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Something is Rotten

By Christian Marx

There is a foul stench emanating from planet earth. The noxious smell emanates from a single destructive paradigm. That festering greed is known as capitalism. On a single planet with finite resources, the philosophy of capitalism is terminal for the planet and all who reside on it.

Capitalism is based on the exploitation of people and individuals in order to make a profit.

The suffering from capitalism eclipses that of all other ideologies combined. Below are just some of the ways that capitalism continues to kill and destroy lives.

Imperialism

Arguably the single biggest taker of lives is Imperialism. Wealthy and powerful nations go to war against resource rich, less powerful nations. America has killed an estimated 25 million people since WW2! Four million Muslims have died as a direct result of the Western Middle Eastern wars for oil and gas.

Another offshoot of Imperialism is mass migration, particularly from refugees displaced from the direct conflict. This dislocates families and causes much pain and suffering. Especially when children are lost to bombs.

Concentration camps

Throughout history, those who have been affected by the horror of wars are then persecuted for merely being refugees. This is very evident, particularly in modern day Australia. People are now being left to rot on Manus Island and Nauru in subhuman conditions, merely for fleeing and seeking refuge in Australia. This is appalling, considering that Australia is signatory to the Refugee Convention of 1951. It is not illegal to seek asylum.

What makes this even more disgusting is that these camps are being run as a profit venture. Shocking human rights abuses have occurred at these camps, including rapes, bashing’s and even murder. Chronically sick patients do not get the medical care they need as these gulags have no proper medical facilities.

Chronic poverty

With the underemployment at another 10% according to Roy Morgan. This is being deliberately orchestrated by government, so as to keep wages low for big business. Compounding this is the punitive measures being inflicted on those who are unemployed. The criminally low unemployment benefits of Newstart are well below the poverty line, which stops people from rising out of poverty. With so few jobs and a massive unemployment/underemployment problem, Newstart must be lifted. It is only a matter of time before we see real tragedies, such as the thousands of deaths being linked to poverty in the U.K.

Environmental destruction

Global warming has been overwhelmingly scientifically proven to be man-made and is a very real threat to all life on the planet if it goes unchecked. Despite the scientific facts, paid propagandists spruik lies and disinformation on behalf of the fossil fuel industry. This is dangerous, as it muddies the waters and pushes ignorance and distrust of scientists. Large corporations do not want to end their gravy train of using fossil fuels and have no care what happens to the earth in generations to come. Current profits are all that matter to them.

Corrosive media propaganda

Private media is owned in order to turn a profit, and is owned by a select few, very wealthy oligarchs. Increasingly it is now used as a propaganda tool. Division of the populace is the modus operendi. Constant disinformation and racial, religious and cultural scapegoating are designed to divide and flame the fans of division. Conservatives do this, as their policies are so toxic to the average person, they need hatred and blame shifting to distract away from their own horrendous policies.

An educated population would reject Neoliberal policies outright, which is why the wealthy power brokers need a dumbed down and frightened nation. Ignorant and fearful people will vote for more power from the elites.

Capitalism has proven to be a catastrophic failure for the majority. It can no longer even maintain a decent standard of living even in the West … despite the billions of dollars it extracts from all its Imperialist wars. The only solution is a socialist economic system. Egalitarianism must be championed, and greedy self-interest condemned. Only a well-educated populace can change the system. Change must come from the people and will never come from the corporate puppets in the current two-party system.

Lord of The Flies

I will not be Lord of the Flies
That is conservatism
Their leaders scream lies
Create a mass schism

If one person is poor
If one lonely voice cries
Socialism must become law
Let the populace rise

A revolutionary is made
Not at all born
A real leader sets the date
They must resist evil Neoliberal spawn

The more the media push
The stronger we grow
Murdoch`s evil putsch
A rebellious seed will sow

The time has come
To expose this two-party farce
Let us beat the drum
To a revolutionary overpass!

(Christian Marx)

Christian Marx is a political and social activist interested in making the world a fairer place. He has a Bachelor of Social Science and has a keen interest in sociology, politics and history. He was one of the organizers of the March in March rallies in Melbourne and is the founder of the progressive news and information page, “Don`t Look At This Page”, and is also a co-founder of “The Global Revolution” website.

40 comments

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  1. townsvilleblog

    Unless everyday people become angry with their increasing poverty and fill the streets with protest, as has occurred in other countries, Australians will be left behind. We currently have upward of three million people in Australia living below the poverty line.

