Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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The system leads to this, and it also leads to the innovation that has given us all the technological progress we've had in the past couple centuries. If we were to go back 200 years and make the world a big socialist haven, we'd be lucky to have electricity today.

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Gee, where have I been? Asleep? The communist USSR, although starting a long way behind the USA (from the worst form of feudalism, in fact), was, I thought, the first in space, the first satellite, the first animal in space, the first man in space and simultaneously the first orbiting man. The first USA citizen in space did not orbit and it came after the USSR had successfully launched a manned orbital vehicle. I would see these as some of the greatest technological achievements of the last century and the USA was pwnd! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

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Heh, I can't tell if this is serious or not, so just disregard if I missed the sarcasm...

You're going to point to one thing that the Russian government did better then the American economy and government and claim that that means Russia was better off? What about things that actually have demand, such as clean water, which you had to stand in line for hours to get in Russia?

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

This century is going to be very interesting and very scarry.

Eric Hoffer wrote in "The True Believer" 1951

"The more unworkable communism proves in Russia, and the more its leaders are compelled to compromise and adulterate the original creed, the more brazen and arrogant will be their attack on the a non-believing world. The slave-holders of the South became the more aggressive in spreading their way of life the more it became patent that their possition was untenable in a modern world. If free enterpise becomes a proselytizing holy cuase, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident."

There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

It's all but impossible to describe where a movement is while it's happening, but there are clues. The increasing deregulation accross the USA and the world for that matter could be a sign that capitalism is on the rise, but, more likely, a sign that it's in its last throwes, just like the extreme racial violence of the 60s, and the consolidation of power right before the French Revolution.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

It's all but impossible to describe where a movement is while it's happening, but there are clues. The increasing deregulation accross the USA and the world for that matter could be a sign that capitalism is on the rise, but, more likely, a sign that it's in its last throwes, just like the extreme racial violence of the 60s, and the consolidation of power right before the French Revolution.

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Wow. Your entire post is like exactly the opposite of what's going on in the real world. Increasing deregulation? Like trans-fat?

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If free enterpise becomes a proselytizing holy cuase, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.

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And the most likely cause of this not being self-evident is a dumbing down of the population. Phase one, let government regulate the school system.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

Before this get way off-topic by my doing, I was only answering the suggestion that capitalism was the only system capable of making technological advances. Conversely, I am sure that capitalism like communism is capable of making big mistakes and has been in the process of doing so for quite a while.

I will not reply on this thread any longer regarding this... I did not intend to hijack but, simply, highlight some wrong reasoning in a reply.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

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This is surely not true. William Graham Sumner? Ayn Rand? The robber barons?

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

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This is surely not true. William Graham Sumner? Ayn Rand? The robber barons?

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The "actual" robber barons were trying to spread capitalism? More like mercantilism, which != capitalism.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Wow. Your entire post is like exactly the opposite of what's going on in the real world. Increasing deregulation? Like trans-fat?

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You're joking right? Have you been paying attention to national and world news the last decade? There are countries privatizing their water supply. I seriously cannot guess how you have arrived at the opposite conclusion, because, that's all the WTO and IMF have been doing the past 20 years. All of the former Soviet block countries have been privatizing and deregulating. The US has been privatizing or decentralizing everything and reducing progressive wealth redistribution schemes. Our military is mostly outsourced now.

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If free enterpise becomes a proselytizing holy cuase, it will be a sign that its workability and advantages have ceased to be self-evident.

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And the most likely cause of this not being self-evident is a dumbing down of the population. Phase one, let government regulate the school system.

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You've got to be kidding me, other governments accross the world have done a fine jobe regulating their schools. And ours was decent for over a century. Would you prefer Catholic schools or Quaker meetings. In order to claim that Govt. controlling schools is the cause of dumbing down the populatin you need show at least some type of correlation between government schools and dumbing down or, even it's opposite, a nation of people who went to private school and being less dumbed down. When you make a claim that absurd, you really should back it up some how.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

Why is that "too uneven"? What is the acceptable threshhold of "even"?

Is this an increase or a decrease? Compare modern democracy with feudalism.

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If so, how bad can the condition of humanity get before your precious capitalist principles become untenable to you?

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It's become undeniably better. Compare the serfs of a thousand years ago with life spans half that of ours with today's lower middle class, who struggle with obesity. Just because someone else has more doesn't mean you have less.

If redistribution results in widespread (but equal) poverty, is that a better alternative?

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Is there any limit at all to your worship of capitalism?

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I don't worship it.

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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There never used to be people trying to spread Capitalism like a religion or who believed in it ferverently like a faith before. Its effectiveness was just beyond doubt and therefore nothing to be passionate about. Not so anymore, unbridled Capitalism is causing more problems than it is solving.

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This is surely not true. William Graham Sumner? Ayn Rand? The robber barons?

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Wasn't Ayn Rand a refugee from USSR? kind of different. Was Sumner among the faithful or was he making reasoned arguments?

Re: Richest 2% hold half of world\'s assets
 

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Wow. Your entire post is like exactly the opposite of what's going on in the real world. Increasing deregulation? Like trans-fat?

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You're joking right? Have you been paying attention to national and world news the last decade? There are countries privatizing their water supply. I seriously cannot guess how you have arrived at the opposite conclusion, because, that's all the WTO and IMF have been doing the past 20 years. All of the former Soviet block countries have been privatizing and deregulating. The US has been privatizing or decentralizing everything and reducing progressive wealth redistribution schemes. Our military is mostly outsourced now.

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All of your actual examples here are world, not national. I was only talking about national. In your post, you only attached "the rest of the world" as a throw away. We certainly deregulated phone service here in the U.S. (as it was starting to become obsolete, but for every thing deregulated, there are a dozen more regulated. (trans-fats, smoking in restaurants, etc.)

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And the most likely cause of this not being self-evident is a dumbing down of the population. Phase one, let government regulate the school system.

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You've got to be kidding me, other governments accross the world have done a fine jobe regulating their schools.

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Compared to what place where we do it via the private sector?

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And ours was decent for over a century.

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True. Before we started regulating it...

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Would you prefer Catholic schools or Quaker meetings. In order to claim that Govt. controlling schools is the cause of dumbing down the populatin you need show at least some type of correlation between government schools and dumbing down or, even it's opposite, a nation of people who went to private school and being less dumbed down. When you make a claim that absurd, you really should back it up some how.

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America of 100 years ago vs. America of today.