The altruist mentality runs deep. As long as we think “selfishness” is a vice we will punish success. As long as we punish the quality that makes us successful we will see more unhappiness.
Americans kill themselves all the time, and their country is the richest in the world, you guys have the most selfish culture in the world, you promote selfishness and in your culture materialism is definitely not a vice. And yet, despite your prosperity, you have a high % of suicide. Materialism is soulless.
Ugh, don't follow Rand's mistake of trying to recapture "selfishness" as a neutral thing like it was when coined by psychology. All you do is perpetuate the lie that libertarians are selfish in the modern, greedy, amoral meaning of the term. Enlightened self-interest in a free market drives a person to contribute to society, because legal profit in a free market comes almost exclusively from benefiting the community. But you say "selfish", and people think of antisocial behavior, not social consciousness.
Selfishness IS a vice. But giving sinful human central planners the power to strip the fruit of a man's labor from him, in the name of "generosity" is a bad idea which leads to great evil. It is God's economy that only those who are responsible stewards of little, are trusted with more. That means, the Koch brothers are more likely to efficiently allocate their excess wealth, that a bunch of politicians who have never run a small business. We have the idea that the rich are evil, and have gained their wealth through inappropriate public subsidies and tax evasion. Well, theft should not be rewarded. But, a man who legit builds wealth, is better able to manage it (to the glory of God) than others.
I didn't really want to watch an hour long video, but near the end they really got to the heart of question as to why, in spite of material wealth, people are so unhappy. Capitalism is an economic system which increases productivity and wealth for everybody. But as the old saying goes, money can't buy happiness. What it *can* buy though, is the ability to do different things, explore different lifestyle ideas and to seek out a more meaningful life. And apparently, many people blame capitalism because it doesn't provide that meaning directly. People have to take the extra steps to find out what is meaningful for them, instead of just being able to buy meaning and happiness on Amazon, or whatever.
That provides an explanation for why it doesn’t provide happiness, but the root problem isn’t its lack of affect. The problem is that being forced to live focused primarily on capital decreases happiness because it redirects one’s life from a mindset that improves happiness.
@@converge3111 Capital has a limited and specific use. Unless you're specifically involved with getting or using capital in a business, then it really doesn't have much impact on people's lives and how they live, except in a most general and indirect way. And if you *are* involved with capital, it's still just part of your job. You can forget about it when you're off work. So honestly, I don't see how capital changes one's mindset away from pursuing happiness. By increasing productivity and wealth in society, it's part of increasing our means and ways of pursuing happiness. It's not an end in itself.
@@converge3111if you think capitalism leaves people unhappy, you should dig into the history of socialism. The capital opens up the ability to even seek fulfillment. Without it, you're unhappy and unable to do anything about it.
🐟 22. ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNANCES: SOCIALISM (and its more extreme form, communism) is intrinsically evil, because it is based on the ideology of social and economic egalitarianism, which is both a theoretical and a practical impossibility. Equality exists solely in abstract concepts such as mathematics and arguably in the sub-atomic realm. Many proponents of socialism argue that it is purely an economic system and therefore independent of any particular form of governance. However, it is inconceivable that socialism/communism could be implemented on a nationwide scale without any form of government intervention. If a relatively small number of persons wish to unite in order to form a commune or worker-cooperative, that is their prerogative, but it could never work in a country with a large population, because there will always exist entrepreneurs desirous of engaging in wealth-building enterprises. Even a musician who composes a hit tune wants his song to succeed and earn him inordinate wealth. Socialism reduces individual citizens to utilities, who, in practice, are used to support the ruling elite, who are invariably despotic scoundrels, and very far from ideal leaders (i.e. compassionate and righteous monarchs). Those citizens who display talent in business or the arts are either oppressed, or their gifts are coercively utilized by the corrupt state. Despite purporting to be a fair and equitable system of wealth distribution, those in leadership positions seem to live a far more luxurious lifestyle than the mass of menial workers. Wealth is effectively stolen from the rich. Most destructively, virtuous and holy teachings (“dharma”, in Sanskrit) are repressed by the irreligious and ILLEGITIMATE “government”. The argument that some form of government WELFARE programme is essential to aid those who are unable to financially-support themselves for reasons beyond their control, is fallacious. A righteous ruler (i.e. a saintly monarch) will ensure the welfare of each and every citizen by encouraging private welfare. There is no need for a king to extort money from his subjects in order to feed and clothe the impoverished. Of course, in the highly-unlikely event that civilians are unwilling to help a person in dire straits, the king would step-in to assist that person, as one would expect from a patriarch (father of his people). The head of any nation ought to be the penultimate patriarch, not a selfish buffoon. DEMOCRACY is almost as evil, because, just as the rabble favoured the murderous Barabbas over the good King Jesus, the ignorant masses will overwhelmingly vote for the candidate which promises to fulfil their inane desires, rather than one which will enforce the law, and promote a wholesome and just society. Read Chapter 12 for the most authoritative and concise exegesis of law, morality, and ethics, currently available. Even in the miraculous scenario where the vast majority of the population are holy and righteous citizens, it is still immoral for them to vote for a seemingly-righteous leader. This is because that leader will not be, by definition, a king. As clearly and logically explicated in the previous chapter of this Holy Scripture, MONARCHY is the only lawful form of governance. If an elected ruler is truly righteous, he will not be able to condone the fact that the citizens are paying him to perform a job (which is a working-class role), and that an inordinate amount of time, money and resources are being wasted on political campaigning. Furthermore, an actual ruler does not wimpishly pander to voters - he takes power by (divinely-mandated) force, as