  2. Yvonne Robertson

    Aspiration. Another name for Greed.

    Add to that a media landscape which touts and flouts – carrying the message that you too could be rich and frivolous – Hollywood, the stories we eat up about ‘the way the world is’, the so called ‘reality’ television and websites which contribute to this.

    The things that keep us herded – fashion, sport, must have, must win. My team. My look.

    The news outlets and journalists who misrepresent at the behest of their capitalist oligarch owners. The stories which we as a society tell ourselves – that wealth and greed and power will make us impervious to any of the ills which may befall mere mortals or at least keep us at the front of the line should we need hospitalisation, a transplant, a facelift out of old age.

    And finally the ingrained ‘knowledge’ of our innate superiority as a human being who stands above and upon the sub-layers of human suffering. The belief that if ‘they’ were smarter, they’d be where I am and therefore I’ve got to protect what I’ve got at any cost, or they’ll surely take it from me.

  3. nonsibicunctis

    Thank you, Christian.

    If only the uninformed, misled, socialised and indoctrinated were reading and understanding this, we might have some chance of change.

    As it is, you and I and our like are preaching to the converted. That may be comforting and it may even, along the way, attract a handful of converts.

    BUT and it’s a big BUT – how do we raise consciousness and achieve an end to the delusion held by a majority of the “masses”, those who fall for the simplistic nonsense of populism and sleight of hand bribes of the right-wing, such that the majority of people are willing to put aside their self-centered greed and desire for material and financial rewards, which they see as representing a “successful” life?

    Yes, we have to speak and write about what’s going on and you have done that excellently. However, if it only reaches or is only understood by the particular and limited members of an online media group such as this one, how will change actually come about?

  4. Stephen G B

    We have to send the message that socialism is not the same as that dreaded word ‘communism’.

    As soon as those aspiring rich wannaby’s (the deluded low and middle income earners and small business owners) see the word socialist, they become apoplexit seeing the word as a threat to their right to become rich like their supposed mentors.

    Most of the deluded rich wannabys have no idea that they are just being conned to support a system where everyone are merely fodder for the next level up. They do not understand the implications of the neoliberal agenda, which is essentially the law of the jungle.

    Of course some people at every level of society, do not posses, even the slightest amount of empathy, fortunately these people are a relatively small minority of the total voting public. So we need to appeal to the majority who do posses empathy, because these are the only people who could change their vote to parties who also espouse empathy.

    My discussions on Facebook are not about social democracy but about economic reality, empathy, and pointing out the hypocracy of the neoliberalists (Yes there are neliberals in both the Left or Right of the political spectrum).

  5. helvityni

    ” Egalitarianism must be championed, and greedy self-interest condemned. Only a well-educated populace can change the system. Change must come from the people and will never come from the corporate puppets in the current two-party system.”

    Amen to that. Maybe, just maybe one day we will realise it’s not all about money and having it, and then we might start seeing our houses as homes, and not just as how much money we make when selling them….

    In my neighbourhood some people who think they have ‘arrived’ refer to people who don’t ‘own’ the houses they live in, as ‘renters’…

  6. Egalitarian

    Despite our technology we seem to be more dumbed down than ever. It feels like we are living with self serving minds of the 1950’s though they are very aware of Moneyed Class system.

  7. Christian Marx

    Nonsibicunctis, I fear that the only way the masses will learn in this country is when half the country is starving and homeless.
    Australia has never had the upheavels that Latin America, Africa or Europe has had due to capitalism. But it is coming
    though. 3 million in poverty is just the beginning. The 1% want it all and they will destroy another 10 million lives to get it!
    Many people in Australia fail to see that mainstream media is owned and controlled by the same 1% who want to destroy them.

  8. Josephus

    What do we replace it all with? Communism was the bogeyman that made social democracy possible, but now it has mostly gone greed is unfettered. Man eats man seems inevitable. One tyrant replaced with another, eg after Buchenwald was closed the new GDR regime shoved their own dissidents in there- did not gas them but starved and beat them. That regime did empower women, but the pollution from lignite and the restrictions on travel and on the media were draconian. So now Berlin mines the filthy stuff once more.
    The Nordic states I suppose are the nearest model? But Denmark cannot stop Greenland letting in Oz companies to mine uranium. Rare earths etc are anyway mined for wind turbines and some roof panels as well as for mobiles.
    Australia was fairly egalitarian, once. I do not see that any lot in power cares for long. Voted in by the populace as they are in eg Turkey. Vote for dictators, or for those who pay me more- I will take out my calculator ; now then, who promise me less tax? In French Polynesia the corrupt lot in power gave away bottles of whisky. Liberal democracy in other places promises a sport stadium. Result: the people can bellow for one lot in coloured jerseys or another. Vote for the jungle or for tyrannies. The poor lose out either way. Lord of the Flies says just that. Cycles of abuse. All we can do is volunteer, join NGOs…. pathetic. Wish Hobbes were wrong.

