[Al-Rik]

Capitalism
   An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit.

You forgot... "Which, if unchecked, tends to continually redistribute wealth to the top until it allows the people on the top to wield enough power to marginalize whatever political system is in place".
Many people simply overlook that a capitalistic economic system is not stable, but rather continually evolves...  and the end result of that evolution is always a concentration of wealth and power in fewer and fewer hands until a very few "players" have defacto unlimited power over the rest of the "participants" in the system.

Well, death is a stable state

Or the communism, according to Karl Marx. If a society reaches communism, there is no further need for (social) evolution. History has reached it's End.
And it's the great thing about Marxism that it's the only science that is able to predict the future

The vision of a concentration of all the wealth and power to a few is deeply connected to Marx idea of a de-terminated future.
Power and Wealth are relative. The CEO of a Big Corporation has much more power than any stockholder of that Corporation (at least until the stockholders agree to fired him). He can Boss around employees, if he makes a call the senator will answer it, he can decide how the company will invest...
A poor man in an industrialized country has a higher living standard as many workers in the developing countries. Wealth is not a number at your bank account, it's a state of living ( but big positive numbers on your bank account aren't bad for your wealth )

But Power is also an illusion. Ask your boss how much power he really has. Does always everything goes as he wishes ?
Most CEO and other members of the upper Management knew that their actual power is very limited, and especially in bigger corporations the staff is able to ignore orders from above by simply evading or delaying them.
Even if power is not an illusion and relative, how wise is it to concentrate all power in one strong institution, to avoid that a few reach to much power ?
Replacing a bunch of sharks with one big Leviathan ?
The sharks are easier to control...

That many protesters IMHO don't understand is the fact that they are also capitalists, providing the economy capital that's needed in form of their contributions for insurance policies or pension funds.
You don't like that the company does with the money you gave them ?
Take it away and give it to an other company.

You don't like the policy of the CEO ?
Go to the stockholders annual meeting, try to convince others, build an alliance and fire him.
Hell, even if your alliance isn't strong enough to fire him he still has to listen.

Both is capitalistic and democratic.
It's more democratic than calling for big brother to control the evil capitalists more, and gives you much more power ( but it is also more work than waving a sing with a slogan ).

[MP-Ryan]

And it's the great thing about Marxism that it's the only science that is able to predict the future

Marxism is an ideology, not a science.  No [credible] person familiar with Marx's writing has ever claimed it was.

The issue is not so much CEOs actual power and control.  The issue is the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few, and the separation of capital (and power) from the people that produce it.  I know, I sound like a good little Marxist - the trouble is that Marx and Foucault got so much about the way society ticks right in their writing.

Democracy doesn't function properly when there is a power imbalance.  There is a power imbalance because free-market capitalist society does not reward people according to their ability or their production; it might if everyone began with equal footing, but the free-market capitalism applied in industrialized nations over roughly the last century-and-a-half has bred a financial aristocracy of inherited wealth (which I'll point out that people like Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson even vehemently disagreed with) rather than historical privilege.  Net effect is the same, however; one class of the citizenry ends up with far better opportunities and a disproportional amount of both wealth and power than the remainder.

The whole concept of the American dream is that someone can start with nothing and become something - but the system has become such that it really isn't possible (except for a tiny fraction of exceptions).  Without opportunities to be able to afford good health care, grow up in safe communities, have the support of the people raising you, a life free from violence inflicted on you by others, and the financial means (through a job with meaningful pay) to get an education and be able to work yourself, prospects are pretty dim.  And the number of people for whom that is reality far outweighs the number of people who wield meaningful power, privilege, and wealth.  I posted the US census data a little while back on HLP - people should actually take a good hard look at what the various percentiles of wealth are (hint:  lowest 20% make under $20,000 per year.  Highest 5% make in excess of $180,000.)

There's this great perception that buying power influences corporations, but the reality is that these corporations make literally billions of dollars a year, are beholden to only a small number of the shareholders that wield any power in the company, and even an organized boycott is never going to have 100% participation.  Notwithstanding that fact, the consumer power of the hardest-hit fractions of society is much less than the relatively-indifferent-but-shrinking middle-class.  So, the power of a single individual to confront a corporation is essentially nil.

[Aardwolf]

I find it odd that the idea of capital isn't been discussed (much) here, in a discussion of capitalism.

