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“Despite illogical leftist primal emotional outcry” Move over Burke and de Maistre, conservatism as praising big business.

pyrrhotech 5y ago
I'm not a conservative, I'm a rationalist. I don't make arguments based on "but poor mom and pop lost their jobs!!!". Instead, take a look at the pros and cons at a holistic, societal level and decide what is best quantifiably. Luckily, we don't even really have to do this often, because the free market usually gets it right. Despite what a naive view of American politics might have you believe, both the far left and the far right want to abolish capitalism and markets in favor of totalitarian beurocratic control, they just have different flavors of how to get to and how to manage that state. There is very little difference in economic and social policy between historical communist and fascist nations. Only rational centrists who fight for liberal democracy and free markets support the best path forward for society.
- dTal 5y ago
  >the free market usually gets it right. Citation needed. The "free market" - that is, sitting back and allowing everyone to act in their own perceived self-interest - routinely ties itself in perverse knots, and has pushed us over the precipice into irreversible environmental catastrophe. The market is not efficient. The market is not rational. The market does not care about you.
  - pyrrhotech 5y ago
    The free market is the reason the USA is the richest country in history and has far outpaced the wealth gains of Western Europe who early on was resistant to free markets because of aristocratic feudalism (right wing) and later became resistant to them because of socialist ideas (left wing). On both sides of history, the USA has so far remained in the center in both eras and that has helped us grow immensely faster than them such that today the USA is wealthier than all of Europe combined despite having half the population and natural resources. Even Communist china learned the hard way that free markets are the only way to prosperity and after they adopted Deng's free market reforms in the 1970s, they subsequently pulled 700M+ people out of poverty. Of course we need some regulation to protect the environment. I never said a 100% regulation-free market is what is needed. What we need is to preserve private property, encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and preserve the incentive of hard-work.
    - sofixa 5y ago
      > The free market is the reason the USA is the richest country in history and has far outpaced the wealth gains of Western Europe who early on was resistant to free markets because of aristocratic feudalism (right wing) and later became resistant to them because of socialist ideas (left wing). You're very wrong. One of the main proponents of free markets and trade, since before the US was even a thing, has been the UK, which pretty much fits the definition of "aristocratic feudalism". And the "socialist ideas (left wing)" is pretty much bullshit. > On both sides of history, the USA has so far remained in the center in both eras and that has helped us grow immensely faster than them such that today the USA is wealthier than all of Europe combined despite having half the population and natural resources. The US has many things going for it, all of which helped make it as powerful and rich as it is. In no particular order: * it's separated by entire oceans from any possible actual adversary * the last war it fought on it's own territory, with associated destruction and death which is, of course, bad for wealth and development for the majority of the population, was in the 1860s. For reference, much of Europe was destroyed, twice, in the 20th century, and some of it as late as the 1990s(former Yugoslavia) or today ( Donbas). * abundant natural resources, for pretty much everything * generous immigration policies * very serious issues elsewhere in the world, while the US remained calm ( e.g. the World Wars or various famines or various presecutions of specific types of people, e.g. jews), coupled with the above, meant that lots of people, and lots of very smart people, moved to the US * US capitalist (neo)colonialism in Latin America or Southeast Asia, which forced the creation new markets and cheap labour (e.g. the United Fruit Company) * specifically post-WW2, a combination of the above made the US the only intact world power, which allowed it to take a leadership role in the world * and yes, of course, free trade and markets. However, markets in the US have never been fully free, there has always been regulation, most often after serious issues ( e.g. the 1929 Wall Street crash or Standard Oil being broken up in 1911), but still. You can't point to a single one and say that's the only reason, all of the above contributed to the current US position.

pyrrhotech 5y ago

I'm not a conservative, I'm a rationalist. I don't make arguments based on "but poor mom and pop lost their jobs!!!". Instead, take a look at the pros and cons at a holistic, societal level and decide what is best quantifiably. Luckily, we don't even really have to do this often, because the free market usually gets it right. Despite what a naive view of American politics might have you believe, both the far left and the far right want to abolish capitalism and markets in favor of totalitarian beurocratic control, they just have different flavors of how to get to and how to manage that state. There is very little difference in economic and social policy between historical communist and fascist nations. Only rational centrists who fight for liberal democracy and free markets support the best path forward for society.

dTal 5y ago
>the free market usually gets it right. Citation needed. The "free market" - that is, sitting back and allowing everyone to act in their own perceived self-interest - routinely ties itself in perverse knots, and has pushed us over the precipice into irreversible environmental catastrophe. The market is not efficient. The market is not rational. The market does not care about you.
- pyrrhotech 5y ago
  The free market is the reason the USA is the richest country in history and has far outpaced the wealth gains of Western Europe who early on was resistant to free markets because of aristocratic feudalism (right wing) and later became resistant to them because of socialist ideas (left wing). On both sides of history, the USA has so far remained in the center in both eras and that has helped us grow immensely faster than them such that today the USA is wealthier than all of Europe combined despite having half the population and natural resources. Even Communist china learned the hard way that free markets are the only way to prosperity and after they adopted Deng's free market reforms in the 1970s, they subsequently pulled 700M+ people out of poverty. Of course we need some regulation to protect the environment. I never said a 100% regulation-free market is what is needed. What we need is to preserve private property, encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and preserve the incentive of hard-work.
  - sofixa 5y ago
    > The free market is the reason the USA is the richest country in history and has far outpaced the wealth gains of Western Europe who early on was resistant to free markets because of aristocratic feudalism (right wing) and later became resistant to them because of socialist ideas (left wing). You're very wrong. One of the main proponents of free markets and trade, since before the US was even a thing, has been the UK, which pretty much fits the definition of "aristocratic feudalism". And the "socialist ideas (left wing)" is pretty much bullshit. > On both sides of history, the USA has so far remained in the center in both eras and that has helped us grow immensely faster than them such that today the USA is wealthier than all of Europe combined despite having half the population and natural resources. The US has many things going for it, all of which helped make it as powerful and rich as it is. In no particular order: * it's separated by entire oceans from any possible actual adversary * the last war it fought on it's own territory, with associated destruction and death which is, of course, bad for wealth and development for the majority of the population, was in the 1860s. For reference, much of Europe was destroyed, twice, in the 20th century, and some of it as late as the 1990s(former Yugoslavia) or today ( Donbas). * abundant natural resources, for pretty much everything * generous immigration policies * very serious issues elsewhere in the world, while the US remained calm ( e.g. the World Wars or various famines or various presecutions of specific types of people, e.g. jews), coupled with the above, meant that lots of people, and lots of very smart people, moved to the US * US capitalist (neo)colonialism in Latin America or Southeast Asia, which forced the creation new markets and cheap labour (e.g. the United Fruit Company) * specifically post-WW2, a combination of the above made the US the only intact world power, which allowed it to take a leadership role in the world * and yes, of course, free trade and markets. However, markets in the US have never been fully free, there has always been regulation, most often after serious issues ( e.g. the 1929 Wall Street crash or Standard Oil being broken up in 1911), but still. You can't point to a single one and say that's the only reason, all of the above contributed to the current US position.