Quote:
Originally Posted by UnderseaLcpl
Going O/T for a moment, I have a question for you. If you do not believe in a God, and you are aware of the machinations of genes, and you are already unhappy with humanity, why do you care about the future of mankind?
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Because I wish it to be different. Because I am part of that humanity.
On capitalism we could not be any more different, but we both know that by now, don't we. For you, it is the motor of human society and the holy grail in general. To me it is context-sensitive, and thus can be serving good in some social models, while causing havoc in others, since it offers potentials, but also enormous risks. But being that uncritical of it like you are, does not do any good, I would even say beign that uncritical topwards anything, no mattere what, always means greater risks than gains in the long run, since no situational conditions ever stay the same, everything is changing, and thus any solutions tried must be constantly checked, put in question, and either verified another time for the forseeable near future, or replaced with something different. For you, capitalism is the meaning. For me, it is a tool, and it is eclectically (?) to be used where helpful, and is pragmatically to be limited or abandoned where doing damage. For me it is no self-purpose, never, especially not in a situation as critical and dangerous as the one that human civilisation is in right now.
It is not vulnerable to corruption and distortion like democracies are if growing into too big communal systems, but capitalism is the very cause and origin of corrupting democracies. Because being like that is it's very program and nature.
There is much much more than just the market, Lance, there are factors that have nothign to do with it, but still deciding the fate of human societies. I would recommend you read the first chapter in David Jared's "Collapse. How Societies Chose to Fail or Succeed", which deals on 60 pages entirely with the changes in the economic structure of the state of Montana, and describes how just your market philosophy and the freedom of people has helped to cause friction that has mounted big internal problems there and keeps Montana to be one of the poorest states in the union, despite it's great attractiveness due to its described beautiful landscape making it attractive for foreigners - which has proven to be part of the problem. It is written by an American with a great deal of love for the place, btw, so accusing the author of blackpainting or wishing the place any bad, is very absurd.
You simplify things too much, keeping them on the naive level of explanations that had been assumed by the founders of economic theory traditions in the following of the early Adam Smith. This materialistic, capitalistic mindset is a very typical symptom for the Anglosaxon culture that to these excessive ammounts never has been followed or accepted as valid anywhere outside the Anglosaxon world, but still effects most of the planet - and lets critical conditions climax pretty dangerously in many places.
With 7 billion+ people living on planet Earth, we simply cannot afford unregulated capitalism of the old school. It is suicide.
On your celebrating of perosnal freedom, if that freedom is interpreted by people in a way that maximises their personal profits/gains, then it defends the excessive spending and wasting and consuming we see in the Western world, and imagining that to be standard for 7 billion people (becasue the freedom you claim for yourself you cannot deny to the others) means the life-thretaening shortatge of global ressources even within our own lifespans, yours and mine, followed by global collapse and utmost desaster to gloal civilisation, which will leave no civilisational structure whatever unshattered. the Wetsenr lifestyle simply cannot be the standard for the world to follow. It could be that if we were only 500 million or at most 1 billion people living on all the globe and no population growth and stable birth rates that do not increase population but only replaced the losses from people who died. But for ongoing, generations-lasting "Nachhaltigkeit" (sustainability) in our economic system, I more and more get the impression that even 1 billion would be too much if modern Western consummation standards are becoming the standards for all the world. And this problem of suicidal rises in population sizes has been the reason for the fall of many civilisations of the past, all over the world. We couild learn from that - but for some reasopn that may have to do with our genes we refuse to do so, and instead do not look beyond the current day.
Who cares for the great flood tomorrow if there is sun today. Why thinking about sustainability and stockpiling reserves for bad days ahead, if one could party or have another baby today. the results coming from this irresponsible attitude are predetermined and home-made, and will not be avoided.