From Forbes:

Commentary
From Flat World To Free World
Yaron Brook 06.16.08, 6:00 AM ET


Considering the many jubilant boasts by "flat world" devotees in recent years, you might have been tempted to regard economic globalization as a juggernaut, powered by inexorable forces of technology and history.

Big mistake. There's no preordained direction for the world economy--only an undetermined future that will take the shape of whatever ideas and policies we choose to uphold. The lack of an intellectual defense of capitalism has left free markets vulnerable. "The power of the state is reasserting itself," said Daniel Yergin, co-author of The Commanding Heights and a free-market optimist , in The Wall Street Journal recently.

In Latin America, the pro-market reforms of the 1990s are being swallowed by resurgent nationalism. Hugo Chavez's program for national socialism in Venezuela includes the gleeful seizure of foreign assets in oil, mining, cement, steel, telecommunications and electricity.

Ecuador, Bolivia, Nicaragua and neighboring nations have fallen into step with Venezuela, further chilling international trade. Argentina, already burdened by high inflation, recently imposed taxes on grain exports so painful that farmers went on strike nationwide.

Russia has pursued nationalization less noisily than Chavez, using selective prosecution and other threats to bully foreign investors like British Petroleum into surrendering valuable oil and natural gas interests. Even England--which for decades embraced Margaret Thatcher's privatization program, despite a long tradition of state-run enterprise--decided earlier this year to nationalize a private bank, Northern Rock.

Other ominous symptoms of nationalism's growth are the massive sovereign wealth funds springing up in the Middle East, China, Brazil and wherever else oil and export revenues fatten up government coffers instead of private balance sheets.

The International Monetary Fund estimates such funds may control $12 trillion in assets globally by 2012, up from $3 trillion today. Few question such funds' legitimacy, even as their state-appointed managers pursue hidden political agendas from which market distortions and political fallout predictably follow.

In America, politicians are embracing this strong state role so that no matter which party prevails this November, the reform agenda will include trade policies that retreat from economic globalism.

In little more than a decade, Congress approved both North American Free Trade Agreement (1994) and Central America Free Trade Agreement (2005), encouraging speculation that the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) would soon topple trade barriers throughout the hemisphere. Although such agreements don't establish actual freedom of trade, they represent improvements nonetheless over highly protective tariffs.

But this year, the House of Representatives has deep-sixed trade bills negotiated in good faith with Colombia and South Korea, and the FTAA is in cold storage. Meanwhile, Congress has blithely pushed through a farm bill whose trade-distorting provisions seem certain to frustrate the ongoing World Trade Organization talks aimed at lowering trade barriers worldwide.

So why is the world retreating behind nationalistic walls--even in America, where you might least expect it?

The short answer is this: The expanding economic freedom of the past few decades was primarily a response to the bankruptcy of communism and socialism; it was not based on acceptance of capitalism as an ideal. Without such acceptance, recent political advances--despite the economic success they generated--are vulnerable to the new wave of anti-capitalist measures.

For all of capitalism's astounding accomplishments, the intellectual underpinning sufficient to deflect its critics has never been fully identified or understood. Capitalism and the profit motive continue to be viewed with suspicion.

After all, even in America, we live in a culture that lauds self-sacrifice, community service and "giving back" as its moral ideals. Businessmen who selfishly pursue profits, in contradiction to those ideals, are consigned to a moral dungeon from which they can only hope to escape on evenings and weekends. This is why Barack Obama can get away with belittling the "money culture," his wife can smugly counsel youth to shun "corporate America" and John McCain can brag about working "out of patriotism, not for profit."

The odor of moral suspicion that clings to capitalism helps explain why, decade after decade, businessmen are first to be blamed for the never-ending crises actually caused by statist market distortions. Whenever some new emergency arises, culpability falls first on greedy capitalists, whose profit-seeking is regarded as morally suspect, and rarely on government regulators, whose selfless policies are regarded as morally unquestionable.

