"Why we fight"
Even with all the problems in the West, with all that's broken at the moment in our end-stage capitalist societies, never forget that the alternative, in almost all instances, is pure terror.
Even with all the problems in the West, with all that's broken at the moment in our end-stage capitalist societies, never forget that the alternative, in almost all instances, is pure terror.
We uniquely have the resources to be better and more advanced and create a more productive society with those resources, and merely lack the consensus to do so. There is no need to compare ourselves to anyone else to rationalize our incompetencies, consensus failures, or to spearhead development goals.
You can't make this shit up...ask me how I know.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Abramoff_CNMI_scandal
Its how Americans talk about some other places so I always find that amusing
North Korea isn't an alternative to technofeudalism we have now, let alone the only alternative.
Our goal should be getting further and further away from "pure terror" year after year. Instead we have politicians fucking with our way of life, restricting more and more freedoms and telling us that the alternative is North Korea.
Well, one shitty alternative alternative anyway
That's a weird way to spell "the most prosperous time/space ever, where borderline poor people live like kings 200 years ago, and there are fewer and fewer poor people as time goes on and poverty threshold goes up".
The question is more that, given how prosperous we are, and how much capital we have at our disposal, why do we still have so many poor people? Why is income inequality so bad?
Not than poor people 200 years ago, than kings 200 years ago. No king of early 1800s could have tropical fruits, antibiotics or an entire library of human knowledge at his fingertips.
>Why is income inequality so bad?
Does a burger taste any worse if you know someone's having caviar?
Also, how would you compare today's wealth inequality with that of 200 years ago, when peasants, being some 90% of the population, didn't own nearly anything at all?
Human beings have a fine-tuned sense of inequality and injustice; it's one of the things that makes us self-legislating agents, rather than beasts scrabbling for the top. The burger absolutely does taste worse if you know that it isn't a fair representation of the value of your labor.
To make this more salient: your argument would apply to people living under repressive regimes as much as it does to content Westerners sitting at home. Or do you think that North Koreans in China have no right to object, given that their equivalent domestic forced labor would be even worse?
Sure some countries do better others, and one can say higher taxes and social services are the way, but that's still good old capitalism.
Also, libraries existed 200 years ago, as did tropical fruits. Really not sure what your argument is there.
If you gave that out and those two billion people tried to spend it, you’d just get hyperinflation because there isn’t enough supply to match that demand.
We have a lot of abundance but not that much. Still fewer people as a percentage live in poverty by far than at any time in human history. It’s mostly going in the right direction. We’ve lifted a billion out of poverty in the last 20 years.
Second, as the last few decades have shown, just sending food, medicine and other supplies to these regions just makes more miserable people.
We dont need less capitalism but rather more and faster.
There is no clean spectrum. We need more good capitalism (free trade, free movement of labor, entrepreneurship) and less bad capitalism (negative externalities, money in politics). Just like we need more good regulations and less bad regulations.
We shouldn't force heterogeneous things into a single conceptual basket (called "capitalism") and then conclude more is better, or less is better. Components of the system should be separated out and analyzed on their own merits.
The goal should be to make today's relatively poor comparatively rich to the poor of generations past.
Since the current system is deeply unfair, I'm not sure why adding additional wealth to the system would make it any more fair. The majority of every extra dollar goes to the ultra rich.
Removing it brings about the outright terror seen every time it gets removed. Change my mind.
That's just an opinion. What we do know is that as more wealth has been generated via Capitalism more and more people globally (and nationally) have been brought out of poverty to the point where poverty has had to be redefined in certain areas. Capitalism has made starvation a thing of the past and diabetes the new, but better, problem of the poor for example. Poor people can afford to eat meat daily. Not even wealthy could do this in the not so distant past.
So instead of fighting over probably wrong opinions we should look at the data and then continue to do more of the thing that has been generating better outcomes for more people. That means more capitalism because that leads to better outcomes.
1) Why are there so many poor?
2) Why are their ranks increasing?
To say something is better than before is not the same as saying it is as good as it could be. And yet no one is trumpeting the latter.
They're not. Both absolute number and percentage in both "extreme poverty" and just "poverty" have been steadily decreasing since the 70s.
You're falling for the ruse. Funny how the First World all but abandobed the rest of the (impoverish) world until it needs that head count to pat itself on the back and sell the ruse
Thank you for proving my point.
Regardless, the question remains: why so much poverty in so many places? *Especially* in the First World?
"Smile and be happy you pathetically poor, you're slightly less pathetic than before"
Do you not sense how insensitive and in-a-bubble that sounds?? Certainly, we can do better. Certainly, we shouldn't be bragging about that is still a massive loss to so many.
It's very easy to ruin this and very hard to improve upon. Why should I believe whatever anyone suggesting is going to make things better? Every single attempt of destroying capitalism "for the benefit of the proletariat" made it worse for said proletariat, big time, every time.
Also, figuratively speaking, clean your room.
Or simply a twisted rationalization so some can sleep better at night?
I would recommend you read "Broken Money" by Lyn Alden. There's are some serious systemic thumbs on the "globalization" scale, and those thumbs are the same outfits spewing the narrative you're parrotting.
Get the book. We can resume this in a couple weeks.
True, many more people are out of poverty, but few are truly prosperous anymore compared to the "American Dream" in the latter half of the 20th century.
Socialism doesnt work because it doesnt consider greed as a positive force. Starting from there, every sign of greed is suppressed until remains only an oppressive bureaucracy in charge of hammering any sign of attempt of maybe earning something.
Socialism is not evil, it's even benevolent: but it's flawed because it ignore 50% of human nature. Better let people deal with their greed in a monitored sandbox that averages out excesses. And that is never called socialism, since it derives too much from accepted socialist dogma.
I live in Hong Kong, so I know how hard the balance is to strike. But socialism worked so little here that most people are 3rd generation immigrants who fled collectivisation, loss of property right and only desire to be left alone by the evangelists of a better world. It's hard to hear people who leave in free capitalist sandboxes lecture us about how socialism could maybe work. Try and weep, as we did.
I've spent some months in HK-Kowloon (2002-2016) and it was one of the most capitalist places I've ever visited from the entrepreneurs running food stalls and working night markets, to the media (granted my Cantonese is minimal, but there were english language newspapers), to the massive banking business. There was a desperation, hustle, and exploitation along with the positives I expect from capitalism. There seemed to be basic social support, housing, and medical care... but that's true in the US, which I think is not socialist. It seems to me that most of Europe is more socialist, but I'm not here to judge what people want or what's best for them.
Sweden, Denmark, Iceland, and even Germany, France or England are more socialist than I've experienced in HK, TW, or Singapore. They have pretty well established democracies and rule of law, but basic needs like food/health/housing/child care are pretty well comfortably provided by their governments. More so than past the New Territories.
I really wish you the best in HK now. It's a beautiful place full of great people who've worked really hard. Financial leverage provided a lot of jobs and made the rich wealthy, but if that investment fails to turn a profit, everyone will have to pay for it.
I would argue that it could be applicable in a voluntary mode in more smaller states (city sized) where people not agreeing would have the freedom to leave.
And yet the USA have had 2 economic recession due to greed and it was regulation who saved the day.
Capitalism doesn't even thrive under greed, as it incentives any means necessary to get more even if it's illegal.