DallasApple
Depends Upon My Mood..
All I know is I scrub toilets and Im rich.(by many standards)
Love
Dalllas
Love
Dalllas
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I could say the same about socialists.
Now, do I sound contemptuous? Because you do.
Perhaps because you seem to have a cartoonish "Mr Burns" image of what a capitalist is.
Personally, I admire tremendously non-material pursuits. I'm only asserting that the leisure to pursue such things would be more attainable with capitalist principles than with socialist ones. That capitalism creates more wealth with less effort. And by wealth I'm not thinking about piles of money (drool, drool), but basic goods and services.
I would agree that socialists are more likely to live modest lifestyles. I don't think this is a causal relationship.
Doom and gloom has always been just over the horizon. That's not to say that we don't have problems that need fixing. But as much as we seem to be lemmings headed over the cliff we do, eventually, see the cliff and make a course correction.
Jackytar
Maybe if you end up in a car wreck you'll get assigned a surgeon who's watching South Park episodes and cracking jokes while he's half assed working on your broken body.
What do you think capitalists have that socialists might envy?
How do I sound contemptuous?
If you mean capitalism as it is practiced by Denmark, the statistics seem to support your assertion. If you're talking about America, they don't. Americans produce less per capita than Danes and work much longer hours for less pay.
If I were not a socialist, I would behave very differently. I would value material gain over meaningful experience, and productivity over sustainability. My life would be spent in pursuit of those goals, just as it is now spent in pursuit of meaningful experience and sustainability.
I've seen the cliff for two decades. Nobody is doing any correcting but for a few marginal lemmings, and our momentum at this stage is too great to prevent famine and the breakdown of civil order in most parts of the world. (Of course such things have never happened before, right? .)
Their tax dollars, of course.
Are you saying you don't have contempt for people whose immediate response to the sight of any form of social activism is "Get a job"? Really? How is that different from a dog who drools when he hears a bell? I'd love to believe there's some serious thinking that goes into that particular stock response, but I'm too attached to reality.Aw, c'mon. The whole "Pavlovian response" thing.
I guess that depends whether you are a capitalist who believes in a growth based economy. If so, no you cannot be both. Exponential growth requires exponentially increasing consumption of raw materials and exponential population growth to ensure the raw materials are consumed.I'm a capitalist and believe very strongly in sustainability. And I am repulsed by raw greed and materialistic lifestyles. Explain why I can't be all of those things at once.
Foresight endows an individual with the appreciation of the concept of socialism, among other things.I disagree but not germane to the OP in any case. Not sure how socialism endows an individual with powers of foresight.
Jackytar
In other threads, advocates of free market capitalism have argued that the biggest danger of socialism or communism is that people in such a system might not work very hard.
Evidence from parts of Europe seems to support this - some countries have 35 hour work weeks and 22 days of holiday plus a regular allotment of statutory holidays, paid maternity and sick leave, free health care, etc. It's clear that Europeans don't work as hard as Americans do. Instead of they spend a great deal of time sipping beaujolais and sampling excellent cheeses while Americans bust their asses 24/7.
So is "hard work" a virtue? If so, why? Who first decided it was a virtue? Why do you think they did this?
Most importantly, who does it benefit most to train an entire nation of people to believe that working hard 24/7 is more important than sipping beaujolais and sampling excellent cheeses?
Why would a socialist want a capitalist's tax dollars? Are right wing dollars somehow superior to the dollars of the left?
Are you saying you don't have contempt for people whose immediate response to the sight of any form of social activism is "Get a job"? Really? How is that different from a dog who drools when he hears a bell? I'd love to believe there's some serious thinking that goes into that particular stock response, but I'm too attached to reality.
I guess that depends whether you are a capitalist who believes in a growth based economy. If so, no you cannot be both. Exponential growth requires exponentially increasing consumption of raw materials and exponential population growth to ensure the raw materials are consumed.
Foresight endows an individual with the appreciation of the concept of socialism, among other things.
