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What Can Hong Kong And Cuba Teach Us About Economic Policy?
Early this year, I shared an amusing but accurate image that showed an important difference between capitalism and socialism.
And in 2012, I posted a comparison of Detroit and Hiroshima to illustrate the damage of big government.
Well, if you combine those concepts, you get this very pointed look at the evolution of Cuban socialism and Hong Kong capitalism.
Some might dismiss these photos as being unrepresentative, and it’s reasonable to be skeptical. After all, I’m sure it would be easy to put together a series of photos that make it seem as if the United States is suffering from decay while France is enjoying a boom.
So let’s go to the data. In previous posts, I’ve shared comparisons of long-run economic performance in market-oriented nations and statist countries. Examples include Chile vs. Argentina vs. Venezuela, North Korea vs. South Korea, Cuba vs. Chile, Ukraine vs. Poland, Hong Kong vs. Argentina, Singapore vs. Jamaica, and the United States vs. Hong Kong and Singapore.
Now let’s add Cuba vs. Hong Kong to the mix.
Wow, this is amazing. Through much of the 1950s, Hong Kong and Cuba were economically similar, and both were very close to the world average.
Then Hong Kong became a poster child for capitalism while Cuba became an outpost of Soviet communism. And, as you might expect, the people of Hong Kong prospered.
What about the Cubans? Well, I suppose a leftist could argue that they’re all equally poor and that universal deprivation somehow makes Cuban society better Hong Kong, where not everybody gets rich at the same rate.
But even that would be a lie since Cuba’s communist elite doubtlessly enjoys a very comfortable lifestyle. So while the rest of the country endures hardships such as a toilet paper shortage, the party bosses presumably drink champagne and eat caviar.
The bottom line is that statists still don’t have an acceptable answer for my two-part challenge.
1. Can you name a nation that became rich with statist policies?
Before you say Sweden, or even France, note that I asked you to name a nation that became rich during a period when it followed policies of interventionism and big government. Countries in Western Europe became rich during the 1800s and early 1900s when government was very small. 
Indeed, government spending consumed only about 10 percent of economic output in Western Europe prior to World War I and there was almost no redistribution. That’s more libertarian than what you find today in places such as Hong Kong and Singapore.
Speaking of which, what I’m really asking my leftist friends is that they give me the left-wing versions of Hong Kong and Singapore. These jurisdictions were relatively impoverished at the end of World War II, but they are now both very rich by global standards. And libertarians and other advocates of small government and free markets can make a very strong case that good policy played a role in their amazing rise to prosperity.
So where’s the role model for statists? What nation can they put forth as a successful example?
I won’t hold my breath waiting for an accurate answer.
Now for the other part of the challenge.
2. Can you name a nation that with interventionism and big government that is out-performing a similar nation with free markets and small government?
Before you embarrass yourself by asserting that, say, Denmark is richer than Paraguay because of statism, you need to look at the data. Denmark has a bigger welfare state than Paraguay, but it’s much more pro-market in other respects. Indeed, it is ranked #14 in the Economic Freedom of the World, compared to #89 for Paraguay. You’d be more clever to ask why, for example, #42 Belgium is richer than #6 Mauritius.
But this is why I asked for a comparison of similar nations. In other words, find two countries that are, or were, roughly equal in terms of demographics, economic development, resource endowments, and other factors. And then I want an example of a nation with statist policy that has out-performed a nation that instead chose small government and free markets. Or the jurisdictions don’t even need to be that similar. Just show me a statist nation that grows faster, over a meaningful period of time, than a pro-market jurisdiction.
From a libertarian perspective, I can cite lots of examples, such as Chile vs. Argentina vs. Venezuela. Or North Korea vs. South Korea. Or Ukraine vs. Poland. Or Hong Kong vs. Argentina. Or Singapore vs. Jamaica. Or the United States vs. Hong Kong and Singapore. Or even Sweden vs. Greece. I could continue, but I think you get the point.
I will patiently wait for my left-wing friends to provide examples that support their perspective, but cobwebs will form before they fulfill my challenge.
In the meantime, here’s a video that explains the simple recipe that countries should follow if they want to enjoy growth and prosperity.
You’ll notice that the video heavily borrows from Economic Freedom of the World.
That’s no surprise. There’s no better source for making apples-to-apples comparisons to see whether countries are following good policy.
The bad news is that the United States has taken a dive in the wrong direction in these rankings.
When Bill Clinton left office, the United States had the world’s 3rd-freest economy. Today, thanks to years of statism under both Bush and Obama, we’ve dropped to #17.
This Lisa Benson cartoon is a very painful illustration of what’s happening.
America is copying the nations that are in deep trouble because of excessive government.
Which is the same message you find in this Glenn Foden cartoon and this Michael Ramirez cartoon.
But maybe some leftist can answer one or both of the questions above and we can stop worrying about the ever-expanding welfare state.
* * *
P.S. If you prefer stories rather than images or data, this updated version of the fable of the ant and the grasshopper makes a key point about incentives and redistribution. And you get a similar message from the PC version of the Little Red Hen.
P.P.S. Cuba’s system is so wretched that even Fidel Castro confessed it is a failure. So maybe there’s hope that Obama will have a similar epiphany about American-style statism!
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I think the lessons we can learn from the Cuba/HK case study are simple:
1.) Don't piss off the vindictive big dog (from Cuba)
2.) Having state money flowing through one port creates the appearance of perfection (HK)
Note: Why didn't they show a pic of the HK proests to highligh the 'capitalist' effect?
Or the 9/11 fireworkers who received free medical treatment in Cuba
I was expecting to see a blank slate under "Capitalism".
The amazing feature of that top chart is not that Hong Kong has succeeded - because those of us who support freedom and free markets already knew that - but that the world average is way closer to the socialist model. That confirms what I have been saying for years - that whatever they may call themselves - most Western governments lean towards the evil of ever more government which pokes its nose into every nook and cranny of our lives to regulate us and manage our lives.
But that will probably never change because politicans go into government for the very purpose of racking up more and more power and control for The Almighty State. It ends in disaster but they're too dumb to see that.
1) They're no dumber than most.
2) Short time horizon.
3) That Upton Sinclair pearl re the tight, intimate bond between one's most sincerely held beliefs and one's source of income.
Very astute comments methinks.
Really?
The essence of government is force.
FWIW, Cuba is absolutely pristine when it comes to development.
Many people travel safely to Cuba every year. Yes they pay a price and need to be respectful. They don't need to worry about drones and armoured personelle carriers though? My French was leaking.
Trinidad is spectacular!
...and to boot, no Walmarts or McDonalds, just real food and good Rum!!!
How are the chicas?
Trinidad? The place is very socialistic, lots of welfare benefits, yet has one of the highest crime rates in the world. I was down there a few years ago,avoided travel at night
Can I say Fidel and Raul are murderous thieving faggots and rest peacefully in my hotel?
The good old communism and capitalism.
Two systems both promising endless growth and a better deal for joe sixpack. Both systems deviate into a tiny elite owning everything while the rest slave.
Overlay the irony of calling Hong Kong capitalist while communist China is running the place not even allowing people to elect the sock puppet to mouth platitudes to them.
How come no comparison to Haiti? You know capitalist Haiti that is basically a rape rack for US multinationals. Oh yeah Shhhhh don't want to mention that, just convenient juxtapositions.
Cheap energy has allowed the growth take a shot of Hong Kong and Havanna in 1800 you'll get the idea.
bwaaahahahahah, lmao at effeminate communist fools like you. get a clue. Haiti? bawhahahahahahahahahahahahaahahah, great example of Capitalism, bwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahahahahahhaha
If you disagree with the comment, why not explain your own opinions, supported by facts, instead of just name-calling and typing like a 3 year old?
I think he was just using his brain to take apart the shitty rhetoric used in this article. Stop being a meany pants.
Exactly, hey why don't you people throw Puerto Rico in there too. 3k leaving the island/month, US territory, debt loads aproaching default and pension funds getting raid by WS in the name of capitalism. I agree, when the SHTF and states start to default and WS get even richer people will understand there is no diff between the two system. When there is no morality no system can possibly work fairly. Let Cuba trade and lets see what happens for a more accurate representation.
according to the 'united states' - cuba is a threat to 'democracy'. really? a tiny litle island?
for example - i am a 250 pound body builder, bully, i beat on everybody in my area. but the neighbors poodle is a threat to me?
cuba is a threat to the united states? huh?
who is the wimp here?
let cuba be free to live as they want to. no more embargos, etc. trade.
They are a threat because ideas are infectious, not because they have military power.
The PR truly is a colonial holdover, like Hawaii. Give them their independence.
Nothing will work at this scale. There are no analogues.
so hong kong is a 'success' because they have huge population density (most of which still very poor) living surrounded by concrete, steel and glass (those things really make me warm and fuzzy) and have a heavily lit skyline which creates pollution to burn the fossil fuels necessary to sustain those lights, (disregarding the light pollution which allows people to see the stars), let's disregard the noise pollution and the pollution pollution.
yes - mister real estate mogul JERK OFF. thanks. that is what i want for my life, and the life of my family and friends.
the solution to happy and fulfilling humanity is to have as many people living as closely together as possible in housing as small as possible to house as many people possible in concrete, steel, glass and plastic stacked up to the heavens, which they can't possibly see, because of the pollution.
that is the high point of mankind. the apex. the dream.
you are a stupid jerk off. fuck you. i hope you are in the 'penthouse suite' of one of your beloved horrible towers, loving how your capitalism gave you such incredible wealth, like the pharoahs, now, you can see the stars. watch out for planes.
no trees, no flowers, no fresh water, no birds, no insects. nothing natural.
concrete. and fiat.
bathe in your fiat.
