You. Hello, everyone. I thought I would post this swell to get everyone else's opinions and thoughts on this. I contend that capitalism is not democracy. It can be, but it is not always democracy. And. And I think that a lot of our politics in America is geared towards saving capitalism at the expense of democracy
Michael Knight
@MK1981 · 2:44
We need people who are actually going to go in there and do what we vote them to do. And at this point, I just need you to say, like, hey, you're about this one thing, you're going to stay on that one thing. I'll vote for you for that
I agree with you. Capitalism is not democracy. Neither is communism, socialism, or any of the other isms. I think that we should understand now that not only does capitalism, communism, socialism, not work, but also democracy obviously does not work in a capitalistic society or a communist or socialist society either. So maybe we need to consider the fact that democracy in and of itself does not work because individuals have their own wants and needs, and collectively we can't meet that
Swell Team
@Swell · 0:15
Michael Knight
@MK1981 · 3:12
I think democracy is a good thing. Everyone having a voice and everyone being able to direct that voice towards something meaningful. I just think, again, we should have an economic floor for citizens. We shouldn't have homeless people, we shouldn't have hungry people
So what I think, and it's just my opinion, is that you review all these systems, capitalism, socialism, democracy, everything. It's that the collective, the individual, again, you can't have one without discounting the other. So it's a paradox. It's a paradox, because if you review the history and what we're saying of communism, socialism, Marxism, all this stuff operating in a capitalist society or the world, we're talking about global things now
We had a civil war over it a while back. I don't know if you missed it or not. And it looks like we're gearing up for part two. So, yeah, there's always got to be a sequel. You ever notice that with an american culture, it's like, we have to have a sequel, and the sequel is not usually as good. I mean, World War II was a banger of a war
And that has only been made worse by capitalism. I'm not one of those people that thinks that capitalism is the worst thing to ever happen to the world. I don't think that that's necessarily true. But I think that how a society allows capitalism to get hold of it, now, that's a different story. And you see, in our country especially, things have gotten far, far beyond where I think any of us would have wanted to see them at
It's never the people that are willing to die for the country. It's politicians. And they dislike politicians almost as much as I do. I'm glad you brought that up. Yeah, I really do. I dislike the idea that somebody can just arbitrarily start a war based on some stupid policies without sitting down and talking about it or talking it out. It's corrupt because the people they represent shouldn't be set up for that or subjected to that
Michael Knight
@MK1981 · 4:38
We can't compare human beings now to the people that created capitalism and systems as we knew it even a few centuries ago, because they were operating under different frameworks. They didn't have the understanding of the effects of what capitalism might actually do to the planet and might do to our well being. I mean, they were living in a lush geographical area that had everything, all the resources necessary. There was no climate change as of yet, so they didn't have anything to think about
This is excuse me, a really interesting topic. I hadn't really given it much thought but I think you definitely bring up some good points. It is amazing how these companies that you had mentioned, right Amazon, Walmart, how big they've gotten and how much they've really just impacted our lives on so many levels. Oh my goodness. And I agree with you, it's not about or it shouldn't be
So the problem is that we've allowed these corporations to start acting like they're individual human beings. I'm telling you, I think the weirdness is going to start creeping out in society because I think there's just been these unspoken of bloodlines of people. And I think you see it
phil spade
@Phil · 4:54
That all really just kind of points to corporations doing whatever they want, no whistleblowers, no government oversight. And you have to ask the question, who's watching the ship then? And that becomes self regulation. And I can bring up any, there's so many examples I can bring up that self regulation just doesn't work because of greed. And when Wall street puts this pressure on companies and corporations to make money quarter over quarter, it leads to very myopic decisions
A democracy is a form of government in which the majority has the right to vote on anything and to pass any laws they see fit, the sole standard of legality being a majority vote, that is, counting off numbers. Democracy is incompatible with the constitution because the principle there is that the sole standard of right or wrong in politics is accounting of noses. A majority rule
So I say to myself, capitalism is actually a very strong component of democracy, because if we lived in a communist nation or a socialist nation, you would not have the freedoms that a lot of small businesses still to this day have and understood. It is far, much more competitive and difficult to survive as a small business. But you have to find your niche and you have to find the right location, the right market and so forth. But, yeah. Was it easier years ago than today?
Jeremiah Myer
@Jeremiah73 · 4:55
I started out as a young man raised in California in a very conservative household who did not vote, and gradually listening to and meeting and being moved by people such as Cesar Chavez and Bobby Kennedy and Eugene McCarthy and others, George McGovern, into thinking that maybe our system of government, democracy, was really intended to work for the masses, not just for the very rich. I've always felt that most of the problems in our country are really brought about by simply not having a good set of priorities
Jeremiah Myer
@Jeremiah73 · 4:33
What that is is capitalism. And then when you take those forces that have leveraged the system into them being at the very top of the pyramid, and then getting laws changed by politicians that they paid off to get things like they give unlimited amounts of dark money to politicians, they want to eliminate any kind of controls, any kind of checks and checks and balances, and using their money, their influence and their power to strip democracy out of the country and replace it with capitalism and capitalist ideological ideas
Michael Knight
@MK1981 · 4:43
And because we can't look at all of us as Americans, we cannot agree on taking care of everybody, which we should be doing, because it's insane that we're the only industrialized country that doesn't have these things that other places have. We're literally the only place that's not doing free post secondary education. We're the only ones who aren't doing some, some kind of parental leave
Jeremiah Myer
@Jeremiah73 · 5:00
We don't have health care because we don't want people of color to get health care. And it's presented to poor folks, poor white folks as well. You're working hard and you're not getting anything, so why should they get anything? It's just terrible. It's just terrible. Corporations, those in charge, keep driving these wedges in between us. That was really the purpose of this conversation that I started, is to try to separate capitalism out of democracy
Jeremiah Myer
@Jeremiah73 · 4:38
You. Hi. I wanted to respond in a more direct fashion to you first. Thank you very much for taking the time to listen to this old man and to respond. I very much appreciate it. I believe that the purpose of my swell and what I've been thinking about for a very long time is here in our country, in America, the word capitalism and democracy have become almost interchangeable