one would expect from the penultimate alpha-male in society (the ultimate alpha-male being a priest). The thought of children voting for who will be their parents or teachers, would seem utterly RIDICULOUS to the average person, yet most believe that they are qualified to choose their own ruler - they are most assuredly not. Just as a typical child fails to understand that a piece of sweet, juicy, healthy, delicious fruit is more beneficial for them than a cone of pus-infested, fattening, diabetes-inducing ice-cream, so too can the uneducated proletariat not understand that they are unqualified to choose their own leader, even after it is logically explained to them (as it is in this chapter, as well as in the previous chapter). And by “uneducated”, it is simply meant that they are misguided in the realities of life and in righteous living (“dharma”, in Sanskrit), not in facts and figures or in technical training. Intelligence doesn't necessarily correlate to wisdom. No socialist or democratic government will educate its citizens sufficiently well that the citizens have the knowledge of how to usurp their rule. To put it frankly, democracy is rule by the “lowest common denominator”. It should be obvious that ANARCHY can never ever succeed, because even the smallest possible social unit (the nuclear family) requires a dominator. Any family will fall-apart without a strict male household head. In fact, without the husband/father, there is no family, by definition. The English noun “husband” comes from the Old Norse word “hûsbôndi”, meaning “master of the house”. The same paradigm applies to the extended family, which depends on a strong patriarchal figure (customarily, the eldest or most senior male). Likewise with clans, tribes, villages, towns, cities, and nations or countries. Unfortunately, there are many otherwise-intelligent persons who honestly believe that an ENTIRE country can smoothly run without a leader in place. Any sane person can easily understand that even a nuclear family is unable to function properly without a head of the house, what to speak of a populous nation. The reason for anarchists' distrust of any kind of government is due to the corrupt nature of democratic governments, and the adulteration of the monarchy in recent centuries. However, if anarchists were to understand that most all so-called “kings/queens” in recent centuries were not even close to being true monarchs, they may change their stance on that inane “system”. Most of the problems in human society are directly or indirectly attributable to this relatively modern phenomenon (non-monarchies), since it is the government’s role and sacred DUTY to enforce the law (see Chapter 12), and non-monarchical governments are themselves unlawful. One of the many sinister characteristics of democracy, socialism, and other evil forms of governance, is the desire for their so-called “leaders” to control, or at least influence, the private lives of every single citizen (hence the term “Nanny State”). For example, in the wicked, decadent nations in which this holy scripture was composed, The Philippine Islands and The Southland (or “Australia”, as it is known in the Latin tongue), the DEMONIC governments try, and largely succeed, in controlling the rights of parents to properly raise, discipline and punish their children according to their own morals, compulsory vaccination of infants, enforcing feminist ideology, limiting legitimate powers an employer has over his servants, subsidizing animal agriculture, persecuting religious leaders (even to imprisonment and death, believe it or not. Personally, I have been jailed thrice for executing God’s perfect and pure will), and even trying to negatively influence what people eat and wear. Not that a government shouldn’t control what its citizens wear in public, but it should ensure that they are MODESTLY dressed, according to the guidelines outlined in Chapter 28, which is hardly the case in Australia, the Philippines, and similar nations. At least ninety-nine per cent of Filipinas, for instance, are transvestinal, despite Philippines pretending to be a religious nation. Cont...
People forget capitalism is an economic system which demonstratively helps improve livelihoods and prosperity overall. It's one pillar supporting a thriving expanding society. But without the other supporting pillars, such as a government that respects individual rights, the society as a whole can quickly turn nightmarish.
Exactly right - and we can surely examine the results of this in the Biden administration. They hate capitalism - The only way Biden and company can destroy capitalism is precisely by limiting our rights, which is underway.
@@andrewkerr5296 In terms of voting, the main issue is how we exactly vote. We have a one vote system, but a ranked voting system has proven to be far superior than one vote. If you only get one vote, then you are forced to vote strategically. However, if you get to rank your votes, you can vote based off of what you most prefer to what you least prefer. Therefore, a ranked voting system allows us to have a better "market of politicians" so to speak than if we were to keep with the one vote system. As a whole, I believe anarchy, lack of government/state, is the better way of living than how we have today. However, the philosophy is not there yet to embrace a truer philosophy of freedom. But it is a whole topic in itself when I talk about anarchy. Nonetheless, removing government from our life little by little, allowing for self organization, is what will bring us more wealth and better health.
Problem is not enough capitalism. I cant just buy a slice of land and put a trailer on it. Nooo its gotta be zoned residential, its gotta have an environmental study, has to cost what my neighbors homes cost etc. We've been robbed of a free market
Don't forget Land tax, the biggest commie scam of them all. Just watched No Hard Feelings with Jlaw, and the main dilemma she faces is she is gonna lose her house because she can't pay the rising taxes. So true.
Every time the government touches a market, it becomes a little less capitalist and a little more socialist. The only solution is get the government out.
Do you use any of the following (somewhat euphemistic) terms? • gay • homophobia/homophobe • transphobia/transphobe • trans-sexual • transgender • cis gender • sex worker • capitalism/capitalist • any gender-specific pronoun other than he/she, him/her or his/her Then CONGRATULATIONS - you are (either knowingly or unwittingly) a silly shill for the loony left!
@@markbranham7355 that's as simple as tax code. Corporations exist to make a profit. Does them no good to just randomly own land of it's not generating revenue. Looking at current corporate/LLC ownership of single family residential I'd say we're doing a bad job of keeping it affordable for the little guy. All you'd have to do is create a tax structure that would make investors want nothing to do with it. Higher taxes on multiple owners, LLCs, Corps. And lower on average joes. Simple fix but our gov is owned by corps and boomers that want nothing more than to see property values go to the moon.
