THAT is capitalism, not the bailouts. And this is what I mean when I say you're confusing the term.
Well, from my viewpoint a more apt analogy would be an aerobic bacterium in a sealed jar - reproduces exponentially until it consumes all available oxygen and dies in its own waste.These are people who need something closer to pure oxygen, but you're saying "hey, there's air all around you, quit complaining". Atmospheric air only seems sufficient -- if you hadn't noticed, our economy is looking like an old man with emphysema. It needs oxygen to recover, and the purer the better.
Mussolini equated the two, not exactly leftist. I consider him a bit of an authority on the subject.That's always been a lie of the left in an attempt to assign a totalitarian belief system to the freedom side of the equation as communism is to the slave side of the equation.
True, I'm just arguing capitalism via its profit motive provides a strong incentive to fraud and violence, which should be acknowledged and controlled for rather than allowed to fester until we have...exactly what we have.Fraud and violence can destroy anything if they're allowed too much free reign. The fact that capitalism can be destroyed by fraud and violence isn't an argument against capitalism, it's an argument against force and violence.
Thanks for at least admitting it is an excess!Limiting the number of work hours for 16 year olds might scare you, but it doesn't scare me. The culture and forces that led to child labor excesses are long gone in this country.
Oh I know. Then I looked at the numbers and thought about why!We can't afford Medicare. It's as simple as that. Look at the numbers and tell me we can.
By the way, I also like protectionist policies.Jeffrey Immelt said:The responsibility for hiring lay with businesses. The truth is we all need... BRB, cutting 39000 jobs and moving 25000 others to China....where was I? Oh right! We all need to be part of the solution.
See, it's exactly this sort of thing that makes me think we will not communicate. Makes me wonder if you're arguing theory while I argue what's on the news. There was recently an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Immediately after a senator from Oklahoma, whose campaign donations came mostly from the oil and gas industry, introduced a bill to limit oil company liability for such accidents... immediately after!He gives himself away when he blames the government involvement he doesn't like on capitalism - freedom - rather than on the oppressive nature of government.
It is not, except in the most superficial way. One seeks to serve his fellow man, the other seeks to oppress him. I don't believe they are even following the same thought process.
The other says, "I have built the best product I can build, but I am afraid that the competition will build something better. Therefore I will attempt to compete with violence, by forcing the competition to jump through hoops to satisfy my own design parameters and prevent them from improving on my idea. I will choose to hurt my customers by removing or limiting their choices because I cannot build a better product than the competition."
Dross said:How is serving your fellow man and having him serve you and creating an exchange where both people walk away better than they were before not noble and honorable?
If that's not noble and honorable, then please, tell me what method of getting the things I need for myself and my family to live is more honorable? All the alternatives I can see require force, dishonesty, and make one person a winner and another a loser.
I don't understand what you're saying.
How can someone "subvert" capitalism?
That's the essential problem we're having here. There is a specific morality to property rights, and property rights are the foundation of capitalism. If you remove that morality, or the system of property rights, you destroy capitalism. Capitalism is not merely "the profit motive, full stop", which is what you and orange are making it out to be. It is not just naked greed....And again I don't see capitalism. I see a capitalist system plus a moral/ethical system. Defensible on its own terms, I'm sure. But it's not exactly what I'm talking about.
See, it's exactly this sort of thing that makes me think we will not communicate. Makes me wonder if you're arguing theory while I argue what's on the news. There was recently an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Immediately after a senator from Oklahoma, whose campaign donations came mostly from the oil and gas industry, introduced a bill to limit oil company liability for such accidents... immediately after!
Yeeees. See how the government tyrannically oppresses a poor beleaguered oil company. My heart weeps.
Sorry but all too often profit does indeed seem to trump all.That's the essential problem we're having here. There is a specific morality to property rights, and property rights are the foundation of capitalism. If you remove that morality, or the system of property rights, you destroy capitalism. Capitalism is not merely "the profit motive, full stop", which is what you and orange are making it out to be. It is not just naked greed.
Between 2002 and 2007 two judges in Lucerne County, PA wrongly sentenced over five thousand people to stays in juvenile detention camps. They were paid over 2600000 dollars for this by Pennsylvania Child Care and Western Pennsylvania Child Care, which realized tens of millions of profit from the scheme. Again morality, with a side dish of if BP could buy themselves a senator why wouldn't they buy themselves a judge.If government did not have the power to limit the liability of the oil industry, the courts would sort out the compensation necessary to make the victims (in this case, the fishing/tourism/etc. industries) whole again.
That's the essential problem we're having here. There is a specific morality to property rights, and property rights are the foundation of capitalism. If you remove that morality, or the system of property rights, you destroy capitalism. Capitalism is not merely "the profit motive, full stop", which is what you and orange are making it out to be. It is not just naked greed.
As I stated upthread, capitalism is not a designed system. It is what emerges from the recognition and protection of property rights. It has its own rules as a result of the foundation of property rights, and the rules can be broken -- as government breaks them all time. When government breaks the rules, no matter the reason, the way to fix things is not to punish those on whose behalf government acts, but to reverse the government action that broke the rules.
No. Blame for the mess we're in rests on that sinless immaculate State being in bed with that sinless immaculate Business which would totally, completely, without a doubt be honest and moral if only someone got these law things out of the way.There is a discussion to be had on the topic of what the State could do to fix things, but at this point I've concluded that you're uninterested in anything which requires the sinless, immaculate State to have its reputation or present policies tarnished.
I'm sorry I got snippy. I was tired and frustrated, and you keep repeating the same argument over and over, just with different examples.No. Blame for the mess we're in rests on that sinless immaculate State being in bed with that sinless immaculate Business which would totally, completely, without a doubt be honest and moral if only someone got these law things out of the way.
Can we agree, then, that the unfettered desire to make a profit can encourage a variety of acts, some good, some bad, and some even socialist? Again, I'm more than willing to grant that said unfettered desire is not 'Capitalism'.
Absolutely! The fetters in question are absolutely necessary.
Not a single one of the examples offered in this discussion involves respect for property rights. In every case it can be shown how government colluded with business to stomp property rights or simply ignored its duty to enforce property rights. Find me an example where property rights have been respected on all sides, but where someone has become oppressed as a result, and maybe we'll have something to talk about with regard to capitalism's flaws.