4 ms·

Are you suggesting that the level of severe hunger was generally lower before capitalism? I don't believe that to be true.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago
[flagged]
- FredPret 4y ago
  Fascism is anathema to capitalism. Capitalism means free markets, for which you need free market actors, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement. Capitalism means trusting other adults to be able to use their own intelligence to make the best choices for them. Fascism and other authoritarian systems like communism is, at heart, pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful because it presumes to dictate what the people must do.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    [flagged]
    - CryptoPunk 4y ago
      >>Funny that people will say this with a straight face and then walk into their jobs and have their pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful boss tell them what to do for eight hours. Your boss has no power to restrict your choices. They can only offer you an option, and compel you to choose it by making it better than any other offer available to you. There is no comparison between this, and the government mandates that characterize fascist and socialist societies.
      - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        You’re missing the point. You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that. Why do you choose that? Why does anyone choose it? It’s because they don’t choose it, they’re forced into it. Why are they forced into it? Because of private property.
        CryptoPunk 4y ago
        >>You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that If you're choosing it, it's not a fascist authoritarian regime. And yes, people need resources to live, and unless they've already accumulated great wealth, that means they have to either work (via the free market), or steal (via fascism/socialism). As Frédéric Bastiat wrote 170 years ago, the need to acquire resources is the nature of reality, not a circumstance that exists only because some authoritarian force imposes it. "Man recoils from trouble, from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppressors should be detested and resisted - they can hardly be called absurd."
- CryptoPunk 4y ago
  >>Myself? I know I would rather live in pre-historic state, foraging with a bunch of my relatives and friends, instead of in the current day Philippines. Pre-historic life was brutal. Every one had ring worms. Every one had intestinal parasites. People were hungry almost all the time. A broken leg led to shock and death, and half of children died before the age of five. You need to study pre-history, or remote tribes that live in pre-historic modes of life. You're yet another person who underestimates the challenge of living, and takes for granted what modern civilization had to overcome. When you recklessly abolish the innovations, like private property rights, that led to industrial civilization, you create shortages, massive inflation, etc, and quickly see how fragile the economic system was.
  - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    If you’re not afraid to die, and to be uncomfortable, you’ll never be free. They’ll always be someone controlling you because of your fear. And right now you know who’s doing it? All these crypto people. They’re using the fear are you so eloquently detailed above to make you buy into a scam.
    - CryptoPunk 4y ago
      I see disease, poverty and looming death as the opposite of freedom.
  - 8note 4y ago
    The same can be said for feudalism, yet powerful monarchs are largely gone. The innovations that help people live longer aren't private property, they're medical science and city planning. They don't depend on private property to continue existing
    - therealdrag0 4y ago
      The argument is private property is a nearly necessary ingredient to innovation. It may not be exclusively true but boy it sure helps! Even things like city planning greatly benefits form the taxes siphoned off healthy private commercial activity.
FooBarBizBazz 4y ago
I might believe it. The Philippines is today dominated by large plantations. One thesis of How Asia Works is that, although these plantations are a labor-efficient way to produce wealth for their owners, they are, net, less ecologically/biologically productive than smallholdings are (which are farmed by labor-intensive "gardening"). So the nearby countries, like Vietnam, that had land reform, which put land back into the hands of smallholders, were able to produce more food and provide more reliable subsistence to their people (if less measurable wealth). I suspect this strongly depends on local culture, farming skills, and environment, however. The (admittedly not-unbiased) stories of land reform in e.g. Uganda (and the outcomes) are very different from those in Vietnam. In a tropical place like the Philippines, however, I am more than willing to believe that unaccounted "ecosystem services" could provide a comfortable lifestyle for many people, if the environment were unharnessed from plantation cash-crop production. Largely because the carrying capacity is so high.
dmitriid 4y ago
The level of hunger is higher with unlimited unregulated capitalism which is what crypto is.
- CryptoPunk 4y ago
  That is not what the data shows, nor is it what economists who have spent decades studying development believe: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bill... http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-glo...
  - goodpoint 4y ago
    That stuff is incredibly misleading and based on cherry-picking data.
    - CryptoPunk 4y ago
      This is standard economics, from experts who have studied development for decades. The massive decline seen in poverty over the last 50 years is a matter of fact, with broad consensus that it has occurred. It's just inconvenient to your victimhood narrative.
      - dmitriid 4y ago
        No one denies the massive decline of poverty. It's not due to pure capitalism which did nothing to lift people out of poverty in countries where it originated until governments stepped in and reigned it in. Now this is exactly the narrative you chose to ignore because it's inconvenient to your narrative.
        CryptoPunk 4y ago
        The economists, who study this, overwhelmingly disagree. There are numerous examples given in the three articles I cited of a transition to greater capitalism being associated with more rapid economic development and poverty reduction, and you made the unsubstantiated claim that these are cherry-picking. There is no evidence at all to support the idea that redistributive social programs, or regulations, accelerated poverty reduction. The exact opposite is indicated by the data. I'm happy to compare actual data and case studies with you, but it appears that you are not willing to have a meaningful debate on this.