Honestly, I'm not asking to be rich. I just want the basic quality of life standards to be livable and reasonably comfortable. We want to work to get what we want, not to get what we need.
The interesting thing is that the definitions of “basic needs” and “reasonable comfort” are subject to hedonic adaptation. The poorest people in the US have access to comforts and resources that the richest men of previous generations could only dream of. Free markets have provided access to all-the poor just need to wait a few extra years for it to get cheap.
Your second and third sentences seem to be contradictory. Getting what you want rather than just what you need is one definition of wealth, it seems to me.
To be fair, comfort is a spectrum. Basic needs adds to comfort up to a certain point. After that, it acts more like a want. It's the difference between getting enough food to meet your nutritional needs (which also increases comfort) and getting more food despite already having your nutritional needs meet (which is mainly done for more comfort). My reason for this suggestion is to allow people the opportunity to focus on doing what they want to do with their lives instead of being focused on struggling to have their basic needs meet (with the added comfort included to reduce stress for mental health reasons). @@SusanHogarth
Very true. Just look at women. The more access to men they have the more unhappy they become with the choices they have in the area. Same with men. Each group just handles with discontent differently.
I would argue that we need to more embrace multigenerational living, like the old days. The would allow more money into the family for better housing potential, education opportunities for the kids, and a much better support system than most couples have.
One problem is with the WORD capitalism, which was coined by the first self-described anarchist, Proudhon, to describe the political class using the state to monopolize capital. And that's what most people who hate "capitalism" mean today, when they attack the word. In other words, many anti-capitalists agree with us on the evils of the politicians controlling the economy. So when we defend "capitalism" we are talking past them, making opponents of potential allies.
Many people I meet who are against "capitalism" are against all work in general. They believe they should be paid by the government to pursue whatever desire they want that makes them happy. I have met many people who scream about the evils of capitalism that want to be huge sums of money for being a social activist. Also America is not capitalist, it is a corportists country. They will gladly sacrifice the people to increase the power of the corporation.
Because people have been taught just enough socialism to resent capitalism for not working better, while voting for policies that make it worse. We're unlucky to have been born after an abnormally prosperous time that was never in no way, shape or form guaranteed to last forever. Now we want that again, all the while having proportionatelly more thanks to our technological advances, all the while defending causes and voting for things that have no relation to those days beyond the empty promises of activists recycling 100 year old talking points. We'll never go back to supporting families on a single income and buying houses in our 20s because in their resentment and finger pointing, people prioritize appeals to emotion that _sound_ like they'd get us there and not what _could_ actually see it done. Not mention the elephant in the room, that the people most likely to gasIight you over a paranoia over "you'll own nothing and be happy" are the most likely to be resentful and unhappy over how little they own.
In America, capitalism made us all wealthier up until the 1960's. The average American is not wealthier than 60 years ago, the purchasing power of our dollar has tanked and the cost of real wealth, land, healthcare, and real estate is priced out of reach of the average American. Having more devices that distract us like better phones, computers, and TVs are not wealth adding or have any real way to improve our mental or physical health. Material wealth improves our state of happiness only to the point that our basic physical needs are met. Our general state of happiness is more dependent on our personal relationships and sense of belonging to our community. Social media, and technology had only made us increasingly isolated, confused by too much information, and divided be mass media manipulation.
No, capitalism is not at fault for the devaluation of the dollar. That is the sole responsibility of government. The government interfering with the free market is the cause of all our ills today.
@@joeblogs6598 I agree. My point is that in the US, since the 1960's our economy has become too fascist for capitalism to make the average American wealthier. I should have stated that point more clearly. We really stopped being a capitalist society at the turn of the 20th century with the Spanish American war turning the US into an old world imperial state along with the creation of the FDA and passing of Anti-Trust legislation giving the federal government unprecedented power to regulate free trade between private entities within the US. By 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve, ban of alcohol, and creation of a federal income tax the US's transition from capitalism to fascism was solidified and the great march to serfdom began leading to ever more government interference and manipulation of markets and continual creation of new immortal beaurcracries after causing the Great Depression of the 1930's. Despite that, having come out of WW2 as a victor with our dollar being the global reserve currency and still being a manufacturing powerhouse with still some safeguards protecting individual property rights, the average American was able to achieve unprecedented levels of wealth for several decades. But once the dollar was no longer redeemable in gold and became fully fiat by 1971, there has been nothing stopping endless government printing, corporate welfare, and war that has hollowed out the economic middle class and driven up the price of essential goods and wealth building assets. Americans can nolonger accumulate wealth by simply working hard and saving, but instead have to become avid investors and debtors. Artificial low interest rates punish saving and reward debtors who accumulate debt and pump money into stocks and real-estate assets. Ever expanding regulations crush small businesses and innovators. Speculators and middle men, looters, and government/corporate colluders are rewarded most. Our economy is propped up by theft and deception. Whatever vestiges of capitalism remain intact, is not enough to save us from the downward trend where every successive generation now has a lower life expectancy than the last.
A computer that lies to me less than the govt likes to DOES serve my mental health. I enjoy air conditioning everywhere lately, and the phone on the wall at home now fits in my pocket and does a zillion things I couldn't imagine in my youth. I want more money too, but I'm pretty sure I'm still richer already
The interviewer asked such good questions. Good interview. I have shifted and become more leftist and authoritarian in my views over the last few years, and I admit that this is in part a reaction to what I see as failing liberal systems. If my understanding of these problems is misplaced or exaggerated, I want to know. Even though my gut tells me this guy is probably wrong about a lot of things, I see here a good faith discussion that seems to be better informed than I am, so I’ll be getting the book and seeing for myself. I just wish this stuff were simpler than it is.
