Post by leonid-dalin in Is this a political satire?

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> How can a system based on volentary exchange and freedom possibly be the problem?

ah, yes, voluntarily.

imagine being stuck on an island with your buddy, John, after your airplane has crashed. It's night so you go to sleep, and by the time you wake up, John gathered 98% of every single conceivable food resource and even crafted a couple of weapons. You wake up and you feel hungry so you ask him to spare a couple. John says that it doesn't seem fair for you to profit on his hard labour of merely picking-up fruits and coconuts, so he gives you a deal: If you blow him off, he gives you a couple coconuts.
You have to make a decision, thus your shtick with voluntarism, but you completely ignore the coercive nature of the deal: you got to choose between either slaving yourself to John in order to survive, or choose not to and live in the pillaged wild-land like no other and pray not to die by starvation.
It's the same as within our modern days and the same as subconsciously manipulating someone through the use of subtle propaganda, taboos, ads to do <something>, and the subject claiming he still owns complete free will. There's just not such a thing.

It's even more baffling to me someone could even imagine (traditional) corporations looking out for the greater good of the people when their sole motivation is to <<get profit>>. Pure Capitalism would completely disregard as much as its predecessors (mercantilism and feudalism) humans and enact acts of abuse against them for the sake of profit incentive, as there would be nothing, but a civil war, to stop you from that.

you're pretty much advocating for neo-feudalism, but with corporations in place of nobles; and that's without even questioning where you stand on individual freedoms like gender, abortion, immigration. Mises's work on Economical calculation is so lackluster and I'm not even in support of central-planned stuff in general, assuming you bothered reading theory.

you can do better than that.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-26)

Um yea that's a totally unrealistic senerio for one and has nothing to do with reality.

Sure a Corporation can be motivated purely by profit (greed). So what? In a free market they acheive profit by providing what their customers want better than the competition.

Socialism & Communism have done nothing but cause misery and death. Only ignorance or evil can explain why anyone would advocate for such an Authoritrian system. No I'm advocating for individual Liberty, what has been proven to provide the most opertunity and prosperity to the most people. No central planned or forced economy comes close.

Look at the gaming market for instance, it's about as free as any market under our current Cronyism. No license requirenments, no artificial barriers to entry. Anyone can start making games on their own as we see thousands here on itch. Sure most are garbage but you will have that. The bad will either improve or not continue in the market.

Peace, Love & Liberty is real progress!

dontcallmesir4 years ago(+22)(-1)

You are so full of irony.
Communism is a classless, stateless society. There is no government. There is no capital. It is very difficult to be authoritarian while also opposing the tools of authoritarianism. Socialism ( most commonly ) is a transitory sate following ( most commonly ) a revolution by the workers to seize the means of production. A Socialist government is ( most commonly ) a democratic body of representatives who's chief function is preventing capital from reasserting itself until the need for this withers away and the society transforms to Communism.

Capitalism is where a few people own the means of production and extract a portion of the value added to goods from labor as 'profit.' Not all capitalist systems have 'free' markets, and markets are not unique to capital.

You have never actually read anything about these political systems. You don't understand the one you claim to favor, nor the ones you claim to oppose, yet you call others indoctrinated? You are operating on generations of cold war propaganda that was substituted for education and you were never curious enough to look deeper for yourself. You need to do the actual work to know what these things mean in order to be taken seriously.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-27)

Wow your clearly indoctrinated.

Under Socialism or Communision there is no free choice they rely on force, hence government. Hence they always result in misery and death for anyone that does not agree.

Capitalism is the only system that allows people to create any type of business how they see fit. If you and a bunch of your comrads want to start a community go for it.

Freedom v.s Slavery.

dontcallmesir4 years ago(+22)

I'm pretty sure you don't know what any of these words mean at this point. You display an amazing lack of curiosity. It's okay though. I had the same shitty education, and while it took far too long, I eventually took it on myself, as an old man to educate myself. It can be done. most won't, but if anyone cares, the information is out there. You just won't get it from the usual sources. Their power relies on your ignorance. You'll have to actually crack the books.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-20)

Lack of curiosity?

