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Paul Tudor Jones II: Why we need to rethink capitalism

Paul Tudor Jones II loves capitalism. It's a system that has done him very well over the last few decades. Nonetheless, the hedge fund manager and philanthropist is concerned that a laser focus on profits is, as he puts it, "threatening the very underpinnings of society." In this thoughtful, passionate talk, he outlines his planned counter-offensive, which centers on the concept of "justness."

http://www.ted.com/talks/paul_tudor_jones_ii_why_we_need_to_rethink_capitalism

I think here's why he loves Capitalism

Aren't cooperatives a better way of doing that? Creating a list of the more just companies is fine. But it changes little. More cooperatives could really help with inequality directly. And be a better way of knowing what people want. Because people would be making the decisions. Or maybe move to use the same system Germany uses in its companies. Or give incentives to create cooperatives like Italy. That seems more proactive.

"I've traded a lot of crazy manias. And unfortunately, I'm sad to report that right now we might be in the grips of one of the most disastrous, certainly of my career, and one consistent takeaway is manias never end well." (Tudor, 2015)

This is very true, and this is happening on a global scale ... interest rates are low everywhere whilst prices of real estate, cars and more keep on rising.

Today's 'capitalism' is not really pure anywhere in the world afaik. It is tainted by other ideologies and economic theories. I find that the only real example of capitalism was present in USA prior WW2 and some years after. Everything we have now is just mix of socialism and democracy.

Don't think you ever had pure capitalism. Not even in America pre ww2. Maybe I'm missing something. You always had non market forces interfering in the market. You had protectionism to keep foreign goods out. You had military interventions that affected the markets. You had very uneven market players. That's not capitalism. And some time before that you had the idea that people should own their workplaces. That is some form of cooperatives should exist. And not the corporations that started then.

This guy is completely full of shit.  Capitalism is not a political system, as stated in the definition he provides in the beginning; I don't know where he got it, but here's the definition in the free dictionary:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/capitalism

And another

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/capitalism?s=t

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

None of the definitions here say anything about politics either: https://www.wordnik.com/words/capitalism

Where does Paul get the idea that capitalism has ANYTHING to do with politics?  AFAICT not even Marx called capitalism a political system.

Combine this with the fact that Paul founded a corporation--a public entity, at least partially--and runs a hedge fund, and dares call the freakshow of the last few decades "capitalism", it's pretty obvious that he's got malintent and wants only to confuse and divide the public, which does very well for the wealthy to continue their horseshit while people try to get their shit together.  What an evil piece of fucking ass.  And fuck TED for allowing this to occur at all.  "Rethink capitalism," yeah he's rethinking capitalism all right, to whatever he claims capitalism to be.

Thats why you see all these rich celebrities like Floyd Mayweather buying a new exotic car on the daily and flaunting it on instagram, which gives the asset more cache and a potential buyer in the future will see it.

Agreed with Mike Christ, he's completely full of it.

Yes, the system is fundamentally broken, but not in the way he describes, i.e. lack of "corporate justness."

The system is broken because the state and banks together issue too many financial assets (money and debt) and prop them up with public power.

The invisible hand of free markets itself is not the source of the problem.  The problem is that it's being distorted by public manipulation of the financial markets (to benefit the elites.)

There's nothing wrong with philanthropy, environmental citizenship, etc. but these only address the superficial issues, driven by the core problem of financial pollution.

I agree. The advanced technology of our age is not compatible with the capitalism. A new communist type system should be invented.

There is a fine line between economics and politics. It may be technically correct that capitalism is not a political system, but in the real world, it is incorrect to say that it's not (to a degree).