For a brief article that article lists arguments against capitalism, see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_capitalism
Quite a balanced article, as it gives views of proponents of capitalism as well.

Big business benefits from war (as do politicians from kickbacks from the armaments industry!), and many would argue that capitalism produces incentives for fighting wars. The following new book is quite interesting.
The Three Trillion-Dollar War By Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes.
Actually, this is a conservative calculation. Figuring in macroeconomic costs and interest-the war has been funded with much borrowed money-the cost rises to $4.5 trillion; add Afghanistan, and the bill tops $7 trillion.
Also, Stiglitz and Bilmes ascribe to the war only $5-$10 in the oil price increase from $25 per barrel when the Iraq war started in 2003, to the $100 per barrel when the book was published.

At the following website one can pose questions, which get answewered by experts, including Stiglitz and Bilmes.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/qna/forum/three_trillion_dollar_war/index.html

Nobel price winning economist Joseph Stiglitz devotes several pages to the entire question of CEO pay packages in his book” The Roaring Nineties”.
(actually, the subtitle of the Penguin edition of this book is: “Why we’re paying the price of the greediest decade in History”).
Stiglitz speaks very strongly about this – he uses the word “theft” to describe how corp. executives deprive shareholders of what is rightfully theirs.

Socialism is a philosophy concerned with the collective wellbeing (of individuals) while Communism is a system of communal living gone wrong; using Socialist principles selectively.

In Animal Farm the animals started out with a promising idea until the pigs moved into the house and started to make up other rules like “two legs good; four legs bad!). They started behaving like company board members and wrote their own cheques -no difference there! Smells like Capitalism!

It’s like saying we must ban money because people are greedy.

In essence communism and socialism are intertwined and at the very least communism is simply a more fundamentalist/extreme version of socialism. To contend that the two are entirely differing ideologies is simply ahistorical.

Equally fallacious is the argument that many progressive states have socialist elements within them (for eg Canada’s universal health care system). Actually such states are at their core capitalist, whilst incorporating a degree of regulation (but not statist control) of certain non-core components of the economy.

The examples that have been proffered here of so called “socialist successes” are thus nothing more than a recognition that capitalist societies are not necessarily governed by a greed is good doctrine.

On the other hand it cannot be reasonably disputed that every attempt at socialist control of the core aspects of an economy (mining, agriculture, telecommunications, major industries, etc) has had obscene and inhumane consequences (even if initially unintended).

The record of what has been achieved by the two competing ideologies is so obvious that it utterly corroborates Winston c’s apocryphal remark that, “someone under 20 who is not a socialist has no heart and someone over 30 who is still a socialist, has no brain …

Finally Bert, Bakan’s analysis in the end amounts to nothing more than a tendentious “proof” for his “lots of regulation good, free enterprise bad!” argument.

I couldn’t agree with you more. A pure example of selfish short term thinking and no regard for the company or the economy’s longe term sustainability. What gets my goat is how these board members are able to decide on their own remuneration packages and bonusses. A CEO who stuffs up completely awards himself a $100 million bonus as a good-bye present – the subject of shareholder unhappiness a while ago. A year ago the arrogant outgoing CEO of Merrill Lynch was a visionary; he turned a stuffy company around by replacing the conservative decision makers with fresh blood who jumped on the easy money bandwagon – make money, no questions asked. Guess what…he also left the ruined company with a fat wad of cash!

What is wrong with capitalism is exactly what is wrong with communism – human nature. We are selfish, grasping people, by and large, easily corruptable into wishing for more; ambitious to grow our own empires. Amongst other things but essentially that’s it. That’s why everything we do must be a compromise; must suit more than one party and we must remember that as human beings we have these idiosyncracies – plan for them!

The other thing that people conveniently forget is that political systems viewed as capitalist (such as the US) are really nothing of the sort either. In a purely capitalist system people would make their own money for their own selves and families and anyone who couldn’t would literally just die in the street. Any form of redistribution ‘skews’ the market so goodbye to Medicaid, subsidised education and school meals. The failed communist states of Eastern Europe really were merely state capitalists as well – more of one and less of the other but a bit of both.

Any purist state is doomed to failure sadly because of human nature. The reason North Korea is in the mire might be less that it’s communist and more that it’s so purist – communism offers no incentive for people to strive, so they don’t unless they’re hit very hard with a big stick which isn’t really very communist either because then the person with the stick is the boss. Very capitalist idea, that.

The current collapse of the US banking system shows what happens in a capitalist system when you let idiots who are only interested in their own bonuses run your economy; a bit like politicians then.

And I disagree with the whole ‘collapse caused by anti-redlining’ nonsense. The banks were encouraged to lend to people they didn’t want to, absolutely. However, since when have corporations done more than a minimum when it comes to socially responsible things?

They lent out money because for some of these loans they received subsidies to do so (ie. made money) and could then siphon off some of the loans to unsuspecting investors in special vehicles built to conceal them (ie. made money) and for those that stayed good, they had a massive jump in repayments as part of the 2/28 deal (ie. made money) and if they didn’t, they’d end up with a few properties that they could sell off – okay, that’s where the misjudgement maybe came in, but never mind. They made some money before that.