The freedom to invent and innovate, to keep the fruits of one's labor as property, AND access to land and raw materials are all necessary conditions for prosperity. Particularly when analyzing the history of the United States without the benefit of a consistent philosophical framework, critics of capitalism tend to focus on the latter factors, to the exclusion of the (more significant) former ones. Man can adapt and thrive in the face of physical constraints and scarce resources, but only if he is granted the freedom to think and act.

mises.org

nothing more represents a beacon of success than the world's largest income disparity.

Nothing says freedom like getting to chooser between a cage and a coffin for your residence (seriously, google hong kong cage people or coffin homes).

thank god the government "got out of the way" and quit picking winners and losers (so the economically powerful could do it instead).

 

Originally Posted by Neeek

Nothing says freedom like getting to chooser between a cage and a coffin for your residence (seriously, google hong kong cage people or coffin homes).

OBVIOUSLY THEY SHOULD JUST CHOOSE TO WORK HARDER. PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY.

seriously, that's the most disturbing thing I've seen in months, I feel ill.

 

Originally Posted by Neeek

nothing more represents a beacon of success than the world's largest income disparity.

Nothing says freedom like getting to chooser between a cage and a coffin for your residence (seriously, google hong kong cage people or coffin homes).

thank god the government "got out of the way" and quit picking winners and losers (so the economically powerful could do it instead).

And yet people voting with their feet overwhelmingly chose that freedom in Hong Kong.

 

Originally Posted by saxman

I really don't know anything about the Hong Kong economy but you might want to do a wiki on it before you present it as a shining example of free market success. Seems like its really not that free, and really not that successful (to everyone).

lol Neek

Note that I said 20th century Hong Kong.

 

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

And yet people voting with their feet overwhelmingly chose that freedom in Hong Kong.

Yea, people aren't very bright though. Especially, when faced with a complex decision with outcomes that vary greatly in the short and long term. Lots of systems may show great improvement in the short term but 100 years down the road we could be screwed. ahem ahem America. ;)

 

Originally Posted by sufur

I've also said I'm really unsure of what the right answer is. It's just not even close to as clear as the (vocal/obnoxious) libertarians make it out (same goes for the vocal/obnoxious bleeding hearts), ainec.

libertarian socialism, brah, wiki it. "A key difference between libertarian socialism and capitalist libertarianism is that advocates of the former generally believe that one's degree of freedom is affected by one's economic and social status, whereas advocates of the latter focus on freedom of 'choice'"

once you recognize that there is no distinguishing political and economic oppression, and eliminate all forms of power disparity, society will ACTUALLY be more free.

EDIT - oh man gotzkillz, your strawman has me pegged. I love the way you fail to see the link between the economically powerful and the people "choosing" to live in cages tho. very insightful.

 

Originally Posted by Neeek

libertarian socialism, brah, wiki it.

once you recognize that there is no distinguishing political and economic oppression, and eliminate all forms of power disparity, society will ACTUALLY be more free.

EDIT - oh man gotzkillz, your strawman has me pegged. I love the way you fail to see the link between the economically powerful and the people "choosing" to live in cages tho. very insightful.

Read the description and sounds pretty cool. I'll look more tomorrow.

There's just that pesky process of convincing everyone it's a good idea. :D

I'm all for social democracies in the mean time. Let our more educated offspring a few generations down the road figure out a better method. Let's just hope we don't blow everything up in the mean time!

I can give you some things to read on structural violence if you really see no link, and are actually interested in my point.

the conditions that result in people living in cages are necessary for billionaires to become billionaires.

Often in threads about freedom/democracy, people sound the alarm about tyranny of the majority, whereby the rights of some are violated for the benefit of others. My argument is that a similar tyranny results from structural violence, and also acts to limit freedom. Structural violence results from concentration of power, and is largely ignored as a limitation of freedom by free-marketeers under the guise of (false) choice.

"when power is exercised, as exemplified by the economic, social, or physical dominance of one individual over another, the burden of proof is always on the authoritarian to justify their action as legitimate when taken against its effect of narrowing the scope of human freedom."

 

Originally Posted by sufur

Yea, people aren't very bright though. Especially, when faced with a complex decision with outcomes that vary greatly in the short and long term. Lots of systems may show great improvement in the short term but 100 years down the road we could be screwed. ahem ahem America. ;)

Talking about the Federal Reserve and IRS?

 

Originally Posted by rayspizza

I'm pretty sure the Govt land giveaways in the 19th century had a pretty big impact on the success of the economy that was mainly agraiain.

 

Originally Posted by Willywoo

Pretty sure they gave away the indians' land. Redistribution of wealth ftw, right? Maybe we should redistribute some of that Iraqi oil.

 

Originally Posted by rayspizza

the natives didn't own the land, that concept was completely foreign to them.

The concept of ownership is not relevant. We can all agree that indians had use of the land and resources to survive and thrive. We can also agree our government took the land from them and distributed a portion of it to it's citizens. This is true whether indians perceived they "owned" it or not.

