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Title: Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050
Source:
Forbes
URL Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhan ... humanity-by-2050/#7bc8a19e4a36
Published: Feb 16, 2016
Author: Drew Hansen
Post Date: 2016-02-16 17:54:41 by Willie Green
Keywords: None
Views: 28415
Comments: 163
Capitalism has generated massive wealth for some, but it’s devastated the planet and has failed to improve human well-being at scale. • Species are going extinct at a rate 1,000 times faster than that of the natural rate over the previous 65 million years (see Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School). • Since 2000, 6 million hectares of primary forest have been lost each year. That’s 14,826,322 acres, or just less than the entire state of West Virginia (see the 2010 assessment by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the UN). • Even in the U.S., 15% of the population lives below the poverty line. For children under the age of 18, that number increases to 20% (see U.S. Census). • The world’s population is expected to reach 10 billion by 2050 (see United Nations’ projections). Capitalism is unsustainable in its current form. How do we expect to feed that many people while we exhaust the resources that remain? Human activities are behind the extinction crisis. Commercial agriculture, timber extraction, and infrastructure development are causing habitat loss and our reliance on fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change. Public corporations are responding to consumer demand and pressure from Wall Street. Professors Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg published Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations last fall, arguing that businesses are locked in a cycle of exploiting the world’s resources in ever more creative ways. “Our book shows how large corporations are able to continue engaging in increasingly environmentally exploitative behaviour by obscuring the link between endless economic growth and worsening environmental destruction,” they wrote. Yale sociologist Justin Farrell studied 20 years of corporate funding and found that “corporations have used their wealth to amplify contrarian views [of climate change] and create an impression of greater scientific uncertainty than actually exists.” Corporate capitalism is committed to the relentless pursuit of growth, even if it ravages the planet and threatens human health. We need to build a new system: one that will balance economic growth with sustainability and human flourishing. A new generation of companies are showing the way forward. They’re infusing capitalism with fresh ideas, specifically in regards to employee ownership and agile management. The Increasing Importance Of Distributed Ownership And Governance Fund managers at global financial institutions own the majority (70%) of the public stock exchange. These absent owners have no stake in the communities in which the companies operate. Furthermore, management-controlled equity is concentrated in the hands of a select few: the CEO and other senior executives. On the other hand, startups have been willing to distribute equity to employees. Sometimes such equity distribution is done to make up for less than competitive salaries, but more often it’s offered as a financial incentive to motivate employees toward building a successful company. According to The Economist, today’s startups are keen to incentivize via shared ownership: The central difference lies in ownership: whereas nobody is sure who owns public companies, startups go to great lengths to define who owns what. Early in a company’s life, the founders and first recruits own a majority stake—and they incentivise people with ownership stakes or performance-related rewards. That has always been true for startups, but today the rights and responsibilities are meticulously defined in contracts drawn up by lawyers. This aligns interests and creates a culture of hard work and camaraderie. Because they are private rather than public, they measure how they are doing using performance indicators (such as how many products they have produced) rather than elaborate accounting standards. This trend hearkens back to cooperatives where employees collectively owned the enterprise and participated in management decisions through their voting rights. Mondragon is the oft-cited example of a successful, modern worker cooperative. Mondragon’s broad-based employee ownership is not the same as an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. With ownership comes a say – control – over the business. Their workers elect management, and management is responsible to the employees. REI is a consumer cooperative that drew attention this past year when it opted out of Black Friday sales, encouraging its employees and customers to spend the day outside instead of shopping. I suspect that the most successful companies under this emerging form of capitalism will have less concentrated, more egalitarian ownership structures. They will benefit not only financially but also communally. Joint Ownership Will Lead To Collaborative Management The hierarchical organization of modern corporations will give way to networks or communities that make collaboration paramount. Many options for more fluid, agile management structures could take hold. For instance, newer companies are experimenting with alternative management models that seek to empower employees more than a traditional hierarchy typically does. Of these newer approaches, holacracy is the most widely known. It promises to bring structure and discipline to a peer-to-peer workplace. Holacracy “is a new way of running an organization that removes power from a management hierarchy and distributes it across clear roles, which can then be executed autonomously, without a micromanaging boss.” Companies like Zappos and Medium are in varying stages of implementing the management system. Valve Software in Seattle goes even further, allowing employees to select which projects they want to work on. Employees then move their desks to the most conducive office area for collaborating with the project team. These are small steps toward a system that values the employee more than what the employee can produce. By giving employees a greater say in decision-making, corporations will make choices that ensure the future of the planet and its inhabitants. 
