China I would hardly describe the government as communist: it may pay lip service to Marx and Mao but it is rather more like an authoritarian self perpetuating oligarchy sitting on top of an increasingly capitalist base. I suspect with an emergent "middle class" there could one day be growing demands for increasing freedom of political thought including multi-party democracy.

[GreekIslandGirl]

The problem is one of how much we "benefit" from this and this is where it varies from person to person. Most people do not have a problem with capitalism at some level - mine is on having it completely unregulated, as it has become.

GIG when you say you have a problem with unregulared capitalism in which ways would have it regulated?...

my thoyghts, i would prefer direction and not regulation...
for example, force investments that benefit a nation rather than restrict it...ie...protectionism rather than large corps, read modern day slave trading under the guise of wto....a win win situation for state and capitalism...

capitalism in itself is innovation...some bad but generally pretty good...end of the day it needs re-channeling...

Nothing novel. We need to redress the balance of corporate power over government (people) power.

- Until I have more time to participate in squabbles you can extract an essence from here:

http://www.governmentisgood.com/articles.php?aid=13

[Get Real!]

is there ways of regulating capitalism?

To answer your strange question… there are HUNDREDS of ways to regulate ALL economic systems and I don’t know of any country that doesn’t... capitalist or otherwise!

If we were to write about the many ways we’d be here till Xmas!

A simple but profoundly influential example is the adjustment import duties especially those of raw materials.