Well yes. Those dollars on the left have to come from somewhere...
I didn't say it did. My comment was about the people who respond in that way. I'm sure if you take another look, you'll see that.Not so attached that you don't have prejudices of your own. An intellectual appreciation for market economies doesn't make you an ******* who shouts at protesters. That's called being a Republican.
High tech industries also devour raw materials and massive amounts of energy. So I still say no, you can't favour exponential growth AND sustainability. It's a fantasy. Have a look at this for a more in-depth explanation of the inevitable consequences of exponential growth:Economic growth could also mean creative destruction, where capital flows to higher tech industries and services.
At the end of your life. See? Easy.So, when am I going to die?
You sound like a hairy hippy!As someone who actually lives a modest lifestyle, I can assure you it is. At least in my case. All my decisions are influenced by my sense of ethics. I go for organic local food and 100 % green energy providers, walk, bike or take transit where I need to go, live in apartments that are just big enough for my needs and no bigger, and I don't have any interest in climbing a corporate ladder. In fact, my pattern for yeasr has been to work long enough to save up money to travel, then quit whatever job I'm at and go somewhere for months on end.
If I were not a socialist, I would behave very differently. I would value material gain over meaningful experience, and productivity over sustainability. My life would be spent in pursuit of those goals, just as it is now spent in pursuit of meaningful experience and sustainability.
You sound like a hairy hippy!
But seriously...congrats...if only more people had similar values.
In the end life catches us up...
"When you're younger you can eat what you like, drink what you like, and still climb into your 26" waist trousers and zip them closed. Then you reach that age, 24-25, your muscles give up, they wave a little white flag, and without any warning at all you're suddenly a fat *******"
---Arnold Judas Rimmer
At the end of your life. See? Easy.
I'm 34, and versatile. I've had a huge diversity of jobs - session host in a pub in Ireland, stage managing music festivals, grip on a Jackie Chan movie... Only now am I planning to hippy out in a major way. I tried civilization, it didn't do anything for me.
I don't see "life" (by which I assume you mean a mortgage and a permanent job to pay it) catching up with me. My values are too integrated into my world view.
Secondly, for every problem there is a market economy solution that is better than the socialst one.
Jackytar
At any given time in history under any form of government money and power has concentrated into the hands of the few. The problem is clearly government itself.
Nevermind. After watching your video I'm going to kill myself...
Seriously - I watched less than a minute of the video, to the point where I saw it was about exponential functions.
I'll make two simple points. First of all, the future will be a surprise.
Socialists want to blame capitalists but the truth is for over a century nobody seen it coming...
...and extreme socialist states have environmental records as bad or worse as anybody else.
Secondly, for every problem there is a market economy solution that is better than the socialst one.
Let's take global warming as an example. If we identify carbon emmissions as a pollutant then under free market principles releasing carbon into the atmosphere would be considered an assualt by one person apon another and they should, at the very least, be fined.
The socialist solution is to impose ones world view on others. Individual liberty be damned.
At any given time in history under any form of government money and power has concentrated into the hands of the few. The problem is clearly government itself.
Jackytar
Riiiiiiiight. So, schools would be better if they were exclusively run for personal profit rather than the altruistic motive of using pooled resources to provide a service to everyone? You'd prefer if no child got an education unless they could pay a tuition fee?
Government itself is a socialist concept - pooling our resources for services that benefit all of us.?
There's no reason a person can't be both a libertarian and a socialist, like myself. This means I believe people should be persuaded, not coerced, to pool their resources for the benefit of everyone.
The left doesn't have a monopoly on coercive policy, as your own country, which is very right wing by global standards, demonstrates more than adequately.
Agreed. I'm an anarchist too.
Excellence of Self (ie virtue) has never risen in me via "hard work".
It has always come through Creative Persistence and enjoyment of Life and Self,
in each moment and activity.
Creative Persistence to me... is not "hard work".
It is more a "work of art".
And a way of life.