Well said. Libertarian dogma isn't compatible with the real world and never has been. He points out how the Cuban Commie elite are living it up at the expense of the greater populace while blissfully ignorant (likely willfully stupid) that the HK elite are doing the same to their poor Asian brothers. The author is a fucking tool.
+1 I quoted your whole comment because it was that good! It is definitely worth re-reading.
"no trees, no flowers, no fresh water, no birds, no insects. nothing natural."
What? I can see you've never been there.
http://www.lcsd.gov.hk/en/ls_park.php
Besides that, the place is surrounded by green hills, most in their natural state. It's a very nice place actually. One of my favorite cities.
Aren't these images supposed to read authoritarian socialism versus imperialism?
Fuck Castro!!! Why didnt we take him out when we had the chance?
Oh wait...
LOL I just did a google search on havanna so image selection is another good propaganda trick hahaha. Take a shitty street in Hong Kong and compare it.
Anyhow go Capitalism. USA USA hahahaha
From the CIA world factbook: It's a free market paradise!! Go capitalism no problem when US multi nationals can butt rape you 24/7
Haiti is a free market economy that enjoys the advantages of low labor costs and tariff-free access to the US for many of its exports. Poverty, corruption, vulnerability to natural disasters, and low levels of education for much of the population are among Haiti's most serious impediments to economic growth. Haiti's economy suffered a severe setback in January 2010 when a 7.0 magnitude earthquake destroyed much of its capital city, Port-au-Prince, and neighboring areas. Currently the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere with 80% of the population living under the poverty line and 54% in abject poverty, the earthquake further inflicted $7.8 billion in damage and caused the country's GDP to contract. In 2011, the Haitian economy began recovering from the earthquake. However, two hurricanes adversely affected agricultural output and the low public capital spending slowed the recovery in 2012... etc etc..
Really, a free market history in Haiti Mannn? Papa Doc and Baby Doc, Jean Paul Aristide, and other butchers of one man rule?
I'm so fuck.ng tired of people confusing mercantilism with capitalism!
Mercantilism is when private individuals use the power of the state to enrich themselves. This is often referred as "crony capitalism" by many without understanding what they are saying.
In Capitalism you produce more than you consume to obtain capital.
You then use that capital to offer products or services in a free market. Supply and demand determine the price of your offering.
So, please, you morons f.ck off!!
So yes, we are not capitalist anymore, I agree. That's why more and more cities like Camden, Detroit and others are starting to look more like Cuba or Haiti. Just wait until the bills come due to see that crony capitalism does not work either. Every system is as good as the psycopaths running it and there is not a single one that eventually goes belly up.
show me one country that was truly capitalist without being imperialist and mercantilist (your definition).
Never existed on a stable basis.
"show me one country that was truly capitalist without being imperialist and mercantilist (your definition)."
Ayn Rand's Galt's Gulch.
And the State regulates the economy to empower the State.
Putz!
It seems report Reader's Digest in the 1960s!
hehe
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7hZjNO3I-Q
ok - so the posters name is apparently 'daniel mitchell'
danny boy - i'm going to throw you a big curve ball here. hit it out of the park.
any of us human beings is born.
then things happen. we go through a thing called 'life'. for some of us, it's short, for some of us it's long, for some, it 'poor', for some, 'rich'.
i will now, for expediency cut my equation in half.
we need to decide (if we are fortunate enough to even be able to make that decision).
do i want to be 'rich'. can i except who i am?
if i want to be 'rich' - do i want to do the things that i need to, in order to become rich? are they moral? am i 'cheating'?
you answered my question for me. big buildings and bright lights are 'good'.
flame meet moth. that's your soul, buddy. and you didn't even know you had one. nice to meet you. move on.
Actually if you took a picture today of that same spot along the Malecon in Havana it would look the same as the old pic or close to it. There is plenty of construction going on there to rebuild it while trying to maintain its cultural "charm"
After all, the rest of the world vacations there (and the number of Americans there would make you realize what a sham the embargo is). Fuck the Cuban government, but if Havana became Hong Kong, the world would lose one of its greatest cities.
At least the Cuban economy is liberalizing. Unlike the US.
Spent about a month in Havana, lots of Europeans, Australians, etc. It was very pleasant and enjoyable. Loved the Cohibas, buffet at Nacional De Cuba Hotel and all-night music and dancing at Hotel Libra...
Timmy - the Hotel Nacional is in that historical picture. You can also see in the foreground the monument to the sailors that died on the USS Maine made partially from the Maine's big guns.
The hotel was a Mayer Lansky joint. Plenty of mob hits were determined in the halls of that place.
We are deprived of a lot of good history.
Don't piss off the Kennadys.
2. Can you name a nation that with interventionism and big government that is out-performing a similar nation with free markets and small government?
There are nations with free markets and small government?
None anymore that I can name.
Oligarchy rule creates ONE Hong Kong for many Viet Nams and Afghanistans. It distorts the creative destruction meme to privilege the few and sacrifice the many.
Its the same story all the time : the France of Versailles and of French Empire providing slaves and bodies to die in WW1 and WW2 for French glory against Germany fury and lebensraum...Despotism is a recurrent disease and it knows no nationality.
Rome was so affluent and Italy was raped time and again by its legions...
We love Versailles, we love Dubai and we cry about consequence blaming terrorism or Socialism, when we see Syrac or Gaza. We are creatures of comfort and immune to truth until we be ourselves Under the gun.
Unbridled Capitalism is a tool for Oligarchy control. Its fun for the few. Communism also. But the welfare state was/is the best compromise. The lessons of today are forgotten or denied.
Social democracy which balances market economy to state control of social programs; that levels the balance in playing field; is the best of a man made world.
I'm a believer in the Republic and in democracy; not in plutocracy and aristocracy. Not saying I support any social construct that does not balance budgets and balance trade to make people live within their POLITICAL means.
Before Castro Cuba belonged to the Mafia and Dictator... Before social democracy in Chile it was a military state. Cuba hasn't progressed as communist and pariah state to neighbour. Chile yes.
The wheel keeps spinning as Man keeps hoping. In an organised world where neighbours can turn rogue, a strong state is essential to avoid war. If you want peace prepare for war! Stays true. Balance is all.
Cuba in 1960 had one of the highest standard of living in all Latin America, without Castro and the revolution the standard of living would be about equal to Chile.
>>>a strong state is essential to avoid war.
History certainly teaches us that.
What about Detroit? Compare pictures from 1970 Detroit to today.
Say what you want about the economics of the Cuban state, but the people ain't protesting, unlike Hong Kong.
Maybe, just maybe, there is a little more to life than working your ass off to build a "modern" economy and then blow 70% of it on consumption.
You must be very young.
What do you think would happen to a protestor in Cuba?
Probably the same thing that would happen to Edward Snowden if he got on a plane to DC.
I do like your ridiculous premise, though. I really do. Under what you're saying there would NEVER be protests, anywhere, in authoritarian countries.
Ya know, places like Egypt, Iran, the Soviet Union, Beijing, and so on...
So, empirically, it can't be that bad, can it? In Cuba, that is, seeing how Castro outlived Kennedy by 50 years (and counting), the Soviet Union (20 years and counting), and Chavez in Venezuela.
You're right, I'm probably too young to understand.
Maybe, people like you, hate communism so much...that it burns you up that people in Cuba continue to sit back on the beach, drink mojitos, smoke good cigars while you toil away for a system that through you overboard decades ago, but you're probably too overworked to notice.
Maybe you're just too old to understand that there is a little more to life than the economic system one lives under?
+1 excellent post
Cuba never went through a manufacturing/producing stage to build wealth the way that Hong Kong (and the other Asian Tigers) went through. It is not capitalism that brought the lower classes up, but value adding labor. They created a middle class.
And I can guarantee you that the big buildings in Hong Kong are owned by banks ... who create money out of thin air and hold a monopoly on money creation and distribution.
Hong Kong was a choice. Singapore, a benevolent socialist dictatorship under Lee Kuan Yew, was a choice. Cuba was a choice ... but not like you think. It was a banking choice because the Cuban government would not become corrupted and kowtow to the banks.
"It was a banking choice because the Cuban government would not become corrupted and kowtow to the banks."
The Cuban government thought it would be better to become corrupted and kowtow to the Soviets :-) History shows they chose poorly... Unless you figure being 100,000 times richer than the pesants under communism is better than being "only" 10,000 times richer under bank controlled mercantilism.
Pithy commentary.
I call bullshit on this reasoning (not supporting socialism)
Cuba was under constant economic blockade + many attempts to destabalize the country through inside agents. Hong Kong was a convenient money laundering place. It's just that simple.
I agree most of what US Press or the many in alternative media sometimes blog is thought out in a Binary Cognitive Process or just without any reference or appreciation of all the links...
- You got Investors
- You got Government Careerist that hope for bonuses, promotions, and career opportunities in Big Pharma, Big Ag, Big Banking, Big MIC, Big Oil... whatever
Let me remember something.
- Congress members are also trying to Invest well and Reap Profits... sort of a problem.
It's bunk to draw a comparison based on 50 years of human history.
And choosing post 1950 kinda leaves out the installment of the US petrodollar globally after WO II, which made capitalism (imperialism only with more winners en slighlty less detrimental outcomes for the losers)the statist policy. Nevermind that Hong Kong was able to flower like it did due to it previously being conquered by the brits because the felt they were entitled to sell heroine there.
I don't mind pointing out some benefits of humans "civilising" and things can appear to seem moor doom & gloom then they actually might be.... just don't go acting like any currently propegated mode of operating is the reason you're in a position to propegate policies throughout the globe. Even the internet with which i am able to make these comments was state sponsered at one point....