 

Originally Posted by rayspizza

hmmmm. Perhaps I'm being misinterpreted. I in no way think what happened to the natives of the Americas was a good thing. I was merely stating that the concept of land ownership was a European one and that the Natives felt no entitlment to it. when the colonizers took the land by force and persuasion and handed it over to the thoose same colinizers for free, it had a drmamtic positive impact on the economy. In other words I think we should consider the issue of scarcity and free resources when we give the "free market" all the credit for a booming economy in the 19th century and perhaps give some credit to Imperialism.

You missed my point completely. You claim the redistribution of land had a dramatic positive impact on the economy, ( I have no idea if true or not) yet you ignore the fact that the land would have been settled in any event. You also ignore the fraud and corruption facilitated by government involvement causing many people to get cheated out of the land they were entitled to under the program, and you ignored the fact that in order to accomplish this "good" redistribution the land had to be taken from someone. It is just as wrong today as it was in the past.

 

Originally Posted by sufur

yea, glad you clarified later. It was actually their lack of such a concept that lead to the "confusion" about the land being "given" to the Europeans in the first place.

And this continues today in the form of withholding taxes. Many people don't understand the concept that the government takes an individual's money before it is due, holds it without compensation, and then people are happy when they get a refund, like it is some kind of bonus or something. At least you seem to understand that it is wrong to take something that doesn't belong to you by force or fraud. I don't understand how you reconcile this post with the "+1" post. It's okay to take something that belongs to someone if they don't know or understand it belongs to them?

I guess the question is whether you think the land give away was good policy. I think it was not.

see, that's what i see as the differentiation: left-libertarians don't respect private property.

they want to maintain this (in my mind tenuous) distinction between "possession" and "private property"

 

Originally Posted by Willywoo

The concept of ownership is not relevant. We can all agree that indians had use of the land and resources to survive and thrive. We can also agree our government took the land from them and distributed a portion of it to it's citizens. This is true whether indians perceived they "owned" it or not.

You missed my point completely. You claim the redistribution of land had a dramatic positive impact on the economy, ( I have no idea if true or not) yet you ignore the fact that the land would have been settled in any event. You also ignore the fraud and corruption facilitated by government involvement causing many people to get cheated out of the land they were entitled to under the program, and you ignored the fact that in order to accomplish this "good" redistribution the land had to be taken from someone. It is just as wrong today as it was in the past.

I am not ignoring fraud, corruption or any of the things you are claiming. IN fact, it seems like you are purposefully mischarterizing my position, I'll assume you are not so... . AGAIN. I do not think what the Europeans did to the Americas was "good", I don't care if it was fair - but it clearly was not (Again, I am not arguing that tho).

Also, colonization of a country and indigenous culture for the purposes of exploitation of their resources, is COMPLETELY different than members of an existing society voicing concerns of income disparity and looking for legislative ways to create a safety net. I know you guys are prone to hysteria and taking the conversation to the utmost extremes, but can we at least maintain some semblance of reason.

 

Originally Posted by Gotskillz

Yeah it is the economically powerfuls fault that they are poor and live in cages. Can you elaborate please on the "link" that I fail to see? Why is it the "economically powerfuls" fault that they are poor, and can you define what "economically powerful" is , what is the cutoff line? A certain amount of assets or political power?

And what specifically is it that they did to make those other people live in cages? Was it policy? If so, which policy was it that forced them to be poor and make this "choice" to live there. Was it there greed and pursuit of personal profit? How, so? Is it something to do with low wages?

 

Originally Posted by Gotskillz

Yes I am interested and I fail to see the link.

"the conditions that result in people living in cages are necessary for billionaires to become billionaires. "

I really don't get this. Wouldn't it be better for the billionaires if these people weren't so poor and had more disposable income to spend on their products and services? I understand there has to be a lower class, someone has to be at the bottom and work the lower jobs etc.. but I don't understand how some people being extremely rich forces others to be extremely poor such as this. Do the poor people they create need to be in the same country? Is it also billionaire's faults all around the world for the cage people or just the billionaires in hong kong?

Do you agree that "cage dwellings" is a step up from the over 1 million homeless in the US ?

I usually see the homeless as victims of mental illness, addictions, and sometimes poor decisions. I fail to see how it is somebody else's fault who is successful and has "economic power" to be the reason that they are homeless. I think that is ignoring the true reasons.


"the conditions that result in people living in cages are necessary for billionaires to become billionaires. "

Again on this sentence that I just don't understand, if the conditions were changed in some way to restrict billionaire's economic power, would that eliminate homelessness? How would this power need to be restricted to make that happen? Wouldn't some types of people just end up homeless no matter what, ones who have no family who will support them, who either refuse to work or cannot hold a job for a variety of reasons that could include agression, achoholism , laziness etc... and could also of course include reasons like a tough job market which is the kind of thing i think you are focusing on. But my point is does it really matter about this economic powerful stuff? Isn't it basically "bums gonna bum"?

