rEvolutionist wrote:Seth wrote:
The other type of regulation is government-imposed rules that are intended to select winners and losers in the free market. Examples of these sorts of regulations are egregious environmental regulations that affect only one disfavored industry (today that's coal) and government favoritism (through tax breaks, grants, or other regulations that favor political favorites over everyone else, like General Electric's government subsidies and tax breaks), which are intended to control and direct commerce in the free markets in order to achieve political or social goals by the current administration. Those regulations are fundamentally wrong and harmful to capitalism and free markets because they skew the internal controls of free markets that function in a very Darwinian fashion to drive inefficient, fraudulent or simply poor products out of the markets and which encourage entrepreneurship, innovation, cost effectiveness, and economic growth.
Big fucking LOLs. Poor old coal/fossil fuels, eh? What you have forgotten, genius, is that the fossil fuels industry has been favoured by probably the biggest ever subsidy in the history of civilisation. That is, they have been allowed to externalise their pollution. And that cost, borne by the rest of society/the world, is coming up for payment now.
That's because that was what was demanded by the people. They want energy and they want it as cheaply as they can possibly get it. It is their sovereign right to demand it, and to have it, regardless of the consequences. The point is that coal is just one example of government regulations that choose winners and losers in the free market that distorts and damages the functions of capitalism and free markets. These distortions and damages caused by preferential government regulation cause harm to the economy, which liberals then have the temerity to blame on capitalism and free markets, when in fact it's the liberal meddling with the markets that causes the problems in the first place.
And then you have the temerity to claim that govs are distorting the free markets to achieve social goals (like adhering to good science), while failing to accept that fossil fuel usage is the biggest threat to civilisation ever faced. Who gives a fuck about your childish hard-on for a "free" market? There's far bigger issues at stake. Wake up.
In the same way that it's morally wrong to force the individual to labor on behalf of others with whom he has no relationship and for whom he has not voluntarily accepted financial responsibility, it's morally wrong for the government, or the collective, to interfere in the free markets in order to pick winners and losers in the economy.
It's morally wrong to let the free market drive us to the edge of disaster, while science has been warning us of that disaster for decades now.
First, there is no proof that we are headed for disaster. We may be headed for climate change, but we've been headed for climate change since the beginning of time. Adapt or die. Second, whether science is warning us is irrelevant, particularly if the science is itself part and parcel of government manipulation of the free markets that's intended to consolidate one-world government control and that even if we do implement all "science's" recommendations, will have negligible to undetectable effect on climate change in the next 200 or more years. Which means that all the hysteria and faux urgency to enact preferential regulation has as its purpose seizing greater control of the world economy and has little or nothing to do with environmental protection.
And no, the consumer isn't rational enough to handle this issue via consumer choice. Issues of this size and significance need to be handled by central agencies (i.e. governments).
Government functionaries can never be more rational than billions of consumers making individual decisions. That's why central planning never, ever works.
Socialism is not Marxism.
Sorry, but it is. All socialistic societies are based on the proposition stated by Marx: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." The unspoken part of that is that the decisions about ability and need are ALWAYS determined by the State, according to the penchants or desires of the State to accomplish some social control or agenda regardless of the individual's desire, need or factual use or agreement with the social goals.
At least in socialism, it is one person - one vote.
No it's not. In socialism it's one person, no vote. Socialism doesn't ask the individual what he wants, it tells him what he will do. Any cloak of "democracy" is merely a shell that placates the useful idiots. The socialist elite ALWAYS control everything, regardless of what the vote is.
Averaged out across society, an individual has far greater chance of getting what they want under a democratic socialist framework, than they can under a "free" market where it is one dollar - one vote. I.e. Free markets are great if you've got lots of money. If you don't have much, they're aren't very good for you.
Well, yes, an individual has a greater chance of getting what they WANT under a socialist system because they are facilitated in coercing what they WANT from those who produce what they WANT. Which is to say that under socialism, yes, it is true that thieves prosper and productive people are victimized universally.
People don't deserve to get what they WANT unless they are willing to WORK FOR IT and attain it in a moral and ethical fashion, which does not include using jackbooted government thugs with machine guns to steal what they WANT from others merely because those others have worked hard to create what the dependent class WANTS and so the dependent class (and their jackbooted minions in government) determines what their "need" is and seizes the labor and property of others because the collective says it's "unfair" for some to have more than the collective has determined they "need," despite the fact that the productive individuals worked harder than the dependent class to create it.
That doesn't make socialism a valid or useful social model.
All socialist societies are based on the fundamental premise that the members of the collective owe a duty of labor (and thereby property) to the State merely because they exist,
That's exactly the same with capitalism, if you are born poor or under-privileged.
Wrong. In capitalism, ANYONE can succeed and prosper if they have the talent and drive to do so. The free markets place no deliberate barriers in the way of anyone who wants to prosper, they are constrained only by their own personal limitations.
In socialism, on the other hand, those who are unwilling to work, have no talent or drive, and who prefer to leech off of the talent and drive of others are deemed to be worthy of enslaving others to their service.
If you're poor or underprivileged, it's your obligation to either raise yourself up through hard work or ASK for help from others. Merely being poor or underprivileged does not give you moral license to DEMAND that others slave away to provide for you, which is what socialism does; enslaves productive individuals and seizes the fruits of their labor without warrant or justification.
"Seth is Grandmaster Zen Troll who trains his victims to troll themselves every time they think of him" Robert_S
"All that is required for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Edmund Burke
"Those who support denying anyone the right to keep and bear arms for personal defense are fully complicit in every crime that might have been prevented had the victim been effectively armed." Seth
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so let me get this straight...your utopia is easier to achieve than "mine"...according to you. Good stuff.