  9. nexusxyz

    I don’t have a very positive outlook. Even slight modifications (tax increases, regulation, etc.) to the system of greed to make it more acceptable are remorselessly attacked and have been rolled back. Neoliberal economics and privatisation are systems of orchestrated theft. Personally, I don’t give a toss about the greedy narcissistic tools and their money. It’s their sociopathy I loath and their willingness put to the poor and defenceless into poverty, malnutrition and suicide. Our political class are venal greedy and stupid. The vast majority of Australians think they are not part of this. It’s scary that a large percentage of mortgage holders are already financially stressed and that is without an up-tick in interest rates or an economic slowdown.

  10. nonsitbicunctis

    Hear hear, well said. I wouldn’t be surprised if your feeling echo those of most of us. Thanks or your post.

  11. John Inglis

    I hate to admit it but I think the Trots may have been correct. Encourage the capitalists and their running dogs until the injustice is so widespread and crushing that there is no alternative but revolution. The masses are nothing but slowly boiling frogs.

  12. Rossleigh

    Mm, when was the last time we heard someone like Christian Marx on the ABC?
    I guess, he must be too right wing for them…

    (Yes, we possibly do need an irony font!)

    Of course, if the ABC did invite someone with similar views on it would be used as evidence of their bias. However, they can give IPA members a regular spot to decry their lack of voice on the ABC!

  13. Rossleigh

    Keep up the good work, anyway, Christian.

  14. Miriam English

    Christian, you have to be careful with your reasoning. Capitalism doesn’t necessarily lead to the things you discuss here, and it doesn’t need to bring about the destruction of the living world that we depend upon. Capitalism carefully controlled can be a wonderful thing. It can produce more efficient systems that use less resources and let us live more lightly on the Earth. The problem is capitalism uncontrolled and reinforced by a corrupt government that creates the dangers you talk about in this article.

    To be honest, all the things you list have also been produced by the opposite of capitalism: communism.

    Imperialism — the Soviets were very big on imperialism themselves while decrying it in other countries, and dictatorships love to impose their rule upon their neighbors.

    Concentration camps — that certainly isn’t an invention of capitalism. Almost every flavor of politics has had a go at this, except perhaps democratic socialism supported by controlled capitalism as seen in modern Sweden, Norway, Netherlands, etc.

    Chronic poverty — badly mismanaged capitalism definitely entrenches poverty, but every other system is even worse, except, once again, democratic socialism with well controlled capitalism. In fact socialist capitalist democracy is the only system I’m aware of that has virtually eliminated poverty.

    Environmental destruction — the USSR certainly wasn’t a poster child for environmental care, with vast areas laid waste by salt, or radioactivity, or loss of water because of diverted rivers. Only a well-controlled capitalist-socialist society can hope to limit environmental damage.

    Corrosive media propaganda — every corrupt regime has loved their propaganda. Propaganda should be virtually impossible under a well managed capitalist society. We have a terrible propaganda problem precisely because of media ownership concentration that would be impossible if the laws controlling that hadn’t been messed up by bloody Bob Hawke.

    Yes, capitalism is capable of doing terrible things. That’s why it must always be kept in control. The completely free market is suicidal. But we should never underestimate capitalism’s ability to improve our lives. Would you willingly go without your phone? Your car? The electric train? The electric light? Computers? Affordable clothes? Glasses? Hearing aids? Bread? Milk and butter? Bought vegetables and grains? Aspirin?

    We should also remember that a great many things don’t, and should never depend upon money. We should be repelled by any attempt to measure everything with money, as the current imbeciles in government try to do. Money is certainly a brilliant tool for some things, but it is terrible for many other things such as love, wisdom, friendship, happiness, time, ability, choice, health, freedom, intelligence, creativity, and more. Increasing numbers of services provide value to people without requiring money, such as Wikipedia, Project Gutenberg, Librivox, Linux, OpenOffice/LibreOffice, sci-hub.io, and many more.

    Capitalism isn’t your enemy; out-of-control capitalism is, along with the corruption that turns it into a monster.

