The Capitalism of today Vs. the role it once played

I am sure that many who read this blog are quick to label me a communist or socialist, (more than likely with a false propagandized understanding of what communism or socialism is) though I've always been somewhere in between socialism and capitalism. I believe in the ideal notion of a free market, but have seen too many times what the greedy hand of Man is capable of, placing profit over the sanctity of life, which is why I feel we need much greater economic restrictions. I have also seen what the free market produces and am fully convinced we are consuming ourselves and our very existence, at a far greater pace than the Earth can keep pace with. The problem with today's capitalism is it is no longer answering needs, it is manufacturing them! Instead of focusing on cleaner energy sources, famine and global poverty, real concerns that capitalism is supposed to address, today's capitalism has shifted the cultural focus towards high definition television, I-Pods and camera phones, technology that complicates our existence. Entertainment now trumps societal need.


As a matter of fact, Capitalism is the driving force behind global warming, famine and poverty, not a part of the attack against it. In the name of profit, ExxonMobil threw the world by the wayside and intentionally misinformed the public to the dangers of global warming over an eight-year span, spending millions to accomplish this goal. This is the capitalism of today!

http://americanwhistleblower.blogspot.com/2007/06/i-am-disturbed-by-disinformation.html

Regarding famine, the United States possess the ability to feed the starving worldwide, let alone within our own borders, but instead spends billions of dollars paying it's farmers not to grow crops through agricultural subsidy programs, averaging roughly $16 billion per year in subsidies from 1996-2002.

So if capitalism is an economic system that answers needs, it clearly is failing in this regard. Those that argue that the consumers determine need are dead wrong, evident within the multi-billion dollar marketing industry. Advertising has a huge influence on our cultural desires. In many ways it is a form of brainwashing, enhancing materialism and the need for non-needs by portraying people that consumers can identify with in use of some product. It used to be that companies developed a product then focused on selling it. This shifted at the beginning of the 1960's. Now businesses and marketing teams study what they think could sell by identifying and targeting consumers, compiling massive collections of personal data, and go about designing the product around this information. This is a huge fundamental shift in the difference between the capitalism that fueled the growth of modern society and the capitalism currently consuming society. If the capitalist's are going to defend capitalism, then the system needs to begin again what it once did: use profit to meet need, not greed. Capitalism also needs to start answering needs before manufacturing them. That's where the restrictions are needed.