If only communism could function under voluntarism.

Take China for example. A middle class person in China today lives like an upper class person compared to the 1700s. A poor person on average anywhere is doing way better than ever before…

Has there actually been a better century in terms of comfort and stability for most people

Odd to me that you equate productivity with the value of a person.

Libertarians are anti-war. Capitalism is not colonialism.

Yeah the US is a really poor example of a free market… I don’t think one exists for health care.

Yeah… I’m not a fan of that either personally.

Some people are just better in terms of being productive. I don’t see how that’s debatable. The question is just if you let those people keep they’re outsized earnings or you forcibly redistribute them.

I guess the difference being the people in control of permits and policies produce nothing of value. If a capitalist fails to produce he no longer holds the property or patents. Someone else gets them to try to compete.

The reason capitalism is moral is that the people who get the scarce resources need to be effective in providing for everyone else by creating or they lose them. Under a central planning system this is not the case. Scarce resources are held by connected people … The state bails them out if they really fuck up.

Nothing is stopping you from creating an improved Gillette razor and competing without blatenly copying their patent… Property is expensive but available (problem created by government with interest rate manipulation and making land one of the only viable hard assets) you can hire people for your factory. They’ll cost 10x what they do overseas though… So you’d probably just go there.

Man you won’t find me defending fractional reserve banking or fiat currency. Those are also things created by politicians and bankers. They’re just means of stealing value. You also can’t have socialism without fiat currency. The myth that you can rob the 1% to pay for the needs of everyone… Well do the math … Liquidate the 10 richest people and it funds the state for maybe a month or something.

Ah I didn’t get the joke I guess lol. I’m not really much of a fan of socialism. If companies can’t build without permits and tax breaks then you dont really have a level playing field anymore and you no longer have functional creative destruction. Old inefficient well connected incombants strangle the new razor corp in the crib and you’re stuck paying 35 dollars for blades :)

The protagonist being in a privileged position due to government seisuze of private property is certainly an excellent point. I just feel the state exercising power in the other direction, against productive ventures instead of property owners, may be a little too in vogue these days.

I’m actually not really. Here’s at least a logical arguments one could make.

Healthcare is a scarce resource like all things. Making it universal doesn’t exempt it from that fact. Removing it from a competitive market will likely make it more expensive and prevent innovations which will keep it affordable. Competitive markets drive efficiency.

Government provided healthcare rations service availability based on criteria they set. A private system rations availability based on the indivual’s ability to afford the service. If people can afford the service additional capacity can be created with that money. Under a government system extremely long wait times are the norm … With health this may mean late diagnosis of cancer and other suboptimal outcomes.

People are generally more wealthy in the later years of their lives and also in need of more care. Under a public system the costs associated with an aging population will be disproportionately placed on younger people who still pay taxes in their prime earning years. With the number of working people constantly decreasing when compared to the number of retired baby boomers this is unsustainable under a public system.

At the end of the day I think free markets apply poorly to healthcare because you have no ability to comparison shop during a medical emergency. Also US seems to have the worst mix of regulated private healthcare which has kept costs the highest of any country. I do think most social democratic countries are basically screwed over the next 20 years with the demographics being what they are.

You can agree with some principles of a work and reject others. What parts of her philosophy do you find to be lunacy?

It speaks against a system where political favour dictates your success as a producer over your ability to compete. If you feel land owners and intellectual property owners are gate keepers in a society where your can have your own ideas and buy your own property I don’t know what to say.

Like most things it’s balance … No one wants the ecological damage of the 60s again. I’d say the vast majority of the things people are buying are imported from less regulated markets… Lead in the kids toys am I right? If things are produced here at least you can take those companies to court when they do harm.

Good reasons being ? I’ve seen projects cancelled due to a few arrow heads and tool parts being found … Massive overruns due to turtle eggs. Private companies just don’t build here if they can avoid it. Building and producing things is never perfectly safe and will always cause some ecological damage. The things we consume are actually built overseas in the most destructive and unregulated way possible mostly … Are they not?

I’ll take what’s the definition of strawman for 500 Alex.

There’s at least a grain of truth in that book. Try starting a business or producing something.

Look at domestic attempts to mine lithium or building semiconductor plants. Try building anything here.

“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing; when you see that money is flowing to those who deal not in goods, but in favors; when you see that men get rich more easily by graft than by work, and your laws no longer protect you against them, but protect them against you. . . you may know that your society is doomed.”

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