However, with that said, Zalbar is from a realm that is so firmly entrenched in the Welfare State that he has a really hard time separating Capitalism from Mercantilism. Unfortunately I don't think they get Milton Friedman where he's at, or he would recognize it immediately and understand the rot within his system of belief.
Now, off to the comment, and my remarks, and please realize that I have no edited his comments in any way... go back and look if you doubt me.
"Zal, you obviously have not read my essay on the moral justification Capitalism. When you do read it, re-think the premise of your first comment here and we'll talk."
Oh, is that what it is? I read that post but parked it firmly in the fiction section a.k.a.complete utter bullshit part of my mind. Your account of capitalism was laughable at best and bore absolutely no resemblance to the reality that everyone else has to deal with on a day to day basis.
Here are some of the more outrageous claims you had in there:
I am wounded to my foundation to find that Zalbar finds my defense of the morality of Capitalism fantasy. Granted, my fantasies usually involve a well-oiled Antonio Banderas, but I digress...
You will note that Zal cannot find any resemblance to the reality of what everyone has to deal with. No, Zalbar, Capitalism Doesn't Really Exist In Your Realm. What you think of as Capitalism is what Milton Friedman describes as Mercantilism. It is what The Hanseatic League was in Europe until it toppled under its own weight. Yeah, we're going old school. You should look up these historical references and prepare to understand your world.
When you firmly understand the difference between capitalism and mercantilism, re-read my essay.
1. In other words, a free market society in which the market defines the value of an object.
This is complete and utter bullshit. Large capitalist corporations control the markets and control the prices. Gas prices are historically high because of fear mongering even while we enjoy a glut and overabundance of oil in the north american reserves and within the market.
Large capitalistic corporations are the engine that run society, my boy. They can easily live without you. You, however, cannot live without them. Just ask Michael Moore and Naom Chomsky. They provide everything we enjoy in this world. So, think about that when you sit down at your computer. Someone had to make each and every component for that computer. Your need did not provide you with your computer. Your ability to work provided you with the means to buy the components to build your machine or the money to buy one from a large capitalistic corporation that builds them for you and sells them cheaply.
As for the oil market, I will remind you that the Canadian Province of Alberta did ask us, shortly after the Second Gulf War began to please, liberate them for their oil. They are tired of being raped to provide Eastern Canada with their ability to sit around and complain about not being French enough to satisfy the French.
2. I have found most capitalists to be anti-greed. They see it as ruinous and dangerous to a free market society. And, they are right. Greed connotes backroom deals, bribery and outright theft.
This would be called "lobbying" and bribing officials to make sure that laws are passed in their favor. Big tobacco, oil companies, big pharma, and those lovely guys that genetically modified soy and corn.
Heard about your FCC commissioner that's jumping ship to be the new lobbyist for the NBC/Universal merger? Right after the FCC has approved it? No backroom deal going on there? How blind can you be.
What system has allowed companies to own and patent genes or diseases and prevent anyone from doing research or work on them? Yes, the capitalist system. Is it to make a "reasonable profit" from their work? No, it's to gouge people of their life savings to maybe ease their suffering.
Don't even get me started on HMO's in your wonderful capitalist system and seeking any possible way to get out of paying for what they're being paid to supply.
Again, I refer you to the dictionary definition of mercantilism. Please, understand this concept. Greed is the antithesis of rational self-interest. These are all words that anyone can look up, grasp and understand their meaning.
3. Unions are now irrelevant. Why? Because we have federal regulation that legislates the morality of doing business honestly.
I guess you haven't seen the working conditions in some of the slaughter houses in the very state that you work in. Essentially economic slavery. Does Smithfield get the law brought down on them for hiring largely illegals? No, gotta keep the profits rolling in.
Unions are irrelevant in a free market society. And in our society they are little more than thuggery factories of shiftless dirtbags who should have been drowned at birth. Doubt me? I was laid off from a GM dealership during a strike by parts makers. Did they lose their jobs over the strike? No, but I and a hundred more at the corporation I worked for, did lose our jobs. By the time they were doing call backs, most had found new jobs that did not rely on the vagaries of union demands.
A company can exist quite well without useless dirtbags demanding more for not working. The worthless sacks of excrement cannot exist without the corporate body to feed from. Is this point now illustrated well enough for even the oddly Canadian to understand?
4. Capitalism provides reasonably priced goods and services provided by fairly paid workers, who are then able to purchase goods and services from other capitalists.
What country is this?
Your ideals about capitalism are cute. Altruistic and naive, but still cute. They are, however, just that, dreams of fluff and bunnies, and about as likely to come about as the workers paradise of the old U.S.S.R.
The only country that even comes close to meeting all of those is the US, but these days it gets harder and harder to see that. Once again, I can only refer you to Mercantilism and The Road to Serfdom. And just for giggles and a little light reading, you might try Ayn Rand's Captilism, The Unknown Ideal.
And, there is not an altruistic atom in my being. I refuse to sacrifice anything of myself to make anyone else happier for it. In fact, it is just that type of thinking I want to stamp out forever.
You cannot argue rationally with someone who is so steeped in Socialist propaganda that they refuse to see logic or even reality. It is why Zalbar and I have had to agree to disagree on so many occasions. I can't make him see the light that is logical self-interest because he believes the lie of Altruism, even if he does not practice it. He thinks he knows, he thinks he believes, but the dichotomy between the promises broken by his political masters and the reality of his world keep him in fear of really looking at the landscape and seeing it for what it is, in case his firmament disappears as well.
Our biggest argument has been over the Canadian Health Care system, AKA England's Health System Mark 2. Even now the Canadian government admits it's a huge failure, no one can get decent care. I think Steven Crowder had the best video on CanukiaCare. He's Canadian, so he knows of whence he speaks.
So, I hope Zal doesn't think I'm picking on him. I just need him to open his mind and see things as they are, not as they've been promised to be. That only leads to disappointment and bitterness. I may not like reality as it stands, but I live with the hope that I can effect change and make it more to my liking that it sits now.
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