I can't tell you how nice it is to encounter someone who's previously come to very different conclusions than I have, yet still has an open mind and acknowledges they may not have the truth yet. (I hope I don't stop believing that myself.) It gives me hope, which I've been in desperately short supply of. We're raised being told that the U.S. has a free market system, because historically it has, but it's way less free than it used to be. It just happens that Europe, to which we usually get compared, has even less free markets, so the description still seems to fit. People generally aren't aware of all the ways the state constrains how markets are able to respond to economic disruptions and new, utopian state interventions. At the encouragement of politicians trying to sell their own "solution", people routinely misattribute bad results to natural market behavior, not realizing that the results we see are shaped _at least_ as much by past politicians' "solutions" as by natural market behavior. And it's only gotten more true, yet more obscured, over time as the patchwork of "solutions" has gotten thicker and more complicated. Speaking of the U.S. getting less economically free over time, a lot of people on the left make the mistake of thinking that that's somehow intrinsically linked to the increase in social freedom that's happened over roughly the same time period. It's not. There's no reason that increasing economic freedom would bring back past bigotry or even slavery as you might think based on poorly thought through ideas like "capitalism caused slavery". Market forces actually disincentivize bigotry and any other irrational beliefs that lead people to turn away otherwise beneficial exchanges. A dollar's a dollar, after all. Many don't realize it because U.S. History classes usually don't go into enough detail about why they were passed, but Jim Crow laws requiring segregation in businesses are a demonstration of this. They were passed because the more bigoted in Southern society saw that the general level of bigotry had weakened to the point that the least bigoted white business owners were starting to cater to black customers too, and they didn't want the still-segregated businesses to be out-competed by those "greedy and immoral" businesses. So they used the state governments to require continued segregation. Without that state intervention, the South couldn't have sustained segregation nearly as long as it did.
Btw, it just so happens that another libertarian org is right now mailing free copies of a book that sounds like it might be a good read for you at this point given your (totally understandable) comment about economics being complicated. Its author is fairly well known among libertarians for his writing about the environment and global development. He too is Scandinavian, interestingly enough. mises doot org slashy hapodfree
Because we have the leisure time and money to b*ch and moan about what we don't have..... before the public was just trying to survive and didn't have time to whine.
@@ItsAllCulturalMarxism Conservatives aren't conservative and progressives aren't progressive. Each side just likes labels so they can attack the other group as being different.
@@redtiger7268 "progress" is debated by idiots these days. "conservatism" is retention of a previous state. The universe has entropy as a fundamental law.
We all need stuff and, in the current state of human development, we need money so that we can buy stuff. But, apparently, money and stuff are not the only measures of living standards of happiness and satisfaction. I remember a song lyrics that had the phrase, "I want it all and I want it now". I think that feeling has a little something to do with the dissatisfaction people feel. At the end of WW2, Winston Churchill not only wanted to keep the British Empire, he wanted to expand it. There is never enough. Never. I remember a movie line that went somewhere like, "you can never bee too rich". I could go on.
It seems to me that a 50% or even 70% marginal tax rate would be OK. A UBI with a 50% tax rate until it's gone could work. Sometimes our current welfare system creates marginal tax rates above 100%.
@@aliendroneservices6621 income. So for example everyone gets $260/week from the UBI and instead of the 1st dollar earned being from a job being taxed at 15.2% it would be taxed at 50%. Then when earnings go over $520/week and the tax equals the UBI, the tax on the next dollar earned would be taxed at the much lower normal rate, maybe about 20%. Earnings from job. UBI. Tax. Net 0 260. 0. 260 300 260. 150 410 520. 260. 260. 520 600. 260. 276 584
In the primary way that it matters, Americans got poorer in the last 50 years. Housing, education and health care were all far more affordable in 1970 than today. Sure, we have social media, amazon and cheap laptops, but I guarantee that the vast majority of people would forgo all that for an 80% discount on their house. Even though I'm generally bullish on capitalism, I would say that whatever system is practiced by the US has failed the average American.
That’s not capitalism, it’s an oligarchy. The people are only as strong as our individual rights and our capacity for competition in the workforce and the business market.
Exactly 💯 Capitalism is great definitely helped in many areas. Problem is the those near the top are not properly allowing the masses to enjoy in this Capitalism. Now homeless is the fastest growing sector sector. They can't afford homes, food, transportation etc. Instead we have more Billionaires holding all the wealth. This is disastrous
@@rawgster Personally I don't think its as much a problem wealth hoarding as it is government incompetence. If capitalism could work properly, many more houses would be built, putting downward pressure on prices. Government guaranteed student loans basically allowed universities to increase tuition without limit and enormous bureaucracy around the health-care sector prevents increasing the supply of providers and other cost-reducing measures. One thing is for sure, the status quo can't last and reforms are badly needed.
@@rawgsterdon’t forget many states have policies that create and encourage homelessness. It’s a racket. Just look at many non profits that have insane administration costs that curtail aid.
@@yevgeniygrechka6431reforms are badly needed. First we need to squash the ability for lobbyists to function. Pass single issue voting and force Congress to approach a bill individually, instead of as an omnibus bill. Until then, we can’t overcome the poor policies that are bleeding our country dry.