And don't these economically powerful billionaires give the most to charities to help these sort of things? Wouldn't restricting their economic freedom to cause them to be less successful cause less money going to charity? Is it not better for money to go directly to charity then to be taken by force "higher taxes" and then distributed through a government that might distribute the money in less effective ways and with alot more waste and overhead. How does restricting economic freedom of the "powerful" alleviate the fact that some people are extremely poor? And again I ask what is the definition of economically powerful?

Okay, this seems to be a common misconception at both ends of the ideological spectrum. I think there are very few people who we would deem economically powerful who want the poor to stay poor and oppressed. Humans gonna human, there will always be people who make bad choices and people who will make good choices (the degree to which free will exists is certainly up for debate and "choices" are much more complicated then that, a concept that seems obvious to me).

It's in everyone's best interest to try and minimize the economic divide. It seems silly to argue against the notion that poverty begets poverty and with poverty comes crime and violence and drug addiction and .....

The question is how do we minimize poverty. How do we maximize the individual freedoms of everyone? What are we willing to compromise to get there?

If we killed off a few billion people, the rest of us would be better off. That's obviously an extreme most aren't willing to go to. Although I'd say a lot of cold people in power understand that some of the current policies in place in the world's superpowers will result in extreme loss of life and might even tick that off in the "pros" column. Evil? I think it would qualify if you believed in such a thing...

For some of us, electing a government by the will of the majority is crossing a line if said government has the ability to restrict the freedoms of the minority. I would agree to an extent. It's a very dangerous slippery slope and we need fail-safes if we go that way. We all see plenty of examples in history where good intentions lead to some bad outcomes. There's also the people who are simply using the guise of government to exploit the people. Or a combination of the two (like the currrent systems in a lot of countries) where we have a tiny minority in power (or funding power) who are willing to take advantage of some well-intentioned politicians to further their own ends.I don't even really blame those guys, the world is fucked up and looking out for yourself and your family/friends is a tough thing to criticize. I wish people didn't do it but who am I to judge? If i lived their life, maybe I'd do the same thing.

 

Originally Posted by Dyzalot

Talking about the Federal Reserve and IRS?

ha, it was irresponsible of me to imply all the problems in the states are due to capitalism. It's obviously a combination of factors, including capitalism, human nature and yes, government institutions. Although, I'm skeptical that a lot of US government institutions were ever put in place for the benefit of the common person. This is a huge distinction. It's like blaming the USSR's problems on communism and ignoring Stalin. Didn't you read Animal Farm? did you think the point was that socialism was inherently wrong?

 

Originally Posted by warden

structural violence: like, say, an organization that has a monopoly on the use of legitimate force in a given geographic area? wouldn't that be quite the concentration of power?

I touched on it above but this is a point lost on a lot of the left. They ignore the fact that a big component of their ideology directly contradicts their criticisms of the status quo.

 

Originally Posted by Willywoo

The concept of ownership is not relevant. We can all agree that indians had use of the land and resources to survive and thrive. We can also agree our government took the land from them and distributed a portion of it to it's citizens. This is true whether indians perceived they "owned" it or not.




You missed my point completely. You claim the redistribution of land had a dramatic positive impact on the economy, ( I have no idea if true or not) yet you ignore the fact that the land would have been settled in any event. You also ignore the fraud and corruption facilitated by government involvement causing many people to get cheated out of the land they were entitled to under the program, and you ignored the fact that in order to accomplish this "good" redistribution the land had to be taken from someone. It is just as wrong today as it was in the past.




And this continues today in the form of withholding taxes. Many people don't understand the concept that the government takes an individual's money before it is due, holds it without compensation, and then people are happy when they get a refund, like it is some kind of bonus or something. At least you seem to understand that it is wrong to take something that doesn't belong to you by force or fraud. I don't understand how you reconcile this post with the "+1" post. It's okay to take something that belongs to someone if they don't know or understand it belongs to them?

I guess the question is whether you think the land give away was good policy. I think it was not.

Good points in here but you're getting at a fundamental difference of opinion. I think you'll find most people aren't really comfortable profiting off the misfortune of others. People are just good at ignoring the consequences of their prosperity.

 

Originally Posted by Lord Supremo

Well, if one of the primary goals of the system were to eliminate what I'll call "absolute" disadvantages (as opposed to relative disadvantages that are simply a fact of life) and ensure everyone has a solid baseline of opportunity, then this problem can be reduced to a great extent.

Really well put. It's really not about making things exactly equal, it's about trying to make things more equal. I really don't know how anyone is comfortable living in luxury when so many don't even have the basics to give their children a fair shot. It's one thing blame an adult for their poor "choices" but it's tough to ignore the fact that condemning an adult to suffer for the decisions of their past is also condemning their children. Sure, some will prosper despite their lot in life but they're at an enormous disadvantage.

Sorry for the rambling. Like, I said earlier, I'm really not qualified to participate in this conversation but neither are most of the rest of you so let us goooooooooo. :)