I agree with minimal welfare for people who really need it or if a bad recession is occuring, and I also believe in subsidizing education/training for people who really need it (which is because if we didn't, smart/skilled people born into poor families would be delayed in achieving their full potential for productivity, which wouldn't benefit anyone). But other than that, Im mostly a free market capitalist. If you give everyone things for free, they have no incentive to be productive and society would collapse and become third-world. In truth, I use to be a socialist, though. To be honest I still have socialist instincts, for instance when I hear someone on a political internet discussion board hate on socialists and communists and Occupy Wall Street people, it gives me a faint annoyance, but I still can't deny that people need an incentive to be productive and improve society, and the only two ways to give them that incentive would be to force them into working (slavery) or to not give them anything unless they are productive enough for it. However, taking property from someone who, using their brain and hard work, earned it, has always been very disturbing and enraging to me. However. I do sympathize with "geoists" in that things such as air and unimproved land etc. should always be accessible to every non-criminal person, and not privately owned. I wouldn't think that a company sucking all oxygen from Earth's atmosphere and then charging everyone $1,000 USD per day to breathe, would be anything other than tyranny, rather than "free market". Feel free to hate on me or agree with me as much as your heart desires.
No hate or criticism. In fact, I appreciate your candor and thoughtfulness. I even agree with the principle of FREE market. . . But I'm afraid that what we have todday is no longer FREE market, but MANIPULATED market, and thtis is where my trust in the capitalist economy stops. socialis, if you take the WRONG definition spread by the Right, and associteit to Communism, does decrease incentive for personal potential achievement and productivity. . . However, social democracy do thrive to reach a balance between mindfull capitalism and social awareness, and doesn't take away from healthy, REAL market based capitalism. If you do not agree with this, how do you explain the success of German car industry, or the sucess of Belgian brewing (as in beer) industry, who grew from a very local, very entrepreneurial business in amedium size town in a tiny social democracy (Belgium) into,the LARGEST brewing conglomerate in the world? Don't give up completely on social democracy (mixed market economies) before you reach a fully (and personal) answer to thosequestions.
Welp, the universal Law of Entropy ensures that everything, including the human race or it's evolutionary successor species, and the solar system, all stars and eventually even atoms themselves, will die.
I will too. And so will every other possibly conscious being. Which means that every conscious feeling being is in the same boat as me, albeit not within the same time period.
I was once a socialist too, but then I grew up. And it's funny, because I used to hate it when people told me things like "It's ok to be a liberal, you're still young . . ." but now I totally understand what they meant. And actually, I have to say that I can't stand socialists now. Four years ago, I'd have been one of those guys permanently camped at Zucotti Park (maybe) . . . but now I'm more shaking my head at the guy that pooped on the cop car. I mean, I of course still understand why they believe the things they do, but it kindof frustrates me that they haven't "grown up" too. And so you would blame capitalism for the manipulation? This is why I became a capitalist. I realized that our markets were rigged, and that the problem with our system was not capitalism itself, but all these things that we have mixed in with capitalism - mostly to appease leftists.
It is my earnest hope that the internet speeds the maturity of the young from liberal to conservative.
I take that in the literal and strict sense and assume that is what you meant. There never has been a free-market capitalism, and there can never be such a thing. As soon as the first person thinks of hiring others to produce so that he can market and profit, it takes guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions to do it. Without them there can be no system to get it done. Workers would be required to show up at the same time, be paid on time according to some metric (time or piecework), and participate in the work as needed and agreed. That describes a system of guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions. The businessman then needs to be able to sell his products. He needs a way to advertise, market, transport, and be assured it will be done without theft or cheating. That, again, requires a system of guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions. It requires police, courts, fair regulation of competing businesses to preserve fairness, etc, etc, etc. "Free-market capitalism"? Nope. Just your chosen and preferred guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions and not someone else's. That's what this call for "free-market capitalism" always comes down to.
Let's see . . . workers have to show up on time, get paid on time . . . and do work? That sounds more like a general work agreement. All of this is stuff that can be decided by employee and employer between themselves. I'm not saying that a total absence of government regulation is a good idea, but I do believe that most of these things can be decided by the parties engaging in trade, and THAT is the meaning of "free-market capitalism." Not that there are no rules, but that the rules can change to suit the contracting parties and the situation. Just because some people on the right are hypocrites does not mean that the idea itself is hypocritical.
In the end, I believe it will, but for the time being, I think it is holding people up. It's got so many people of different ages all communicating together online without know how old anyone is, and so everyone is all smooshed into one giant group together. We're all going to grow up together. Kids born in the 80's will be behind, kids born today will be ahead.
That's certainly true. Dictators, despots, oligarchs, plutocrats, and all sorts of petty authoritarians and statists have insured that free markets were never allowed to exist. Of course there could. If people decided that free markets were preferable to the various authoritarian systems we've adhered to, it would happen. Guidelines, laws, regulations, restrictions...what's the difference? In my opinion, all that is needed is law, and free markets are not lawless, so your premise is false. Aside from the totally subjective imposition of "fairness", the free market would have all of these things. How ironic. You're the one espousing the need for "fairness", as if there was some objective and agreed upon definition of fairness. You're the one espousing the need for "guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions", as if there was some master list of appropriate guidelines, laws, regulations, and restrictions that we could all refer to. In reality, the system you espouse is nothing more that YOUR chosen and preferred guidelines, laws, etc.