"All" is the keyword. It made SOME people rich. I think capitalism is still the best system we've come up with but, and I know this is a naughty word here -with regulation. With not even "pure" capitalism, you end up with what we have now with the 1% controlling everything. Outsourcing for more profit, businesses too big to fail, no middle class, etc. Socialism would cause its own set of problems. You need a happy balance between them. Capitalism as a base but regulated at its highest level. Ban outsourcing, break up big companies, ALL companies pay taxes and their fair share and we have a healthy, social safety net.
You say "with not even 'pure' capitalism" like you'd expect even greater concentration of wealth with "pure" capitalism. That's not the case. The concentration of wealth we see is greatly driven by political cronyism. If you took that away, as in "pure" capitalism, competition would greatly reduce the concentration of new wealth.
We put a handle on that control that only the 1% could possibly grasp because they sold us that as a solution to the problems of too much elite control. And now they're doing it again, for more control. Should we give them more power?
I would love for the youth to fight against the government with the same useless rigor that they do against capitalism. Sit in front of government vehicles like regulation inspectors.
Capitalism is not unlike a Republic. It runs great when there is an accepted moral order. It falls apart when the moral order falls apart. Not that other forms of government are any better in these same circumstances, because immoral dictators can be more dangerous than immoral citizens. But with the abandonment of morality the potential for evil between these types of governments very nearly equalizes.
God is my strength. Every month I struggle to pay rent and I struggle to buy groceries for my children. But yet God has provided. These past three years have been hard. Since suffering a heart attack two years ago and my on going battle with lupus I’m overwhelmed. Both of my sons are autistic but they are thriving now that I’m homeschooling them because the public school system wasn’t working, my hours to work are limited like my finances. I TRUST YOU LORD blind faith even as I struggle. I feel ashamed because I get put down over my situation. Thankfully I find strength in you Jesus. I love you Heavenly Father please continue to keep me in your grace and mercy.
We're rich, but house poor. We're not hungry, but our food is full of toxic seed oils, synthetic hormones and too much sugar. We're well-off but we're over-medicated and over-stimulated. We're working, but not with anything fulfilling. Our jobs are busy-work that steals our best years. We don't know our neighbors. We don't participate in local government. Our families are broken or too spread out. We don't believe in god and replaced the spirit with materialism and vanity. There is too much pornography all around us, so much so that we don't even notice how bad it is anymore. The free market isn't to root of our problems, but we aren't solving them with more money.
@@Sandman2007 I do as an individual, yes. My post was meant relatively. Many many people are in significantly worse shape that myself and they don't even understand why.
@@blarghblarghblarghand they have every opportunity to right their own ship. Sure, not everyone was dealt the same cards, but we make do with it. They have knowledge at their fingertips, all they got to do is separate the real from the misinformation.
@@Sandman2007 "All they have to do"- It has never been more difficult to separate fact from fiction. Most of our children are completely brainwashed by propaganda in their schools, the internet, TV, music, etc. Unless you were keen on the cogs before the internet became a giant prison, you are completely in the dark.
Sounds like you aren't taking responsiblity for your life and are making many poor choices. Freedom to chose is work but with trial and error or good mentors it all pays off. Grow up and live a better life
This is so ridiculous, I can go down a never ending list and objectively show how our environment is better now for humans and animals than it has been in hundreds if not thousands of years. The environment is different than the ebbs and flows of pure nature but man as a gardener makes nature more prosporous. Study more than surface material and use that brain you were born with
What makes us unhappy is that all these dummies are constantly trying to make things worse by proposing and implementing ideas that get in the way of freedom and free markets.
He said scholars are still not sure whether or not it is mostly a drug overdose problem. That's a lot more tentative and humble than how you characterized it.
The reason we're so unhappy is because, not only have we lost God in our hearts but we can never be content with what we have but we also, generally speaking, are too lazy to achieve to make our desires a reality. It's important to be content with what you have but always striving to do/be better. Capitalism isn't to blame for our discontentment. Laziness is. It's like how Seamus from Freedom Tooms says, there's nothing wrong with being lazy, but keep in mind that you're CHOOSING to not invest that time in something more productive, and all choices have both good & bad consequences.
If capitalism is better than socialism, why do we always try to sabotage socialism when our enemies adopt it? Shouldn't it just fall under its own weight? Shouldn't we encourage our enemies to adopt socialism so they will fail faster? The scheming to sabotage socialism wth sancstions such as to Cuba and Venezuela makes me think that maybe capitalism isn't that powerful and socialism is stronger that is why we need to adopt such methods.
Because we destroyed all the structures of society (faith, family, community). This doesn't have to happen in capitalism (we had both for a long time), and certainly does happen when socialism occurs.
Socialism doesn’t come close to being a satisfactory explanation for these changes in structures and values in the US. We can talk intelligently about the pitfalls of socialism without uncritically making it a boogeyman that we blame any and all problems on. Might as well just blame Satan while you’re at it.
most of us are not running huge companies. most of us are not 2 meters tall. most of us are not extremely beautiful. the irony is that most of us have food, phones, place to live, etc., better than most of us had 200 years ago (prior to industrialization)
This guy can’t even distinguish between trade and free trade. Almost every single currently wealthy nation has imposed some of the strongest tariffs to nurture and protect its arising industries besides Hong Kong (if you can even call it a country) and the Netherlands. So he is supporting something that isn’t even used by the vast majority of countries to become wealthy. In other words, basically no evidence for his claims
Since the 1980s and the huge distortions to the market from the influence of the massive cocaine black market we have been in a kelptocracy since 1980, sure the average of everyone is doing better but this hides the fact that the majority of big winners int he economy are people who can legally inside trade to make money, people who have a legal pass from CIA involvement to do drug trafficking carte blanche.