[Sushi]

The whole concept of the American dream is that someone can start with nothing and become something - but the system has become such that it really isn't possible (except for a tiny fraction of exceptions).

Has this ever really not been the case?

I'm pretty sure that framing the "American Dream" this way is mostly wishful thinking rather than any sort of reality.

[deathfun]

If I recall correctly, immigrants had this delusion, not so much the denizens of America

[Mongoose]

The main point is that it was much less of a "delusion" several (or even a couple) decades ago than it is now.

[Slasher]

I pulled into the pump the other day just as an H2 was leaving.  That dude's gas bill was something like $1,000,000.  As he drove away, I caught sight of an American flag on his bumper and felt a tear come to my eye.  I dunno about you guys, but the American Dream touched me that moment.  You could even say, it fondled me. 

Wait what

[Hellstryker]

If I recall correctly, immigrants had this delusion, not so much the denizens of America

It's called the American Dream because you have to be asleep to believe it.

[NGTM-1R]

Has this ever really not been the case?

Sure. Lots of times. Whenever technology or territory has opened up and people could get in first it's been SOP.

[Sushi]

The main point is that it was much less of a "delusion" several (or even a couple) decades ago than it is now.

Got any evidence to back that up?

[General Battuta]

The main point is that it was much less of a "delusion" several (or even a couple) decades ago than it is now.

Got any evidence to back that up?

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

[Sushi]

The main point is that it was much less of a "delusion" several (or even a couple) decades ago than it is now.

Got any evidence to back that up?

http://www.businessinsider.com/what-wall-street-protesters-are-so-angry-about-2011-10?op=1

The relevant (to my question) graph:


I haven't been able to find the original source for the graph, so I'm just guessing based on the labels, but it looks like it's talking about mobility between the top 60% and the bottom 40%. While it weakly supports the assertion that social mobility is at an all time low, it's hardly the "1% vs 99%" scenario that generally gets talked about. It would also be nice to see the graph before 1940 so we eliminate the massive outlier that is WWII.

[General Battuta]

The 1% vs 99% distribution has to do with control of wealth and financial assets.

[MP-Ryan]

Step 1:  http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/data/historical/inequality/index.html
Step 2:  Click on H1 All Races.
Step 3:  Look at the trends.  You don't even need statistical analysis software to see what's going on.

Migration between classes was more common in the past because there was less of a gap between them.

[Al-Rik]

And it's the great thing about Marxism that it's the only science that is able to predict the future

Marxism is an ideology, not a science.  No [credible] person familiar with Marx's writing has ever claimed it was.

Marxism-Leninsm and Historic Materialism was a regular science at each university in the former Socialist Block.
Be sure that those guys have been very familiar with Marx's writings

The issue is not so much CEOs actual power and control.  The issue is the consolidation of wealth in the hands of a few, and the separation of capital (and power) from the people that produce it.  I know, I sound like a good little Marxist - the trouble is that Marx and Foucault got so much about the way society ticks right in their writing.

Democracy doesn't function properly when there is a power imbalance.  There is a power imbalance because free-market capitalist society does not reward people according to their ability or their production; it might if everyone began with equal footing, but the free-market capitalism applied in industrialized nations over roughly the last century-and-a-half has bred a financial aristocracy of inherited wealth (which I'll point out that people like Adam Smith and Thomas Jefferson even vehemently disagreed with) rather than historical privilege.  Net effect is the same, however; one class of the citizenry ends up with far better opportunities and a disproportional amount of both wealth and power than the remainder.

But the free market capitalism has done an other thing in the past 150 years:
The creation of a broad middle class.
If you take a look a the society of 1860: How much persons have had a college education ? The biggest class was the working class, and that means blue collar jobs and hard physical work.
Nowadays most western countries have a broad middle class. Few blue collar jobs, many jobs there you need a good professional education or even a degree from a college or university.

