Tuesday, March 18, 2008
George Bush explains capitalism
A few days ago, George Bush had this to say:
"In a free market, there's going to be good times and bad times. That's how markets work. There will be ups and downs."Not to pick on Bush alone, I've heard various financial and other commentators on TV say the same thing. None of them, certainly including Bush, took this statement as anything other than some kind of law of nature. That's just the way it is. Needless to say, it is indeed a law, but only under the completely irrational system of capitalism, as first described by Karl Marx.
And the quintessential example of the crisis of overproduction which is the feature of capitalism which leads to those "good times and bad times" is illustrated by something Bush said today:
"No question there's been a over-supply of housing."An oversupply of housing? With three-quarters of a million people homeless in America? Of course, what there really is is an oversupply of housing that people can afford to buy or rent. Because under capitalism, goods (including housing) aren't produced for use, they're produced for profit.
I'm a scientist by training, and it's the complete irrationality of capitalism which is what repels me. There must be a better way, a system in which goods are produced to meet people's needs. There is. It's called socialism.
