- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Plastic Fantasies

Posted by: Quincunx on March 22, 1999 at 12:22:17:

In Reply to: yours posted by Gee on March 19, 1999 at 18:30:49:

: : SDF: And when the tenants occupying my land refuse to pay my exorbitant rent, I hire an army composed of other tenants, to evict them

G: Your going to run out of money either way, as your prices wont attract any new tenants to replace the ones who chose not to pay. Just having money to start off with doesnt make you become richer.

Qx: Actually, there's plenty of real world examples to show just the opposite. Take for instance the Boston owner of a general store who was evicted by the landlord simply due to the fact that a store for ladie's apparel would pay more rent money to this landlord. Despite the fact that the neighborhood protested the landlord did this simply out of the fact that he could get more money.

This landlord didn't lose any money but the neighborhood lost a lot of character. So his higher prices did not dissuade the owners of the ladie's apparel company from paying exorbitant rents.

: : SDF: Perhaps then people will sprout wings and fly. The whole mode of proceeding of this fantasy is to ignore the material basis of roads, the material basis for why people have NO CHOICE but to use them in order to get from point A to point B

G: Really? If one steps off the side of a road one disappears into the ether?

Qx: You're deliberately trying to side-track the issue. Unless you're stealthy enough to evade cops and irate landowners for trespassing then you're going to be paying fines. Got any money Gee?

G: Again, the road owner cannot survive without making money - he will run out if no one is using the road.

Qx: And you think it's as simple as that? The road will probably always be used and if this road-owner knows anything he wouldn't get to high priced but than again you may not understand that this is pretty much a risk-free venture and profoundly uncapitalist at that. It's sheer hypocrisy on the part of those who advocate privatization to claim that they are capitalists.

: : SDF: And when the people in the village have chopped down all the trees (like they've done in places such as Newfoundland), we will make tables out of round boulders, and use them just like we would the wooden tables.

G: Or plastic. It may surprise you that humans are innovative wealth creators whose survival is because they adapt and change.

Qx: It doesn't surprise me that people can be absolutely shortsighted and blindly beleieve that because they bought a set of plastic chairs and table that they are "innovative wealth creators". Whereas if they hadn't been conned into thinking that the big logging and paper companies were their best biuddies they could be using furniture made from local wood and by their own hands and thus avoid the alienated labor that is the norm ebven in Newfoundland.

How about those depleted cod stocks? Would plastic fish be considered edible? Perhaps It may surprise you that humans are innovative wealth creators whose survival is because they adapt and change. Yeah right....



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