I'd suggest reading "Bad Samaritans" form Ha- Joon Chang for an enlightening perspective on capitalism. In my view we have yet to prove, as humanity, that we've gone beyond the age of mere imperilaism, disquised in pr and advertising with mindnumbing distractions everywhere to keep people from noticing.
Capitalism died a long time ago.....Communism rules today
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/communist-wto-blocks-consumers-from-knowing-where-thier-meat-comes-from/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/globalist-connections-u-n-s-michael-moller-it-russia-is-one-the-very-important-countries-in-practically-everything-that-we-do/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/05/globalists-and-associated-non-profit-use-micheal-brown-family-as-prop/
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/11/14/1945-british-national-archives-document-reveals-prime-minister-clement-attlee-desire-for-new-world-order-with-russia-u-k-and-u-s/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuBe93FMiJc
http://newworldorderg20.wordpress.com/2014/10/31/rwanda-moves-towards-cashless-economy-by-joining-u-n-better-than-cash-alliance/
Maybe it is Fascism? Marriage btw .gov & Corporations with emphasis on Finance & Bank Backing... after all they got the US Central Banks & they have European Roots.
Capitalism, Communism? Have these been tried? Mercantilism, Corporatism, Facism are their natural endstates.
Time to sweep it all off the desk and take the Catholic churches advice. Distributism.
Where you have to have sweatequity to own equity. You have to work at the enterprise to own the enterprise. No silent partners,freeloaders. Different to the rest in that the State is not involved, other than as umpire. An Umpire of peers.
But what to do about robots? Robots are machines-like a lathe. And what defines "work". How about 12 moths annual leave if the robots are really good, and need no attention. (Dream on.)
The dream fades with cheap energy. Pray for Rossi to be right and you to be wrong.
How's about we try a system where everything is voluntary. There is no bullshit "rule of law" which in reality exists only to protect the interests and property of the wealthy. Everyone is liable directly to their fellow man for their actions. Everyone self regulates or faces the consequences. Any groups that grow abusively powerful will face the terror of the oppressed with no state to protect them.
We can call this never tried system: FREEDOM
My meager private property isn't "wealthy" yet I am legally plundered via taxation and ordinates and regulations. Free enterprise encourages self regulation, othewise you fail.
I am not a scholar of the law, but I am under the impression that you are suggesting a serious application of Common Law.
It is my understanding that in order to apply Corporate Law to you, a straw man was created at your birth and is legally a corporation. This was done in order to circumvent your Common Law Rights.
An example: You run a red light. Under corporate law your strawman is guilty.
But under Common Law, you, not your straw man. are innocent as there is no injured party and you have a right to free and unhindered access to the roads of the nation. The guilty party in this case is whoever tried to detain you with a red light.
This is a field that is worth further study. Know your common Law Rights.
An interesting aside. If your strawman earns money then you do not, and because you have not earned any income, you are not liable for taxes.. However you, as the principle of the strawman, may have the same avenues available to you that any Corporation has.
Is the success measured by how much of your population lives in metal cages?
Gee, I hope not.
I vote for most iPads per capita.
Lisa Benson's cartoon is about 45 years behind the curve... the US hopped into the socialism pan in the mid-1960's.
Somalia has a very small (well, non-existent, actually) government.
Since the Meiji era, Japan has a very large government involvement in economics. Ditto for South Korea, whose economy was founded on a dirigist corporate complex.
This simplistic dichotomy between capitalism and socialism is stupid to the extreme. Hong Kong is a massive outlier in the global capitalist hierarchy, while Cuba has been embargoed to Kingdom come. For every Hong Kong and Singapore, there are ten Ukraines, Nigerias, Zambias, Sri Lankas and Costa Ricas.
In fact, the countries that abondoned socialism in favor of unbridled capitalism have performed rather poorly for 25 years now, while China has gone from strength to strength by utilizing what is best from both socialism and the free market.
Many Shades of Gray. In fact countries that turn from one ideology end up in another gray area of capitalism.
Well how many kinds of capitalism are there?
- I have no clue
- Communist & Socialist Countries blend and mingle socialism with capitalism
- USA, UK France are blends of Capitalism, Free Market Ideology and Socialism
How many Ideologies are there? No Clue.
- Capitalism
- Fascism
- Capitalism & Socialism
- Fascism & Socialism
- Communism
- Communism & Socialism (less Genocide? Less Monopolies?)
- Unionism
- Tripartitism (Government, Commerce, Unions)
- Tribalism
- Martial Law, Dictatorship, Inverted Totalitarianism
- Dualism (Marriage btw Government & Corporations)
- Stratocracy (Rule by Military Leaders with assistance from Corporations)
- Zaibatsu (Marriage btw Government & Largest Corporate Manufactures & largest Financial Corporations)
- Rule by Priest Class, Clerks, Technocrats, rule by the class that rules the government be they religious or ideologically oriented
- Corporatocracy, Rule without borders, by Private Executives, by Elites
How about Direct Democracy.
Nothing at all Socialist about China.
Fidel's Cuba had hundreds of millions of people to and from which to trade. Did you forget the USSR, it's satellites, and all the other socialist states, as well as South America, and most of Europe which did Not support the US embargo? You cannot pick which facts to employ and which to omit to promote your point. The USSR also funneled billions of direct aid into Cuba.
This is bullshit. Hong Kong was considered a failure until after ww2. It was then that it became gateway to China and all trade moved through its port. also it has free school, free healthcare, government housing for the plebs, and welfare for the needy.
Point two: do ya think Cuba might be more prosperous if the empire would loosen up on its embargo?
BTW, Put a picture of Detroit before and after the economic freedoms ya freaking Wall Street propagandist.
Good points. Maybe today Detroit could also be under a kind of ...economic assault, economic disadvantage due to slave labor... there is no auditing of labor practices outside of the USA... Detroit is a target.
- US workers are Assaulted by NAFTA, CAFTA-DR
- US workers are Assaulted by Free Trade that is not Free, Not Fair, and Not Auditable
- Who will pay for US Free Trade Agreements... will the US Youth wait till they are near death to point the finger?
- Who will be the Victim or Accused of US Perverted Trade Agreements, US Trade Rape of US Workers?
Detroit has been the focus of a socialist experiment since the 1960's. HUD and the urban planners stated as much. It has the highest property tax rate in the US, and that alone would be enough to drive what was once the pride of the nation to absolute ruin. General principles account for much of the condition of individuals and nations.
Another stupid article misusing the word "socialism."
The actually existing system has no good label that is generally understood, because it is the result of the best organized gang of criminals, the biggest gangsters, the banksters, capturing control over the public powers of governments, as described by the historian Carroll Quigley:
"powers of financial capitalism
had another far-reaching goal,
nothing less than to create a
world system of financial
control in private hands
able to dominate the
political system of
each country and
the economy of
the world as
a whole ..."
It is NOT "capitalism" nor any other "ism!" It is the triumph of the application of the methods of organized crime to dominate the political processes, so that private powers effectively control governments!
This article above was being ridiculous to compare Cuba, that has been under an economic embargo, to China, which has had trillions of dollars of investment sent to take advantage of cheap labour, as well as lack of environmental standards for industry, etc. ...
The embedded video above repeats the same pattern of ridiculous bullshit presented in that article as a whole:
"Property rights, the rule of law, and sound money" are INHERENTLY PROBLEMATIC, because those actually depend on that the ONLY connection between the human laws and natural laws is the ability to back up lies with violence.
MONEY IS MEASUREMENT BACK BY MURDER. Sound money, or honest money could not actually exist without some sound and honest murder system to back that up. Of course, that is so extremely problematic that the paradoxes of the enforcement of the "rule of law" almost always spin out of control, because NOBODY GUARDS THE GUARDIANS.
The relatively better sociopolitical systems have a relatively better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies. However, over and over again the trends are for those systems to become more unbalanced, until they become madly self-destructive. Since the world as a whole has reached some of the real limits of diminishing returns of economic growth based on being able to strip-mine the natural resources of a fresh planet (due to using the technologies developed by industrial revolutions), promoting more quanititive "growth" as a goal is more and more dubious, although perhaps some qualitative growth is still relatively possible.
The only genuine solutions to our real problems are NOT through further facile pounding upon magic words like "Liberty." Rather, the realities are that any better resolutions would have to be better death controls to back up better debt controls, because that is the only way to make a real money system better, because any really better money system must have a really better murder system to back that up.
Articles like the one above use silly bullshit language about old-fashioned "isms" and promote magical words as somehow providing solutions, despite those kinds of magical words being nothing more than an articulation of impossible ideals, that always actually make the opposite happen in the real world.
The real world necessarily operates according to the principles and methods of organized crime. Wishing that was not so is useless, and asserting it should be made not so is the same old bullshit impossible ideals, which do nothing other than help systems of organized lies and robberies get away with still misrepresenting that. Hence, in my view, the article above, along with its embedded video, are expressions of the typical kinds of goofy old-fashioned religions and ideologies which were basically CONTROLLED OPPOSITION.
Such presentations EITHER deliberately ignore the most important social facts, such as that our entire political economy has become based on the government enforced frauds of privately controlled banks making the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts, OR propose impossible solutions based on miraculous achievements of "sound money" through a good "rule of law," which just jump over the issues of what kind of murder system is going to back up the monetary system, which involves the paradoxes inherent in any actual enforcement of the "rule of law."
Furthermore, such articles tend to deliberately ignore that for thousands of years the established systems of lies backed by violence, becoming more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, have ALREADY claimed everything that could be claimed, while that was backed up with coercions for a long, long time! The actual distribution of "private property" that exists today is the result of runaway systems of enforced frauds, driving extreme social polarization and destruction of the natural world.
