China has adopted a form of "state capitalism", actually, after which the overall standards and prosperity of it's "populous" has skyrocketed. Now there is an example of power concentrated in a very select ruling elite. Bet you'd all like a government like that taking the "power" away from private enterprises... Despite its bad form of capitalism it goes to show though that standards of living/prosperity of a people can grow even as inequality rises. Simplistic and sentimental focus on inequality, or perceived injustice shouldn't interfere with real progress. This kind of example has been seen everywhere basically over the last 200 years. No other economic system has been consistently as successful (or even close) to being able to rise the well-being of a people. Hopefully the next step for China is to embrace democracy and a free market economy.
i believe nobody has a right to private wealth, and that it should all be monopolised by one major entity.
Progress for whom ? and at the expense of what ? - equality and justice. Personally, I don't see that as progress.
It doesn't purport to serve the needs of the people. It is a system in which people serve and are served, and ultimately have the most choice in matters concerning them than any other system. And it isn't controlled by "the few" unless a government of a country has created a political and legal environment that would favor that. Intentions need to be distinguished with outcomes. Some of the regulations that are frequently touted as being designed to limit private entities' "power over consumers" for example can actually help in concentrating the power in those industries to few big players, as they make it harder for small to medium companies or other players to compete with large corporations who can deal with added obstacles much more easily.
I think you need to give more scrutiny about who ultimately holds the power to influence decisions that are affected at Government level.
I think you have to look at the bigger picture about what conditions are attached, what consequenses occur and whether it really is 'progess' In the early 90's a huge amount of World Bank money was pumped into India to build dams to provide clean drinking water for the cities. It was believed that the private companies charged with building the dams would raise living standards in the cities AND in the rural areas by providing jobs for peasants and clean water for city dwellers. Everybody was a winner. The real consequence was that people in the cities had to pay extortionate amounts of money to companies to provide their water, whcih before they got for free by collecting it from wells. The water wasn't dirty in the cities, it was that the 'standards of living' were demanding more and more of it. In the countyside, people had their rivers run dry to divert to dams, so they lost their natural source of water, their food source from fishing and their ability to irrigate their land to grow crops. The result was that city people were trapped into paying private companies for a once free resource and rural people were forced from their homes into the slums in the cities to seek jobs with the same companies that had taken their natural resource from them. And all in the name of progress . . . .
Well, wow - did I start this - sorry. I just wanted to say that what we have now is not capitalism in it's purest state. Governments and banks are screwing with system, but it's for our own good right? Wrong! Its for the good of the mega-rich that finance political campaigns. One of the biggest problems we have right now is that the value of money, as a resource, is artificially raised. If I borrow money I pay anything up to 25%, if I save money I get 2%. So money is only valuable if you are a rich person. If you get over the threshold, you get 10-15% or more on your money, because you are special. Really we should be running at 20% inflation, but inflation is bad right? Only if you have loads of money! If you have debts, inflation is great! This is how it works, the rich finance the banks, the banks run a cartel, so the value of money, the bank rate, is artificially high, and the enonomy goes down the tubes. And don't think the Chinese are virtuous. They are sitting on about 2 trillion dollars cash that they could lend out for almost nothing, but they want the rate high as well.
No it illustrates that people expect a "system" or "entity" to serve them, when in fact they are the ones who serve and are served. What I meant above is "serving the people" doesn't need to be an intrinsic concept of an economic system for it to be the best at eventually ... serving the people.
Why does a 'system' exist if people, as you suggest operate outside of it and serve and are served by themselves ? They are not separate from the 'system' that they live in, they are part of it and subject to its operational model. Also, if a system doesn't have the concept of 'serving the people' or put another way, existing to meet the needs of those work for it. Then what is it's purpose ? To serve whom ? If Capitalism, being the dominant model that we are subject to, it isn't designed to meet the needs of the people, then in my opinion it is a fundamentally flawed system.
You said that people serve and are served by themselves, and should not expect to be served by a system. What I'm saying is that you can't separate the two. Unless you go off an live in a cave, you are part of the system.
