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Old 05-24-2011, 10:46 AM
 
10,545 posts, read 13,585,253 times
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You're not forced. You're free to wander into the wilderness and live off the land as you please. Here's a book about a guy that chose to do exactly that, and nobody forced him to come back and participate - Amazon.com: Into the Wild (9780385486804): Jon Krakauer: Books. I recommend that you be careful with the wild potatos.
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:07 AM
 
Location: Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne
17,916 posts, read 24,356,551 times
Reputation: 39038
Quote:
Originally Posted by hotair2 View Post
Well that sounds like what he American Indians had in mind. The concept of owning land just did not make sense to them. They were slaughtered. It is tragic.
People who practice an economy based on hunting and gathering do not, generally, have a concept of ownership of the land.

Agriculturalists do have a concept of land ownership. Vast swaths of North America were populated by Native American agriculturalists who grew maize, beans, and squash on land they defended.

Therefore, a great number of Native Americans had a concept of land ownership. In fact, there was a lot of competition for land in North America and it resulted in bloody campaigns and the development of "evil empires" from the Valley of Mexico to the Mississippi to the the Mohawk and Hudson Valleys.

Agriculture = Land Ownership
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:08 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,479 posts, read 59,783,759 times
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Considering the high moral standards of the people that own and operate the capitalist system and their blatent disregard for any form of free market I know that these theives need a LOT of regulation to prevent the outsiders and small investors from being robbed.
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:10 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,479 posts, read 59,783,759 times
Reputation: 24863
I believe the control of land was the basis of the spat between Able and Cain? One owned the vegatables and the other though his livestock should be able to eat them.
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:16 AM
 
Location: South Jordan, Utah
8,182 posts, read 9,213,174 times
Reputation: 3632
Quote:
Originally Posted by GregW View Post
Considering the high moral standards of the people that own and operate the capitalist system and their blatent disregard for any form of free market I know that these theives need a LOT of regulation to prevent the outsiders and small investors from being robbed.
What not just have one law, follow the principles of the free market and institute liability and risk? This would protect people and require fewer regulations.
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:29 AM
 
4,127 posts, read 5,067,345 times
Reputation: 1621
Quote:
Originally Posted by Shankapotomus View Post
Why do Capitalists coerce others to participate in a monetary economy?

Defenders of capitalism will say that capitalism is natural and derived from the laws of nature. But how is paying to live on land natural? For thousands, even millions of years, no one payed for land to live on.

How can you say that the use of force is not at the root of Capitalism?

Suppose I don't want to sell and I don't want to buy anything from anyone? I want to live directly off the land with my own two hands?

I don't want to rely on any other humans or them to rely on me.

Why am I not free to do this? I don't believe in owning land. I believe if land is unoccupied you may occupy it until you decide you want to go somewhere else. Then that land or space is open to someone else to use. I don't believe in claiming space and then charging people to occupy a space you're not using.

Nor do I believe anyone had a right to pollute the rivers and then charge people for clean drinking water. How about not polluting the earths water supply in the first place?

If people don't want to live under a monetary economy, why are they forced to do so?
Simply because there are so many people, it's impossible for anyone to be truly free. Capitalism is in my opinion better than the available alternatives. Unless about 6.8 Billion people suddenly disappear (and I was really rooting for the May 21st thingy), the world you envision is impossible.

Lets assume you want to occupy a parcel of land that you don't own. Then I come along and decide I would like to occupy that same real estate. Let's assume for the sake of argument that I am bigger stronger and better armed than you. In a world without some sort of governance, there is nothing to stop me from removing you from that spot and nothing to stop the next guy who is bigger and stronger than me. With this many people, such disputes are inevitable. The only way for true freedom or Anarchy to work without humans killing each other is if there were so few humans that their ranges didn't overlap.

Property ownership isn't as unnatural as many seem to think. In the wild, if a badger has a great cave but a grizzly decides he likes it, the bear evicts the badger. There is no negotiation, no compromise, just a new tenant.

Why do bears attack humans? As a rule bears don't consider humans a food source but they do see us as a reasonably large territorial predator competing for their food on their land. Even wolves who are wanderers mark their ranges and defend their lands or territories to the death. So it's not all that different when you boil it down.

A lot of people like to romanticize the life of the plains Indians and morph it into something it never was. Part of the reason their populations were low was due to nearly constant warfare. Hunter-gatherer cultures require small populations and large ranges to acquire enough protein and calories to survive. For a population of any size to exist, they need agriculture. Agriculture needs a place and that place must be secure.

The bottom line is that there are just too many people for everyone to run naked and do as they please. I would love to live in the world you envision but until a whole bunch of people volunteer to step off the planet, my Utopia will never exist. And no, though tempting, I'm not ready to force them off even if it were in my power to do so.
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:31 AM
 
Location: Pleasant Ridge, Cincinnati, OH
1,040 posts, read 1,334,427 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Winter_Sucks View Post
So regulation protecting children, consumers, workers, the environment, and animals is Nazism?

I apologize, I was suggesting using the term national socialism or nazism rather than fascism, since that's what most people are referring to when they mention fascism. Fascism seems to have a rather broad definition and is pretty much applied to dictatorships.

I didn't mean to infer that regulation = nazism (rather, nazism is a subset of socialism). However, I do believe that regulation is at odds with individual liberties. It's my belief that individual liberty shouldn't be infringed upon unless harm is caused to others. So, I would support laws against actions which cause harm to others.

Anyway, in my view the -isms are beside the point. Freedom is what matters.

Last edited by flash3780; 05-24-2011 at 12:29 PM..
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Old 05-24-2011, 11:38 AM
 
Location: Londonderry, NH
41,479 posts, read 59,783,759 times
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The basic economic problem with Free Market Capitalism as described by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" is it is nearly impossible for a business to make a profit in that system. Big profits are only made by establishing one form of monopoly or another so either the supply of the goods being traded or the taxes are under control of the businesses. We have chosen a perverted form of capitalism where access to the markets is very limited and competition is almost eliminated. The billions made by the oil industry, for example, under this system would not be available in a truly free market.
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Old 05-24-2011, 12:24 PM
 
19,226 posts, read 15,321,408 times
Reputation: 2337
Quote:
Originally Posted by hilgi View Post
What not just have one law, follow the principles of the free market and institute liability and risk? This would protect people and require fewer regulations.
Quit it!

You're embarrassing the fascists.
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Old 05-24-2011, 12:31 PM
 
Location: Long Island
32,816 posts, read 19,483,709 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Winter_Sucks View Post
Protecting children, consumers, workers, the environment, and animals is fascism?

That's news to me.
""Fascism is a system in which the government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation. In effect, fascism is simply a more subtle form of government ownership than is socialism."" Mussolini
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"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of 'liberalism,' they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened."

- Norman Thomas, former U.S. Socialist Presidential Candidate
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"A Marxist begins with his prime truth that all evils are caused by the exploitation of the proletariat by the capitalists. From this he logically proceeds to the revolution to end capitalism, then into the third stage of reorganization into a new social order of the dictatorship of the proletariat, and finally the last stage -- the political paradise of communism." Saul alinski
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all you have to do is connect the dots
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