"Private property" was the FIRST of the principles promoted in the embedded video above. That kind of presentation tends to deliberately ignore the history of human slavery, and genocides, which have been rampant runaway robberies, backed up by murders, for a very long time. In fact, there is no such thing as "private property" outside of some system of public violence, while systems of public violence actually operate through the principles and methods of organized crime.
Warfare was organized crime on larger scales, which was what made the powers of sovereign states, whose powers were then covertly captured by the best organized gangs of criminals, using the methods of organized crime to dominate the political processes, which HAS ALREADY RESULTED IN:
"control in private hands
able to dominate the
political system of
each country and
the economy of
the world as
a whole ..."
GIVEN THOSE ARE THE REAL SOCIAL FACTS, anyone who talks about various "isms" like socialism or capitalism tends to be spouting nothing but goofy, old-fashioned bullshit, which includes BOTH those in the established systems, AND their controlled opposition.
The deeper problems are due to the history of successful warfare being based on deceits and treacheries, which then became the foundation for success in a political economy based on enforced frauds. In that context, the only realistic solutions should be based on facing the facts that human beings operate as general energy systems, engaged in entropic pumping, which necessarily matches the methods of organized crime. The actual systems that exist now are organized lies operating robberies, and therefore, the only genuinely better systems must be better organized crime, through which there could realistically be developed some better dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies.
Meanwhile, articles and videos like the one above are so grossly unrealistic and ridiculous that they actually only contribute to enabling the disequilibria that exist now to get ever more unbalanced. OVERALL, WE ARE STUCK DEEP IN THE RUTS OF THE ESTABLISHED SYSTEMS AND THEIR CONTROLLED OPPOSITION GROUPS ENJOYING SOCIAL SUCCESSES THROUGH BACKING UP THEIR LIES WITH VIOLENCE, IN WHICH CONTEXT ARTICLES AND VIDEOS LIKE THE ONES ABOVE ARE MANIFESTATIONS OF CONTROLLED OPPOSITION, STAYING WITHIN THE SAME BULLSHIT FRAME OF REFERENCE AS THE ESTABLISHED SYSTEMS.
The profound paradoxes we face are that human realities were always systems of organized lies and robberies, whereby those who were the most successful at doing that were able to develop the social language of almost totally bullshit regarding that, within which context the controlled opposition groups were compromises and co-opted to operate within those established systems, and so, spout the same bullshit as the biggest bullies were spouting.
There are no good analyses which deliberately ignore how the public "money" supply is being created out of nothing as debts by privately controlled banks. However, there are no good "solutions" to that situation which do not face the facts regarding how and why that actually happened, which were that the production of destruction controlled production. I REPEAT: There is NO "private property," other than that which is made and maintained by some system of public violence. There is NO "rule of law" which does not suffer from the paradoxes inherent in any enforcement, which can be generalized to assert that the ONLY connection between human laws and natural laws is the ability to back up lies with violence.
Due to progress in science and technology, the real human problems that society is controlled by lies backed by violence have become trillions of times worse, because those technologies have become trillions of of times more powerful and capable. Notions that there could be any genuine solutions found from going backwards to the kinds of old-fashioned, superficial ideologies promoted in the article and video above are grossly unscientific.
If we are going to talk more meaningfully about "Liberty," then we should begin with liberating the philosophy of science from being dominated by the biggest bullies' bullshit world view. All false fundamental dichotomies and their related impossible ideals lead towards backwards bogus "solutions," which make our currently Bizarro Mirror World become even more Bizarre! Instead, we should be developing UNITARY MECHANISMS to work through those problems.
There are no good labels that are generally understood in contemporary political science, because the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals got to call themselves the government, and control that government. Those who simply wish that away provide no genuinely better solutions, because the only realistic solutions must be better organized crime. All of the abstract ideal goals promoted in the article above, and its video, could only be more asymptotically approached through more realistic means, in a more scientific society, which did not continue to be so totally dishonest about itself.
WE ARE STUCK IN THAT REPEATING RUT, GETTING DEEPER AND DEEPER, AND SO, MY COMMENTS REPEAT THEMSELVES, BY GOING AROUND AND AROUND IN THOSE RUTS TOO!
At the present time, all of the dominate established sociopolitical systems, and their publicly significant controlled opposition groups, continue to operate within the history of successful warfare based on deceits about its death controls, which enabled successful economics to operate fundamentally fraudulent debt controls. Within that context, the most socially successful people were proportionately operating as professional liars and immaculate hypocrites.
The article and video above were merely another manifestation which illustrated that overall social situation, where the systems of lies operating robberies are more socially successful the more that they are able to continue to bullshit about what they are really doing.
Parabéns!
Excelente!
Alexandre.
:-)
"Property rights, the rule of law, and sound money" are INHERENTLY PROBLEMATIC, because those actually depend on that the ONLY connection between the human laws and natural laws is the ability to back up lies with violence."
Have to disagree with you there RM.
Property rights require some kind of enforcement (either by the state or by the person) as do borders. Property (real estate or otherwise) has a boundary.
For example, say we all lived in (for lack of a better term) tiki huts, open sided with nothing but a roof over our heads. Are you cool with someone strolling through (no walls, remember) and grabbing food off your table that you put there? Or your daughter? How about if they decide to tear your hut down or just remove you from it and occupy it for themself?
You wouldn't split their heads open or if you couldn't, find someone who could and take it back?
Of course so, nmewn!
I am NOT saying that there are NO lies backed by violence. Those are as old as any animal pecking orders. Natural selection was always operating through such means, although other animals did not have nearly the ability to deliberately be as deceitful as human beings do, due to the relative degree of human self-consciousness.
On the contrary, what I am asserting is that there is NOTHING BUT THAT!
There is no right without a remedy.
There is no freedom without a force.
To put the biggest bullies' bullshit language about "property rights" into perspective, I rather like this quote:
"If history shows anything, it is that there’s no better way to justify relations founded on violence, to make such relations seem moral, than by reframing them in the language of debt — above all, because it immediately makes it seem that it’s the victim who’s doing something wrong."
— David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZIINXhGDcs
People INSIDE our culture, who relatively benefit from OUR cultural systems of lies backed by violence, tend to promote those as being special. However, our own culture is nothing special, despite how many of us typically pretend that is so. I.e., people put on some uniform, or wave around some piece of paper, to pretend that they have the right and freedom to do something, even including violent things. However, I REPEAT, governments were merely the biggest forms of organized crime, that can legalize their own lies, and assert that they have somehow legalized their violence to back up those lies. However, there was NOTHING BUT organized lies operating robberies, as the basic human realities, which we share with any other beings that are able to have enough of a brain to be able to lie, because we are all entropic pumps of energy.
I do not reject the notion of private property per se. I do not propose that there should be no systems of lies operating robberies. Rather, I promote the perception that there is no such thing as "private property" other than as claims backed by coercions. There is no private property outside of some system of public violence. Since public violence exists, so to does private property exist, but only to that degree.
What I object to is those people who promote the idealized notions regarding the "rule of law" to enforced "property rights" that refuse the face the facts that there is an inherent paradox in any rule of law, due to it being enforced by systems of lies and violence, which do not actually change in any real ways simply because the biggest bullies can bullshit about them having somehow "legalized" their rights to back up their legalized lies with legalized violence.
All governments are basically military organizations. Governments exist because people can murder each other. Money exists as measurement backed by murder, because both measurement and murder exist. I am NOT asserting that should not be the case.
Rather, I regard militarism as the supreme ideology. The most extreme form of the power to rob is the power to kill. It is the murder systems which are the central controls overall all other systems. Anyone who promotes the superficial notions about "private property, the rule of law and sound money" who has sufficient intellectual integrity should address the real issues of how the murder system that do the death controls behind that are going to work.
The death controls are DE FACTO! The de jure about them is always bullshit, but since the biggest bullies spouted that bullshit, it became socially dominate. Since the history of successful warfare was based on being the best at deceits and treacheries, our whole civilization excels at being deceitful and treacherous, to a degree which has become criminally insane, because such superlative social success through backing up lies with violence eventually becomes psychotically insane, in the sense of out of touch with reality.
I propose understanding human cultural systems as emerging out of natural selection pressures, while still being consistent with those. Many different animals have ways to assert their "rights" to territorial resources, or to mates. Human beings are not unique. However, we have developed way more ability to lie about what we are doing. Indeed, the fundamental feature of human beings, the degree of self-conscious language that we can use, has simultaneously meant that the most significant thing we do is lie to each other. There is nothing new about human beings operating systems of lies and robberies. There is nothing new about them magnificently spouting their best bullshit regarding that.
GROWING PROBLEMS flow from our currently dominate State Religions, the monetary system and national security! The degree of the paradox of too much success through the American Dollar and the American Military is that those are so extremely fraudulent and deceitful that they have become criminally insane. I do not propose impossible ideals that human beings stop telling lies, or stop backing those lies up with violence. Rather, I merely promote more radical truths THAT IS WHAT WE DO, AND NOTHING BUT THAT!
We are headed towards some severe "corrections" regarding the degree to which we have been able to lie to ourselves so totally, for so long, that we have developed attitudes which are criminally insane, and out of touch with relatively more objective realities to a degree which is psychotic. People who promote the same old-fashioned religions and ideologies, in my opinion, have gone crazy. I do NOT respect those controlled opposition groups.
I do NOT respect people who say there should be no money or no private property, because those are as real as measurement and murder, or claims backed by coercions. However, I also do not respect people who pretend that money or private property are anything more than that.
The main theoretical thing I am interested in is how to operate human murder systems after the development of weapons of mass destruction. So far, we have nothing but the MAD Mutual Assured Destruction systems, backing up the MAD Money As Debt systems, both of which are out of control criminal insanities! In general, it is impossible to have any more rational public debates about those issues, due to the degree to which the biggest bullies' bullshit dominates everything, including the controlled opposition groups.
