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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices

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To: tejek who wrote (266541)	1/6/2006 9:01:23 PM
From: TimF	Read Replies (2) of 1573941

Its prompted by the people who buy those commercials. Who are capitalists. Yes they are capitalists. They aren't capitalism. Capitalists are major actors in a capitalist system. They are not the system, they certainly aren't the ideas and philosophy behind the system. I can't find the person who made this statement but a relevant quote is "what's wrong with capitalism is capitalists, what's wrong with communism is communism". "Capitalism creates the wealth that allows the consumption, and it gives people the freedom to use that wealth for consumption, but consumption is desirable for most people with or without capitalism." Not necessarily......if there were only two clothing styles for each gender, I suspect the purchasing of clothes would drop preciptiously. I'm talking about the desire for consumption not consumption. If people have more money and more choices they are likely to consume more. But if they don't have money or many choices the desire doesn't really go away unless the choices are so limited that they don't even realize that they could in theory have more options. The consumption habits of the above people may have appeared great for their economic system and societies but it appears puny when compared to their equals in a capitalistic society. To use an extreme example, Cleopatra may have had a two dozen pairs of sandals or whatever passed for footwear back then in her wardrobe but Imelda Marcos had over 3000 pairs, thanks to the bounty of capitalism. Imelda Marcos cared more about shoes. The Pharaohs has more gold in their burial chambers. Desires vary. Its possible that Imelda consumed more overall, but she is from a much wealthier society. She certainly consumed less as a percentage of the economy and almost certainly consumed less as a multiple of the consumption of the people around her. It may well be true that humans are innately consumptive but capitalism enables that consumption in the same way liquor enables an alcoholic. Consuming isn't the same as alcoholism, at least not for the vast majority of people. Even for those who intensely crave consumption the enabling effect is more like that of the way money enables an alcoholic. Capitalism produces the wealth that can go to consumption. Alcohol is a physically addictive substance and it doesn't open up opportunities the way capitalism does. The only way your analogy makes any sense is if you define consumption as a bad thing, and even then it is a weak one. And defining consumption as a bad thing is a rather unusual viewpoint, and not one I share. Tim

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