Proutist Economics. This chapter presents the basic economic principles required to move from a profit-based to a consumption-based economy. A consumption-based economy is premised on the belief that the opportunity to meet one’s basic needs should be guaranteed to all the members of a society. Section One:Production for Human Needs and Maximum Utilization The capitalist socio-economic system is based on the motivation of the individual for financial profit.
In the pursuit of profit, human beings are treated as capital input, equal to land and equipment. According to PROUT, such a system is the exact opposite of what a socio-economy should be. We hold that meeting the needs of human beings is the reason that economies exist. Treating people as just another form of capital has allowed for great social injustice and exploitation. In the capitalist system, production, distribution, and regulation take place through the so-called "free market" mechanism. PROUT recognizes five minimum necessities of life. Foreign direct investment: Putting in money. Capitalism 2.0: The Need For Regulation | Sramana Mitra on Strat. Posted on Saturday, Mar 28th 2009 Never have I spent so much of my thinking energy on trying to understand, question, assess, debug, and dissect a value system that I had, for years, accepted as a fundamental principle of my life.
This series, I hope, will provide a forum for many of us experiencing the same period of questioning, an opportunity to discuss. Let’s start with a definition by Capitalism’s high priestess, Ayn Rand: “Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. Today’ we’re seeing the government take a role well beyond this rather simplistic definition, and we’re even discovering that some of it is desirable. Greed that is coupled with a strong ethical value system – a moral code – is the ideal. Capitalism and financial crashes. On June 10, 2000, Queen Elizabeth II opened the high-tech Millennium Bridge, which traverses the River Thames from the Tate Modern to St. Paul’s Cathedral. Thousands of people lined up to walk across the new structure, which consisted of a narrow aluminum footbridge surrounded by steel balustrades projecting out at obtuse angles.
Within minutes of the official opening, the footway started to tilt and sway alarmingly, forcing some of the pedestrians to cling to the side rails. Some reported feeling seasick. The authorities shut the bridge, claiming that too many people were using it. Some commentators suspected the bridge’s foundations, others an unusual air pattern. What does all this have to do with financial markets? This is essentially what happened in the lead-up to the Great Crunch.
Consider the freeze that started in August of 2007. When the subprime-mortgage market faltered, the business model of giving loans to all comers no longer made sense. What should you do? Portal:Capitalism. Capitalism's Fundamental Flaw - Forbes.com.