How could we negotiate better death control systems amongst the different groups of the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals, when they are all so thoroughly deceitful that it is impossible for them to become honest enough to engage in any such negotiations? I am promoting the notions of more radical truths, in a context where almost everyone wants to continue to be socially successful by repeating the same old dominant bullshit stories about everything, only by doing that somewhat better than others doing similar things.
That is why I regarded the article above, and its embedded video, as typical illustrations of the kinds of reactionary revolutions promoted by controlled opposition groups, which never get remotely close to enough deeper radical truths. Ideally, we should respect more radical truths, but some of those truths are the paradoxical ways that humans always necessarily operate through systems of lies backed by violence.
While we await nmewn's reply I'll toss in the public property issue too. Specifically international public property. Waters, airspace, Low Earth Orbit (and beyond!), Antarctica, airwaves, cyberspace ; )
"How could we negotiate better death control systems amongst the different groups of the biggest and best organized gangs of criminals...?"
First you have to give them something to negotiate on and arrange for them to meet... and then DECEIVE them by turning it into a negotiation on better death controls by talking about the radical truth about the omnicidal death controls. That is done by first exposing all the bullshit that went down the last time this was tried! COP15LULZAt that moment you might have a chance...
Welcome to Peru COP20 on the road to Paris COP21...
great to see private property put through the thrasher, nme & RM
and happy thanksgiving Alice's Restaurant !
Well, I hope you approve of my response.
We were putting up the Christmas tree last night, some things are more important than debate ;-)
I approve of anyone especially those who are better educated and more worldly than I of replying to Radical because it is difficult stuff that makes my skull sweat but learning is fun. I hope you'll agree...
Now c'mon admit it, you don't give a rat's ass if I approve of your response or not? LOL!
I don't approve of the "it's too long" type replies to RM
*activate reply notification* LULZ
lol...no, I really don't care if you approve or not. And yes, RM always has thought provoking comments to add to the forum, I'm going to attempt a more condensed and cordial reply ;-)
I knew it was gonna do that.
"What I object to is those people who promote the idealized notions regarding the "rule of law" to enforced "property rights" that refuse the face the facts that there is an inherent paradox in any rule of law, due to it being enforced by systems of lies and violence, which do not actually change in any real ways simply because the biggest bullies can bullshit about them having somehow "legalized" their rights to back up their legalized lies with legalized violence."
Ahhh, I think I see what you're saying now: the inequality of a senators son escaping the draft when no one else has that luxury or option under the rule of law, the seizure of property for the "public good" under eminent domain law to get around the owners asking price, the monitoring & confiscation of cash under suspicion of some criminal activity when none has been proven or even observed and so forth.
Yes, hobo's and my pirate analogy holds true ;-)
But I would argue that these are corruptions of the rule of law brought about by statists and their myriad bureaucracies who look upon the general public as their servants, instead of the way the rule of law is intended, where THEY are the servants of us and THEY are not above it.
"That is why I regarded the article above, and its embedded video, as typical illustrations of the kinds of reactionary revolutions promoted by controlled opposition groups, which never get remotely close to enough deeper radical truths. Ideally, we should respect more radical truths, but some of those truths are the paradoxical ways that humans always necessarily operate through systems of lies backed by violence."
Well I believe we've finally gotten on the same wave length, the radical truth is, violence is just as much a part of human nature and condition as love, understanding, generosity and kindness is. Its how all of those thoughts & emotions are manipulated by "others" that must be recognized for what they are.
Thanks for taking the time to reply, nmewn!
I agree that "we've finally gotten on the same wave length," as much as human language enables us to do that. However, I will push my position a little more below:
The original definition of Catch 22 was:
"THEY assert their right to do anything that WE can not stop them from doing."
States were made through the history of warfare. Statism is implicit militarism, dressed up in camouflage to pretend that it is something else. Statism exists because people failed to agree, and so, ended up fighting. Then the imperatives of that fighting selected for the winners to become those who were the best at backing up deceits with destruction. Everything that governments DID was based on expedient sets of solutions to the history of warfare, which was the crucible in which states were forged. Their millennia of battles selected for the kinds of organized lies operating robberies which could survive and flourish through that history, to become dominate.
What I tend to emphasize is that there are chronic political problems inherent in the nature of life. There must necessarily be some systems of death controls, which have the most obvious manifestations in human murder systems. Natural selection pressures were internalized as human intelligence. Then that general capacity for intelligence was applied to become better at being dishonest, and backing that up with violence, because there continued to be chronic political problems perpetually present, which had to be resolved somehow, and ended up be resolved in the most expedient ways along the paths of least morality.
Meanwhile, the controlled opposition groups to the established military systems did NOT promote better death controls, but rather, tended to promote the impossible ideals that there should be NO death controls, or at least none that human beings were conscious of operating. Therefore, the double whammy of real human history developed the actual death controls to primarily be done through the maximum possible deceits, while the controlled opposition groups to the established murder systems actually operated within the same frame of reference of the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories, or within the same basically deceitful ways of discussing the real death controls.
That then became the situation where economics was actually a subset of militarism, in which economists were intellectual mercenaries, proportionately paid to promote the banksters' bullshit, within a political economy based on enforced frauds, depended upon the sovereign powers of states to tax and deem the banksters' fiat "money" as legal tender, etc. ... THE PROBLEM NOW is the development of science and technologies becoming trillions of times more powerful and capable, headed towards quadrillions of times! Therefore, the social pyramid systems based on being able to back up lies with violence have become criminally insane. However, due to the tango dance in the public spaces between the established systems and their controlled opposition, there is practically NO genuinely scientific discussion of the social facts regarding the REAL DEATH CONTROLS THAT BACK UP THE DEBT CONTROLS.
Thousands of years of social successes based on deceits and frauds has driven human civilizations psychotically insane. Theoretically, we should go through a profound series of intellectual scientific revolutions, which applied to political science, and especially to the combined money/murder systems. However, the established systems and their controlled opposition are almost totally based on spouting absurd bullshit, which has behind it thousands of years of successfully backing up deceits with destruction, and enforcing frauds, so that it is practically impossible to have any saner and more rational public debates about any important public issues. Instead, we routinely read articles and watch videos like the ones above, that are made by reactionary revolutionaries who remain within the frame of reference of the biggest bullies' bullshit world view, continuing to promote the same old-fashioned false fundamental dichtomies and related impossible ideals, which continue to actually cause the opposite to happen in the real world.
What I propose is that we need better death controls, which could only be achieved by enormous paradigm shifts in basic political science, which were based on profound paradigm shifts in the philosophy of science, to correct the errors made there due to the biggest bullies' bullshit world view dominating the scientific enterprise, the same as other social enterprises. The degree to which we are living in a Bizarro Mirror World is demonstrated by the degree to which the public "money" supply is government enforced frauds by privately controlled banks. (Which is something that the vast majority of people do not understand, because they have been conditioned to feel that they do not want to understand.)
The realities are that the death control powers of the government back up the debt control powers of the private banks. There are no genuine solutions to that problem but better death controls, which would mean better militarism, which theoretically would require changing the basic ways that we perceive and operate the death control systems. HOWEVER, ANY SUCH TRANSFORMATIONS MUST BE EXTREMELY PARADOXICAL, DUE TO THE PARADOX OF ENFORCEMENT, THAT THE MOST SUCCESSFUL HUMAN DEATH CONTROL SYSTEMS WERE ALWAYS DONE THROUGH THE MAXIMUM POSSIBLE DECEITS, WHICH INCLUDED THAT THE CONTROLLED OPPOSITION GROUPS TO THOSE SYSTEMS STAYED WITHIN THE SAME FRAME OF REFERENCE OF DECEITFULNESS ABOUT DEATH CONTROLS.
Ideally, we should be applying scientific methods to understand human, industrial and natural ecologies, which necessarily have their death controls as central to everything else, as long as there is any life, which then continues to manifest the chronic problems inherent to the nature of life itself. Natural selection pressures were the ways that general energy systems developed evolutionary ecologies. Human artificial selection systems emerged out of that process. HOWEVER, along the way those artificial selection systems had their social successes become based on backing up lies with violence.
WE ARE STILL STUCK IN THAT RUT, GOING AROUND AND AROUND, WHILE THE OTHER AREAS OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY MAKE PRODIGIOUS PROGRESS, BUT POLITICAL SCIENCE GOES NOWHERE, BUT ONLY DIGS DEEPER AND DEEPER INTO ITS RUTS OF BACKING UP LIES WITH VIOLENCE, WHICH, OF COURSE, IT DELIBERATELY DENIES AND IGNORES.
Since government ARE the biggest form of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals, which operate the death controls to back up the debt controls, the ONLY genuinely better resolutions to that situation would require better organized crime to operate better death controls, i.e., better statism, because having no states at all is the same as asking that their be no murder, and therefore, no organized murder, manifesting as militarism, which EXISTED, AND SO, MADE THE EXISTING STATISM!
That theoretical solution of better states operating better death controls is made especially imperative by the development of weapons of mass destruction. However, so far, no such public understanding of either the real death/debt controls, or the necessity that there must be some death/debt controls, is allowed into the significant public debates, which are almost totally dominated by the established systems, and their controlled opposition groups.
IN OUR BIZARRO MIRROR WORLD, EVERYTHING APPEARS PROPORTIONATELY BACKWARD AND DISTORTED, AND THAT INCLUDES THE GENUINELY BETTER RESOLUTIONS TO OUR PROBLEMS. The bogus bullshit "solutions" promoted by the controlled opposition groups tend to be that there should be no death controls that human beings are conscious of operating. That actually only assists the actual death controls done through the maximum possible deceits to continue to successfully operate, which means that the debt controls they back up continue to function, so that our political economy continues to be based on runaway successfully enforced frauds. The ruling classes continue to be the best at backing up lies with violence, while those they rule over continue to be ignorant and afraid, while the controlled opposition groups tend to promote impossible ideals, that there should not be any death controls at all, which precludes the possibilities for better death controls and better militarism.
