I'm probably missing the point, but in
Indonesia, the
US,
Argentina and
Brazil I would say your problems come down to, respectively,
corruption,
over-legislation,
fascism and (again)
over-legislation. Can these be present, even persistent, in a capitalist system? Yes. But are they inherent?
I realize that attempting to posit a complete dichotomy between political and economic issues is
inaccurate and
misleading, but I believe it is still a point that bears repeating. I would assume from your writeup that you are strongly anti-
communist and anti-
socialist, due to the fact that regimes operating under these economic systems have been victim to rampant abuses of power.
Your problem seems to be more with corrupt political
leaders enacting anti-capitalistic (anti-
free market) legislation, or making deals in which they trade away things that are not theirs to
trade. It's a matter of
power... who it belongs to and how it is exercised; these are the people who try to twist any existing system to their advantage. If you would argue that capitalism is more vulnerable to twisting of this nature, then the preceding arguments leave me unconvinced. I would say that it is more indicative of current (and developing) problems with western
democratic processes.
As for the
Netherlands issue, I don't even know if I should bother. Although I believe it is a very defensible position (most
scientists would agree) that
global warming IS happening (although not undeniably so), whether or not we are causing it is another matter entirely. This issue has been heavily covered elsewhere (
global warming,
global warming denier, or check out
The Skeptical Environmentalist by
Bjorn Lomborg). Even if it IS happening, and it turns out WE are a major cause, I'd say that the blaming this on 'bribes' is an
extremist position at best... the fact is, the populace has NOT been convinced... at least not enough to curb excessive consumption. If you want to blame this on anything, let's blame
corporate media.
I started off my 'political life' with a very leftist bend... but lately the leftist majority has have been driving me away... mostly due to excessive concentration on the
symptoms rather than the
causes. I think
globalization, excesses of
consumerism, rampant
advertising culture and environmental and
political unconsciousness are all problems in the world today... but ones more symptomatic than causal. Is there any chance you may be blaming current 'capitalist' trends for the state of the
populace of which it is merely a
reflection? Just an alternative point of view.... I HEARTILY AGREE that the above examples show that SOMETHING is going (perhaps drastically) wrong... I'm just not necessarily in agreement about what.