Modern Free Market Capitalism won't work without a broad middle class.
It still needs a lot of manpower in the middle management, a lot of engineers and a lot of skilled workers.
And while not everyone becomes the chief of a department, a CEO, a top engineer in R&D and makes a lot of money its still possible.
All those "smart" traders with big boni ? Middle Class
Steve Jobs, Wonziak ? Middle Class

Yes, there is a crisis of the middle class, but is not triggered by unequal distribution of wealth or missing democratic opportunities.
One reason of the crisis are the huge numbers of children of the middle class.
If almost everyone goes to college not anyone of them has the chance to get a good careerer - or even a good job.
All those books about the Generation X during the 90s ( Fight Club, Microserfs ) are circling around the problem:
Being an engineer or a MBA was nothing special any more and no more a guarantee for happiness and wealth. Go berserk or get over it.

But since the 90s the situation has become worse: A lot of jobs haven been outsourced to countries of the former socialist block.
First the jobs of the working class like manufacturing of simple goods (Cloths, Shoes, Toys).
No reason for the children of the middle class to riot or protest - no one cares about the remains of the working class.
But not their wealth is affected, and now they protest.

The whole concept of the American dream is that someone can start with nothing and become something - but the system has become such that it really isn't possible (except for a tiny fraction of exceptions).  Without opportunities to be able to afford good health care, grow up in safe communities, have the support of the people raising you, a life free from violence inflicted on you by others, and the financial means (through a job with meaningful pay) to get an education and be able to work yourself, prospects are pretty dim.

Was the American dream not the dream of immigrants ?
I'm quite sure that all those Mexicans crossing the border of the USA by night still are attracted by the American Dream.
And they still found all those things: a better health care, safe communities, the possibility to send money back to the parents, less violence and even a better future for their children... ... compared to Mexico.

And the number of people for whom that is reality far outweighs the number of people who wield meaningful power, privilege, and wealth...
There's this great perception that buying power influences corporations, but the reality is that these corporations make literally billions of dollars a year, are beholden to only a small number of the shareholders that wield any power in the company, and even an organized boycott is never going to have 100% participation.  Notwithstanding that fact, the consumer power of the hardest-hit fractions of society is much less than the relatively-indifferent-but-shrinking middle-class.  So, the power of a single individual to confront a corporation is essentially nil.

Well, the power of a single individual is also nil in a democracy. One vote does nothing, if millions of others also have the right to vote.

[Mars]

But the free market capitalism has done an other thing in the past 150 years:
The creation of a broad middle class.
If you take a look a the society of 1860: How much persons have had a college education ? The biggest class was the working class, and that means blue collar jobs and hard physical work.
Nowadays most western countries have a broad middle class. Few blue collar jobs, many jobs there you need a good professional education or even a degree from a college or university.

The problem is that the middle class is shrinking.

Yes, there is a crisis of the middle class, but is not triggered by unequal distribution of wealth or missing democratic opportunities.
One reason of the crisis are the huge numbers of children of the middle class.

This requires significant substantiation. You are asserting that the crisis of the middle class was not at all caused by disparity in wealth, but was caused by other factors, including too many children in the middle class. You require evidence to make that claim, especially because:
http://www.businessinsider.com/22-statistics-that-prove-the-middle-class-is-being-systematically-wiped-out-of-existence-in-america-2010-7#83-percent-of-all-us-stocks-are-in-the-hands-of-1-percent-of-the-people-1 If it's shrinking, than probably not many people are being born into it.

If almost everyone goes to college not anyone of them has the chance to get a good careerer - or even a good job.
All those books about the Generation X during the 90s ( Fight Club, Microserfs ) are circling around the problem:
Being an engineer or a MBA was nothing special any more and no more a guarantee for happiness and wealth. Go berserk or get over it.

Fictional works are not evidence.

But since the 90s the situation has become worse: A lot of jobs haven been outsourced to countries of the former socialist block.
First the jobs of the working class like manufacturing of simple goods (Cloths, Shoes, Toys).
No reason for the children of the middle class to riot or protest - no one cares about the remains of the working class.
But not their wealth is affected, and now they protest.

I'm pretty sure that the former Soviet Bloc is not who's taking the jobs, nor are most of the jobs being outsourced Middle Class jobs (though some of them are.) The vast majority are manufacturing jobs.

Was the American dream not the dream of immigrants ?
I'm quite sure that all those Mexicans crossing the border of the USA by night still are attracted by the American Dream.
And they still found all those things: a better health care, safe communities, the possibility to send money back to the parents, less violence and even a better future for their children... ... compared to Mexico.

That's less the American dream and more "they have money and a working government, we don't." I believe. Unless that is synonymous with the American dream?