The resulting pattern is depressingly familiar. Are people in Latin America still poor? The cause must be "exploitative" multinationals, and the cure must be state ownership of natural resources and more forced wealth redistribution. Are food prices rising? Blame the "ruthlessness" of global supply and demand and the "machinations" of speculators, then jettison free trade and ban exports.

Are domestic companies sending jobs overseas? Then temper the "cruelty" of the world market: Ban outsourcing of government projects, weaken the dollar and use tax policy to keep jobs at home.

Capitalism will remain the world's punching bag until such time as the profit motive is rescued from moral oblivion. Ideas shape history--and therefore political reform requires active, fundamental intellectual change, not passive reliance on favorable trends.

What ideas and ideals are needed for freedom to flourish?

History offers no better answer than the American story. Two centuries ago, the Founding Fathers blazed the path to a capitalist future by creating a nation based on the individual's right to life, liberty, property and the selfish pursuit of his own personal happiness.

For the first time, a nation's social system embodied approval of profit-seeking, the lifeblood of capitalism. America's founding principles, all but forgotten today, facilitated the explosive economic globalization of the 19th century and remain our only hope for freedom in the 21st century.

Those founding principles withered because no one could morally defend self-interest. For individual rights to prevail in politics, nothing less than a revolution in ethics will be required--a bloodless revolution--not of arms, but of ideas. You'll know that struggle is over when businessmen are finally viewed not as moral pariahs or ciphers but as paragons of virtue, precisely because they pursue profits.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Karl Marx once said that the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of it's own destruction.

All I can say is thank goodness for that.

Thanks for posting a bit of good news for once Rush. There is a reason people are turning their backs on Capitalism..it's because it doesn't work.

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Reality Internet Personality

Capitalism works fine,

The problem is we've been sold down river by the politicians who vote for everything of interest too corporations. From the Federal Reserve in 1913 during Christmas break, to no Gas Taxes for petrol companies a week ago, corporations are buying out and buying everyone and everything.

The World Bank and IMF are crushing smaller countries like Jamaica, converting them into work camps, like Africa's chocolate industry.

Businesses export jobs because they make far more money paying peanuts in other countries. (See your wardrobe "Made in..." labels for countries being used.) Why pay Americans so much when a bowl of Cocoa puffs a day will put a smile on the face of a poor person living in a created and manipulated hell on Earth? No biting taxes for those companies means more companies export jobs. Trade agreements make it easier for this crap to happen. Just wait until work squads from Mexico are trucked up here to do all our construction work. THEN someone is bound to see the real meaning of the NAU and NWO. (See EU)

It's a race to see who will stand on top of the pyramid, and we are being used as the mortar and foundation.

Tick Tock

As with any and all socially implemented structures, they are all vunerable to corruption. Capitalism works good until those with money want more and pay to make it happen no matter the cost to the people it will affect.

Looks like Rush woke up on the left side of the bed this morning. Like McCain returning to the Republican fold, so will the flow be of the middle class towards the left as things get worse.

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth. To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on. Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

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Reality Internet Personality

Hehe. Rush, I just emailed you that same article an hour ago. Seems you beat me to it.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Karl Marx once said that the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of it's own destruction.

All I can say is thank goodness for that.

Thanks for posting a bit of good news for once Rush. There is a reason people are turning their backs on Capitalism..it's because it doesn't work.

Have you abandoned what's left of your mind? Capitalism works whenever and wherever it's been tried worldwide. You want more statism and government dictatorships (of the proletariat knowing you, but dictatorships nonetheless) that lead to more starvation, less liberty, more untreated diseases, consequent wars, and the deaths of millions.

But hey! Who cares about a few million dead here or there when you're pursuing such a noble 'Ideal'.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth. To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on. Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

I know what you mean Es99.

;)

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"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Karl Marx once said that the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of it's own destruction.

All I can say is thank goodness for that.

