4 ms·
I should make it clear that I'm not a supporter of what the USSR was, and I'm not trying to apologize for it. I'm just trying to argue that "prosperity" is a r
by tombert 27d ago
I should make it clear that I'm not a supporter of what the USSR was, and I'm not trying to apologize for it. I'm just trying to argue that "prosperity" is a relative term and trying to nail down the "why" of it is more complicated than the libertarian "corporations good government bad" wet dream that WalterBright always spouts.
ETA:
Just to cite my sources, you can look at the GDP per capita of Uganda and Russia in 1985 here [1].
No question, the United State was way wealthier than Russia at around ~$33k, Russia at around ~$12k, and Uganda at around $800.
The USSR was horrible, Stalin was horrible, I wouldn't want to live in the USSR even if it were still around, but my point is that wealth and prosperity are reductive terms, and it's also reductive to look at one factor and say that that's the cause of everything.
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-project-database?time=1983&mapSelect=UGA~RUS https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison-p...
- krupan 27d agoProsperity is so much more than just GDP. But look, this discussion started with someone saying our corrupt government is bad, and then throwway120385 described something horrible and called it libertarian and I just had to correct that label. People then felt the need to jump in with a bunch of mostly orthogonal disparagement of libertarianism which led to all this unproductive arguing. By the way did you see my response to you about the Microsoft monopoly? I couldn't reply because we got too deeply nested so I made it a peer comment. I'm sure it will instantly turn you into a libertarian, lol!
- tombert 27d agoI agree it’s much more than GDP. That’s kind of my entire point! These terms are complicated, and pretending that these things can be explained trivially by “LOL CORPORATIONS GOOD GOVERNMENT BAD AHAHAHAH” is reductive at best.
- krupan 26d agoNo libertarian is saying "corporations good!" Oh my gosh, the misunderstanding is huge. Go do some actual research about an idea before blindly arguing against it. Libertarianism is all about individuals and personal property and liberty. Sure people are free to organize into corporations, but libertarianism is not about favoring or giving special advantages or esteem or whatever else you seem to be imagining to corporations. It's about giving power to individuals! The hardest thing about libertarianism is people who are afraid of needing to exercise their own power and judgement. Every other political philosophy wants to make everything Someone Else's Problem. I think libertarianism is scary because it makes you responsible for yourself.
- tombert 26d agoIt’s not explicitly about loving corporations, that just appears to be the consequence.
- krupan 26d agoHow is putting personal liberty above all else a love of corporations? If a corporation is furthering personal liberty then sure, I'll love them. If they aren't then I won't give them my time/money/attention. Why does everything revolve around corporations for you?
- tombert 26d agoIt’s not that “everything revolves around corporations for me”, it’s that every time I have ever criticized a corporation to a self-proclaimed libertarian, it it always deflected and turned into “well actually this is just the governments fault because…” Walter did this by taking the frankly idiotic position that Standard Oil actually wasn’t a monopoly, and you took the less-idiotic-but-still-bad position that Microsoft’s terrible business was actually just a consequence of government.
- krupan 26d agoYou put forth Microsoft as a monopoly, not necessarily a bad business.