FollowingTheDao 4y ago

[flagged]

FredPret 4y ago
Fascism is anathema to capitalism. Capitalism means free markets, for which you need free market actors, free speech, freedom of association, freedom of movement. Capitalism means trusting other adults to be able to use their own intelligence to make the best choices for them. Fascism and other authoritarian systems like communism is, at heart, pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful because it presumes to dictate what the people must do.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - CryptoPunk 4y ago
    >>Funny that people will say this with a straight face and then walk into their jobs and have their pompous, arrogant, and disrespectful boss tell them what to do for eight hours. Your boss has no power to restrict your choices. They can only offer you an option, and compel you to choose it by making it better than any other offer available to you. There is no comparison between this, and the government mandates that characterize fascist and socialist societies.
    - FollowingTheDao 4y ago
      You’re missing the point. You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that. Why do you choose that? Why does anyone choose it? It’s because they don’t choose it, they’re forced into it. Why are they forced into it? Because of private property.
      - CryptoPunk 4y ago
        >>You choose every day when you work, to work under a fascist authoritarian regime. You choose that If you're choosing it, it's not a fascist authoritarian regime. And yes, people need resources to live, and unless they've already accumulated great wealth, that means they have to either work (via the free market), or steal (via fascism/socialism). As Frédéric Bastiat wrote 170 years ago, the need to acquire resources is the nature of reality, not a circumstance that exists only because some authoritarian force imposes it. "Man recoils from trouble, from suffering; and yet he is condemned by nature to the suffering of privation, if he does not take the trouble to work. He has to choose, then, between these two evils. What means can he adopt to avoid both? There remains now, and there will remain, only one way, which is, to enjoy the labor of others. Such a course of conduct prevents the trouble and the satisfaction from preserving their natural proportion, and causes all the trouble to become the lot of one set of persons, and all the satisfaction that of another. This is the origin of slavery and of plunder, whatever its form may be - whether that of wars, imposition, violence, restrictions, frauds, etc. - monstrous abuses, but consistent with the thought which has given them birth. Oppressors should be detested and resisted - they can hardly be called absurd."
CryptoPunk 4y ago
>>Myself? I know I would rather live in pre-historic state, foraging with a bunch of my relatives and friends, instead of in the current day Philippines. Pre-historic life was brutal. Every one had ring worms. Every one had intestinal parasites. People were hungry almost all the time. A broken leg led to shock and death, and half of children died before the age of five. You need to study pre-history, or remote tribes that live in pre-historic modes of life. You're yet another person who underestimates the challenge of living, and takes for granted what modern civilization had to overcome. When you recklessly abolish the innovations, like private property rights, that led to industrial civilization, you create shortages, massive inflation, etc, and quickly see how fragile the economic system was.
- FollowingTheDao 4y ago
  If you’re not afraid to die, and to be uncomfortable, you’ll never be free. They’ll always be someone controlling you because of your fear. And right now you know who’s doing it? All these crypto people. They’re using the fear are you so eloquently detailed above to make you buy into a scam.
  - CryptoPunk 4y ago
    I see disease, poverty and looming death as the opposite of freedom.
- 8note 4y ago
  The same can be said for feudalism, yet powerful monarchs are largely gone. The innovations that help people live longer aren't private property, they're medical science and city planning. They don't depend on private property to continue existing
  - therealdrag0 4y ago
    The argument is private property is a nearly necessary ingredient to innovation. It may not be exclusively true but boy it sure helps! Even things like city planning greatly benefits form the taxes siphoned off healthy private commercial activity.

FooBarBizBazz 4y ago

I might believe it. The Philippines is today dominated by large plantations. One thesis of How Asia Works is that, although these plantations are a labor-efficient way to produce wealth for their owners, they are, net, less ecologically/biologically productive than smallholdings are (which are farmed by labor-intensive "gardening"). So the nearby countries, like Vietnam, that had land reform, which put land back into the hands of smallholders, were able to produce more food and provide more reliable subsistence to their people (if less measurable wealth). I suspect this strongly depends on local culture, farming skills, and environment, however. The (admittedly not-unbiased) stories of land reform in e.g. Uganda (and the outcomes) are very different from those in Vietnam. In a tropical place like the Philippines, however, I am more than willing to believe that unaccounted "ecosystem services" could provide a comfortable lifestyle for many people, if the environment were unharnessed from plantation cash-crop production. Largely because the carrying capacity is so high.

dmitriid 4y ago

The level of hunger is higher with unlimited unregulated capitalism which is what crypto is.

CryptoPunk 4y ago
That is not what the data shows, nor is it what economists who have spent decades studying development believe: https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_romer http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-billion-people-have-been-taken-out-extreme-poverty-20-years-world-should-aim http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21578665-nearly-1-bill... http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-global-war-on-poverty http://www.csmonitor.com/World/2016/0207/Progress-in-the-glo...
- goodpoint 4y ago
  That stuff is incredibly misleading and based on cherry-picking data.
  - CryptoPunk 4y ago
    This is standard economics, from experts who have studied development for decades. The massive decline seen in poverty over the last 50 years is a matter of fact, with broad consensus that it has occurred. It's just inconvenient to your victimhood narrative.
    - dmitriid 4y ago
      No one denies the massive decline of poverty. It's not due to pure capitalism which did nothing to lift people out of poverty in countries where it originated until governments stepped in and reigned it in. Now this is exactly the narrative you chose to ignore because it's inconvenient to your narrative.
      - CryptoPunk 4y ago
        The economists, who study this, overwhelmingly disagree. There are numerous examples given in the three articles I cited of a transition to greater capitalism being associated with more rapid economic development and poverty reduction, and you made the unsubstantiated claim that these are cherry-picking. There is no evidence at all to support the idea that redistributive social programs, or regulations, accelerated poverty reduction. The exact opposite is indicated by the data. I'm happy to compare actual data and case studies with you, but it appears that you are not willing to have a meaningful debate on this.