Thanks for posting a bit of good news for once Rush. There is a reason people are turning their backs on Capitalism..it's because it doesn't work.

Have you abandoned what's left of your mind? Capitalism works whenever and wherever it's been tried worldwide. You want more statism and government dictatorships (of the proletariat knowing you, but dictatorships nonetheless) that lead to more starvation, less liberty, more untreated diseases, consequent wars, and the deaths of millions.

But hey! Who cares about a few million dead here or there when you're pursuing such a noble 'Ideal'.

Er Robert. We have all those things now because of Capitalism.

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Reality Internet Personality

Karl Marx once said that the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of it's own destruction.

All I can say is thank goodness for that.

Which suggests that you know little to nothing about either capitalism, economics, or frankly, even our pal Karl.

Try that bit where you describe a highly-regulated, overly-taxed, and gov't-controlled system using the terms of the free market and capitalism again. That really worked well last time.

Thanks for posting a bit of good news for once Rush. There is a reason people are turning their backs on Capitalism..it's because it doesn't work.

Heh. Really.

Let me know next time you buy more memory for your computer or, in fact, ANYTHING AT ALL. Your bike. Some free trade crap. Use some of those "free" drugs (well, after the pharmacy charge, of course). Almost anything and everything you use each and every day was provided to you by a capitalist.

For a system that doesn't work (heh heh), you seem to be taking never-ending advantage of all it has to offer. Every day, in everything you do, in every post you put here.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Karl Marx once said that the capitalist system carried within itself the seeds of it's own destruction.

All I can say is thank goodness for that.

Which suggests that you know little to nothing about either capitalism, economics, or frankly, even our pal Karl.

Is that the best you can do Rush?

Try that bit where you describe a highly-regulated, overly-taxed, and gov't-controlled system using the terms of the free market and capitalism again. That really worked well last time.

There is no such thing as a free market and their never will be because it will always be in someone's interest to control it because the profit motive is what drives it.

Heh. Really.

Try saying that when you've run out of food and air. Cos that's the way we are going thanks to good ole capitalism.

Let me know next time you buy more memory for your computer or, in fact, ANYTHING AT ALL. Your bike. Some free trade crap. Use some of those "free" drugs (well, after the pharmacy charge, of course). Almost anything and everything you use each and every day was provided to you by a capitalist.

And most of it I don't really need. I just get told I need it to help perpetrate capitalism and meanwhile millions die in wars fighting over the resources to make this computer so someone (who isn't anywhere near all those dying people from what you call 'ooga booga land') can make obscene amounts of money they don't need either.

Oh..and there were medicines before capitalism...in fact..doesn't china have some of the best medical research in the world? oh..and guess where they find new cures for disease everyday? The rain forests..those same rain forests that the capitalists are cutting down to make farmland to sell americans burgers. 'Cos god knows the Americans really need those burgers. Of course..with no rain forests and less oxygen...well I hope you all enjoy those burgers.

For a system that doesn't work (heh heh), you seem to be taking never-ending advantage of all it has to offer. Every day, in everything you do, in every post you put here.

I'm a victim of it just as much as you. People died so I can post here. I'm not proud of that. If I had known as much as I do now I probably would never have bought one of these computers. Is it really so important that we have computers that we are perpetuating child soldiers in Congo just to make it happen?

No. I don't think it is really. Capitalism works because people have no idea of the TRUE cost of all those things you are so pleased we have.

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Reality Internet Personality

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth.

Nope, that simply isn't true.

Capitalism works because it's the default position of reality. People trade freely among themselves for what they want and need. That's it. They do it under every political system, they do it behind that wall you and Thorin need, they do it in prison, they do it EVERYWHERE. There doesn't need to be growth, at all.

To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on.

But, since growth isn't necessary for capitalism to work, this doesn't mean anything. You don't need limitless resources either because as resources become more scarce, their price rises. As their price rises, other substitute goods become more economical and people switch to those. As fuel prices rise people switch to other methods. Solar becomes more economical.

Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

Can't work why, because you sez so? Safely manage what "we" have, why, because you sez so? You want to run out of oil? Set price limits. There is almost no other way it could happen. But you start with price controls and we'll run out faster than you could ever think possible. Let the price rise freely and people will switch to something else, more sustainable, that becomes more economical.

You see, the problem here is as it always seems to be: I, and literally MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of people do not agree with you. I will ALWAYS put profit and my individual self-interest first.

And when you and Thorin are back behind that wall that you built, I will be there to sell you all of the things that your system won't provide for you, and to welcome the ones that escape the machine gun nests with open arms.

---

Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

But hey! Who cares about a few million dead here or there when you're pursuing such a noble 'Ideal'.

Er Robert. We have all those things now because of Capitalism.

Wow, that didn't take long.

Again: None of those things are the result of capitalism. Those are the result of people initiating force or fraud against others. You calling them capitalism simply reinforces my point that you really aren't even sure what capitalism really is.

Free trade, or capitalism, isn't forcing others to trade with you, or defrauding them, or slaughtering them because you can. That's just force, fraud, or war, none of which are a part capitalism.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth. To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on. Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

I know what you mean Es99.

;)

This is another long disproven socialist/fascist lie about capitalism. Capitalism does not and never has and never will be dependent upon constant 'growth'. Not population growth, not raw materials growth, not customer base growth, not money supply growth, not discovered resources growth.........none of it.


Why do you even THINK such an absurd thing?

There are some basic economics equations that most high schoolers or first year college students are familiar with that involve variables like technology, competentcy of labor force, costs, and so on that you neglect.

The silly notion that raw materials are diminishing has been roundly disproven repeatedly by the late economist Julian Simon. I refer you to the book, "The Ultimate Resource II". No rational person can be dissauded from the disproof of this silly fallacy.

Products are just molecules joined together in ways that humans selfishly value. There are other forms of wealth that are exceptions to the rule but germane to this point is the claim above that we have 'diminishing resources'. Huh?

Of course, marxism's philosophy is dialectical materialism.

That term is not mine but theirs......capitalists aren't materialists, the marxists are.

It's clear some here outright refuse to study elementary economics but still feel entitled to prescribe for the world its life and death future.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

I'm still trying to figure out how Es99 got her computer from child soldiers in the Congo.

Surely a great mystery of the age.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth.

Nope, that simply isn't true.

Capitalism works because it's the default position of reality. People trade freely among themselves for what they want and need. That's it. They do it under every political system, they do it behind that wall you and Thorin need, they do it in prison, they do it EVERYWHERE. There doesn't need to be growth, at all.

To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on.

But, since growth isn't necessary for capitalism to work, this doesn't mean anything. You don't need limitless resources either because as resources become more scarce, their price rises. As their price rises, other substitute goods become more economical and people switch to those. As fuel prices rise people switch to other methods. Solar becomes more economical.

Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

Can't work why, because you sez so? Safely manage what "we" have, why, because you sez so? You want to run out of oil? Set price limits. There is almost no other way it could happen. But you start with price controls and we'll run out faster than you could ever think possible. Let the price rise freely and people will switch to something else, more sustainable, that becomes more economical.

You see, the problem here is as it always seems to be: I, and literally MILLIONS if not BILLIONS of people do not agree with you. I will ALWAYS put profit and my individual self-interest first.

And when you and Thorin are back behind that wall that you built, I will be there to sell you all of the things that your system won't provide for you, and to welcome the ones that escape the machine gun nests with open arms.

Yet a lot of people like Thorin who lived under Communism for years miss those days because of the benefits it bought...

what do people really want Rush? Fancy microwave ovens? Plasma TVs?

or is it more important that we know we will be looked after when we are sick or old. That our children will be educated. That we will never be homeless. That we will always have a job..that we will always have clean water and fresh air to breathe? That there will always be plenty of food to go around? These are the things that we really need..yet under Capitalism MOST of the world DO NOT get that. How on earth can you pretend that the system works? It works for a select few and the rest get royally screwed.

