Why finance capitalism is nothing more than a giant pyramid scheme
Ladies and gentlemen, you may have heard before about 'pyramid schemes'.
In case you do not know, pyramid schemes are scams which give empty promises of wealth. The starters of this pyramid scheme initially ask people to join them on condition of investing a sum of money, with implicatinos of future wealth if they find more investors. These schemes inevitably collapse, often with serious consequences, due to the fact that our population is not infinite and not everyone will be able to part with cash or be willing to anyway. Thus, pyramid schemes are illegal in most nations.
There is sadly however, one global pyramid scheme that has not been made illegal yet- finance capitalism, the same kind that caused the recession we are in and the same kind that is accelerating damage to our natural world.
As we have seen, all that finance capitalism essentially creates is debt and money-nothing else, and certainly nothing that is actually useful, in the same way that pyramid schemes just transfer wealth upwards without ever creating anything. It is fundamentally reliant on huge numbers of people worldwide getting themselves into debt, people treating almost everything as just an investment to make more money on (which is a factor behind the UK's very high house prices), the creation of electronic money which is entirely virtual and thus ends up destabilising economies, and also like all capitalist systems, endless growth and profit, which cannot happen of course. Finance capitalism has been propped up by neoliberalism only by exporting jobs abroad, especially manufacturing jobs, often to nations where workers' rights are very limited to nonexistent, where there are no good safety standards or rights to unionise, and where wages are pitiful, by corrupting democratically elected governments, by subverting democracy at most opportunities they get (via free trade agreements,for example), and by bribing the media to promote its agenda and thus persuade people to rack up debts in order to fund the financiers.
There are no good forms of capitalism. Finance-based neoliberal capitalism, however, is one of the worst forms of capitalism conceivable, if not the worst, because of its total lack of restraint and its total disregard for anything but money. This system needs to end, and soon, for the good of humanity and our environment.
Alan.
In case you do not know, pyramid schemes are scams which give empty promises of wealth. The starters of this pyramid scheme initially ask people to join them on condition of investing a sum of money, with implicatinos of future wealth if they find more investors. These schemes inevitably collapse, often with serious consequences, due to the fact that our population is not infinite and not everyone will be able to part with cash or be willing to anyway. Thus, pyramid schemes are illegal in most nations.
There is sadly however, one global pyramid scheme that has not been made illegal yet- finance capitalism, the same kind that caused the recession we are in and the same kind that is accelerating damage to our natural world.
As we have seen, all that finance capitalism essentially creates is debt and money-nothing else, and certainly nothing that is actually useful, in the same way that pyramid schemes just transfer wealth upwards without ever creating anything. It is fundamentally reliant on huge numbers of people worldwide getting themselves into debt, people treating almost everything as just an investment to make more money on (which is a factor behind the UK's very high house prices), the creation of electronic money which is entirely virtual and thus ends up destabilising economies, and also like all capitalist systems, endless growth and profit, which cannot happen of course. Finance capitalism has been propped up by neoliberalism only by exporting jobs abroad, especially manufacturing jobs, often to nations where workers' rights are very limited to nonexistent, where there are no good safety standards or rights to unionise, and where wages are pitiful, by corrupting democratically elected governments, by subverting democracy at most opportunities they get (via free trade agreements,for example), and by bribing the media to promote its agenda and thus persuade people to rack up debts in order to fund the financiers.
There are no good forms of capitalism. Finance-based neoliberal capitalism, however, is one of the worst forms of capitalism conceivable, if not the worst, because of its total lack of restraint and its total disregard for anything but money. This system needs to end, and soon, for the good of humanity and our environment.
Alan.
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