(Credit: ZINIYANGE AUNTONY/AFP/Getty Images)
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#12. To: TooConservative (#10)
I grant your points and the agenda of some players but you can't dismiss their argument out of hand entirely, regardless of the fate of Hawaiian pineapples. So go the Hawaiian pineapples so goes the world. Some dreamed of sustainability, some of having Hawaiian pineapples. Guess who won. Correct, those that dreamed of sustainability, spoke of it and implemented it through legislation via the ballot box. Now there is virtually nothing those of us who dream of the pineapples can do about it, other than pay a fortune to visit Hawaii and buy a pineapple in a local market during the season. They that have a fortune and/or live there still have it both ways. They just f*cked it up for the rest of us. Those that can afford sustainability or are not affected by it don't GAS about the rest of us. Life's a bitch that way, no? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
I don't think we all agree on that. I am pretty sure Willie Boy a A Boris don't. "We need to develop a system that has a social conscience so that heavy handed regulation is not necessary to ensure that individual rights are not infringed." Good luck with that as no system will ever do what only individual humans acting in some degree of concert can do. Kumbaya and good luck to you. What really will work is pricing in the impact of the utilization of a resource and/or asset has on living conditions on the planet. As of now only regulation, i.e. gun point, is doing that not Adam Smith's Invisible Hand. And only the haves, not the have nots that are playing in the game. Please see post #12. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
That's not total true. there are plenty examples of the collective actions of Joe Average have punished or even put out of business unethical players without the need for legislation. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
This is really funny as it has been capitalism has been feeding much of the world for quite sometime now. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
should this be so it is because it is profitable to do so, but then it depends on how you define "much". has capitalism donated food to Etheopia? does capitalism feed China or India? I think by much you mean the middle class of the western world. Does capitalism produce surpluses because government subsidies them, they would not do it otherwise.. the argument is flawed
Go to Russia and see the effects of socialism. I would like to see you on your knees thanking the Lord you were born in Ameerica.
"A silly idea is current that good people do not know what temptation means. This is an obvious lie. Only those who try to resist temptation know how strong it is... A man who gives in to temptation after five minutes simply does not know what it would have been like an hour later. That is why bad people, in one sense, know very little about badness. They have lived a sheltered life by always giving in.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
You will not see me thanking the Lord for being born in america, I was born in a better place, one that can see the rationale for ensuring that everyone is looked after. Call it socialism if you like, but I think of it as responsibility. You can scoff but communism might be a step on the path of reform for some places, China for example; the rotten system had to be swept away. This can give rise to excesses as it did in Russia and China and it too must be swept away. The great difficulty is controlling capitalism so it produces wealth for all and not just wealth for some
Yeah, Irish famine was funny. And slave trade was even funnier, opium for Chinks, Indian lands for free, Belgian liberation of Kongo savages. One could go for long. Ah, the golden era of free market capitalism, before Reds and Pinkos ruined it. And TooCon, no verbal insults, please.
Don't say it. Cuba under Batista was a swanky paradise.
Russia was poorer than America before Communism, and there are some quite capitalist countries in Africa or Latin America that were poorer than both. But why do you thank God? That you were born in America and not in Haiti, is presumably a result of your hard work and entrepreneurship.
IDM it's being done by a capitalistic system, not a commie or socialist system but a capitalistic one. b"ut then it depends on how you define "much". Try this on for size, the U.S. is the world's largest agricultural exporter in the world. And not by a liitle, in 2008 the value of U.S. agricultural exports was $118.3 billion vs. the next country at just $79 billion. China was 10th at $35.9 billion. How do you like dem apples? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Bwahahahahahahaha.... He doesn't have to, you insult yourself every time you post. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Yeah, you are right. Under communism Russia and China both produced a broad and deep middle class with a high standard of living, broader and deeper than the U.S. BTW, what color is the sky in your world? потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Here's some more apples for your pie. For the period of 1988-2009 the U.S. has been the world's largest supplier of food aid - and not by just a little. The U.S. was consistently 5 to 10 times higher in tonnage each year than the 2nd place European Community as a whole and 10 to 100 times higher each year than China. India has occasionally been in the top 25 over this period. Russia has only sporadically been in the top 25 supplier countries and only since 2003. So suck on those facts for awhile. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
A few more facts for you to chew on.
потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
It's an argument worth having. I just don't agree that "sustainability" is no more than a code word for "socialism". This is a classic legal problem of the commons, how to use a common resource for the benefit of all without destroying it for everyone. Let's look at the crisis in groundwater around the world via some articles posted here at LF. In California (and China and some Arab countries), wells are going dry due to overpumping. China is socialist, California (more or less) capitalist, Saudi Arabia theocratic. Yet all three are having to drill new water wells several miles deep and facing shortages. LF: California Land Subsidence Hits Record Levels, nativist nationalist, 2015 LF: US to overtake Saudi Arabia in oil as China's water runs dry, A K A Stone, 2012 LF: Pumped beyond limits, many U.S. aquifers in decline, TooConservative, 2015 LF: Seas Beneath The Sands, A K A Stone, 2007 LF: Time, Water Running Out for America's Biggest Aquifer, war, 2010 So is the depletion of groundwater by overpumping a socialism problem, a capitalism problem, a theocracy problem, or a sustainability problem? I'd say sustainability is the culprit, far more so than political or economic systems.
Him go and get a dose of reality, that will never happen. None of the good little drones have ever left their basements... Vegetarians eat vegetables. Beware of humanitarians!
Before Communism, Russia and China were worse for most people. So was Vietnam. What Communism excels at is getting everybody into a house, getting everybody basic health care, getting everybody enough to eat, and getting everybody literate. The Communists have made sure to shore up the bottom to a universal standard of decency. Ever been through the Tijuana slums, where people are living in cardboard huts, or seen images of the poor places in India, where people are literally starving and living in mud? Well, the Communists take all of the property and redistribute the wealth, and they bring up the bottom. China always had famines. Their last one was under Mao, during the transition. They don't have famines anymore, because Communists are good at shoring up the bottom. Illiteracy rates in poor countries are high, but Communists educate everybody and get to high literacy rates in a generation. The POSITIVE legacy of Communism in all of those countries is that it took what was a completely backward, half-literate society that had starvation and people perishing from the elements, and brought everybody, all the way to the bottom, up to a working class standard of living. And that is quite an achievement, one that capitalst countries do not achieve. The bottom rung in America is more miserable than the bottom rung was in Soviet Russia. That said, once those levels of need satisfaction of the bottom have been rounded up, and everybody else has been rounded down, Communism hasn't gone anywhere, because it has always gotten entangled with war with the rest of the world, and war is expensive. China is a new thing, though. Thanks to size and nuclear weapons, the ChiCom homeland is a secure sanctuary, and the Chinese seem to be transitioning from universal working class Communism to middle class Communism. The nationalist leaven in that bread makes the Chinese model unappealing to neighbors, but everybody loves money, and the Chinese have great gobs of that, so even Goldman Sachs is eagerly sucking at that tit. Cuba, for that matter, seems to also have succeeded at it, and that in spite of having been under a US embargo. The US ideological fear was not that the Communists would take over the world. It was that they would SUCCEED. We did what we could to ensure that it wouldn't, but we were not successful in killing it in the crib. European socialism takes the Communist ideal of rounding up the bottom to a standard of decency, but retaining considerable upward mobility. It's an appealing model, but there is not enough wealth redistribution to make it actually sustainable. Trump sees it, and realizes that getting the American lower class back into factories here, at the expense of cheap goods at the store, is a national security issue. None of the other Republicans see it, or will.
Russia is quickly catching up, sanctions are helping her. (figure for 2015/2016 is not complete yet for obvious reason)
They do not want to see, and they brainwashed population to be scared of any correction as a Socialist conspiracy. Marx said that capitalists are the most shortsighted and self destructing ruling class (compared for example with the aristocracy that they replaced).
Let's recall the absolutely miserable record of those countries like the USSR and Chine who took Marx's political and economic prescriptions seriously. They were a disaster for all involved other than the top elite. Even the elite did far more poorly than if they had pursued a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework. Which is exactly what eventually happened to the major communist countries.