I REPEAT that I promote militarism as the supreme ideology, which includes economics as a subset. I promote the idea of more radical truths, manifesting as paradigm shifts in the ways which we perceive and operate our current militarism, which attempt to become more consistent with the existence of weapons of mass destruction. In turn, that then would ramify throughout the ways that our military systems back up our monetary systems.
Ideally, that would mean that more of the theory regarding what "science" should be would be applied to social science and engineering, which were primarily manifested in the past through warfare ... which was the source of how and why we ended up living inside of civilizations whose successes were based on the maximum possible deceits and frauds! Ideally, that would require enough people becoming mature enough that they stopped believing in the biggest bullies' bullshit social stories (which are childish fairy tales), including those promoted by the controlled opposition groups to those biggest bullies, which are currently the banksters, and the reactionary revolutionaries, who promote bogus "solutions," which never discuss the different death control systems, which would be necessary for any of their other solutions to actually be implemented. I.e., better property rights requires better claims backed by coerions, and better money requires that to be backed by better murder, while better rule of law requires better resolutions of the paradox of enforcement, that the ONLY connection between human laws and natural laws has been the ability to back up lies with violence.
Generally, people do NOT understand the ways that general energy systems developed evolutionary ecologies, because they do NOT WANT to understand how those manifested through the history of human civilizations. We are facing the profound political problems that our cultural systems of artificial selection are operating through the maximum possible deceits and frauds, because that was what was most successful during previous human history, and therefore, the established systems, and their controlled opposition groups, are EXTREMELY DISHONEST, AND WANT TO CONTINUE TO BE SO, WHICH APPLIES JUST AS MUCH TO THOSE WHO ARE RULED OVER BELIEVING IN BULLSHIT, AS IT DOES TO THE RULERS, WHO HAVE BEEN SPOUTING THAT BULLSHIT!
Well, I guess we have to begin with why the proposition and establishment of "a state" is needed.
In my opinion the state IS NOT NEEDED for individuals like you and I as we can take care of ourselves while respecting others who can't or won't, all coming together to act as one when an outside force threatens the whole. That we accept the idea of a large state is really just a testament of our good will toward our fellow man, to our own in this regard.
Splitting up actually takes away the power and authority of those who operate the "death controls" but it can never stop them from fomenting or agitating for it, which isn't necessarily bad either as the world doesn't all think the same or have the same values that we do and hold dear.
So in the end I think your task is larger than one nation, culture or people.
Thats a lot of educating you've set out to do and making them understand in all the various languages it will take and breaking through the pride, prejudices and "control" tha they are under.
All I can say is good luck (not being sarcastic at all) seriously, its a Herculean task ;-)
Thanks again for replying mnewn! As you recognized, the amount of "good luck" it would take appears to be like a series of political miracles ... I do not expect that to happen in any linear way, but rather, the actual death insanity situation will be the REAL driving forces ...
Ideas about that MIGHT be able to catalyze those transformations, but not stop them from happening. It is the EXISTENCE of science and technology that WORKS, that is driving social pyramid systems to become runaway criminal insanities. My political science fiction and fantasies require political sceince to develop, in ways which overcome the established state religions. At present, that appears quite impossible. However, in the foreseeable future, the MAD basis of those state religions is going to become more blatantly self-destructive, and PERHAPS drive more people to think more radical thoughts?
For several decades, my political science fiction and fantsies have been based on the notion that a transnational scientific community would be driven to develop, to PERHAPS become the effective new ruling classes, IF enough civilization managed to survive through the development of physical sciences becoming trillions of times more powerful ... ???
Nothing in the superficial article and video above, that contrasted Hong Kong with Cuba, or spoke about the correlated factors of economic successes in different countries around the world, was in the same ball park frame of reference of globalized electronic fiat money, backed by threat of the force of atomic bombs. The basic problem is that WE HAVE ELECTRONIC MONKEY MONEY, BACKED BY APES WITH ATOMIC BOMBS!
The CONTRADITIONS PRESENT IN THAT SITUATION ARE ENORMOUS, AND AUTOMATICALLY GETTING BIGGER !!!
So bring this back to the private/public property context and what we have is a huge private scientific community that has dedicated itself to militarism and we can contrast that to the huge scientific community arguably (an argument based on transparency) even more transnational known as the IPCC. The IPCC has developed. It may be on the verge of becoming more powerful than the MIC We'll find he answer to that in Paris. The IPCC / PMA (Planetary Management Authority) will employ militarism. Guaranteed. James Burke said so!
The PMA won't descend on you because you're passing around a smoke with some friends, they'll descend because you're peddling crack-cocaine to little kids.
Socialism is the Word of Fear.
We use the word to instil fear. To demonize Socialist programs. TO Demonize People, Places, Things.
Socialism is a Boogy Word. It has been cooped, like Progressive, Like Conservative, Like Liberal.
USA is full of Shit. All the words are part of Propaganda, part of a COUP, Part of a new world order, part of technology that is used in Print, in print language, in magazines, in new broadcast, in ... pulling us away from trust of people in our community... pulling us to believe strangers in a broadcast on TV who we have never met (and whom never saw the evidence upon which they report). It is an Idiocraccy.
It is just another "ism" to subjugate the masses under the boot of an elite. A fucking lie spread on the tongue of the long winded and long worded. Truth is simple and short while all the isms are long and contorted bits of truth mixed in with horrid lies. Fuck socialism...
Your answer funny. Small worlds. Simple thoughts. 15 minutes of rage everyday (against socialism). But everything can be labeled socialist: Nixon ? A socialist who ended Bretton-Woods. Reagan ? A socialist, he gave tons of money to big corps and military. North Korea ? Socialist !
Are you really from Oceania ?
Fuck any large form of gubmint, left or right are just two sides of the same inflationary coin. John McStain is in my opinion a socialist so...
Me thinks the boogieman of the CPSU, PRC, Third Reich, and a basket of lesser cases cannot be overstated.
You are a VERY WELL INFORMED person. I'm still working to finish Quigley's book. Makes a lot of sense to me.
Utter flatulence, the founding of this nation was predicated on government encouraging free enterprise. Period. The fact that is no longer the case isn't a failure of free enterprise, but the perversion of law; simply from protecting one's property from gov't to perverting the concept to legal plunder of private property. You don't have any right to succeed where you haven't created it for yourself. No right to a social net, none.
"The founding of this nation was predicated on government encouraging free enterprise ..." AFTER the natives who were here for more than 10,000 years before that were genocidally wiped out! It is part of the package deal that some of those Presidents who most successfully fought back against the international bankers schemes, like Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, were also involved in the continuing mass murders of natives, who resisted being conquered and assimilated. Anyone who owns any private property or real estate within North America is doing so only AFTER the people who were here for thousands of years before that were robbed of almost everything.
Private property is de facto. Theoretically, if some extraterrestrials somehow came to Planet Earth, and then claimed that they owned it, and could back up their claims with coercions that humans could not effectively resist, then all human claims to private property would be wiped out.
Here we go with the natives...no they weren't and so what? The most maurauding imperialist to ever walk the Earth was that damned Asian; Gheghis Khan. Ravished and plundered all the way into Europe. Howard Zinn isn't history, it's left wing commentary imbued upon events. BTW, Clovis Man predates much of the Asian upstarts in NA, but were exterminated by the sneaky Asians. :)
So it doesn't bother you?
that the founding of this nation was predicated on a compromise with slaveholders and the inclusion of slavery in the constitution which was responsible for the design of our totaly fucked Legislative Branch of Government and the Creation of the Electoral College?
And the denial of 'one man one vote' to Americans since our independence?
All in the name of free enterprise.
Bah.
"that the founding of this nation was predicated on a compromise with slaveholders and the inclusion of slavery in the constitution which was responsible for the design of our totaly fucked Legislative Branch of Government and the Creation of the Electoral College"?
In some aspects it was founded on a compromise with slave holding states. But it's not accurate to make a sweeping claim.
After the dissolution of the articles of confederation, which was nothing more than an agreement to meet one another (nothing really binding), there were 13 separate countries. Many of whom were fighting each other over various issues, unfair trade practices and so forth. The leaders of these "countries" were brought together to discuss these issues, in some cases under false pretenses, by Washington and Madison. At the time it was still uncertain that there would be a United country. Washington and others believed that we were too weak too fend off another war with England or some other country and desperately wanted a union. During the negotiations for the new Constitution, the 3/5ths compromise prevented southern slave holding states from having an unfair advantage with respect to representation in the new government. Had the constitution been ratified without this compromise I suspect slavery would have continued much longer. Had the constitution been ratified without the south, slavery would have continued much longer and who could know what kind of balkenized mess north America would be.
And I suppose you would rather have 2 or 3 urban population centers elect Presidents? To hell with the rest of the country.
It's silly to say the country's founding was predicated on one thing. If you could boil it down to one thing it would be fear. Fear of another war and fear that after winning the war against all odds it would all be for nothing as the colonies, now newly formed "countries", fought amongst themselves like children.
Nicely said.
One thing it certainly wasn't predicated on was the morality of slavery. Why didn't the 'Course of human events' apply to the Africans picking cotton in the Southern Colonies, owned by the Southern planters, whipped and chained at the whim of the owner?
The agreement between the Northern and the Southern colonies reminds me of a late 18th century Molotov - Ribbentrop Pact, where the signatories rationalize a "Deal with the Devil" so they can continue to do their thang.
