On The End of Capitalism

After 6 months of reading it on and off, I finally finished the book Che Guevara: A Revolutionary Life. I've always wanted to learn more about him, and at 750 pages, I definitely learned more about him and Cuban revolution than I ever did before.

One thought that stays with me is the idea that eventually capitalism might end. Maybe our brand of capitalism is not sustainable. Maybe it needs to be changed. Now before you sit there and call me a brain-washed, socialist bastard, just hold on a second. I think we're all trained from day one here in the United States to say that capitalism is the best thing since sliced bread and everything else will fail. That really neglects the situation for all the people in the developing nations around the world. Because especially today, we are wealthy at their expense. So while we sit here and watch our football, go to our malls, and spend money we don't have, there are millions are people who really don't have anything.

This brings me back to 2 summers ago when I went to Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize. One day at breakfast there was a Christian group (about 20 deep) that were having breakfast at a table near me. They had come to this country to visit and were saying their various prayers. I just couldn't help but ask myself, do they ever wonder how they ended up in the United States and most people live in poverty and have a daily struggle. How do you reconcile that with the idea of a "loving God"? I just can't erase that memory from my mind.

There's this huge gap that we have created between the developed and developing nations of the world. The question I keep asking myself is: will our technological prowess eventually end scarcity of most essential items?

I'm not saying this is going to happen tomorrow or 1 year from or even 10 years now. I'm saying in the distant future, will everyone be able to have essentially what they need? We will be so efficient and advanced in everything to the point where we are abundant with the necessities for living life. To me, at that point capitalism doesn't really make sense. In capitalism, you need a steady stream of new products. People need to buy things over and over to keep the economy going. For example, look at our "recession". The savings rate went from .5% to 4.5% and we've had a complete shit show in the economy. HELLO. People are actually saving money and not spending it on crap. But, that's the thing. For capitalism to work, you need people spending money. When we don't, the whole thing goes completely to hell. When you got those stimulus checks from G-Dub, he didn't want you putting them into the bank. He wanted you to spend it and keep yourself in this cycle of debt that is all-too common in our country. He doesn't want you to save money in a recession, especially with 70% of our economy being consumer spending-- see Paradox of Thrift.

My question is, will we ever be so efficient and advanced that we don't need to buy any more crap? Will we have everything that we need? But if that were to happen, not many people would have jobs. Capitalism just wouldn't work.

Thoughts?