Returning to my earlier post on sustainability and the growing global aquifer crisis, I thought I'd cite an example of the Boston Common from colonial America which applied to Britain and its empire around the world. This is an example of the "tragedy of the commons", well-known in politics and law. The concept of the commons is generally taken to mean any shared and unregulated resources such as atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, or even an office refrigerator; as distinct to the centuries-old use of the word "commons" when colloquially used to indicate formally-recognised common land in its collective sense. The tragedy of the commons concept is often cited in connection with sustainable development, meshing economic growth and environmental protection, as well as in the debate over global warming. It has also been used in analyzing behavior in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation and sociology. The term tragedy of the commons was probably coined by Lloyd and later used by Hardin in his article.[1] Although commons certainly have been known to collapse due to overuse (such as in over-fishing), many examples of commons exist where commons prosper without collapse. Elinor Ostrom stated that it is often claimed that only private ownership or government regulation can prevent the tragedy. It is however in the interests of the users of a commons to keep the common running and complex social schemes are often invented by the users for maintaining them efficiently.[3][4]
TooConservative Exactly,--- " a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework", is a workable system... 'Three hots & a cot' provided for those who need it, --- and dog eat dog (within the rule of constitutional law) for everyone else. Everybody wins...
For your information, Russia was communist, not socialist. If YOU want to see the effects of socialism, visit Scandanavia... it's really quite nice there and a helluva lot better than the banana republic fascism that the GOP is importing from our southern border.
Problem is that capitalist class is incapable to be rational by itself. They devour the substance of the poor and devour each other. Only external threats like in the past from Fascism and Communism combined with smart government leadership like FDR, can force them to allow social development and to save the system from collapse or regressive oppression. Talking that idealized market system is fine, that its problems are abnormal to be blamed on malicious plots, weather and wickedness of individuals or some backward groups, is same as saying that Communism is perfect and that its faults are caused by others.
They also advance science and technology, bringing forward new solutions to isolation and hunger. No one ever suggests that "capitalism" would become self-aware and self-governing. There will always be abusers and the need to protect the commons we all share.
Similarly to Bernie Sanders' lifelong love affair with Danish "socialism", you come up with this old chestnut of the Left. You did notice that Denmark replied to Sanders claiming them as a successful social-democrat country by rejecting entirely the idea that they are socialist in any meaningful sense. They rightly consider their country and economy as a capitalist country. They are also pretty nationalistic by any measure, something we see in how they are rejecting the Mideast migrants who try to settle there. They have no intention of sharing their little country and its welfare state with non-Danes. That kinda deflated Sanders and he stopped talking about Denmark so much.
Exactly,--- " a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework", is a workable system... 'Three hots & a cot' provided for those who need it, --- and dog eat dog (within the rule of constitutional law) for everyone else. Everybody wins... Not if they (we) are restrained by a system of constitutional law that protects individual rights. You're not making a cogent argument above, imo. Try again..
wow the street scenes are the same as they are today . same cars (except now they are classic cars ) ,same poverty . "If you do not take an interest in the affairs of your government, then you are doomed to live under the rule of fools." Plato
Yes, I fundamentally agree with you. "So is the depletion of groundwater by overpumping a socialism problem, a capitalism problem, a theocracy problem, or a sustainability problem?" It's not the nature of the problem but the proposed solution that is under discussion. At one point in my life I would have vigorously argued that people will move to were the resources are. I long since abandoned that argument through observation that vast populations continue to live in places where water and thus crops are scarce. I suppose that there is a rational explanation as to why but it sure eludes me. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
Way to go Pooty Poot. Let's see what happens now that oil is $30/bbl. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
But historically, the great breakthroughs in medicine and physics have been made by state institutions, mostly professors and engineers who work for state- funded institutions, and not the private sector. The private sector is good at commercializing things that are discovered by state-funded science. Universities are not private, even the private ones. They are funded by the government and operate at the level they do because of government funding and research.
The classic example used in Economic classes is wheat farming in the U.S. There is a significant time delay between when wheat is planted and when its is brought to market. The individual farmer most make a decision each year on how much acreage he will plant for wheat versus other crops. The farmer looks at the then current price of wheat and other crops to help guide his decision. The higher the price of wheat at the time of planting the more wheat he likely will plant. But all or most individual farmers will do the same thing. So by the time the wheat comes to market there either will be a glut and therefore the market price of wheat will drop or there will be a shortage and the price will soar. It's called the Cob Web theory. The point is that rational behavior at the micro (individual) leave can and often does led it irrational outcomes at the macro (societal) level. But the real question is who decides how the ground water is rationed and how is the rationing implemented? And this is a question of the political, social, economics and governance of a society not of sustainability. Is the solution by gun point or by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? Will it be right, fair and just or will the powerful continue to get more than their fair share? How well did the Command and Control economies do in providing wheat for their masses? What has history taught us about what to expect from human nature? Oh, wait, yes, I forgot about Shangri-La - how silly of me. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
TooConservative advocated " a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework". I agreed, it's a workable system... 'Three hots & a cot' provided for those who need it, --- and dog eat dog (within the rule of constitutional law) for everyone else. Everybody wins...
