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As a society, we may well be worse off for allowing you to keep it. In many cases, some bureaucrat in Washington would indeed make better decisions than you about how to spend your "hard-earned" money. Your feelings of self-importance by the way are not widely shared at all. You are always expected to do your part, whether you feel like doing it or not.
I should learn not to argue with Communists. As Thomas Sowell said, it's hard to understand why wanting to keep your own money is greedy when wanting somebody else's is not.
I should learn not to argue with Communists. As Thomas Sowell said, it's hard to understand why wanting to keep your own money is greedy when wanting somebody else's is not.
That's what I always wondered - why certain class of individuals believe they are entitled (by invisible hand or whatever silly rationale the last 10,000 years produced) to work less entitled ones for much less, appropriate the bulk of output and call it "their money", "their wealth". I dont agree about "their" since no sane free people would allow anyone to work themselves under those terms. Wealth accumulated by means of massive institutionalized coercion has nothing sacred about it, even when well conditioned slaves think that they are the freest bunch under the Sun.
We can agree that a sweet-range indeed exists. But how to find ourselves within that range, is not obvious or free of contention. Desired outcomes differ, depending on the beholder. But even if we could agree on precisely the same desired outcome, the methodology would still differ.
A good example is the debate surrounding the strategy used by "Asian Tigers" post-WW2. Having no particular advantage of natural resources, or geography, or a history of innovation, these nations nevertheless managed to produce decade after decade of burgeoning growth-rate. How did they manage that? By virtue of the industriousness of their people. But how was this harnessed efficiently and productively? Most of these nations were at least partially authoritarian, at least until they reached some level of development (call it a threshold of GDP). Well then, did they achieve their growth in spite of being authoritarian, or precisely because they were authoritarian? Or, is their political climate orthogonal to their economic progress? I submit, that this is not a settled debate - not even now, some 30 years after said nations emerged as viable industrial competitors to Europe and America. The point isn't to contend, that one approach or another, is necessarily superior; but rather, that a large range of ambiguity exists. And that ambiguity is going to be filled for example by one set of scholarly papers arguing one thing, and another quite the opposite... makes for a more exciting technical-conference.
I dont think that the early Great Britain or USA were beacons of freedom and human rights at the time they jump started their industrial market economies. It took massive application of state power to disposses, enslave or lock unwilling labor in the industrial slums to fuel all that wealth creation. Authoritanism of Asian tigers looks like a poster boy scout compared to that. Largerly because a good chunk of old fashioned coercion was substituted with brain conditionining powering consumer economies today.
I should learn not to argue with Communists. As Thomas Sowell said, it's hard to understand why wanting to keep your own money is greedy when wanting somebody else's is not.
The same system that allowed you to "earn" your outsized winnings, requires you to contribute to the stability and continued prosperity of that system.
If you don't like to play by the rules, then go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Fun fact. Marx was correct when he said capitalism would self destruct. Luckily our ancestors were paying attention and capitalism was extensively modified via wealth redistribution so it could survive.
The same system that allowed you to "earn" your outsized winnings, requires you to contribute to the stability and continued prosperity of that system.
If you don't like to play by the rules, then go directly to Jail, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.
Fun fact. Marx was correct when he said capitalism would self destruct. Luckily our ancestors were paying attention and capitalism was extensively modified via wealth redistribution so it could survive.
What are some examples of capitalistic and democratic countries self destructing?
That's what I always wondered - why certain class of individuals believe they are entitled (by invisible hand or whatever silly rationale the last 10,000 years produced) to work less entitled ones for much less, appropriate the bulk of output and call it "their money", "their wealth". I dont agree about "their" since no sane free people would allow anyone to work themselves under those terms. Wealth accumulated by means of massive institutionalized coercion has nothing sacred about it, even when well conditioned slaves think that they are the freest bunch under the Sun.
So the people with the property rights and those who bore the risk shouldn't be the one to accrue the wealth? Who should get it then? The "slaves" who are free to work somewhere else or start their own business? Then again why would they want to risk their property and money to start a business if there's no incentive?
So the people with the property rights and those who bore the risk shouldn't be the one to accrue the wealth? Who should get it then? The "slaves" who are free to work somewhere else or start their own business? Then again why would they want to risk their property and money to start a business if there's no incentive?
Risk? I dont think I signed up for their silly game, I didnt agree to the terms, I was born into it. It took rivers of blood literally to write the rules of that game. It took massive selective breeding in the past 10,000 years to produce masses of the eager serves who crave overseeing spots to validate their existence. What about them playing that game with themselves instead of trying to parasitize and/or disposses the unwilling participants?
It isn't remotely Communists who are your tormentors. It's rationalists -- the people who deal in fact and reason.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Larry Siegel
As Thomas Sowell said, it's hard to understand why wanting to keep your own money is greedy when wanting somebody else's is not.
Sowell is a no-account partisan hack. Using what others have provided for you to produce outputs that you will then claim to be all of your own creation is an example of such hackery. Rationalists see right through that sort of nonsense. Apparently some do fall for it though.
Fun fact. Marx was correct when he said capitalism would self destruct. Luckily our ancestors were paying attention and capitalism was extensively modified via wealth redistribution so it could survive.
Global capitalism went extinct in the early 20th century. Nobody was willing to tolerate the brutality of its outcomes any more. Some countries moved to the left, and some countries moved to the right. It was only through the massive reinventive efforts of FDR that the US was able to remain a nominally capitalist economy, though it became a state of "managed capitalism" -- what some people call "socialism." Thank goodness for that.
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