  15. paul walter

    Well said, Christian.

  16. Wam

    Both systems are run by the ‘haves’ and the ‘have somes’ who control the ‘have nots’ by showing there are ‘haver noters’ who in turn can see their superiority over the ‘havest notest’.

    Both are corrupted by the shift from theory to practice and the pragmatism of ‘trust me I know more than you’.

    Both need a compliant press to propagate their control.

    The advantage of capitalism is trickle down always has losers that are not me. The disadvantage of communism is there are always winners that are not me.
    The trick is to maintain the lies , damn lies and statistics needed to control the ‘not me’ group.

    Perhaps, the super sizers, will join over the himalayas to create a comcap or capcom?

    Well said CM and well read ME.

  17. Mick Byron

    Christian,
    “The suffering from capitalism eclipses that of all other ideologies combined.”

    a good yarn,but utter rubbish !
    please refer to
    Miriam English June 25, 2018 at 7:15 pm

    please don’t let idealogy blind you to history and fact

  18. Mick Byron

    just to add some balance to this article
    “According to a disturbingly pleasant graphic from Information is Beautiful entitled simply 20th Century Death, communism was the leading ideological cause of death between 1900 and 2000. The 94 million that perished in China, the Soviet Union, North Korea, Afghanistan, and Eastern Europe easily (and tragically) trump the 28 million that died under fascist regimes during the same period.

    During the century measured, more people died as a result of communism than from homicide (58 million) and genocide (30 million) put together. The combined death tolls of WWI (37 million) and WWII (66 million) exceed communism’s total by only 9 million.

    It gets worse when you look at the lower right of the chart—The Natural World—which includes animals (7 million), natural disasters (24 million), and famine (101 million). Curiously, all of the world’s worst famines during the 20th century were in communist countries: China (twice!), the Soviet Union, and North Korea. ”

    https://reason.com/blog/2013/03/13/communism-killed-94m-in-20th-century

  19. Matters Not

    Perhaps it mighty be useful if we draw a macro distinction between economic systems and political systems and appreciate that one does not demand or beget the other. China, Russia and Vietnam are nominally communist nations but on a day to day basis they operate on capitalist (economic) principles because capitalism is rather good at generating wealth but fails badly when it comes to (re)distributing same.

  20. Christian Marx

    Mick Byron, capitalism kills millions every year. It is an obscene ideology. It has killed far more than Communism ever did.
    All the wars, the mass ethnic cleansing, Imperialism, starvation as a direct cause of capitalism, (see the Irish potato famine),
    the tens of thousands of deaths a year in the U.S due to unaffordable healthcare. You and Miriam can support it all you
    want but I am done with it. The world needs a socialist economic system. If things do not change soon, there will be huge civil unrest.
    History will repeat…because the greedy never learn! Capitalism cannot be tamed or bargained with. The past 40 years of concessions towards the market confirms this.

  21. Kaye Lee

    Christian,

    Unbridled capitalism is certainly a blight on the world. The push for small government and deregulation has allowed corporate greed to run rampant.

    But it is naive to think that only capitalist societies are guilty of the crimes you list, which is the point others are trying to make.

    Many thousands of Uyghur Muslims are detained in political education camps in China as we speak. Russia is hot keen to begin Arctic mining. North Korea ranks last in the world for press freedom.

    Benevolent dictators are hard to find.

  22. Jane Cally

    Mick Byron, capitalism has killed 1.6 billion+. It causes wars (look up America’s war history), it causes poverty, (3 million+ in Australia and growing), it causes homelessness (200,000+ in Australia and growing), wages stagnant while corporate profits massively increase (average of 20% per year in Australia), social safety nets are decreasing causing even more poverty, high unemployment putting downward pressure on wages causing more poverty, jobs being sent overseas to cheaper wages further putting pressure on the unemployment figures and a for ever increasing amount of casualised jobs making us the land of the working poor, just like America.
    Yea capitalism is doing really well….NOT.