Which is heading head long at a rapid pace towards socialism via gun point a la government regulation. BTW, Adam Smith never argued or advocated for unbridled, unrestrained, uncontrolled capitalism. He, like any rational person, understood the darker side of human greed and lack of self-restraint and the need for a gun every now and then. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
" a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework". I agreed, it's a workable system... 'Three hots & a cot' provided for those who need it, --- and dog eat dog (within the rule of constitutional law) for everyone else. Everybody wins... History tells us that capitalism works, but that human nature will tear it down if it is unrestrained by the rule of law. ---- And the only type of rule of law that has worked, -- is American constitutionalism. We are about to correct that trend in this election. - hopefully. You expect me to disagree about guns?
You expect me to disagree about guns? I am referring to the gun point of legislation/regulation not the right to bear arms, i.e. gun point of heavy handed government vs. Adam Smith's the Invisible Hand. потому что Бог хочет это тот путь
The Communists have made sure to shore up the bottom to a universal standard of decency. You're a deluded pseudo christian. Your views are antithesis to Gods word. But keep both hands in your ears and your blind fold on. That way you can keep tooting your own horn and bragging how smart you are. While smarter people then you shrug their shoulders an have a good laugh at your expense.
You are nothing more then a covetous thief like your father the devil.
Closer your lyihng mouth satan. Jesus is king here and your silly anti God comments are void and you will not make any stinky fruit.
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Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestIt can't become a reality until we can dream of it, speak of it, implement it.
#13. To: paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole (#11)
We all agreee that communism is a system of government that has been tried and rejected.
#14. To: paraclete (#11)
Capitalism has demonstrated that it does not respect or demand ethical behaviour.
#15. To: All (#0)
Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050
#16. To: SOSO (#15)
capitalism has been feeding much of the world for quite sometime now
#17. To: Willie Green (#0)
#18. To: GarySpFC (#17)
I would like to see you on your knees thanking the Lord you were born in Ameerica.
#19. To: SOSO, paraclete, Willie Green, Vicomte13, TooConservative (#15)
This is really funny as it has been capitalism has been feeding much of the world for quite sometime now.
#20. To: paraclete (#18)
You can scoff but communism might be a step on the path of reform for some places, China for example; the rotten system had to be swept away.
#21. To: GarySpFC (#17)
Go to Russia and see the effects of socialism. I would like to see you on your knees thanking the Lord you were born in Ameerica.
#22. To: paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, All (#16)
Does capitalism produce surpluses because government subsidies them, they would not do it otherwise..
#23. To: A Pole, paraclete, Willie Green, Vicomte13, TooConservative (#19)
And TooCon, no verbal insults, please.
#24. To: paraclete, GarySpFC (#18)
The great difficulty is controlling capitalism so it produces wealth for all and not just wealth for some
#25. To: paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, TooConservative, All (#22)
#26. To: paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, TooConservative, All (#25)
#27. To: SOSO, paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, nativist nationalist, A K A Stone, Pericles (#26)
A few more facts for you to chew on.
LF: What California can learn from Saudi Arabia’s water mystery, Willie Green, 2015
#28. To: GarySpFC (#17)
Go to Russia and see the effects of socialism.
#29. To: SOSO (#24)
(Edited)
#30. To: SOSO (#25)
Russia has only sporadically been in the top 25 supplier countries and only since 2003.
#31. To: Vicomte13 (#29)
None of the other Republicans see it, or will.
#32. To: A Pole (#31)
Marx said that capitalists are the most shortsighted and self destructing ruling class (compared for example with the aristocracy that they replaced).
