OT: Jibjab, Politics, the Big Bang and more!

[Arryn]

Originally posted by Huzurdaddi:
It seems that the point of capitalism is to create the most economic wealth. Pretty much period. As to how the wealth gets allocated that's how capitalism is messed up via some metrics.

The point of capitalism is to create the most wealth for those with the capital, namely capitalists. That anyone else (such as workers) manages to benefit from this exercise in greed is incidental/accidental, and can be ascribed to democracy. Democracy is a tool that is beneficial to the capitalists only insofar as they can control it to better serve their goals. Thus you have what is seen in the U.S. today: a Congress that's a millionaire's club, beholden to corporate & wealthy donors, giving only lip service to the electorate's desires, and then only as much as is necessary to keep them in their positions of power and comfort. A Congress that is not subject to the same laws as the people who elect them.

There's a word for what we have: plutocracy. Or government of the wealthy, by the wealthy, for the wealthy. Not exactly what Abe had in mind in his famous Address.

BTW, speaking of the tools of democracy, and their usefulness to the plutocrats, you have only to look at Fox News. And anyone that ever doubted the propheticness of Orwell's 1984 only has to look at the Patriot Act, Echelon, Carnivore, John Ashcroft, (un)Justice Scalia, et cetera. I shudder to think what might come next. Truly scary.