: "...well, OK, there's a million under-fives dying every month from poverty-related malnutrition, the environment is fucked, the gap between rich and poor has never been wider and this society is untenable in the long term, but...it's not real capitalism...": (All the above remarks are rephrasings of UN conclusions, by the way; the statistic is from the 1997 Human Developmment Report, the gap statement is one of the major findings of the 1999 Human Development Report.)
DC: I am a capitalist. I claim that capitalism exists, is not responsible for "under-fives" dying in the millions (other than, perhaps, by making it possible to survive long enough to be malnourished), actually has improved the environment (especially for humans - medicine, air-conditioning, etc.), has made it possible for many people to be rich (other than the paltry elitist criminals ‘enpowered’ under communist regimes), and, quite unlike a certain state in Eurasia, rather tenaciously tenable (to your obvious chagrin). So there.
: : On the other hand present day socialists, especially those who are scholars, do have the solution to bring the worlds miseries to an end.
: No they don't. No-one has a perfect solution. The socialist view is that utility is maximised by equality as far as is possible; especially in the division of resources.
DC: The socialist view is that utility is maximized by allowing socialists to be involved in a process of ‘dividing resources’. When military means are not available, deceit is turned to (i.e. ‘global warming’).
: After all, there is nothing per se that makes a U.S. citizen 33 times as valuable as an Indian, or 10 times as valuable as a Chinese person; so why does the U.S. citizen consume 33 times as many of the world's resources as the average Indian? It's not fair and it's not sustainable.
: Fact remains; the West is living an unsustainable lifestyle, as it has been for the last 50 years. It is unlikely that such a lifestyle is sustainable over the next 50.
DC: If a U.S. citizen ‘consumes’ the electricity used at the plant he works at, then he might be given credit for the excess production such a technological, capitalist-funded wonder might produce. Thus, an American farmer produces quite more than 33 times what a comparable farmer in, say, Vietnam might produce. In fact, as the irrigation system implemented there by U.S. AID deteriorates from neglect, that ‘gap’ is steadily increasing. And you’re right - it’s not fair that pontificators of a leftist persuasion constantly use that massive productivity to excuse theft. Unfortunately, I don’t think they’ll quit anytime soon.
: (Check out the 1998 Red Cross Human Disaster Report; the #1 cause of refugees in 1998 was environmental destruction resulting from exploitation of the environment.)
DC: Remember that industrial farming is frequently cited as ‘environmental exploitation’ by the Left. Thus, the clearing of forests in the Amazon, in favor of ranches and farmland, is deemed ‘environmental destruction caused by exploitation of the environment’. Yes?
: : It is no use debating with them, although you are more than welcome, because their definitions change minute by minute.
: OK, what do you want to define?
DC: Free-market, enemy of the people, the NEP, the difference between "Green" and "Communist". For starters.
: : I have a theory that the real deal is that these socialists are just envious of successful people and can't stand it.
: Please don't ascribe the pettiness that drives you to the motives of everyone else.
DC: That’s right. Capitalists strive to gain wealth by selling a product to willing buyers. Leftists strive to force a product (i.e., an ideology, or "the scheme") on an unwilling public, more often than not at the business end of a gun. Big difference between trade and theft, and correctly noted by the erudite Farinata.
: By your yardstick, I'm "successful". However, I don't believe success is morally sound if it achieved by grinding someone else into the ground; I do not support the First World's continuing exploitation of the Third in the name of maximised profit; neither do I support the efforts of the First World to plunder natural resources throughout the world. My ethics do not square with thoughtlessly allowing my fellow humans to suffer as a result of my actions.
DC: The cessation of capitalist exploitation usually ends up in those refugee problems mentioned earlier. DC: More efficient systems of production allow a larger number of people to be supported. When an industrialized state collapses, there usually is a resultant "die-off’ of the excess population, frequently amongst the now useless industrial workforce. This is why I am so against the so-called ‘revolution of the proletariat’ but, as a pompous buffoon, I would suspect that I’m missing the value of such a rich and exciting process.
: : Success to them is everyone grows his own food and and make their own clothes.
: Success to me would be people being assured of a basic standard of living. As per the UN Declaration of Human Rights...if that's not too radical a document for you.
DC: Not at the expense of another. I might need your kidney; to take it by force is … well, a bit tactless, don’t you think? You’ll still live fine with one, but the idea leaves a certain taste in the mouth - for us Republican types, of course. You?
: : An improvement to them would be that everybody live in a shack in the woods, sort of like Ted Kozinsky, another leftist/greeie/utopian.
: I think you'll find that's spelt Theodore Kaczynkci a.k.a. the Unabomber. Of course, since he was paranoid and afraid of computers, you'd hardly find Ted here...
DC: No. More often, one finds such people living in large estates, frequently with all of the amenities that a modern society can provide. I rather doubt Jane Fonda or Angela Davis might be found living in a shack in the woods. The victims of their ideas, however, are another matter entirely.
No, I think that these ‘Waldenesque utopias’ is meant for the other guy. As in the peasants, masses, etc. - i.e. us.
: So, are you really in complete agreement with Pinochet, Suharto, Hitler, Mussolini, Pat Buchanan, Ronald Reagan and various other famous right-wing loonies *ahem*...thinkers?
Pinochet over Castro. Suharto over Ho (Lee Kwan Yew and Sygmun Rhee over Comrade . Hitler over Stalin (both left-wingers, but the latter out-did his contemporary in outright body-counts). Mussolini (wasn’t he an anarchist…) ? Pat Buchanan over Andrea Dworkin. Ronald Reagan over W.J. Clinton. And so on.
Bad or good, a left-wing leaning always makes things that much worse. Which is of course the point.
: Or will you admit that trying to describe an entire slew of political beliefs by one of the madder individuals is gross misrepresentation of an idea? - and one that bespeaks a lack of any substantial arguments...
DC: No. I would say, as did my predecessor, that such an argument has been used each time this ideology has been used to exploit and repress a society. Always, it is used after such a state has collapsed, through lack of loot to steal. Always, the same lame excuse is trundled out. I really cannot explain this any more clearly.
: : Anyways, that's my opinion.
: Well, I didn't think anyone else was liable to lay to claim to it...
DC: No. It is, after all, his. I am not of a mindset to be stealing from my neighbor, whether it be ideas or more tangible goods. But I doubt I would be remiss in agreeing with it, which I of course do.
Dr. Cruel
: (who isn't a socialist, actually. I'm a capitalist supporter. Who thinks that the Chomsky mould should be broken, in the interests of Greater Humanity, but who feels genuinely sorry for the likes of Kropotkin and Orwell, who were apparently ruined by left-wing promises and a kindly and gullible belief system)