I don't think either of these guys understands the problems of a common person. One's plight is the others opportunity for investment. Just because global poverty isn't as bad overall doesn't mean we're moving in a good direction. The average person in the west is poor then they were two years ago even if they're making more money now
2 rich guys discuss how capitalism has solved every problem, everywhere, all at once. I wonder how many will be convinced? Not to promote socialism but neither of this systems are as good as their biggest proponents advertise.
few things i have to say, before i continue watchign this video: 1. wages has remained stagnant since the 08 housing crisis. 2. inflation has remained high despite the census beaus attempts at downplaying inflation by not counting factors that make it much higher. 3. under capitalism you are not guaranteed shelter, food, clean water and basic healthcare. 4. under capitalism, you are also not guaranteed that the money will have the same value and that banks have common sense to not make the same mistakes. 5. under capitalism, the free market does not respect your own civil rights and liberties as well, such as free speech, self defense, not searching or seizing your property without just cause, etc etc etc. there needs to be regulations on the free market that are common sense. there is too many regulations that is not common sense and will make it needlessly hard for anyone to get a leg up in the world, that much we can all agree on as libertarians. however, i think the only laws that should be enforced are the following: 1. wages that keep up with national inflation and local cost of living. 2. for property owners and developers, they have to provide the individual ability to grow food, and produce clean water and electricity on site that powers and waters and feeds the household living in it. i think its safe to assume that groceries stores are not gonna be around forever, and we should make sure every apartment has its own year-round greenhouse and rainwater collection system that is filtered and recycled, as well as apartments that power themselves or the entire building through solar, wind, geothermal, hydro power or gas generators. during WWII, you had people growing their own food, and lets be honest here, the current grocery store system will not last forever, especially during a time of global conflict. 3. employers and business owners have to respect individual rights of citizens and cannot fire them on the basis of self defense, or remove protestors for protesting, so long as the protestors do not block any part of the business. 4. banks cannot make money from thin air or virtually, that they cannot make unsafe loans unless they are backed by government bonds and they cannot use customer money as colladeral for any loans lent to anyone else other than the customer who has their money or personal items in the bank. 5. no immunity should be granted to any corporation regardless of stance or relation to the constitution 6. and finally, make sure private doctors and pharmaceutical companies cannot force or fearmonger any form of treatment to anyone and informed consent of the patient must be enforced heavily. we cannot have a privatized equivalent to nazi germany like what we've had for the last 3 years and employers have to respect what a doctor says their patient working for the company does/needs without firing the patient, or laying them off. employers also cannot enforce treatments for any reason whatsoever and dangle the employees jobs in exchange for treatments. this includes vaccinations, and medications, as well as any other treatments like surgery, changes in diet, more exercise, homeopathic remedies, home remedies, etc. again we cannot continue having a medical fascist system thats recently turned privatized by elites and politicians wanting to score extra brownie points with voters. we had laws that mandated treatments since the late 1800s, and its time we ended it once and for all. we have to make sure people are able to live decent lives without working over 8+ hours a day, and i think as a more social libertarian that some regulations like the above should be at minimum in any regulatory addition to the constitution. at one point we will have to make additions to the constitution of the united states, that legalizes basically everything while restricting some stuff. i think the 6 regulatory steps should be very key. yea grocery stores will still be a thing but they won't be a part of modern society, we could still buy flour and eggs if the year round greenhouse don't produce em, we just have to make sure developers have the greenhouse so people are not reliant on grocery stores. thats been a mistake since day one, because it leaves people to be needlessly unprepared for certain things, like global conflict and economic downturns.
"...I think [...] laws that should be enforced are..." 1. Would outlaw employment. 2. Would outlaw housing. 3. Would outlaw employment. 4. Would outlaw finance.
@@aliendroneservices6621taking my stuff out of context is akin to selling a lie. none of the constitutional regulations i proposed would outlaw any of it. hyperbolic much or are you willfully wanting total economic anarchy?
@@Zeakthecat "taking my stuff out of context..." Obviously couldn't have been anything I did in my reply to you, since I used the same item-numbers you did. "...are you willfully wanting total economic anarchy?" Anarchy isn't what results from absence of economic-distortives. See: *_The Birth of Plenty_* (2004), by William J. Bernstein.
@@aliendroneservices6621its called manipulation and half truth. something libertarians despise. if you are a true man of your worth, then spill your arguments without manipulation, or any half truths whatsoever. be blunt.
@@Zeakthecat It's called *_using the same item-numbers you used._* Stop being so sensitive to criticism. "something libertarians despise." Libertarians are latent-socialists. What they might despise is irrelevant.
You’re free to believe what you want, but we’re trying to have a serious conversation about economic systems. Divine providence is not at all in the scope of that conversation.
@@jacobstamm Discuss what about economic systems? There is no serious discussion to be had there. Capitalism produces far far better outcomes than the alternative. This is a discussion about happiness, and that is only derived from faith in God.
@@bobhill4364 So all of the profoundly happy people around the globe who’ve found prosperity, happiness, and purpose outside of a theistic worldview are… lying? Conspiring to trick us into becoming nihilistic hedonists? I’d love to hear how the millions of us in this camp factor into your worldview.
Snore. What is Capitalism? What is the definition being used? If it's the book definition, there has never been large scale capitalism on the face of the earth. There has been natural resource extraction and slavery.
@@noone8418 Slavery is trying to walk away from a master and being bludgeoned in the back of the head. This is not difficult to understand, and if you think the history of economic growth has been anything other than slavery, you are absolutely psychotic. Self-absorbed libertarians, when it comes to economics, are perpetually insufferable and willfully dishonest.
