The nature of capitalism

Overview
Coordinator Comments

Most people take it for granted that capitalism is the "natural" way to run an economic system since the only alternative that they have heard of, socialism, was discredited by the crash of the Soviet Union.

In fact, capitalism has dominated the world economy since it developed in Europe after the Middle Ages and was imposed on their colonies around the world in subsequent centuries.

Capitalists, like the slave-owners and feudal lords of preceding economic systems, increase their wealth by profiting from the production of their workers. Unlike slavery and feudalism, however, the capitalists do not "own" the workers, but rather they "buy" the worker's production by paying a wage. In capitalist societies, for the most part, there are two ways to survive, one is to be a capitalist and exploit workers and the other is to be a worker, to enter the "labor market" and to be paid to produce for the capitalist. Although profesionals such as teachers, doctors, lawyers, etc. do not usually consider themselves as workers, they do know that they must "work for a living" and that the institutions for whom they work are controlled directly or indirectly by capitalist institutions. Government workers may not think that they are working for capitalist employers, but they must realize that government policy, for the most part, is determined by capitalists.

Because capitalism is so pervasive, it takes someone like Karl Marx, who had renounced the system in writing the "Communist Manifesto" to analyze it objectively. Marx spent most of his years working on his book that was called simply, "Capital."

Is there another way to run economies, both locally and globally? And would it contribute to a culture of peace?