Well, the power of a single individual is also nil in a democracy. One vote does nothing, if millions of others also have the right to vote.

Except that in this case it's as though one person gets 356 votes, and another gets 1.

[MP-Ryan]

Marxism-Leninsm and Historic Materialism was a regular science at each university in the former Socialist Block.
Be sure that those guys have been very familiar with Marx's writings

The fact that a bunch of people who clearly didn't read Marx very well (seeing as the Eastern European "Communist" countries bore no resemblance to Communism/Socialism as described by Marx and probably had him turning in his grave in rage) viewed it as a science does not make it one.  Marxism is an ideology.  Period.

But the free market capitalism has done an other thing in the past 150 years:
The creation of a broad middle class.
If you take a look a the society of 1860: How much persons have had a college education ? The biggest class was the working class, and that means blue collar jobs and hard physical work.
Nowadays most western countries have a broad middle class. Few blue collar jobs, many jobs there you need a good professional education or even a degree from a college or university.

Modern Free Market Capitalism won't work without a broad middle class.
It still needs a lot of manpower in the middle management, a lot of engineers and a lot of skilled workers.
And while not everyone becomes the chief of a department, a CEO, a top engineer in R&D and makes a lot of money its still possible.
All those "smart" traders with big boni ? Middle Class
Steve Jobs, Wonziak ? Middle Class

Actually, the middle class was less the result of free-market capitalism and more the result of democratization efforts in the West following the second World War.  It only really came into existence in post-Industrial Revolution wartime economies, and was largely the result of the changing demographics of the work force that resulted following the war.  Britain in particular only experienced a large creation of the middle-class demographic after World War 2 (and it's a good benchmark, having a much more hierarchical class-based society than North America).  The US always had a more flexible class distribution, but it really took the combined influence of women entering the workforce, large numbers of births, and a huge demographic boom to push the real creation of the middle class even in the States.  Frankly, what we call the middle class is a phenomenon born in the latter half of the 20th century, and was driven primarily by demographic influences on global economics.

As for modern free-market capitalism not functioning without the middle class, the issue is not so much its eradiction as its erosion - clawing back of benefits and wage gains realized in the 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s while the top tier sees soaring gains in their compensation packages.  The middle class essentially pays for a country's social and state programs, but the past 10 years in particular have seen huge losses in both the size and relative wealth of that class that make this funding model unsustainable.

Yes, there is a crisis of the middle class, but is not triggered by unequal distribution of wealth or missing democratic opportunities.
One reason of the crisis are the huge numbers of children of the middle class.
If almost everyone goes to college not anyone of them has the chance to get a good careerer - or even a good job.
All those books about the Generation X during the 90s ( Fight Club, Microserfs ) are circling around the problem:
Being an engineer or a MBA was nothing special any more and no more a guarantee for happiness and wealth. Go berserk or get over it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Birth rates in the middle class have tanked - lower than at any point in demographic history.  This is due to the fact that children in developed countries are an economic liability, whereas children in developing nations are typically viewed as an economic asset (this valuation difference is visible in some class structures as well).

The crisis in the middle class is due to unequal relative gains in compensation as compared to other classes; the lower class tends to remain flatlined, but the top percentiles are taking greater and greater relative gains compared to quite literally everyone else.  How many times to I have to tell you people to go LOOK AT THE US CENSUS DATA WHICH I HAVE NOW LINKED TO TWICE IN THIS THREAD.

Was the American dream not the dream of immigrants ?
I'm quite sure that all those Mexicans crossing the border of the USA by night still are attracted by the American Dream.
And they still found all those things: a better health care, safe communities, the possibility to send money back to the parents, less violence and even a better future for their children... ... compared to Mexico.

The so-called "American Dream" is the rags-to-riches narrative popularized in media - the idea that anyone can improve their station in life simply through hard work.  That quite clearly is not true - there are a lot of social barriers, and the American Dream story is an infrequent exception to those barriers which is realized by only a select few individuals.

Well, the power of a single individual is also nil in a democracy. One vote does nothing, if millions of others also have the right to vote.

Power in a Western democracy is not determined by the votes you wield in an election, but by the balance in your bank account.  It's an unfortunate reality that the most powerful individuals in any society are also the wealthiest.  This is what people talk about when referring to unequal distribution of power due to wealth.