Lol. Curiosity has nothing to do with me rejecting Statism.

I have and continue to read and educate myself hence my rejection of the main stream and political shift towards Statism.

But I agree their power relies on ignorance. They never use facts as the facts do not support their agenda.

What made you reject all common sense and be lured in by the propaganda?

BlindWayfarer4 years ago(+10)

if life is a zero-sum game, not everyone starts with the same amount of points.
even with the best strategy, most will lose points rather than gain points.

these points will flow to those who already had an advantage.

btw, on free game market as evolutionary playground.

evolution creates things that are the best "fit" for their enviroment, not the best. fitness is not strength.

if lootboxes increases fitness, more games will have them.
if addicition increases fitness, more games will be addictive.
if pissing of the core audience increases fitness, more games will do this.

what we should want is good games, not fit games.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-15)

It's not. Yes life is not fair, everyone is unuiqe. But nothing in a free market prevents you from improving your skills.

And clearly that is not how the gaming market or any other market works. There are plenty of example in gaming and in life.

BlindWayfarer4 years ago(+11)(-1)

i don't care about fairness in that argument.
i care about the best results.
free markets suck at giving the best results.
and getting better results is very realistic.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-12)

Yet all the evidence points to free markets providing the most prosperity for the most people by far. That is how the USA became the most powerful super power and the fastest growing nation by far.

Freedom has a way of motivating people far more than force. Who would have guessed. :)

Reppamons4 years ago(+3)

Care to cite your evidence? Present any kinda source to your claim? Surely if all the evidence points to it, that's not too big of an ask.

Wulfgar_3D4 years ago(+1)(-3)

As I said there is a ton of evidence. I assume you are talking in general since you did not provide any specific counter argument.

So let's start with current world rankings by country:

Probably could've been more clear, but I was specifically asking for proof of free markets have a specific correlation to prosperity above all other kinds. Even more specifically, concrete proof that said prosperity couldn't be matched or outdone by a market with at least SOME degree of regulation to ensure that wealth-hoarding doesn't happen.

However, the sources you provided actually kinda preclude that notion entirely: Singapore, top-ranked on the Economic Freedom Index (EFI from here on 'cuz I don't feel like typing it every time) only places 16th on the Prosperity Index (assuming no weighted values are changed, which they haven't been since your point speaks to general prosperity rather than a specific type). Conversely, Denmark is 1st on the PI but 7th on the EFI. Even more starkly, Norway's second-place PI ranking contrasts heavily with being 28th on the EFI. Granted, those are but two examples, but one would expect that the first and second in prosperity would be very nearly the first and second in economic freedom if your statement were to hold true.

On another note, of the top 10 on the prosperity list, only half of them are described as totally free markets. Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and the Netherlands are all listed by Wikipedia as "mixed economies", which- to save you a google- is "variously defined as an economic system blending elements of market economies with elements of planned economies, free markets with state interventionism, or private enterprise with public enterprise." Germany, in 8th place, is a social market- your dreaded Socialism boogeyman.

With all of that said, of course it bears remembering that correlation does not necessarily indicate causation: we could both be blowing smoke out our asses speaking purely on where statistics do and don't line up. There's many factors at play, especially with systems of this scale, so trying to attribute any given trait to one policy is kind of a fool's errand in the first place.

Also, I mentioned it earlier but I'm acting under the assumption that you're talking general, across-the-board prosperity here. If you're speaking to economic prosperity, then maybe it's a different story, but that's where you lose me anyway- as far as I'm concerned, economic prosperity is secondary to actual quality of living for the average person. What good is money if it doesn't serve to make everyone's lives better, after all? Through that lens, Socialism is a far more sensible choice, because by design it's meant to keep money where it belongs: circulating through the populace's hands, rather than gathering dust and interest in equal measure in some billionaire's bank account.

itch.io

Viewing post in Is this a political satire?

"Country ranking of the 2020 Index of Economic Freedom"

"The Human Freedom Index - 2019"

"THE LEGATUM PROSPERITY INDEX™ 2019"