Thank you cybercitizens for your illuminating comments.
I have just discovered the Net
(thanx to the Uni of South Australia)
and would like to make my maiden contribution.
I believe that makes me a "newby". Anyway, here goes...Something is obviously not working that is supposed to:
there are poor and starving people all over the world.
I would agree that capitalism is at least partly to blame -
any system that is based on competition is bound to produce
losers. But I do see the wisdom in an earlier comment made
in the Debating Room which suggested that the fault in
the "system" perhaps lies in human nature rather than in
capitalism. Imagine a hypothetical situation where a company
owner is making truckloads of cash. (S)he is under no external
compulsion to spend it on him/herself or to reinvest it in the
company. This owner is quite capable of walking down to the
local Salvation Army and donate the profits... so why doesn't
(s)he? Capitalism can be blamed for teaching people to value
their own butts over others' but who says anyone has to listen?
There is a degree of choice involved here and human nature has
a role to play. From birth we are egocentric (my mummy,
my bottle, me, me, me... ) and we need to be taught to share.Think about wage levels: there are people who earn quarter or
half a million bucks ($Oz) per year (bank executives, politicians,
High Court judges etc.). Do they NEED this cash? Do they need
to eat more than the average human being? How many cars can they
drive simultaneously? How many beds can they sleep in per night?
Do you see what I'm getting at, oh cyberreader? What we're
looking at is a huge black hole in our economies - the money that
an economy produces is dropped into floating piggybanks called
"corporate yachts" or landlubberly piggybanks called "multi-
million dollar mansions in Monte Carlo, Florida, Fremantle,
or wherever - how about Majorca Mr. Skase)". If that money were
distributed more evenly across the world's population, I reckon
there'd be a heck of a lot less poverty... regardless of the
economic system (well, almost regardless).