On 29-12-2009 21:46, Warp wrote:
> andrel <a_l### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
>> Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends are Americans. ;)
>> It is just that your contribution is so full of typical right wing US 
>> propaganda terminology. You may have a point but the way you phrase it 
>> makes it hard for me to follow. It is just like talking to a Scotsman 
>> and don't hear a word because he has such an interesting accent.
> 
>   Personally I think socialism (meaning that private property and private
> enterpreneurship is banned, and everything is controlled by the government
> and, in an ideal/utopistic situation, the government shares all capital
> equally with all citizens) might be an enticing ideology because it's "fair"
> (after all, it's unfair that some people can live in multi-million dollar
> mansions, own one expensive sports car for every day of the week, and travel
> regularly to the Bahamas in their own private jet, while so many people
> are living in cardboard boxes on the streets). However, from a pragmatic
> point of view socialism just doesn't work. It causes progress stagnation,
> which ends up lessening everybody's quality of life in the long run.
> 
>   Capitalism endorses competition. People will strive for bettering their
> own lives (to get rich, famous or otherwise in a better position in life).
> While this sounds (and somewhat is) a sign of greed, in the grand scale of
> things it's actually greed that benefits the society as a whole: By bettering
> his own life, this person is pushing forward progress, indirectly bettering
> everyone's life in average.
> 
>   Someone might want to get rich and famous by making a beneficial invention
> or developing something useful in order to sell it for millions. If he
> succeeds, he gets filthy rich (which was his goal), but as a side effect
> the overall quality of the society got increased because now there's a new
> invention which makes everyone's life easier.
> 
>   Socialism, on the other hand, deters innovation and progress. There's
> nothing personal to be gained by making new inventions or bettering your
> own quality of life. You can't sell your invention to others for money
> because the government owns whatever you make. So why bother? There's nothing
> to be gained, and everything to be lost: All your hard work will be
> "hijacked" by the government and you get nothing.
> 
>   What people want is unreasonable. Basically they want to eat the cake and
> keep it too: They want all the benefits of innovation and progress which
> comes from competitive capitalism, but without the competitive capitalism,
> so that everyone owns the same amount. This just doesn't work.
> 
>   It's not a coincidence that the best technological innovations are created
> in capitalist countries which endorse free commerce and private ownership and
> entrepreneurship.
> 

In general I agree with you, as would almost anybody in the first world. 
A few remarks: you mention "best technological innovations" this (and 
some of your other statements) imply that innovation is or can be good. 
This is an assumption not shared by everybody everywhere*.
Second, socialism (in the standard sense, not the one used by m1j) does 
not work because, as you said, it goes against human nature. OTOH pure 
capitalism does not work either. Although sometimes somebody gets rich 
by doing something beneficial, in most cases the easiest and fastest way 
to get rich is finding a way to make money in a way that somebody else 
pays the bill. Either in money or in reduced lifetime or in a broader 
sense the environment. You need to have rules to weed out the parasites 
without killing the good entrepreneurs. Anybody remembers the money crisis?

Slightly related: we have a discussion here on raising the retirement 
age to 67. For jobs that require physical labour it should stay at 65. 
Which raises the question which jobs are the hardest. A couple of lists 
circulate and most people are convinced that they should be on that 
list. A labour organisation proposed to simply use a monetary cut off. 
Everybody earning less than a certain amount should be able to retire at 
65 because most of those jobs are below that. What does it say about a 
society when there is a negative correlation between working hard and 
income?

* There is that parable of a man sitting under a tree that catches just 
enough to feed himself and family. A man comes by and says: why are you 
lying under that tree. You could be cathing more fish and make money. 
man under tree: why would I want that?
other man: so you can buy a bigger boat and catch more fish
man under tree: why would I want that?
other man: in a few years you get still a bigger boat and make even more 
money.
man under tree: why would I want that?
other man: Then after a couple of years you would be so rich that you 
would not have to work again and sit the the whole day under a tree
man under tree: ...

Post a reply to this message