Person I'm debating:
@Philip- The Plymouth Bay Colony experiment has little to offer us in understanding our modern global economy. One failed colonial experiment doesn't actually reveal to us the larger implications of socialism in a pluralist society like the United States.
How exactly will the free market create equality? You gave me an example of how socialism doesn't work, now give me a shining example of laissezfaire works and is fair and creates more equality.
I don't trust people with power to be inherently good or fair. Capitalism as it is already relies on the exploitation and near slave labor of the poor and people in developing nations. Less regulation isn't going to stop that.
Many countries employ 'socialist' policies successfully while remaining democracies and are doing quite well.
How exactly will the free market create equality? You gave me an example of how socialism doesn't work, now give me a shining example of laissezfaire works and is fair and creates more equality.
I don't trust people with power to be inherently good or fair. Capitalism as it is already relies on the exploitation and near slave labor of the poor and people in developing nations. Less regulation isn't going to stop that.
Many countries employ 'socialist' policies successfully while remaining democracies and are doing quite well.
Me (Phillip) -
@Person I'm debating - Have you considered writing a book on these topics? I think you have almost enough to write a book about what you want to argue just from just this one discussion lol.
I mean, in a world of scarcity it is necessary for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available. Another way of putting it: if you have a few people in Washington trying to make decisions instead of allowing 310 million people in the United States make their own decisions for themselves, then who do you think will make the better decisions? I don’t think the 400-some people in Congress can make better decisions then 310 million, unless the 400-some people have some crazy mental capacity and decision-making ability that they've been hiding, cause it ain't working.
One failed colony? Well like I said, I used it just as an example and like I said, look at history. Imperfect socialism doesn't work. In the 90’s there were obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. In the 90’s, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the "evil capitalist empire" when they were only 50 miles from the "workers' paradise" of Cuba?
No, less regulation is good in a free society. You said you wanted a “shining example” of how free markets work, and I can give you one. Look at the early 1900’s. Henry Ford used to pay his workers five dollars a day [highest in the world at that time], that was an ounce and a quarter of gold, which at today’s exchange rate, is $2,500 a week. So Ford’s workers were making $2,500 a week, they were paying no federal income taxes and no payroll taxes, there was no minimum wage and there were no unions. We paid the highest wages in the world, yet we produced the highest quality, least expensive products. And how is that possible? It’s possible because we had the smallest government.”
I will say this. There haven’t been many societies that have actually tried free market capitalism for an extensive period of time. My question is, why don’t we try it and see how it works? We’ve tried imperfect socialism for the past 100-some years (I’d argue it started with the Federal Reserve being put in place), so why not try something much closer to imperfect capitalism for like 20 years and see how it works?
I mean, in a world of scarcity it is necessary for an economic system to be based on a clear incentive structure to promote economic efficiency. The real choice we face is between imperfect capitalism and imperfect socialism. Given that choice, the evidence of history overwhelmingly favors capitalism as the greatest wealth-producing economic system available. Another way of putting it: if you have a few people in Washington trying to make decisions instead of allowing 310 million people in the United States make their own decisions for themselves, then who do you think will make the better decisions? I don’t think the 400-some people in Congress can make better decisions then 310 million, unless the 400-some people have some crazy mental capacity and decision-making ability that they've been hiding, cause it ain't working.
One failed colony? Well like I said, I used it just as an example and like I said, look at history. Imperfect socialism doesn't work. In the 90’s there were obvious failures of socialism around the world in Cuba, Eastern Europe, and China. In the 90’s, Haitian refugees were risking their lives trying to get to Florida in homemade boats. Why was it that people were fleeing Haiti and traveling almost 500 miles by ocean to get to the "evil capitalist empire" when they were only 50 miles from the "workers' paradise" of Cuba?
No, less regulation is good in a free society. You said you wanted a “shining example” of how free markets work, and I can give you one. Look at the early 1900’s. Henry Ford used to pay his workers five dollars a day [highest in the world at that time], that was an ounce and a quarter of gold, which at today’s exchange rate, is $2,500 a week. So Ford’s workers were making $2,500 a week, they were paying no federal income taxes and no payroll taxes, there was no minimum wage and there were no unions. We paid the highest wages in the world, yet we produced the highest quality, least expensive products. And how is that possible? It’s possible because we had the smallest government.”
I will say this. There haven’t been many societies that have actually tried free market capitalism for an extensive period of time. My question is, why don’t we try it and see how it works? We’ve tried imperfect socialism for the past 100-some years (I’d argue it started with the Federal Reserve being put in place), so why not try something much closer to imperfect capitalism for like 20 years and see how it works?
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