Assalamo alaykum,
I need help with the following question asap. I need to it for a project :\
What might be an alternative for capitalism in Canada as it exists today - an alternative that might solve problems of cyclical fluctuations, unemployment and job insecurity, poverty, decline in social services, etc.?
It is not the Khilafah. The only alternative for canada would be some brand of socialism like Scandinavia
Some version of socialism combined with capitalism. If you dont want fluctuating employment then you either have too many jobs for too few people (everyone is imployed) or the state controls the employment levels. There is also the option to have these levels pegged at a certain %. But in all these cases, the lack of movement on the economy in one item such as unemployment would without a doubt cause other indicators, such as inflation etc to change and hence it is not really easy to hold everything static, unless its a completely socialist country.
The easy route would be to do what the Brits did under Thacher, simpy change the metrics which are used to measure these things so that each year it just looks the same. In her decade plus of rule, the unemployment measurement methods were changed over 18 times, each time increasing the employment levels :)
So in other words, Socialism will serve as a better alternative for Capitalism, but there's no economic system (today) that can rid it's economy of all the problems that I mentioned.
Or would Socialism in its purest form solve all/most of the problems?
No..Socialism is the like a unicorn. It looks good in fairy tales but hard to get a hold of. When givernments control the means and costs of production, they inevitably lead to controlling profit margin and stifling entrepreneurship and competition. It is entrepreneurship that drives economies along with competitive advantage. When these two factors are stifled, gov't's seek to raise taxes which cuts down on employers ability to invest in their businesses, meaning hard and soft capital infusion, leading to higher unemployment. So I don;t think HMCQ is right.
There are many alternatives to capitalism. All of them are failures.
Well I do realize that there is no economic system out there (today), which can rid an economy of all it's economic problems. But I wanna know if there's any other economic system that is slightly better or can rid an economy of at least most of its economic problems that are posed by Capitalism.
Your premise is faulty. "the problems of capitalism" are minor when compared to problems caused by any other system known to mankind.
I guess you're right, but for my report I need to suggest another economic system, which comes close to solving the problems that I mentioned in my initial post.
Try a system like China , which still uses the basic concepts of capitalism but most of the means, costs, prices of goods and services are set by the gov't
So that'll be a mixture of Capitalism and maybe Communism?
Socialism?
China is more socialism sprinkled with capitalism
If you are looking to solve all the problems that exist then no there is no way to do everything at once. Capitalism is better in certain aspects and socialism in others, however in both forms you can not control all aspects of the economy at the same time and so where you loose some control in some aspects you gain something elsewhere.
Yes since you are looking at unemployment, in the short term you can control that better through socialist/communist systems then capitalist systems which dont control for labor. However there is no such thing as a long term complete control. So you have to pick and choose what variables you want to control and what you dont.
In terms of your report you should think of what your key criteria are and see which of the systems are better at controlling it.