4 ms·
In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. You have the right to life, but if you get sick, you need to
by geofft 7y ago
In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. You have the right to life, but if you get sick, you need to figure out how to pay for it, and if you can't, you might not be able to exercise that right. You have the right to liberty, but if someone infringes your liberty, nobody is going to give you a lawyer for free and you have slim chances of succeeding without representation. (If you are accused, you have the right to an overworked public defender who has little incentive to fight for you, or you can pay for your own lawyer; if you're the accuser there aren't public prosecutors.) You have the right to property, but only what you can afford. You have the right to pursue happiness, but if your happiness requires a college education, let's hope you were born to parents who could afford it.
You have the right to marry whoever you like, regardless of gender - as long as you write a check for $30 or so to the appropriate local government office.
- blub 7y agoIn a capitalist society that doesn't respect human rights, like the USA this may happen. It also happens in poor societies that can't afford to enforce these rights. But there are countries out there which strive to uphold these rights, no matter if one affords to pay for various services or not.
- geofft 7y agoI wouldn't call those capitalist, I think. Perhaps market socialist.
- Brain_Thief 7y agoThis is correct and one of the best high-level descriptions I've read recently of why American-style capitalism's ultimate conclusion is pernicious social rot.
- peeters 7y ago> In a capitalist society, something being a right has no bearing on whether you need to pay for it. Right, which is why there are no purely capitalist societies in the world. Every "capitalist" society in the world regulates "free" enterprise in some way to protect that society from the consequences of unbridled capitalism. Edit: Am I wrong? FDA doesn't just say "let the free market decide what risk is acceptable for a drug", or "you can just pay more for food that doesn't have a high chance of making you violent ill". The FAA doesn't just say "oh consumers can decide whether they want to fly on an unproven jet". They recognize that the damage will probably be done long before the free market reacts to it. I don't see how protecting privacy is logically different.
- godelski 7y agoI think very few Americans would agree with you (maybe the far left?). But I lived in the South for awhile and I don't know a single person there than believes certain rights should be inalienable. Even the most hard core libertarians believe in inalienable rights. You should hear what they believe with guns. I'm not trying to get into a capitalism vs socialism debate, but just like there's no "true" socialist there's really no "true" capitalism. In fact I'd doubt the Scottish exist at all. It's always the middle area. But because we live in the middle area, just like with democracy, it is us who decide where we are in that. Not the system itself. The system is what we make of it and how we use or abuse it. I guarantee you that if you talk to almost any American they will agree with you that the system is broken and needs fixing. But as long as we quibble about who's a real Scotsman we can't work together to fix it. TLDR: don't blame the Scottish, they don't even exist.