You are living in the deluded ramblings of a disturbed woman who actually believe d that people could be objective..yet she..and most of the follows of hers I have come across are the least objective people I have ever seen. She was bonkers and a product of her situation. Hardly objective at all. I can't believe you actually subscribe to this juvenile 'greed and selfishness is good' which was shown to be a load of ballox. It's childish and most people only go through that stage between the ages of 12 and 18 then they grow out of it. (thankfully before it destroys everyone around them). Ayn Rand didn't. That makes her mentally dysfunctional..not some sort of guru.

The brand of selfishness you subscribe to not only misses the point but is actually self destructive. It's the most bizarre contradiction I have ever seen.

Get your head out the sand and really look around the world. It's in a bad way because people are fighting over the few resources we have in the name of profit. Capitalism has bought us to the brink of destruction. It's not going to get us out of this mess as it's not even in it's interest to acknowledge the mess we're in as a species.

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Reality Internet Personality

I'm still trying to figure out how Es99 got her computer from child soldiers in the Congo.

Surely a great mystery of the age.

Go look up Coltan and use your mighty intellect to figure it out.

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Reality Internet Personality

Capitalism only works as long as there is growth. To have constant growth implies limitless resources. We don't have limitless resources..we share a small biosphere with all sorts of different people and different living things that we are interdependent on. Capitalism simply can't continue to work. The only way we can safely manage the resources we have is through co-operation and through NOT putting profit and individual self interest first.

It worked really well until 2 scumbags got together so 1 suck off the government tit in exchange for his vote...then the word started to spread.

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ES99 claims noone is objective. This is easier for her to assert than the claim, "ES99 is not objective" which would then also be true of course.

Now we all know what to think of any and all of her arguments, claims, or assertions. They're written by someone who intentionally is not objective and has no desire to be.

Reminds me of those silly 'deep' college kids that yawn and say, "There is no truth". Such a claim obviously negates itself. These are my objective observations.

Oh, and before I let slip another lie unanswered repeatedly let me ask why you think capitalism causes pollution? Only the most capitalist and wealthy countries are the cleanest. Every available statistic from anywhere demonstrates that it's the socialist and non capitalist countries that have the dirtiest enviornmental conditions and habits.

As for why you may grow old and become homeless and all alone......that may happen to you in your socialist England but I'm betting it will be caused by other factors than eeeevil capitalism. I think you get my meaning.

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Founder of BOINC team Objectivists. Oh the humanity! Rational people crunching data!
I did NOT authorize this belly writing!

Which suggests that you know little to nothing about either capitalism, economics, or frankly, even our pal Karl.

Is that the best you can do Rush?

I don't know what you mean here. You consistently and either intentionally or not, say things about capitalism and the free market that are utterly wrong.

For example, the time you referred to a misguided, highly-regulated, and gov't-imposed and controlled education program as if that was some sort of free market or capitalist system. It's not. It never was. It wasn't a free market system at all, and yet you used terms to describe it as if it was, and then acted as if you had shown some flaws with capitalism or the free market.

Try that bit where you describe a highly-regulated, overly-taxed, and gov't-controlled system using the terms of the free market and capitalism again. That really worked well last time.

There is no such thing as a free market and their never will be because it will always be in someone's interest to control it because the profit motive is what drives it.

Nope, there is a free market everywhere you look. When you have a boot sale. The illegal drug market. Every time you walk into a store. You, as a consumer, can choose to spend your money, or not, as you wish and no one can force you to spend your money. It doesn't matter that Tesco, or the drug dealer, or you, when you have a boot sale, has a profit motive. It doesn't matter that Newman's Own has a profit motive. It doesn't matter whether they donate all their profit to charities or not. It doesn't matter WHY, or how, or the reason they offer you their goods because the motive behind it can't force you to buy or not buy. The market is free NO MATTER WHAT THE MOTIVE OF SOME FREE TRADED FARMER OR TESCO because neither of them can force you to participate. You can buy, or not. You can walk away. You can pick someone else. You can forsake Tesco and buy corn from the neighbor that grows it in their yard.

