sc94597 said:
And the alternative? Price controls? Hyperinflation? Restricted markets? Loose property rights? Shortages? Protectionism? Cuba? Zimbabwe? Venezuela? I can see why people argue for social democracy, even though I don't think it can last. At least social democracy works in the short-term. But actual socialism? Right... There is no utopia. Freedom is the best we can have, even with its faults. The world today is better than the world 100 years ago, and for damn sure a paradise compared to the world 200 + years ago. @OP I think we are just seeing short-term effects of developing countries competing with established industrial ones. In the long-term things will stabilize. Honestly, more people around the world having wealth is a good thing, and it is through free and open markets that this happens. So while life might be slightly harder for current generations (for a variety of reasons) living standards in Asia and South America are improving. That is a success in my opinion. I don't discriminate according to silly national borders. Another factor is urbanization in first-world countries. For example, in the United States more people lived in rural areas in the 70's than they do today. This meant housing prices were cheaper and getting a house easier. I would assume the same is true for other first-world countires. |
That may well be part of it, but I don't see that as the only cause and I don't think the effect is going to be short-term. A lot of jobs that didn't require a degrees or a raft of qualifications have been replaced by automation. Capitalism pushes everything to become more efficient and that means replacing humans with reliable machinary. This trend looks to increase as we get things like self-driving cars that could have a massive impact on jobs in a number of sectors. Or the self-checkout systems in supermarkets reducing the need for staff to work the tills. Even in science research a robot/computer has been built that runs experiments, analyses the results and designs the next set of experiments based on those results. There are simply less basic jobs to go round and semi-skilled jobs are likely to be replaced too. The same is going to happen in developing countries in a relatively short space of time given the speed of communication in modern day society.
The result is younger people need to get high value degrees to get even low-level jobs. More people getting degrees devalues the degree meaning a post-grad qualifiction becomes important resulting in more debt (and time) before getting to the lowest rung of the career ladder. All this whilst the cost of living is disproportionately high compared to salaries. Basically, we're getting to a point where there won't be enough jobs to go round. Generation Y is the most educated, knowledgable and qualified generation in the history of human civilization, but they're struggling to thrive and pay for the generation that preceded them.
You asked for alternatives to capitalism so I'd recommend giving 'Post-capitalism: a guide to our future' by Paul Mason a read. I don't agree with everything in it but it has some interesting ideas that could be worth exploring.
