Capitalism fails local and global economies and disrupts international peace. It also enables corporations to plunder earth resources and profit from subjugation of workers.

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Capitalism has its roots in medieval feudal systems and evidence of working for reward can be traced to pre-history in relics and fossil records. The division of society at that time was a result of aristocratic brutality (stealing land, burning villages, raping wives and murdering children). Those aristocrats had accumulated such seats of wealth, power, and control by hostile acts towards others (stealing land, burning villages, raping wives and murdering children). The whole raft of capitalism sits on a murky river of criminality and violence.

 

When aristocratic wealth began to be challenged by early capitalism (known as mercantilism), individuals who introduced and maintained trade with colonised land could accumulate wealth. By overvaluing the risk and effort needed to move commodities, their wealth could come close to that amassed by the aristocrats, resulting in a new social class known as the 'landed gentry'. The aristocracy needed to ensure they remained in control, but individuals were becoming so rich that they were buying land and property at an alarming rate and threatening to replace the ruling classes. At this stage, the idea of moneylending came about. This enabled the ruling classes to establish debt amongst the newly rich and their sub-classes, as greed demanded more property, more land, more power. As we now know, through manipulating the cost of debt, both kinds of ruling classes retained that power, crippling those who aspired to wealth by trapping them in increasingly costly debt. Through fluidity in regulation (controlled by, yes, you’ve got it, themselves), ‘ordinary’ people have been excluded from what is, essentially, freedom to misappropriate monies by creating 'imaginary' liability. Inflation is used as a mechanism by which to control the flow of wealth, always ensuring that the very wealthy remain that way, just as colonial economies were controlled by outside legislation and management.

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Capitalism has depended on the ill-paid labours of others. By over-valuing the effort (and cost) of manufacturing an item, profits increased by unreasonable degrees. Since the industrial revolution, however, its effects became, on the surface, constructive and benevolent. Workers were provided with homes, conditions gradually improved and, through the (sometimes fatal) efforts of Chartists and Unions and, ultimately, the Labour Party, workers’ rights were established. Recent decades have seen erosion of union influence but the biggest threat to individual rights is yet to have such an enormous impact.

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The steady rise of technological change has made capitalism increasingly problematic as individuals gain from manipulation of information. Some companies and financial institutions have mutated into bloated corporations which have ultimately become globally irresponsible, greed-centred and corpulent, sometimes to the devastation of local communities. It is well-documented that recent financial advantage, taken in the context of poor regulation, has repeatedly lead to global economic failures such as the recent banking crisis that caused recession and personal financial disaster across the world. Clearly, there is a need to control the conduct of such institutions but the broad and rigorous regulation that capitalism demands only serves to emphasise its flaws (it’s worth noting that there is no need to legislate and regulate compassion, kindness, selflessness).

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Sadly, capitalism breeds disparity, and disparity spawns injustice. It is self-perpetuating and self-escalating. Nowadays, this level of wealth is commonplace and there are myriad sources of financial control and ruin. Individual wealth is at an unequalled high for a tiny minority, corporate wealth is beyond imagination, and the extremes of poverty are more desperate than they have ever been. The situation, left to its own devices, will undoubtedly become worse.

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A relatively recent development is the ease with which monetary systems can be manipulated to favour one group or individual against others. Laws and regulation are clearly inadequate but even where such laws exist they are flouted. There is no authority powerful enough to exert control and all of the power is held by the very institutions that exploit it. Money is an abstraction of value. In itself, it is virtually worthless. One of the greatest and most insurmountable difficulties embedded in capitalism is the ability to profit from trading in this abstraction. Much of the underlying worth (the commodity or work it represents) is all but impossible to value. This means that  its value depends on supply, demand, local administration and conduct, international events and so many other factors that it becomes impossible to make sensible judgements. Add in the ease with which it is possible to manipulate those variables (when you control the movement of labour and commodities, and the data associated with them), it is unsurprising that wealth accumulates wealth. Worse still, once enough of this abstract ‘stuff’ is accumulated, it becomes almost a safe bet to 'hedge' on some markets, ensuring that those who possess sufficient wealth will accumulate yet more.

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Information is the new commodity. Protection of information is the new insurance against failure for capitalists. The wealthy information-rich are monetising data at an alarming rate. From e-books and itunes to complex applications and algorithms, data has value. Everything is becoming reliant of data, even the commodities upon which our lives depend. Information about where it is, and how much of it there is, allows control over it, manipulation of its value, creating wealth. Wealth has become ever more centralised, those who lack wealth increasingly subjugated. The cleverest aspect of 'information = wealth' is that the coding of data into valuable forms is a highly specialised skill that belongs to the very rich, who can afford to pay for it.

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Capitalism is not the answer. It fails, not because it is not regulated enough (it is over-regulated) but because, like organised gangs of car thieves, multi-national corporate bodies and institutions pre-empt and engineer new regulation; they plan strategies to ensure they will continue to make bloated profits, pay fewer taxes and lower salaries and continue to profiteer around, beneath and through every regulation that seeks to control them. Any attempt at regulation is spurious and will never stop the predatory behaviour of corporations. Of course, economic poverty triggers sociological, psychological and democratic poverty, which results in emasculation of the masses, their fear of economic ruin the ruling classes' best means of control.

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During the last sixty years, astute development of economic systems has encouraged increasingly rapid corporate expansion, increasing misuse and abuse of economic markets, global growth that is unequalled in any period of history, and more ‘boom and bust’ than ever in history outside of post-war economies. Sadly, this impacts on individuals within our society to the extent that some are made homeless, some starve, some are thrown into the depths of depression, some families are destroyed, some people die, all because some individuals (the heads of corporations and governments) manipulate markets to keep them so wealthy they cannot ever lose that wealth. It is appalling.

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Society, being a civilised organisation, ought to aim to provide an elementary level of safety, security, shelter and status to all. Society is responsible for ensuring that those who make efforts to contribute to and improve society for the benefit of all gain the highest level of respect. That is all. Money is not an element of this model. Corruption and manipulation, misconduct and abuse, favouritism and neglect, and any activity that is harmful to society or individuals must be censured.

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We (and many of you) are incensed at the injustices created by capitalism. The few individuals who promote it as a ‘self-regulating’ system are those who profit vastly from it, or those who believe that they will. They are in a tiny minority. The majority must try to lead society out of the dreadful mire of capitalism before it is too late. Global growth must stop. Our reward systems must be fair. If we maintain rather than grow, we can focus on the real, practical needs of our world and its people: fair distribution of basic human needs, efficient use of resources, promotion of arts and culture, eradication of conflict, and many other necessary and fundamental tenets of civilisation. The way we interact, share, allocate responsibility, ensure fairness and promote every positive aspect of maintaining this Earth must change radically. Capitalism must die.