Yeah the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. There is only 1 winner and everyone else is a loser.

Greed.

YES. The rich dominate over and have the power to abuse the poor, they can exploit the workers all they want because they know that they need the money to live and that they will put up with anything, work as much as thyey need, just to get the money to live.

The only drawback is that the dollar is the defining issue of the whole matter. When the issue should be what is best for the majority of the people.

It does not have a safety net for the poor,with social programs,it does not have socialized medicine,affordable schooling,including University tuition.It is based more on the corporations needs than on the individual citizen.

"Greed"

"Does Capitalism have any good points?" fix'd

Yeah. I think it misses out on the concept of equitable distribution of wealth. Capitalism allows many people to get rich, but other people are left out in the process.

Look at the news in America and the UK and you will see the effects of capitalism. The converse is look at the news in non-capitalistic states and you will see the effect of capitalism but not of totalitarianism! If theat makes sense. A great question!

Yes. 1.) Capitalism inherently concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a relatively small minority. This has to constantly be monitored and checked, else social revolution will happen. 2.) Capitalism values economic productivity, and those who aren't able, for any reason, to economically produce are undervalued by society. As such, no provision is made for their care. 3.) Pure capitalism rewards and encourages unethical behavior, as the main goal is the accumulation of wealth (aka: capital). 4.) The eventual end of any successful capitalist market competitor is a monopoly of the market (in pure capitalism). This is ultimately self-destructive, as it ends market competition and competitive pricing. Thus, capitalism must be checked (rules against monopolies are the result of this) in order to perpetuate itself. Otherwise, it will self-destruct. These are just a few off of the top of my head.

Exploitation. The family in Singapore working for pennies to make a stuffed animal for a three year old in America.

Yes. There isn't any economic system that doesn't. . In capitalism, the biggest drawback is that the cost of labor is not -- in principle -- distinguished from the cost of any other factor of production. . The idea is that resources are scarce and that the best way to determine where scare resources ought to go is to let free individuals, trading in a private market, bid on those resources. It is assumed that the person who bids the most is the person who can make the most productive use of that particular resource. . The formal way of saying it is that private markets allocate scarce resources to their highest valued use. . The principal justification for that is the incredible power that private sector markets have in tapping individual creativity. I may know that I can use that ton of copper to make things I can then sell for $10,000. So I'm willing to pay $9,500. . You may have an idea that I never even thought of that will allow you to make things out of that same ton of copper that you can then sell for $20,000. So you're willing to pay $19,000. . The concept is that your ideas compete against my ideas and, presumably, both of us are talking to other people and asking them to invest in our ideas -- and the one who convinces the most people with the most money gets the copper. . There are two potential drawbacks here. First, you may have overestimated the market value of how you can use the copper. However, if it turns out that you're wrong, and your business goes bust, the copper's still there and I can come along, buy it for scrap and still make what I wanted to make in the first place. . So everything shakes out in the wash eventually, but in the meantime there are people who you've hired to work for you who now lose their jobs and have to find other work. . That's the biggest drawback, and the one that's tough to get around. Classic economic theory treats labor as just one other factor of production. But there is a difference between copper, or iron, or water, or oil, or electricity -- and labor. . Because you can waste electricity, you can waste oil, you can mold copper into one thing and then melt it down and mold it into something else if your first idea doesn't work, and none of those things will ever decide that they hate your guts. . This is not true of labor. If you treat people like commodities, they will eventually pick up a gun and blow your head off. . In capitalism's defense, that is a simple social and economic reality that capitalist businesses can take into account. That was the huge breakthrough of FDR's New Deal and the Social Democratic movements in Europe -- they recognized the weakness of capitalism (the fact that it could easily sign it's own death warrant) and corrected for it. . In Western thought, the debate is mostly over whether they overcorrected for that or not. . The problem with communism and socialism is that they assume that it is better to evenly spread both the pain of bad decisions and the profit of good ones evenly throughout the population. It's a principle that's admirably egalitarian in intent, but which inevitably means you have to have some way of deciding in advance who's going to make the best use of the copper. . And that's not easy to do. By assuming they can get it right all the time, socialism inevitably misses opportunities that capitalism catches. By assuming that 'sink or swim on your own' is the best societal ethic to have, capitalism imposes uncertainties and costs on individual people that socialism would avoid. . Bottom line -- anybody who's an ideological purist who tells you that their side has all the answers is lying, or delusional.