As if we couldn't return to the economic freedom of the late 1800s without bringing back slavery. 🙄 Resource extraction is part of meeting human needs and reasonable desires. Infinite sustainability doesn't exist on a single planet.
If you take out China out of "extreme poverty reduced" argument as a data point, extreme poverty has actually increased. Massively. As a percentage. And China practices nothing close to free market neoliberalism these guys propose. China practices state owned enterprises. BTW, SOEs have higher productivity in China than Western equivalent corpos in free economic zones. China has built its infrastructure and standard of living with the administrative state. Not free markets reigning in. Where free markets reigned in is India. And India compared to China has seen much lesser growth, proving that the Chinese approach is better. And that approach is socialism with Chinese charateristics, not free markets.
I'm on the fence when it comes to these "capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread" hucksters-- there is obviously 'something' to these claims-- but most of the alleviation of "extreme poverty" has come about through a redefinition of what constitutes "extreme poverty". Anyone who believes that whereas $1.99 per day is "extreme poverty", $2.99 per day is not, is clearly an idiot. And as we all know, there is no use in talking to idiots.
@@PrezVeto I'm sure he's using the World Bank definition since the numbers lifted out of "extreme poverty" meme are always the same and always related to the WB figures. Not only do they change the level when looking for uplift, they change the year from which the change is measured in order to ensure that China's poverty alleviation success gets included in the figures. If you exclude China, because Chinese capitalism bears little resemblance to the "free market" boondoggle beloved of libertarians, the number of impoverished people globally has increased. As I said, I'm on the fence about the net positive effects of capitalism overall. I don't doubt the Chinese "political capitalism", with its locus of control in the Party, has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. But guys like this pretend otherwise.
@@spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069 Once in 2000 and again in 2008. If you are interested in this, you need to do some research on your own. The Divide by Jason Hickel goes over this. Articles have been published critiquing these sleight-of-hand magics to make non-Chinese poverty disappear. The truth is out there.
@@jacobstamm Capitalism has not made us all richer, all of us are not. Forall persons x: exists x , x lives under capitalism: therefore x is richer. While sound is invalid. Not to mention the wishy-washy proposition “richer”.
@@relvar3158 I swear I’m not trying to bust your chops here, but that pseudocode you used to explain what you mean went completely over my head. Could you clarify?
Because capitalism erodes social bonds, which are a deeper source of happiness than material goods. The emphasis on the individual and their particular happiness is the root of the problem, stemming from the original classical liberalism, carried on through its mutation into the Left and its current mutation in Wokeism. Individual liberty is an important value, no doubt, but it's only one among several that have to be balanced by a State. To put it another way, if the individual can truthfully be said to be born with certain liberties, it's equally true to say that they're born with certain duties, namely to to the ethnic/racial/civilizational collective into which they're born. As soon as you conceive of the individual as born with liberties _only,_ you're on a direct logical line to Transhumanism, via socialism and wokeism. The individual must be free - first from economic bonds, then from social bonds generally, and eventually from the bonds of reality itself. There is nothing _within_ that logical cluster of ideas to stop this "progress." Which is why the Right is just a tardy version of the Left - it shares the same premises as the Left, so it has no argument against the Left. Economic efficiency, which is capitalism's strong suit, is also an important value, but again, it's only one value among several that a State has to balance. Same for cheap goods, etc.
I agree social bonds and relations are extremely important to happiness and meaning, but I don't agree capitalism in any way erodes them. Social trust was extremely low in Soviet countries compared with the capitalist west. Capitalism is not the answer to life's big questions, but it makes us wealthy and free to pursue meaning and happiness.
Also I do not agree wokeism and current leftism are heirs to Classical Liberalism, they may use liberal words as camouflage, but their intellectual heritage is from Marxism and Collectivism. Group identity over individualism etc. Sadly the right seems to be falling into the same pit recently.
@@AnaIvanovic4ever And what's social trust like now, in the West? Much of mass immigration is justified on the ground of economic benefits, much of outsourcing the same. But the effect of both of those has been bad for the West - communities destroyed, etc. As I said, economic efficiency, cheaper goods, etc., _is_ a value, but it can't be the _ruling_ value. The ruling value must always be the continuity and reproduction of a people on their own land, their cohesion as a group, and their total well-being on all levels - material, social and spiritual. Insofar as economic efficiency serves that function, then it's good, when it doesn't, then it's bad. Going slightly deeper, it's often been said that things like Communism and Fascism required the development of a "new X Man" - and that's true. But so does capitalism - it requires the Individualistic Utility Maximizer Man. People just aren't like that, they're more of a mixed bag with elements of some of all of these things. For example, in the West, which has always most favoured capitalism, there was also at the same time the idea of caring for the poor, the sick, the elderly as a collective effort, quite outside the capitalist system (in fact, even in Iceland, the lauded example of anarcho-capitalism, there was a parallel system of welfare). But that's precisely an element of socialism. IOW, what people in the West have always wanted is a mixed system. Now that mixture will certainly introduce some economic inefficiency (some goods may be more expensive, production goods may be used less efficiently, with less left over for the making of other things), but that may be a cost worth paying for the non-economic benefits. Some central direction of the economy by the State, some element of keeping capitalism in check, can be a good thing - not to the point of "picking winners and losers," but to the point of, as I said, weighing up and balancing the various values it's worth pursuing in a civilized society.