In fact, you don't even have to care whether they make a profit or not--all you have to care about it whether what they are offering is worth it to you at the price they are charging. If they are, you might buy, if they aren't you won't.

You see, they don't control YOU, no matter how much profit they want to make, and therefore they don't control the market.

...it's because it doesn't work.
Heh. Really.

Try saying that when you've run out of food and air. Cos that's the way we are going thanks to good ole capitalism.

I won't run out of food or air. In fact, there will always be a capitalist there to sell me food--certainly your swell gov't laws won't provide it, just as it doesn't provide it now, to people who starve.

And most of it I don't really need. I just get told I need it to help perpetrate capitalism and meanwhile millions die in wars fighting over the resources to make this computer so someone (who isn't anywhere near all those dying people from what you call 'ooga booga land') can make obscene amounts of money they don't need either.

Who cares what they tell you? Don't buy it, and don't buy their products. Remove the capitalist provided internet connection to your home. Remove your computers, phones, electronics, and everything else.

You weren't forced to buy any of that stuff, you did it FREELY, you know, the "free" in "free market?" No one could control you, not one of the suppliers that were competing for your money could force you to buy any of it. Yet, you did, you participated in the capitalist free-market system and bought it anyway.

Oh..and there were medicines before capitalism...in fact..doesn't china have some of the best medical research in the world?

I have no idea. You could probably save the NHS BILLIONS of dollars a year if you could convince them to dispense roots and mushrooms instead of participating in the capitalist market and buying their drugs from GlaxoSmithKline. You know them, they're the capitalists that provide the drugs that NHS can't provide for itself.

oh..and guess where they find new cures for disease everyday? The rain forests..those same rain forests that the capitalists are cutting down to make farmland to sell americans burgers. 'Cos god knows the Americans really need those burgers. Of course..with no rain forests and less oxygen...well I hope you all enjoy those burgers.

Well, if that land is important to you, you ought to get all the people who think like you do and start buying it. Put it into a land trust (you know, one of those eeeevil concepts that gov'ts grant limited legal protections) so that it can never be used again. Keep buying it up and don't ever sell it. You don't need a law, you don't need me to agree with you, you don't need my participation, you don't need Kyoto, you don't need anything to do this. Nothing. To use a hackneyed phrase: Geeter dun.

For a system that doesn't work (heh heh), you seem to be taking never-ending advantage of all it has to offer. Every day, in everything you do, in every post you put here.

I'm a victim of it just as much as you. People died so I can post here. I'm not proud of that. If I had known as much as I do now I probably would never have bought one of these computers. Is it really so important that we have computers that we are perpetuating child soldiers in Congo just to make it happen?

You might be doing that, I certainly am not. But all of this is empty rhetoric--you bought (and continue to buy) all of the things that make your life better. It doesn't matter that you happen to buy a little bit less because your conscience makes you, but even if you do, that is your participation in the FREE market. No one, and I mean no one, can force you to buy anything from anyone. Well, except for the gov't, and you seem to love that.

No. I don't think it is really. Capitalism works because people have no idea of the TRUE cost of all those things you are so pleased we have.

Nope, capitalism and the free market works because people trade freely among themselves.

They cannot ever in million years hope to know the "true" cost of anything because they can't ever hope to know all of that information. Take for example, a simple pencil. You would have to know every single thing about the entire rubber eraser supply chain, the entire metal band supply chain, the entire graphite supply chain, the entire wood supply chain, the entire paint supply chain and the entire paint ingredients supply chain. Not to mention, you would have to know about all the shipping and delivery aspects, and you would have to know this, in particular, for each and every pencil company that wants to sell you a pencil. You can't possibly know that, even for a pencil that only has 5 or 6 parts, now think of your computer that has thousands, or your car that might have tens of thousands. You can't possibly ever hope to know all that, let alone for the hundreds of thousands of products that are out there. So you do what everyone else does: buy what you think is worth more to you than the money you paid for it.