#33. To: All, SOSO, paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, nativist nationalist, A K A Stone, Pericles, nolu chan, Vicomte13 (#27)
The Common's purpose has changed over the years. It was once owned by William Blaxton (often given the modernized spelling "Blackstone"), the first European settler of Boston, until it was bought from him by the Puritan founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. During the 1630s, it was used by many families as a cow pasture. However, this only lasted for a few years, as affluent families bought additional cows, which led to overgrazing, a real-life example of the Tragedy of the commons.[8] After grazing was limited in 1646 to 70 cows at a time,[9] the Boston Common continued to host cows until they were formally banned from it in 1830 by Mayor Harrison Gray Otis.[10] The tragedy of the commons is a situation where individuals acting independently and rationally according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the best interests of the whole by depleting some common resource. The concept was based upon an essay written in 1833 by the Victorian economist William Forster Lloyd, who used a hypothetical example of the effects of unregulated grazing on common land in the British Isles.[1] This became widely-known over a century later due to an article written by the ecologist Garrett Hardin in 1968.[2]
So this argument about sustainability is not particularly unique to capitalism and it is certainly nothing new in public policy.
#34. To: TooConservative (#32)
Let's recall the absolutely miserable record of those countries like the USSR and Chine who took Marx's political and economic prescriptions seriously. They were a disaster for all involved other than the top elite. Even the elite did far more poorly than if they had pursued a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework. Which is exactly what eventually happened to the major communist countries.
#35. To: GarySpFC, CZ82, A Pole (#17)
Go to Russia and see the effects of socialism.
#36. To: TooConservative, tpaine (#34)
Exactly,--- " a reasonable social-welfare state within a capitalist framework", is a workable system...
#37. To: A Pole (#36)
Problem is that capitalist class is incapable to be rational by itself. They devour the substance of the poor and devour each other.
#38. To: Willie Green (#35)
If YOU want to see the effects of socialism, visit Scandanavia...
#39. To: A Pole, Y'ALL (#36)
Problem is that capitalist class is incapable to be rational by itself. They devour the substance of the poor and devour each other.
Only external threats like in the past from Fascism and Communism combined with smart government leadership like FDR, can force them to allow social development and to save the system from collapse or regressive oppression. --- Talking that idealized market system is fine, that its problems are abnormal to be blamed on malicious plots, weather and wickedness of individuals or some backward groups, is same as saying that Communism is perfect and that its faults are caused by others.
#40. To: A Pole (#20)
Don't say it. Cuba under Batista was a swanky paradise.
#41. To: TooConservative (#27)
I just don't agree that "sustainability" is no more than a code word for "socialism". This is a classic legal problem of the commons, how to use a common resource for the benefit of all without destroying it for everyone.
#42. To: A Pole (#30)
Russia is quickly catching up, sanctions are helping her.
#43. To: TooConservative (#37)
They also advance science and technology,
#44. To: TooConservative, paraclete, Willie Green, A Pole, nativist nationalist, A K A Stone, Pericles, nolu chan, Vicomte13, All (#33)
It has also been used in analyzing behavior in the fields of economics, evolutionary psychology, anthropology, game theory, politics, taxation and sociology.
#45. To: SOSO, y'all (#44)
SOSO, --- this is a question of the political, social, economics and governance of a society not of sustainability. Is the solution by gun point or by Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? Will it be right, fair and just or will the powerful continue to get more than their fair share? How well did the Command and Control economies do in providing wheat for their masses? ---- What has history taught us about what to expect from human nature-- ?
History tells us that capitalism works, but that human nature will tear it down if it is unrestrained by the rule of law. ---- And the only type of rule of law that has worked, -- is American constitutionalism.
#46. To: tpaine, TooConservative, All (#45)
And the only type of rule of law that has worked, -- is American constitutionalism.
#47. To: SOSO, y'all (#46)
SOSO, ------- What has history taught us about what to expect from human nature-- ?
Which is heading head long at a rapid pace towards socialism via gun point a la government regulation.
BTW, Adam Smith never argued or advocated for unbridled, unrestrained, uncontrolled capitalism. He, like any rational person, understood the darker side of human greed and lack of self-restraint and the need for a gun every now and then.
#48. To: tpaine (#47)
BTW, Adam Smith never argued or advocated for unbridled, unrestrained, uncontrolled capitalism. He, like any rational person, understood the darker side of human greed and lack of self-restraint and the need for a gun every now and then.
#49. To: Vicomte13 (#29)
Before Communism, Russia and China were worse for most people. So was Vietnam. What Communism excels at is getting everybody into a house, getting everybody basic health care, getting everybody enough to eat, and getting everybody literate.
#50. To: Vicomte13 (#29)
Well, the Communists take all of the property and redistribute the wealth,
#51. To: Vicomte13 (#29)
And that is quite an achievement, one that capitalst countries do not achieve.
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