Are you talking about those totally hands off freemarket libertarian morons? I don't think anyone here thinks that is a good system since you will naturally have a few businesses that come out on top, just from peoples lazyness to get everything in one place that does everything well instead of great.
Yeah. Basically anybody who'd use the phrase "it's not capitalism's fault, we have crony capitalism"
But there's always this ambiguity of language. It's an -ism issue. You can be okay with islam (the religion) and not with islamism (the totalitarian political project). But there's no word such as capitalismism. The same word "capitalism" refers to the presence of its structure and to the ideology of having its purest version at the exclusion of anything else.
I think you're perhaps missing the more obvious target. "It's not capitalism's fault, it's government interference in the economy": crazy, market-ruining policies like taxation, socialised healthcare, welfare state, regulations on employment, environment, safety standards, etc. If we didn't have that government interference, we'd live in a glorious utopia.
"If we just got that dang gubmint out of the way, we could give all the money to the rich, and they'd redistribute it to people who really deserve it (like me)."
I'd agree it's mainly cultural. It's why certain countries can be very pro-gun yet have massively less shootings than the US. I don't feel wealth difference alone is why people see the wealthy as heroes, it's that you naturally think that person worked hard to accomplish something unique/special. I think the best examples are sports stars because sports is completely a meritocracy. Same with a musician that people can see the talent of. Naturally you think you need that kinda exceptionalism in other business too but a lot of times it's luck or knowing the right people. I don't think most people think some guy wearing nice suit and wealthy necessarily got there because of some exceptionalism, at least not anymore. Sure certain professions like doctors convey hard work and accomplishment more than say a stock broker or lawyer. I think it's good to reward actual hard work and accomplishments, the problem is most wealthy probably didn't really accomplish anything more than an average person put in that same situation.
I asked mainly because if humans right now aren't in a our natural state as you implied and our natural state was some time in the past, how was that natural state better than our current "artificial state"?
Again, have you ever been around kids, like real young kids that haven't had a chance to really be parented yet? Kids are dicks regardless of how good the parents are.
Sorry if I care more about wealth inequality and a proper public healthcare system (that would massively benefit LGBTQ) than rights people already have...
I would argue that the "natural state" of humanity is essentially a misleading concept that is mostly better avoided in such a debate.
if the conservatives you're so fucking keen to give a pass to stopped trying to hurt queer, particularly trans people, then we wouldn't need to worry about it. You're saying we should just let them "eradicate transgenderism" because you don't give a fuck about queer people because it doesn't affect you.
If I get pleasure from giving other's pleasure, is that self-interest or altruism?
That's because the development of the brain's fundamental structures is incomplete, not because it represents some primal natural human state.
Ever seen a baby try to support their own heads? Can't do it! Clearly the natural state for humans is to walk around all floppy necked! Check mate libs!
I don't think they're putting enough effort in. No pain no gain.
It almost certainly wasn't better.
Uh-huh, but if ownership is public, then even if managerial decisions are taken by a small number of people, the profit isn't siphoned towards a small number of owners. That's the point. That's the difference.
"On the same team"?
No, you precisely don't "naturally" think that. You culturally think that. (I know you meant "naturally" as "spontaneously", but we really have to keep in mind what comes from one specific culture's arbitrary values, especially as absolutely every culture tries to "naturalize" its values to validate and reinforce them). And as I said, you can also culturally think the opposite - for instance that achieving material wealth means having been dishonest, selfish, exploitative. Or even aving performed witchcraft at the expanse of the natural order and society.
I believe that this question is impossible to answer (because we have no access to it, and because it may not even make sense, as a "root" could be neither altruistic or egoistical but more mixed or erratic, and because "human being regardless of culture" may have little meaning in practice, humans being defined -as opposition to animals- by culture). But above all, this question is pointless, because it has zero consequences. A blank slate stage doesn't inform us in anyway on how culture should shape us. If we agree that altruism is good (itself a progressive political statement opposed to the conservative egoism-is-good), the fact that a hypothetically pre-human human is altruistic or egoistical doesn't change a thing about it, and about the reinforcements or discouragements devices that society puts -or should put- in place.
This is a matter of some philosophical debate over the centuries and there are different notions of altruism. One strict form is that humans have a moral duty to help others, even where they do not want to do so. The softer one represents putting others first more generally, but from the stricter perspective this is often not truly altruistic because the do-gooder is only doing it to feel better about themselves, thereby meaning it's a form of self-interest (I think this is a deeply dubious argument).
This is true, in a sense. It's not necessarily under- or over-regulated, but poorly regulated, in part because the same parties being regulated are often writing the regulations with a specific eye to impeding themselves as little as possible whie making new parties entering the market more difficult - that is regulation specifically meant to make it less of a free market.
Well, there are certainly going to be issues with bad regulation generally, although I'm skeptical about how much of a problem companies nobbling government to suppress competition is. I would suggest a much larger problem is simply the ability of larger companies to buy out, legally harass or squash smaller ones, which is more down to the overall legal framework businesses operate in (e.g. IP laws), and not what I'd call regulation. And some regulation that will restrict new competition is surely a good thing.
It's because of these modern liberal schools coddling children, instead of letting us throw the weak babies off of a cliff like those manly Spartans.
Just going to keep throwing them until we develop wings, we must evolve if we're going to defeat the avian menace (my neighbour feeds seagulls).