That IS capitalism, that IS the free market, and you demonstrate why it actually does work, every single day.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...

Yet a lot of people like Thorin who lived under Communism for years miss those days because of the benefits it bought...

Let them go back. I would never stop them. They can get all the people that think like they do and re-build their walls. They can even put the machine guns nests back--facing in of course. See the difference? I don't care what they do, I won't force them to think as I think--if they are perfectly happy to build their walls, I'll sell them the bricks.

what do people really want Rush? Fancy microwave ovens? Plasma TVs?

I have no idea. I couldn't possibly hope to make decisions for a collective that is what 6.5 billion people large. They will each decide for themselves.

or is it more important that we know we will be looked after when we are sick or old. That our children will be educated. That we will never be homeless. That we will always have a job..that we will always have clean water and fresh air to breathe? That there will always be plenty of food to go around? These are the things that we really need..

These are the things that are important to you, stated as if they only way such things will exist if some collective provides them. It won't. It never has. None of them do now.

yet under Capitalism MOST of the world DO NOT get that. How on earth can you pretend that the system works? It works for a select few and the rest get royally screwed.

"MOST of world DO NOT get that" because MOST of the world ISN'T operating on anything near a capitalist system. They are subject to the whims of those that would use force against them, which isn't capitalist at all.

At the level that they can trade? Amongst themselves, where they can choose to participate or not? capitalism works fine. When it comes to international trade where their gov't preys on them? Well, that ain't capitalism either. It's just force, or fraud, or both.

You are living in the deluded ramblings of a disturbed woman who actually believe d that people could be objective..yet she..and most of the follows of hers I have come across are the least objective people I have ever seen. She was bonkers and a product of her situation. Hardly objective at all. I can't believe you actually subscribe to this juvenile 'greed and selfishness is good' which was shown to be a load of ballox. It's childish and most people only go through that stage between the ages of 12 and 18 then they grow out of it. (thankfully before it destroys everyone around them). Ayn Rand didn't. That makes her mentally dysfunctional..not some sort of guru.

I didn't bring her up. Nothing I said had anything to do with her, and the free market exists and works, whether she ever existed or not for the reasons I presented earlier. In fact, nothing I've said here had anything to do with Ayn Rand, though she supported the free market, of course.

If you think a free market isn't free, if you think you are forced to buy new computers, memory, electronic gadgets or anything else, then demonstrate it. I can guarantee you won't need to bring up extraneous people that have no bearing on the discussion.

The brand of selfishness you subscribe to not only misses the point but is actually self destructive. It's the most bizarre contradiction I have ever seen.

Let me guess, this is true, because you said it is, right? Is it also true because you yourself subscribe to the free market? Do you note the bizarre contradiction involved in decrying capitalism and the free market and then participating in it? "God, I hate this so much, with every fiber of my being, but Jeebus I can't WAIT until my new electronic gadget comes!!!"

Get your head out the sand and really look around the world. It's in a bad way because people are fighting over the few resources we have in the name of profit.

That's not capitalism--that's force and fraud. You will have force and fraud, under any system, because many people, just like you, think it is OK to use force and fraud against others, just because they happen to agree with it.

Capitalism has bought us to the brink of destruction. It's not going to get us out of this mess as it's not even in it's interest to acknowledge the mess we're in as a species.

No, capitalism hasn't. People who think it is OK to use force against others have.

So yes, I reiterate my point, I think you know next to nothing about capitalism, economics, and the free market. At the very least, you seem to want to lump a lot of the evils of the world into some Grand Unified Capitalist Theory, which simply doesn't exist.

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Cordially,
Rush

elrushbo2@theobviousgmail.com
Remove the obvious...