  23. Christian Marx

    Kaye Lee what this country needs is a socialist economic system, the bare minimum we should be pushing for is Jeremy Corbyn like policies. I am also a huge admirer of ex Greek finance minister Yanis Varoufakis. The man is fantastic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aTMtGOzzug

  24. Mick Byron

    Christian,
    “You and Miriam can support it all you want but I am done with it.”
    I can’t speak for Miriam, but nowhere did I say I supported Capitalism
    This is what I’m trying to point out.
    With statements like that and non factual ones like ““The suffering from capitalism eclipses that of all other ideologies combined.” It puts your article into the “opinion piece” category and “fiction”
    Try to follow some of the estabvlished writers on AIMN with links, stats and fact, it may help
    Jane Cally
    I’m no supporter of rampant capitalism or communism or most of the “isms”
    As Kaye Lee points out “Benevolent dictators are hard to find.”
    But I’d take one if there was one on offer

  25. Kaye Lee

    Christian,

    I also have liked what Varoufakis has to say and have quoted him before

    Capitalism is doomed to collapse unless it learns to share

    This is an interesting article of his

    https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/apr/20/yanis-varoufakis-marx-crisis-communist-manifesto

    I see the damage caused by rampant capitalism but a fair dinkum government could protect us from it. We need more regulation, not less, because companies do not have morals, ethics, conscience or responsibility for anything other than profit.

  26. Christian Marx

    Kaye Lee, thanks for the links. I will check them out. 🙂

  27. Miriam English

    Christian, I’m not a supporter of unbridled capitalism, as I repeated over and over again in my comment. Capitalism has its uses if kept under control. It only really becomes a problem when allowed to go crazy.

    The ONLY political system I know of that has virtually eliminated poverty is democratic socialist capitalism.

    .

    I get a little impatient sometimes (forgive me) of people complaining that we are so hard done by here in Australia.

    Yes, we have a terrible government that is doing its damnedest to massively screw things up for us, but we are still one of the richest and most privileged countries in the world.

    I live below the poverty line here in Australia, but most of the people in the world would love to live at my level of luxury. Despite my intentional one-meal-per-day, I never starve. I have access to the world’s greatest storehouses of knowledge on the internet. I have a roof over my head (even though I don’t own it). I don’t get too hot or too cold. I can have a nice warm shower whenever I like. I have clean water to drink. I have electricity. I get paid social security by the government. I could just couch-potato my life away, but I’m using the time to write two novels at the moment (have already written 6) and researching speech recognition and artificial intelligence.

    When people angrily talk about the richest 1% they are talking about me — us — just because of the simple accident that I was born in Australia I am one of the 1% richest people on Earth. I have nothing, and pretty-much everybody reading this is almost certainly wealthier than I am. (Maybe not 1%… maybe closer to the richest 5%, but my point still stands.)

    We really need to understand how incredibly lucky we are here. That doesn’t mean we should put up with the massive sabotage being undertaken by our awful government; it should motivate us to preserve our great good luck. But we should really stop complaining about how hard our lives are. It’s kinda insulting to the majority of people in the world who really do have big problems.

  28. Kaye Lee

    I think, to a degree, we already have a socialist economic system.

    We have a public education system, public health, the PBS, public transport, the aged pension, the NDIS, single parents and disability pensions, unemployment benefits, paid parental leave, childcare rebates. superannuation guarantee etc We also give student loans for tertiary education though I would rather it be free as it was when I went through.

    It’s just the system is always under attack.

    It’s informative to see how many of those benefits came under a Labor government. We just need to use our collective power to elect the right people and then keep the pressure on for reform.

  29. jimhaz

    Capitalism with adequate regulation is fine – providing there is room for growth.

    There is no room for growth anymore, so either capitalism dies or people do….or we have some sort of Brave New World dystopia with a gradual loss in living standards for the masses – we become people living in small rooms never experiencing nature directly. By this time most of the beauty nature had has been destroyed in any case – apart from some silos maintained for the very wealthy.

  30. Egalitarian

    Governments selling off everything the people owned and privatising it’s responsibilities of our once Egalitarian Capitalistic Society has destroyed our Democracy. Now it’s every man for himself. Exactly how the wealthy have worked their wonders to play out as they are now.

  31. helvityni

    Power

    they tilt champagne
    in padded boardrooms
    and toast success,
    they pop caviar
    and collect for hunger,
    at backgammon
    they boast of bloodlines
    disclaiming prejudice,
    they prim for photos
    their smiles
    knitted by Scandinavian surgeons;
    sophisticates of illusion
    they have captured our world
    and hold us all ransom

    Nancy-Gay Rotstein

  32. Miriam English

    jimhaz, how do you figure there’s no room for growth anymore? I create new books, short stories, computer programs, virtual worlds, and more, out of nothing.

    There is always room for growth. Music, art, scientific research, books, movies, festivals, hairstyles, gardens, tourism, wildlife management… all these can be grown pretty-much without end, and with little or no resource use.

