Sporge27 said:
stormcommander said:
I think Jesus and Ghandi had it right about caring for the poor, why some don't see it I don't understand since it is in just about every religion. Helping others is just something we should do, especially if it only makes minor inconvenience to ourselves. I understand that there are worries that some will abuse the system, and some will, but most won't and those are the one's I worry about.
Free market capitalism is the only proven economic system to benefit poor people. Well, in a sense, it is the only type of actual economic system. Unless you consider a violently ran monopoly an economy.
Are you kidding? Capitalism in its purest form led to the great depression. It lead to horrible working conditions in the industrial revolution. Capitalism in its purest lead to slavery.
Capitalism alone is not the answer. It does make sense sometimes but what it neglects is how greedy some people are, and how given the chance one person might take advantage of another.
Just because we live in one of the most successful countries in the world that claims to be capitalistic, doesn't mean we always are, nor that we always should be. Fact is just because something has worked the best so far proves it is the best about as much as a horse and buggy proved itself better than cars because it was the best form of transportation of its time.
Capitalism has worked out best because every other system has been hijacked by a dictator or a group of people at one time or another. The reason the US thrived is because we were a country founded on freedom, which is possible without pure capitalism. Well because it was founded on freedom, and that it's most devastating war was against itself... Really we haven't had a war on our mainland since the civil war, the only thing close is pearl harbor.
and now I don't think complete sentences I make, I am tired. Though I still disagree on how our consider our nation fascist. I leave that up to people reading its definition and interpreting it themselves.
No, just the opposite. Government regulation created the Great Depression.
http://mises.org/rothbard/agd.pdf If you don't want to read that, perhaps I can convince you with basic logic about the federal government: The Hoover and Roosevelt administrations were in charge during the depression. They both attempted to control the economy. Go back several years to the depression of the 20s. You probably never heard of it because it only lasted a year. It ended so quickly because the government did not try to control the economy like Hoover and Roosevelt did. (edit: found a presentation on this -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czcUmnsprQI ) This happened at least two other times too. During the van Buren administration and during the Cleveland administration. The current financial crisis is like the Hoover and Roosevelt example. Except this time Bush was Hoover, Obama is Roosevelt. And no that's not a compliment to Obama... contrary to what public education teaches, Roosevelt deepened the depression greatly.
These examples are just a bit of American History. Thousands of scenarios around the world have shown us that freedom is good and government control is bad.
The reason the US thrived is because we were a country founded on freedom, which is possible without pure capitalism.
You can't say that because free market capitalism
is freedom. You are either controlled by a government or not. And it's implied that government control is the negation of freedom. But I hope we aren't just debating over semantics. Let's be clear on what free market capitalism is:
"A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud. The terminology is used by economists and in popular culture. A free market requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no single monetary system, and no governmental monopolies. It is the opposite of a controlled market, where the government regulates prices or how property is used."
Let me bring up a question: How can a violently-ran monopoly ever create prosperity?
And what about some basic economic principles: What creates prosperity? Government trying to spread wealth or innovation from competition?
Old clip of Friedman on greed -
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On the current economic collapse -
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Depression of the 20s (video I linked to above) -
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More philosophical / broad -
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