I'll spare you the catalogue of the long train of abuses and usurpations the US government has wreaked upon the planet since its inception. Suffice it to say, that it makes George III look like one o' them benevolent dictators.
I live my life, Wedge, according to a quatrain in Edward FitzGerald's The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.
It you could boil down the intent of the writers, it was freedom from government intrustion. To promote the general welfare... was not anything to do with WELFARE, but provide improvements and policies where feasible to promote economic prosperity.
Why should the issue of slavery bother me? I understand the politics behind the compromise. As to the Legislative branch and especially your yelling about the Electoral College? What is your grievance?
Well!
I'm going to guess. You're a decent person? And now, if you're married with children, you're feeling the pressure of having to pay for the sins of your founding fathers.
Earlier I had to give Jumbotron what for when he compared the Global Wreck today to the Titanic of yore.
In his comparison it takes the Titanic 18 years to sink, finally proving that it almost was unsinkable. The genuine article went down in under 3 hours.
Here is a more apropos metaphor: MH17.
A happy little jet as it leaves Amsterdam without a care in the world. Flying over the beautiful fields and rivers of modern Europe. Until some fiend orders a pair of fighters up to bring it down.
America will soon end its days like the MH17 it brought down in the fields of south-east Ukraine.
Is it such a terrible thing to want 'one man one vote'?
Isn't that what we shove down the throats of all the countries we democratize, whether they're ready or not. While we are almost as far away from that as Russia in Stalin's time. America's fabled two party system. A left and right wing of the same party.
As far as the electoral college goes, it could have been made up just of the size of a state's congressional delegation. But no, they had to add two votes (representing the two senators) to skew the vote.
If two states with 60 congressmen vote for one candidate and six states with 59 congressmen vote for another, in the electoral college the two states get 4 more votes for 64, while the others get 12 moar for 71.
That's my grievance, pal.
People who do not own property should not be allowed to vote, period.
so you'd agree that Clovis Man started as James Burke suggests, across the Bearing Straight and ditto in Australia? Isn't that what Radical was just saying? So your snarky head fake "no they weren't" is just your way of saying "I'll change the topic to (unrelated by thousands of years) Khan" and then go back thousands to complete the fake LULZ
Or do you disagree with Burke? and we know you are full of shit on AGW too so by all MEANS...
tell us about the sneaky Asians. How did they exterminate Clovis Man?
Yeah, there were waves after waves of immigrations and displacements, which are extremely difficult to sort out!
It is not even clear regarding the degree to which Neanderthals inter-bred with Cro-Magnons!
Indeed, these days I am not sure about the degree to which there were advanced civilizations more than 10,000 years ago, which were wiped out almost totally?
Furthermore, I am not even able to completely disregard the possibilities that maybe some "aliens" interfered with human evolution?
I find that almost everyone who tells stories tends to over-simplify and presume too much that their own presumptions were correct, when they may have been seriously mistaken about those presumptions. (Of course, then that would apply to me too!)
True dat. Burke is a talented story-teller and I guess one key to his success was in keeping it simple. It wasn't all that long before After The Warming that we had Leonard Nimoy seriously speculating in a similarly story-telling fashion about the pyramids connection to alien landings. (or am I conflating here? can only vaguely recall that documentary), Also I think given the increase in research and knowledge since then, I would offer them the opportunity to revisit their old presumptions and perhaps update them.
"the more we think we know about, the greater the unknown..." -Mystic Rhythms/RUSH/1985's Power Windows
BTW, did reply a few days ago 5493237
Thanks RM : )
But wiped out by what TheRadMan?
I'm not able to completely disregard the possibility either, but "aliens" could have interfered 50,000 years ago, 500,000, or 5,000,000 years ago, a difference that is all but MEANingless to us when we're looking at what's coming our way in the next 50-500-5000 years or consumed with looking back 5-10 thousand!!!.
Burke argues that climate change was the end of the nifty Navatians and their 'advanced" city, very civilized!, and that shortly therreafter, we started doing things to the weather instead of the weather doing things to us. It's a good case.
Burke goes back 40,000 years... and beyond!, mass extinction events go back for 100s of millions. I fail to see how these are bullshit social stories. What am I missing?
YES my co-dearest artist YES/Jon Anderson who said we are not alone...
I don’t know who you are Dan mitchell but you misrepresent terms like a professional propagandist, in short, you’re full of shit.
You do not know the difference between American Free Enterprise System of capitalism (free from corporate monopoly) and corporate fascist (merger of corporate monopoly with government) global Empire.
Your “Free Markets” and “Free Trade” means the global corporate monopoly empire are FREE to steal whatever they want, from whomever they want and do it legally.
Under the American Free Enterprise System of capitalism we had sovereignty and Fair Trade that was equitable: fuck your global empire and propaganda.
Great comment. Concentration of power/monopoly/monopsony is a problem, whether with the state and/or a few big corporations.
Hey Dan,
In terms of your pictures, what Cuba is doing is much more sustainable. Let there be a power down situation and Hong Kong is fucked. Cuba is not living beyond their means. Hong Kong is ridiculous. Just saying.
What a ridiculous comprison. Just the fact that ships are banned from docking in the US for 6 months if they ever dock in Cuba is enough to make this a silly comparison.
What is encouraging from Cuba was when faced with an oil crisis, the whole nation pulled together and grew food. Ignoring the cancer vaccines they have developed also beggars belief, just because of a trade embargo
http://www.globalresearch.ca/cuba-develops-four-cancer-vaccines-ignored-...
Of course when it suits the US it has no problem allowing a huge pharma company like glaxo smithkline to circumvent the embargo because theres a profit to be made.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/406780.stm
Utter nonsense article. Let's compare Germany with Greenland next... all that snow.
+1 lmao
Havana is a way better place to live. There's no pollution, clean air, no foul-expressioned, green-uniformed cops loitering around in groups everywhere you turn, none of that $5,000/mo rent nonsense, better music in the clubs, no sense of stifling crowds choking into your space, people smiling happily, beaches with actual sand. man, Cuba's just better in every regard.
Perhaps you should move there?
The problem with such a declaration is that no one there or any other similar paradise, had a choice but to accept (submit) or rot in prison or face execution. This is why the obamanation would richly deserve, its promoters and followers that is, a very very let's say spirited response from those who do not ascribe. :)
You're right there's no pollution. Electricity is a luxury that no one really needs. And there's definitely not military police with automatic weapons shaking you down at every turn. Nope none of that. And you definitely don't have to pay $5,000 a month for used sea containers stacked 4 high. It's steel, rectangular and easily stacked...utopia.
Impressive argument. I'm hopping on a boat tomorrow.
What's-his-name made a similar argument in his book, "Eat the Rich." What's forgotten is the five+ decades of embargoes, blockades, and even invasions. The USG even paid companies to manufacture off-center ball bearings to ship to Cuba, for Christ's sake. When you take those things into account, dim-witted analyses such as these show Socialism as a rousing success. Which might be the point, as the same set of elites will rule under Socialism as, well, not really Capitalism, but what we have today.
Perhaps the "before" picture of Cuba should show foreigners throwing coins in the gutters for Cubans to chase after. And those "after" Hong Kong high rises, the ones burning megawatts of electricity to light up the skyline to no discernible purpose, they're practically empty at least 12 hours a day. Go Capitalism!
Life expectancy
Cuba 79
USA 79
Oil consumption per capita
Cuba 16
USA 61
I wonder how the stress levels would compare between the average american and average Cuban?
Annual medical costs per capita
Cuba 0
USA 362,897
Really? Please explain that one!
Just because someone else paid doesn't mean that the cost was 0, do you use the new math?
And all the little Cubans were given a rice cooker from Uncle Fidel before his brain melted. They don't use petrol because there is nowhere to drive and nothing to drive there in. A true shit hole...
Life expectancies are a result of capitalist endeavors from the toilet, potable water, and medical discoveries. Fidel didn't build that...
How much oil consumption is needed with a substantial underground economy plying prostitution in order to survive the worker's paradise?
The justification for freedom is not the statement, "on average, people have more money".
-----
No, the justification for freedom is... I refuse to be governed.
While I have no doubt that one of the natural consequences of freedom and no/less government is greater wealth, that is most definitely not the only measure of success.
I've done a fair bit of traveling in the last 10 years, and lived for short periods of times with a wildly diverse people long enough to basically "understand them" and their modus-operandi and attitudes.
This includes some tiny micro-villages in the remote boonies of the high Andes, Nepal and elsewhere. In at least two of these settlements nobody had ever owned a penny or peso or yuan or any other form of money (official or otherwise). And guess what, they were the happiest human beings I have ever encountered in my life.
They had everything they needed to survive, their natural or personally constructed caves or huts, and the plants they grew, and the animals they tended and cared-for, and the natural processes of their remote environments (all of which would be considered by most humans to be utterly inhospitable environments). And they are the happiest human beings on the planet.
I'm trying to describe my first-hand observations here. Anyone who has read what I write knows I understand "government" to be a blatant fiction, a mere name that humans attach to the most egregious human predators in their neck of the woods. But, I'm not trying to have that kind of discussion here. I'm trying to get to the bottom of the characterizations this article tries to make. Yes, philosophically, intellectually and "on paper" I mostly sympathize with the values and points-of-view the author espouses. But... these and other experiences lead me to understand he is not getting to the core of the issue, but to a mix of consequences and side-effects.
Example: the poorest humans I've ever met (zero money... ever) are the happiest. They wouldn't trade their life for the most expensive penthouse in NYC, London or anywhere else you'd name.
These folks have peace, quiet, and nobody tells them what they must do. They are so remote, and have no money to steal, so... the governments that nominally claim control over the territory they live in just leave them alone. They are tacitly recognized as "original peoples", or something along those lines.