    And then we get physical systems that can be grown smaller instead of bigger, such as computers, consumer electronics, etc. Even cars, with new carbon-fibre composites and electric engines are able to be lighter and have a smaller footprint on the Earth. Hopefully we will eventually see homes move underground in large numbers one day, with far smaller resource usage.

  33. johno

    I was told today that 30% of oz think Trump is the way to go. So it’s a no brainer who that 30% will vote for.

  34. nonsitbicunctis

    Mick Byron, how you can claim to be providing some “balance to this article” by depending on and referring readers to “Reason”, hardly an objective source of comment on an issue such as this.

  35. Egalitarian

    News comes fast these days.I rest my case on this rotten ideology of Privatization. Just watching A Current Affair and on comes a story about a private company called Pexa who bought the state owed NSW Titles Office “A nice little old Monopoly thank you very much ” where a young couple were hacked of an odd $140,000 or so. The dollar is so evil. Though Sydney does it so well. LOL

  36. Miriam English

    johno, I think whoever told you 30% of Australians are in favor of Trump was just pulling a number out of their imagination. Pauline Hanson is the closest thing to Trump in Australia and she does really badly.

    In some ways the greatest danger is the Labor party moving ever further to the right. People who are cheesed off with them could move their votes. Luckily the Greens take up a lot of those votes instead of One Nation.

    I think it would be much better for Australia if Labor got rid of their corrupting influences and remembered that the people vote them into power, not their big money donors.

  37. nonsitbicunctis

    Matters Not – Heh, thanks for a succinct and sensible suggestion at a point where it was all getting too silly and tangled.

  38. Matters Not

    A reasonable discussion of some aspects of democratic socialism (from a US perspective) with some interesting stats. The Scandinavians get some good wraps.

  39. michael lacey

    “Capitalism doesn’t necessarily lead to the things you discuss here, and it doesn’t need to bring about the destruction of the living world that we depend upon. Capitalism carefully controlled can be a wonderful thing. It can produce more efficient systems that use less resources and let us live more lightly on the Earth. The problem is capitalism uncontrolled and reinforced by a corrupt government that creates the dangers you talk about in this article.” Miriam English

    As Christian in one sentence stated “Capitalism is based on the exploitation of people and individuals in order to make a profit.”

    Capitalism has systemic failure built into its structure cycles booms and busts!

    Both neoliberal-driven capitalist governments and authoritarian societies share one important factor: They care more about consolidating power in the hands of the political, corporate and financial elite than they do about investing in the future of young people and expanding the benefits of the social contract and common good.

    Michael Yates (economist) points out throughout his book ‘The Great Inequality’, capitalism is devoid of any sense of social responsibility and is driven by an unchecked desire to accumulate capital at all costs. As power becomes global and politics remains local, ruling elites no longer make political concessions to workers or any other group that they either exploit or consider disposable. Capitalism always works towards this aim

    At bottom, capitalists believe in a social hierarchy of “haves” and “have nots”. They have taken this corrosive social vision and dressed it up with a “respectable” sounding ideology which all boils down to the cheap labour they depend on to make their fortunes.

    The ugly truth is that cheap-labour capitalists just don’t like working people. They don’t like “bottom up” prosperity, and the reason for it is very simple. “Corporate lords” have a harder time kicking them around. Once you understand this about the cheap-labour capitalists, the real motivation for their policies makes perfect sense. Remember, they believe in social hierarchy and privilege, so the only prosperity they want is limited to them. They want to see absolutely nothing that benefits those who work for an hourly wage.

    I also question the efficiency of capitalism as well!

    Simon Patten (1852–1922)
    Patten said that there are four factors of production. Classical economics talks about three factors of income — land, labor and capital. But there’s a fourth factor of production, and that’s public infrastructure. However, its function, Patten said – and this is a pro-capitalist saying it, this is the business school – the function of public infrastructure, roads and schools is not to make a profit, like a private investor would do. The public aim is to lower the cost of living and doing business, so as to make the economy more competitive.

    That’s why, Patten said, socialised economies with active public infrastructure can undersell other economies. Imagine if you’re competing with an economy that does what Margaret Thatcher did in England. When she privatized the electric and water companies, everybody’s electricity and water rates went up. If countries privatize their roads and airlines, the private owners are going to want to borrow all the money needed to invest, and they’re going to pay interest on this.

    Privatisation of Public infrastructure is a joke and the fact that is the topic at the moment is not just in Australia but globally shows how much a failure it is!!

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