Capitalism is freedom?

Discussion in 'Politics' started by shichimenshyo, Dec 29, 2009.

  1. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    its been explained to you already by others.
     
  2. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  3. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    No, it hasn't. They say 'you are not free from poverty', but there is no more a thing as freedom from poverty than there is a freedom from getting a failing grade in school. That is on you.

    Capitalism is freedom, and being freedom, it is risky; but if you want freedom, you need to accept that risk. You cannot just take the labor of others for your own sake, and violate their sovereignty.
     
  4. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  5. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    Still the same old norse. ever attaching on to things with out understanding them. Capitalism if freedom for the wealthy and debt bondage for the rest. Just because you wish to ignore history and human nature doesn't mean the rest of us will follow suit. Under capitalism in the form you are so masturbatory over most people weren't free. they lived shit lives of the scraps they were given. true freedom didn't come until the labour movement and the results which peaked after WW2.
     
  6. Google AdSense Guest Advertisement



    to hide all adverts.
  7. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    Why are they getting into debt they cannot pay back? People need to be responsible, instead of having government babying them.
     
  8. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    they were intentially not paid enough to cover debts. The company you worked for ran the town you lived in.

    1800's USA look it up.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Jan 1, 2010
  9. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,461
    Capitalism is nothing but economic freedom. So while you may have a capitalist society that's repressive in other ways, you don't have true freedom unless you have both political and economic freedom.
     
  10. Scaramouche Registered Member

    Messages:
    432
    Capitalism does not equal economic freedom.

    1. It's an uneven paying field. Some folks are born into money. Head start.

    2. In our society, if you want a house but weren't born into money, you can only get one by getting a loan, which means you're then enslaved by the system for a good couple of decades at least just so you have a place to sleep and raise a family.

    3. The system is organised so that any loan involves paying them more than you borrow, indeed far more than the value of anything you're borrowing money for. Inherently unfair.

    4. You're paying more tax than any of our ancestors ever paid. Fail to do so and nasty men in uniforms will throw you in prison. That's extortion.

    The one and only freedom afforded by our system is to choose not to participate at all, and go live like Grizzly Adams. The same freedom offered by all other systems.
     
  11. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    I disagree with this; if we are talking about true capitalism, then by definition any true capitalist society must have both economic and personal and political freedoms.

    In other words, through 'economic' freedoms, you get the other two by extension because they follow the same principles of self-ownership and choice. This is why I make a distinction between democracy and capitalism, even though people often put them together when, in essence, they are not compatible and only the latter is about autonomy.
     
  12. madanthonywayne Morning in America Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    12,461
    Look at China. They are following many capitalist principles while maintaining an oppressive political regime. Look at Republicans and Democrats in the US. Traditionally, Republicans support economic freedom while favoring more repressive social policies while Democrats support freedom in the personal sphere but are statists when it comes to economics.

    Political and economic freedom can definitely be seperated. I do, however, agree that capitalism tends to favor freedom in other spheres because a man who can stand on his own two feet economically is hard to push around.
     
  13. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    Then they aren't capitalists; they can follow certain principles of capitalism and not be capitalists (for instance, China)
     
  14. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    than you don't understand capitalism
     
  15. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    No, you don't.
     
  16. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    Because I don't follow your fucked up ahistorical asserations. Capitalism is inherently anti freedom. Its a system that protects a form of power( in the case the power of lots of money) to do as it wishes. You keep talking about how free capitalism is while ignoring the era of robber barons pure capitalism and most people had shit for economic freedom. Sorry living in a company town where they set both your income and expenses is not freedom.
     
  17. Norsefire Salam Shalom Salom Registered Senior Member

    Messages:
    11,529
    That wasn't capitalism. That was more like feudalism, and guess what, feudalism was sustained and supported by the government during the Middle Ages.
     
  18. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    Republicans in general have never favored economic freedom for individuals, in the US.

    That would require curbing the economic power of corporations, in many cases.
    Plus a banking system, a legal system, a transportation system, a police and military setup, a monetary system, and so forth.

    Piracy is economic freedom. Hunting and gathering is economic freedom. Money and private property are creations of the State - infringements on economic freedom.
     
    Last edited: Jan 1, 2010
  19. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,707
    I'd say that a corporation would be considered an "individual" in a capitalist society, in that it's an entity with rights. Using the power of government to fuck over corporations is not capitalist.
     
  20. pjdude1219 The biscuit has risen Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    16,479
    as I said you don't have a fucking clue in the world what capitalism is. the 1800's was capitalism not feudalism( a term if more nebulous and worthless than capitalism) feudalism was dumped for mercantilism around the 1500 to late 1600's
     
  21. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    You mean the State would establish legal "corporations" and give them rights as if they were people, backed up by the police and the army, and you regard that as "capitalism"?

    Just don't use the power of the State to create corporations in the first place, and the issue never comes up.
     
  22. Cowboy My Aim Is True Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    3,707
    The state generally doesn't create corporations. Private parties do, and they're recognized as legal entities by the state. As legal entities, they have rights (like the right to not be robbed, defrauded, have their property vandalized, etc.)
     
  23. iceaura Valued Senior Member

    Messages:
    30,994
    A legal entity recognized by the State is all a corporation is. Unless the State provides that "recognition", there is no corporation. If the State does provide that recognition, there is one - whether a "private party" is involved or not.
    Lots of legal entities have few or no rights. Corporations have whatever rights the State gives to the corporations it "recognizes". In the US, an activist Court early last century bestowed many of the rights of actual personhood and citizenship on US chartered corporations - a bizarre legal development, too widely imitated by the unwary and unwise.

    There was certainly capitalism before that, and would be without it.
     

Share This Page