Hacker News Reader

Comment by gibsonf1 | Hacker News Reader

The winning formula that seems to work without fail is more individual freedom/capitalism. (Not corporatism or crony capitalism or statism of course)

View on HN

The freest countries are the most prosperous - this is the evidence: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freest-co...

Note that Hong Kong used to be at the top of this list prior to 1997 when China started taking away their freedom.

Note that this index is freest but not the most capitalist, which you seem to be conflating.

I use the definition: "Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned."

So no conflation.

Weird definition of capitalism. Tons of systems respect property rights and individual freedoms. And, in fact, none of these states operate under the condition where all property is privately owned. Where they fall on those measures doesn't correlate with the weal of the people either, at least not the way you are implying.

Which tons of systems? The US currently does not qualify as capitalist by that definition, we currently have a statist system with an unelected 4th branch of government, etc.

Ref to definition: http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html

> unelected 4th branch of government

The legislature is worthless and is more concerned with getting re-elected and getting rich in office, than doing actual legislation.

The supreme court legislating from the bench is result of a lame duck congress and senate.

Singapore is pretty rich while not being particularly high on that list...

Singapore is highly capitalist.

Is this causation or correlation? Those "free countries" seem to correlate pretty closely with colonial powers.

Scarcity necessitates tighter control. "Freedom" is easier to guarantee in prosperity. Also, at a global scale, if you're a rich country, it sounds like you'd want to spread a system that benefits those who have capital.

The winning formula that seems to work without fail for personal productivity is crystal meth (not overdose or paranoia/psychosis or permanent heart and brain damage of course).

It's popular these days to dismiss negative consequences for all sorts of things as fake, but side effects need to be confronted and actually dealt with, not just waved off. Would you let the 'communism has never been tried actually' people off the hook?

There's no such thing as "crony" capitalism. It's just capitalism without hiding the nasty bits.

Capitalism inevitably devolves into crony capitalism/corporatism. Indeed, what is happening in the UK is literally after decades of of increasing liberalization! So "works without fail" seems to be an exaggeration at least.

To the extent that the government regulates/controls commerce, you will have corruption and cronyism. Restore freedom and remove the government from commerce, and cronyism goes away. I'm guessing the UK government is HIGHLY involved in all aspects of commerce.

Remove governance and corporations will flood in to fill the void. Personally I'd rather have a master I can vote out rather than a bunch of corporations dictating how I live.

Communism and socialism don't lead to cronyism and corruption?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com