- Capitalism and Alternatives -

or did it?

Posted by: Gee on May 21, 1999 at 13:17:30:

In Reply to: The Virtues of Capitalism.....? posted by Nikhil Jaikumar on May 21, 1999 at 12:00:32:

: Capitalism worked......to bring us the Great Depression.

no, the federal reserve did that (want to know how?)

: Capitalism worked.......to dispossess farmers, peasants, and indigenous peoples all across teh world.

Mixing private ownership with nationalist imperialism again? No wonder other people can still say Russia was communist.

: Capitalism worked.....to create slums and incubate disease.

Because before hand everyone lived wondeful healthy lives? If you mean it didnt raise *everybodies* quality and length of life at the same rate fair enough, if you want to talk averages (mean, mode or median) then its not accurate.

: Capitalsim worked.....to deny food to the peasants who produced it, so that they could instead make coffee and cotton for teh international market.

Cant make cotton unfed, cant trade intenationally without having to deal with political nationalism - free trade its not. Government controlled it is.

: Capitalism worked.....to bring tyranny and genocide to indonesia, Guatemala, Chile, the DR, Vietnam, ....need I go on?

Examples are usually imperialist. if you want to mix capitalism with nationalism and imperialism to poison the first, then may we contunue poisoning communism by relating it to Stalinism?

: Capitalism worked.....to throw working families, army veterans and immigarnts out of their houses.

Who did the throwing? Private individuals?

: Capiatslim worked.....to ensure that millions of children would die of diseases neglected by a medical estab;ishment taht couldn't make a profit fof tehir suffering.

I refer to quality of living argument above. Prior to the 'medical establishment' all children were at risk. All of them. the medical industry is hardly an example of free trade.

: Capitalism worked.....to ensure that medicine, legal defense, food, shelter, and political repesenattion depedn on your ability to pay the bucks.

All except the last are valid. Exchange or gift, not 'owed' by the act of it being in existence. "youve got food, you owe it to me, you have got food - youre ok". you cannot lay claim to what another produces by 'virtue' of your need - what would be the standard? What would be the difference betweent his and slavery of producer to needy?

: Capitalism worked....to corrupt the government and legal system of America into an object of derision the world over.

Only insofar as power brokers saw increasing wealth to steal unearned. Couldnt be anywhere near as corrupt if their loot haul wasnt so huge.

: Capitalsim worked.....to glorify violence and hedonism to teh point where we have predatory teenagers walking the streets and predatory adults strolling through teh Pentagon.

Explain the connection of this with private ownership and free trade, or its a blind assertion.

: Capitalsim worked....to destroy everything that stood in its way, inclduing love, religion, faith, patriotism, and plenty else, as Marx said.

As above - explain or accept it as a blind assertion.

: viz. the freedom to starve to death, teh feredom to get evicted, teh feredom to be homeless, the freedom to be unemployed, the freedom to sit in a back alley dying of some untreated disease, the freedom to watch your kids die of malnutrition, teh feredom to sell yourself and your children into a lifetime of slavery just to pay tomorrow'srent, teh freedom to be laughed at, derided, spit upon by a society that respects only the welthy and the predatory. Is that freedom?

" "What freedom does a starving man have?" The answer is that starvation is a tragic human condition- perhaps more tragic than loss of freedom. That does not prevent these from being *two different things*. " (Sowell)

The above cannot include a 'freedom' to demand from other the means to your personal survival.


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