These folks also have security. How so? They know how to live where they live. They claim to be able to trace their general ancestors back as far as 120,000 to 150,000 years, and their family ancestors up to nearly 20,000 years in a couple cases/families. They don't need money, they don't need permission, they don't need anything to be the happiest people on the planet, except to be left alone... to live, to work, to cooperate with each other or not as they wish.
They don't need oil or gas or radio or stereo or television or phones or integrated circuits to be happy and healthy. Okay, I must admit, a few of the village elders had the time of their lives when I flew them around their part of the world in my little airplane. They had never been further than 20km to 50km from their homes before, and to be able to fly above their mountains and see in all directions and get that grand perspective of "their part of the world" was a huge thrill for them. If you've never seen absolutely thrilled kids in their 80s and 90s before, well, you've missed something special. But did they want to save money, get pilot license and airplane, and become like me? No way! But they really did love having me as a friend, as I really did love becoming their friend, and hearing their stories from their childhoods, and from their great-great-great grandparents childhoods. In the end, I'd do just about anything to help them out, if they needed me (which they won't). And I know the reverse is true too. Why did I form such a bond? Simple. I was willing to be fully honest with them about any topic, I had no interest in changing them, but loved learning from them and appreciated their skills and attitudes. They appreciated that. And I appreciated exactly the same, their honesty, their stories, their attitudes, their perspectives. We knew we were very different in many ways, but the same in the ways that count.
And what way is that? We are the same kind of people. What do I mean? Well, there is this saying, that there are two kinds of people. Those who want to live their own lives, and leave others free to live their lives too. And those who want to force others to do what they demand, and generally expect others to attempt to force them too. We were the same, because we were both the first type of people. The different lifestyles, my science versus their ancient knowledge and skills, my airplane versus their feet and horses... they were not important. What was important? Live and let live.
PS: Think about this story a bit. These folks had zero cents in a lifetime, but lived a happier and healthier life than anyone you've ever known. What does that say about the article we just read? If you take the above article seriously, you'd have to conclude that those humans with the highest cost of living are the happiest. Seriously? Nope.
I see what you see perfectly, I am Brazilian.
I like your feedback!
Alexandre.
:-)
You seem to imply that the simple subsistence lifestyle is a choice made with other choices readily available and that such a lifestyle could not be a readily available choice in a free market society.
I fail to see the relevancy to the author's point.
Those people have a free market society. True, they don't have money. But still, as far as I'm concerned, they had a free market society. How so? Well, if someone wanted something of theirs, they would do one of the following:
#1: say no (you can't have it).
#2: say yes (you can have it).
#3: say yes, we'll figure it out later.
#4: say yes, and trade for something now.
#3 was actually very common from my observations. It tended to work like this. First, you know who you trust, and how far you trust them. After all, these were tiny villages of only 15 to 50 people. If you didn't trust someone very much, you would avoid #3 and deal with them via #1, #2 or #4.
But most people in these villages considered almost everyone else to be both trustworthy and fair-minded, and so #3 was common and practical. So they'd say, "sure, take it" (or "you can have this many"), and "we'll work out something later".
I suppose you could say that is even more fiat than fiat paper money, because it didn't even have a physical form, or a specific quantity attached. But the idea was totally simple and totally "free market". The idea was this. When I need something you have, we'll agree on how much/many of that I get from you to "get even".
The point is, "happiness" and "quality-of-life" doesn't require, and is not proportional to "how many units of fiat you own". So you can't necessarily measure in these terms. And also, owning a lot of expensive goods and goodies also isn't a very good measure of how happy or successful you are. So these folks living in caves in the extreme boonies were happier, healthier and more secure than almost all very rich folks.
One strange way to say what I'm trying to say is this. Depending on how "live and let live" a society is, I could easily believe that people in that 1950 hong kong might have been happier than in the 2050 hong kong of bright lights, sky-scrapers, endless bling-bling, and... a police state government.
No, I think I grok what you are expressing. An earlier time in this country (outside of the large cites) was more akin to the societies to which you speak. I was making no qualitative judgment regarding happiness and fiat. Just a side bar, our family in recent years has expressly foregone the Xmas (Easter, Valentine's Day, Halloween, etc.) tradition of spending and acquiring debt in the herded rush to what we belatedly identified as empty consumerism. Our choice, and thankfully we can make such a choice. Even in a fascist commercial state you don't have to abide...again thankfully choice is available. I appreciate your insights on what you observed.
Good for you, and people thinking and acting like you. In my case, I've been intransigent since I was a little kid. I've never borrowed money or had any debt whatsoever. I've been very frugal my whole life, and don't feel abused for that. I do feel abused by the central fiat banksters for having to pay much higher prices for many products due to the extreme excess demand created by the extreme overabundance of easy-to-get fiat debt).
I've never participated in those holiday insanities either, though I did used to eat turkey on some thanksgiving days, which I suppose was a form of cannibalism, eh? :-)
Unfortunately, most folks still live in normal society, and so they can't escape the many negative consequences that go along with excess debt and consumerism. Fortunately for me, I was able to escape that and move to the extreme boonies about 3 years ago. Being as frugal as I was (and anti-fiat, thus saving in gold), I managed to accumulate enough to build my self-sufficient digs in the boonies, buy my tiny little airplane, and now live like a high-tech, ultra-modern version of those folks I described.
But yes, the more folks in the conventional world avoid all that fascist commercialism, the happier and more secure they tend to be. You certain got that right.
Hong Kong is Asia's version of NYC and both are a product of malinvestment and monstrous leverage. The day of reckoning is coming for both those shitholes of centrally-planned folly.
Better examples are East vs. West Germany and North vs. South Korea. Same people, same culture, same work ethics, and same resources.
Then the countries were forceably split down the middle. The capitalist systems improved lives and prosperty while the socialist countries devolved into third world status with 10% of the ruling party members ravaging the other 90% of the people, the economy, and the environment at the end of a barrel of a gun.
like I commented earlier, general principles guiding an individual and/or a nation account for much of said entity's condition or station in life. It's incredible that socialism is still the most fought for ideology in the world. It is inherently evil.
Who the fuck is Daniel Mitchell and why should I listen to him?
Very oversimplified article.
The only way (rouge) capitalism can prosper is because of unlimited credit created out of thin air. Fractional reserve banking system and all. Socialism doesn't have that, they can only print money.
Socialism was described as "eventually you run out of other people's money". Rouge Capitalism can be described as "running out of future generation's money".
Either way you are screwed. The problem is that when this rouge capitalist system collapses (or the word's resources collapse) socialism or even worse communism will replace it. Or some other collectivist oppressive regime. Marx himself predicted this. Don't like the guy but he knew that rouge capitalism will destroy itself and will take everybody down with it.
You are arguing against yourself. "Rouge Capitalism" is well what my friend? Not free enterpise, just saying.
There is no such thing as a free market (at least not they way it is now) because some are more free than others. Already Adam Smith noted to that. That it is wrong for monopolies to arise, whether they are goverment or enterprise.
Can't disagree with your comment.
Dude! Yes, the answer is.....wait for it.......China!!!!!
The heavy hand of central planning is all over Chinese industry. Yes, there is a modicum of free enterprise but when it comes to managed economies the Chinese are still just as statist as Cuba. The difference, and this is the big difference, is that China has a gigantic low cost labor market (and isn't under the relentless pressure of a pointless embargo).
So, one can argue back and forth about exactly how statist China is, but in simplest terms its a bunch. And, for those of us who have been in China and had to deal with this we know that the countervailing trend away from statism that you have to deal with isn't capitalist ideas its corruption.
Chinese SOE are a looting operation by the elite, in a neo-feudal model, with Communism/Socialism as a front to justify the thievery.
It is rogue capitalism by the elite.
I'd much rather live in Cuba. How about showing some photos beneath the lights that have been paid for by the oligarchs FRAUD sucker. Also note that Capitalism is and has been dead for 30 years. Also note that I want two of my jobs back from the oligarchs that shipped them to the east.Go get a life you neocon. Two million dead mid easterners, The destruction of the world trade centers. The end of the world will result from the stolen wealth of the future that pays for that city.
Bullshit. You wouldn't dare, you wouldn't even contact the Cuban Consultant to inquire. Socialsim/Communism doesn't steal wealth from future generations? Look at the Dachas constructed for the Party apparatus, and then drive just another few miles down that country road and see the stolen wealth and opportunity spanning generations.
What's stopping you? I'm sure you could crowdsource a ticket if you don't have any money yourself.
Hell, let me know when your campaign is up and I'll throw you a twenty. Always ready to support a worthy cause.
One caveat, however...
Only paying for a one-way ticket. You want to be a Young Pioneer, that's fine. You want to be a tourist, you can go on your own dime.
The US knows you would. That's why they raised the fee to leave: free, to about $450, and now about $2,350 per person. Taking a family of three or four? Do the math. Make sure you tip the people at the embassy.
What hasn't been said (maybe I missed it) is that regardless of the political/economic system employed, you can never remove the human condition. The propensity for man to lord over men; their petty grievances, larcenous, and greedy proclivities. Which system best protects against abuses of man against men? I submit that a free enterprise economy with a quite limited government apparatus is the most likely to allow for the most democratized, liberty available life. That means the less motivated fail, and and sometimes fail miserably. No utopia exists and those whom seek to codify such an existence have always wound up terrorizing and murdering it's citizens.
Anybody here ever actually read Marx?
{just asking - I've never seen so many presumptively smart people have arguments where the referent - the thing being argued about - is never {properly} defined.}
Perhaps you've had a drop or two yourselves.
Av barn, fyllon och dårar får man höra sanningen!!
Smoke em if you got em.