Electronic Arts, better known as EA, has been making the Madden video football game since 1988. An annual version has been released every year since 1990 and the company has over three billion dollars in sales. If you Google an inquiry searching for the best football game ever made you will certainly find a large chunk of information about 2K Sports and a game they put out in 2005. I've played it and I will say it was great and way ahead of its time. During this same year EA obtained exclusive rights to the NFL Players Association which granted them exclusive rights to the players, teams, and stadiums. For all intents and purposes 2K Sports was done as a football franchise. They tried to release a game in 2008 using retired NFL players but it was lacking and 2k Sports has never tried football again.
No matter how bad my service might be, no matter how much I want to purchase a better deal from a different provider, no matter if I no longer need the product, I'm locked into a two year contract with my cell provider.
"Is Pepsi fine?" Well, I ordered a Coke, is that too much to ask?
The average premium for a family to have health care coverage is over $500 a month.
Our private banks got so big that when they conducted their affairs in such a way as to sink their business and cause them to go under we couldn't allow them to fail. These same banks are very tied into and connected to other countries around the world and some of these countries are facing bankruptcy and default. Now we can't let these countries fail or it will cause our banks to fail.
OnStar could dispatch emergency services to my location if I were in an accident but they don't because I don't pay them a fee each month. I know I use this one all of the time but the absurdity of this idea just gets me.
You have two choices as to your television service provider.
Every single gas station sets their price based on a future cost of oil and not what they paid for the oil in the ground that you are using. And they all have their prices within cents of each other in any given locality. Very "free market".
Capitalism is an economic system that encompasses, get this, the accumulation of capital. The most important part of this definition is the fact that it is an economic system. It seems to me that we have somehow confused this notion of Capitalism as Americanism and can't ever budge from this position.
I think capitalism is cool for the most part. It seems a pretty good thing when things are going good. However, along with this system comes the real possibility of depression. It is the nature of the system that creates this downturn in the economy. We have been witness to this in the past and are currently dealing with it right now in our present. It would be wonderful if this system could simply correct itself and get back on track without our assistance. But there is no guarantee that will ever happen and it is painful during the waiting period.
One of the core arguments that we constantly engage in as Americans centers around our approach to how we handle this economic system. Now I'm not suggesting that isn't incredibly important, it certainly is. However, I'm offering up the idea that this system isn't what makes us American. But when you talk of tinkering with the system, with adjusting it to make sure we spend more time in growth spurts and less time in depression, then it seems the language turns to patriotism and less about capital. Or is it that capital is the only thing that makes us American?
We find ourselves embracing and constantly trying to reconcile two approaches when it comes to our economic system: A Laissez-faire style where interaction between consumer and provider is free from state intervention at any level and a Keynesian view that introduces regulations and oversight. It's wonderful that we exchange ideas and try to compromise and move forward and implement the best strategy available for our current times, but this is no different than any other platform issue we hold a strong opinion about. Why is it then we find ourselves talking about capitalism as it is the only American option?
We have heated debates about abortion but we aren't "less American" because of our stance (maybe less godly in the view of many). We argue about the role of NASA in our budget and the need for space exploration. We argue about gay marriage. Yet, when one entertains the idea about an approach to tinkering with our economic system to improve it then that view is considered hostile to our freedoms. Seems a giant leap.
Our Founding Fathers were more concerned with our freedoms than they were anything else. I concede the right to earn capital is a freedom but it wasn't the driving force for these men, equality and fairness was their goal. And as noble as their intent was at the time, they weren't perfect. They enslaved blacks and denied women equal status. They laid the framework and knew it would be a constant battle to continually form a more perfect union, a never ending process.
Piero Sraffa was very critical of the Keynesian approach and thought the government shouldn't play a role in the economic system. His formula centered around the idea of social relations between producers and consumers, with a primary emphasis on the demands of production. We are no longer using his formula, we don't place the EMPHASIS ON THE DEMANDS, but we are still using his critique. Not cool.
I opened this piece with some examples of how capitalism doesn't always work out. Sometimes the formula isn't followed and the product isn't really based on my wants. Sometimes providing a service to all of humanity just might be the cool thing to do and it has nothing to do with profit. We have minimum wage laws, child labor laws, safety laws, hours of work laws, overtime requirements, worker's compensation laws, we have tinkered with the system already. Discussing the tax rate is like talking about what temperature to set the heat in the room to make it comfortable for all. It's just a cog in the machine and one that requires maintenance in order to ensure the machine keeps on keeping on. When the machine stalls then discussion about how to make the machine more efficient should be welcomed. However, one camp's idea of discussion is not having discussion about it. Odd.
There is plenty of room for disagreement on many topics. I just contend they should take place in reality. We create these fake scenarios and no longer base solutions on facts or analysis, we simply believe whatever we want or whatever we've heard time and time again. Capitalism good, anything else bad. I'm not on a campaign to toss out capitalism as our economic system, I'm more concerned with having honest dialogue so we can find common ground from which to begin our discussion.
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