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Thread: Five myths about capitalism

  1. #101
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    Chris's Avatar Senior Member
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    Quote Originally Posted by Dr. Who View Post
    Yet you don't condemn all of the dirtbag industrial corporations that have contaminated the land, water and air in the poorest states and have been allowed to do so by their complicit governments whose ghoulish representatives are profiting from the destruction of the health of their constituents. But I'm an elitist. You can read about people dying of cancer at highly abnormal rates and suffering from early dementia and pretend like it's an absolute coincidence, although nothing any longer lives in the rivers and streams and there is little wildlife in the area. Must be an unfortunate coincidence and not that the land and water is completely toxic. Are you one of those people who think that those fussing about their water quality in areas where the same dirtbag corporations are fracking, are just nuts? Is everyone who complains that they are choking on polluted air, unable to drink the water and watching their livestock die, just idiots, stupid Democrats or simply whiners?

    If elitism means caring about the health and welfare of people, especially those who haven't the resources to legally challenge major corporations that are making people sick and ultimately killing them, then yes I'm a proud elitist. I'm the elitist who champions the farmer being sued by Monsanto because their demon seeds have been spread onto non-Monsanto farms and are suing those unfortunate farmers whose crops have been contaminated. I'm that kind of elitist. I'm also the kind of elitist who thinks that just perhaps the unconscionable behavior of many industries in impoverished states may well have caused and continues to cause genetic damage to segments of their populations.

    Again, this is just as true under socialism.

    You're an elitist because you think you can solve these problems with bigger government, more regulations, when bigger government just means more corruption.

    What's odd is while you bemoan problems you haven't got a cluse how to solve them--mainly because you identify the wrong cause.
    Last edited by Chris; 10-03-2018 at 07:51 AM.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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  3. #102
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  4. #103
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    Quote Originally Posted by Captain Obvious View Post
    Right, why is global poverty declining, if that's true? Global capitalism? Or the late industrialization of those nations raped by western resource interests. I think assuming that it's because of capitalism is kind of a stretch.

    Smells like trickle-down tbh and everyone does not benefit. The bearers of the true cost of capitalism that I pointed out earlier do not but it's the shizzle for a select group of old white guys.

    I won't argue that capitalism creates wealth, I believe it does but it does so by taking advantage of a lot of segments. That "everyone benefits" being tossed a few table scraps from one hand and being robbed with the other is, again as I already stated a farce.
    Do you have a better alternative to capitalism?
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  5. #104
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    Quote Originally Posted by Peter1469 View Post
    Do you have a better alternative to capitalism?
    That's really what the question becomes. Not is capitalism, or socialism, or mercantilism perfect, but which is better, and how improve that?
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

  6. #105
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    Re ^^^, from DEBUNKING A CRITIQUE OF CAPITALISM, reciting the OP:

    Adam Smith, the father of economics, first pointed out in his most famous work, “The Wealth of Nations ,” that in vigorously pursuing our own selfish interests in a market system, we are led “as if by an invisible hand” to promote the prosperity of others. …Smith, however, was never the prophet of greed that free-market cheerleaders have made him out to be. In other passages from “The Wealth of Nations,” and in his earlier work, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments,” Smith makes clear that for capitalism to succeed, selfishness must be tempered by an equally powerful inclination toward cooperation, empathy and trust — traits that are hard-wired into our nature and reinforced by our moral instincts. …An economy organized around the cynical presumption that everyone is greedy is likely to be no more successful than one organized around the utopian assumption that everyone will act out of altruism.

    This isn’t really a myth as much as a misrepresentation. What “free-market cheerleaders” extol Smith as a “prophet of greed”?

    I self-identify as one of those cheerleaders, and I simply point to Smith’s famous observation about how self-interest is what drives merchants to improve our lives.

    Do some people go crazy with greed? Of course.

    But that’s true in any system (look at how Chavez’s family members lined their pockets).

    What makes capitalism a preferable system is that greedy people have to cater to consumers if they want more money.
    Tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire. ― Gustav Mahler

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