Everything has it's drawback if it's abused. Some worse then others. Socialism, communism and fascism would be of the worst.

Yes. Pure unrestrained capitalism often doesn't care who, or what it destroys in an effort to make the quarterly profit balance. The result of which, has damages, both economic and enviormental, consequences for years to come.

With everybody being so busy trying to line their own pockets, doing something for the mere sake of 'common good' loses it's importance. As we've witnessed here in America, we become a nation full of masters, dark corporations and their somewhat obedient drones.

It has its drawbacks but it has its strong points also. it allows EVERYONE chances to make money and get ahead. I think this country was doing just fine being capitalist with ethics laws and social programs to help those that tuly need it. Unfortunately the social programs were abused by the lazy that don't want to work and they (the programs) became a way of life for for many able bodied people.Now people put down capitalism because they believe they deserve to be taken care of by social programs. I just saw a trailer for Michael Moores new film Capitalism a love story.I'm sure he is going to capitalize on this film so it makes him wealthy.I highly doubt he would be happy if he had to give a nice chunk of his gain to support people that can work but won't.

Extremes in the disparity of wages within corporations.

Lazy people would have to get off their a$$ and on their feet. The only money the government has is money that they TAKE FROM YOU.

yes, many, as in any economic system.

Yes. If you want to succeed in it you have to work. If you want to succeed further you have to take risks and work. You may do all that and not even succeed, but fail, in which case you have to get yourself back up again, work more, make up lost ground, and perhaps even take risks again. It is much easier to just cry for handouts from big government.

No one knows for sure. There is no example on earth of true laissez faire capitalism. The closest anyone came to it was 19th century America. But here is a clue of the potential of capitalism. In less than the span of that century, American wealth grew faster than any place on earth. The existence of the wealth and infrastructure developed during that century allowed America to break the stalemate in WWI, and overpower the dictatorships in post depression Europe and Asia. The wealth produced post WWII allowed the US to raise the cold war ante so high in the 80s that the USSR had to fold up and go away. The only thing that has dampened the economic growth of last century and a half is regulation.

Sure, America was NOT founded on capitalism, by the way. "All men are created equal" is a very non-capitalist notion. Capitalism implies that the richest candidate wins the presidency, it implies that access to legal remedies, medicine, clean water and any other commodity go first to the rich. Freedom of speech? Freedom of assembly? Only for the rich. That is NOT the basis of the bill of rights, the constitution or the Declaration of Independence. It's "We the people." Not "we the rich subset of the people."

A lot obviously. Everything is about money and achievements.

not one,is the secret to the human race

Larger corporations are unfeeling. Their priority lies in profits, not human interest. I would still take capitalism over communism any day, though.

Responsible Capitalism under a strong democratic government of the people is a good system. This is the system in the EU. But since the early 20th century, the corporation in the US began accruing the same rights and legal status as individuals, and through the Federal Reserve's actions (which has eliminated competition by creating monopolies and huge cartels with homogeneous political goals), a corrupt lobbying system and inequitable election campaign funding, they have been able to subjugate our democracy to the point where our elected representatives no longer represent the will of the people that actually elect them to office, but in fact represent the will of the corporation. The corporations are now more powerful than our own government and therefore are in control. We no longer have a democracy, but a corporatocracy. We were warned about this over 200 years ago: "If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered." -- Thomas Jefferson The only way to remedy this situation is to reverse the process through the will of the people. But first they must awaken to what the problem is and why, no matter whom they elect, nothing really ever changes.