Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> 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.


What the free market IS very good at is giving consumers exactly what they want
in the marketplace. If they want lunch counters completely free of persons with
dark skin, then the marketplace will provide it. If they want gas guzzlers that
pose fatality risks to neighbors in collisions, and raise sea levels, the
marketplace will provide them.  If they want sustainably grown organic coffee,
the marketplace will prove them.  If they want the absolutely cheapest
chocolate, the market will provide it using (literal) slave labor from Africa.

The key point here is nagging. "Capitalists" are tired of nagging about what
they do in the marketplace and, to echo Scrooge, say, "I wish to be left alone."
 Capitalists seek some idyllic realm where they can be free to practice their
wares (and warez), free of not only state intervention but also the actual
social and scientific consequences (ozone depletion) of what they are doing.
We don't necessarily need a world where the hand of capitalists are restrained
by the state, but we desperately need more nagging.

Socialism is three wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
Capitalism is one sheep telling three others that fences deprive wolves of
liberty.

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