@@gurugeorge That was a lot of text. Yes social trust has declined some due to migration. I do not agree capitalism require some kind of new man, homo economicus or whatever. Rather the opposite, already Adam Smith noted that the baker doesn't bake bread out of the kindness of his heart but to earn a living, and we all benefit. Capitalism is the system that takes our basic urges and turns them into wealth for everyone. There is no contradiction between capitalism and helping others. I want to get paid for the work I do, and I give money to things that give me no immidiate reward. The great thing with capitalism and liberal democracy is that you are free to do what you find rewarding and meaningful. What is your alternative, what do you want to change?
@@AnaIvanovic4ever There is no contradiction between capitalism and individual charity, but there is a contradiction between capitalism and any sort of collective provision of welfare. Re. the Smith point, that doesn't mean we should rely only on that - rather, his point is that even selfishness can be turned to collective benefit given the right social structure and incentives. Which is true; that much of the capitalist narrative is true - e.g. the kind of predatory, sociopathic instinct manifest by top executives can indeed be harnessed to collective benefit with the right system. My position is Third Positionism (Fascism, National Socialism). The legitimacy of the State comes not from the pursuit of any abstraction (liberty, equality, justice, etc.) but rather from the State's fundamental remit being the preservation and flourishing (on all levels) of the genetically-interrelated people living in the nation - it's a concrete goal, rather than an abstract one. With that in place, questions of economic system are merely pragmatic - whatever works. If taking charge of the "commanding heights" works, then do it, if not, don't. Economically speaking, the general pattern for Third Positionism falls out more or less like "social democracy" - you have a broad free market/small business foundation but with strong State oversight, public goods (infrastructure, medicine, welfare, etc.) provided by the State, and some measured degree of nationalization (especially if a company gets to the point that it needs government handouts to survive - then it should be nationalized, no question).
![Understanding Marxism: Q&A with Richard D. Wolff [June 2019]](/img/n.gif)
The altruist mentality runs deep. As long as we think “selfishness” is a vice we will punish success. As long as we punish the quality that makes us successful we will see more unhappiness.
Well said.
Americans kill themselves all the time, and their country is the richest in the world, you guys have the most selfish culture in the world, you promote selfishness and in your culture materialism is definitely not a vice.
And yet, despite your prosperity, you have a high % of suicide.
Materialism is soulless.
Competition and the profit motive are the enemies of altruism.
Ugh, don't follow Rand's mistake of trying to recapture "selfishness" as a neutral thing like it was when coined by psychology. All you do is perpetuate the lie that libertarians are selfish in the modern, greedy, amoral meaning of the term.
Enlightened self-interest in a free market drives a person to contribute to society, because legal profit in a free market comes almost exclusively from benefiting the community.
But you say "selfish", and people think of antisocial behavior, not social consciousness.
Selfishness IS a vice. But giving sinful human central planners the power to strip the fruit of a man's labor from him, in the name of "generosity" is a bad idea which leads to great evil. It is God's economy that only those who are responsible stewards of little, are trusted with more. That means, the Koch brothers are more likely to efficiently allocate their excess wealth, that a bunch of politicians who have never run a small business. We have the idea that the rich are evil, and have gained their wealth through inappropriate public subsidies and tax evasion. Well, theft should not be rewarded. But, a man who legit builds wealth, is better able to manage it (to the glory of God) than others.
I didn't really want to watch an hour long video, but near the end they really got to the heart of question as to why, in spite of material wealth, people are so unhappy. Capitalism is an economic system which increases productivity and wealth for everybody. But as the old saying goes, money can't buy happiness. What it *can* buy though, is the ability to do different things, explore different lifestyle ideas and to seek out a more meaningful life. And apparently, many people blame capitalism because it doesn't provide that meaning directly. People have to take the extra steps to find out what is meaningful for them, instead of just being able to buy meaning and happiness on Amazon, or whatever.
The best comment I've read on bootube in months, right here
That provides an explanation for why it doesn’t provide happiness, but the root problem isn’t its lack of affect. The problem is that being forced to live focused primarily on capital decreases happiness because it redirects one’s life from a mindset that improves happiness.
@@converge3111 Capital has a limited and specific use. Unless you're specifically involved with getting or using capital in a business, then it really doesn't have much impact on people's lives and how they live, except in a most general and indirect way. And if you *are* involved with capital, it's still just part of your job. You can forget about it when you're off work.
So honestly, I don't see how capital changes one's mindset away from pursuing happiness. By increasing productivity and wealth in society, it's part of increasing our means and ways of pursuing happiness. It's not an end in itself.
@@converge3111if you think capitalism leaves people unhappy, you should dig into the history of socialism.
The capital opens up the ability to even seek fulfillment. Without it, you're unhappy and unable to do anything about it.
🐟 22. ILLEGITIMATE GOVERNANCES:
SOCIALISM (and its more extreme form, communism) is intrinsically evil, because it is based on the ideology of social and economic egalitarianism, which is both a theoretical and a practical impossibility. Equality exists solely in abstract concepts such as mathematics and arguably in the sub-atomic realm. Many proponents of socialism argue that it is purely an economic system and therefore independent of any particular form of governance. However, it is inconceivable that socialism/communism could be implemented on a nationwide scale without any form of government intervention. If a relatively small number of persons wish to unite in order to form a commune or worker-cooperative, that is their prerogative, but it could never work in a country with a large population, because there will always exist entrepreneurs desirous of engaging in wealth-building enterprises. Even a musician who composes a hit tune wants his song to succeed and earn him inordinate wealth.
Socialism reduces individual citizens to utilities, who, in practice, are used to support the ruling elite, who are invariably despotic scoundrels, and very far from ideal leaders (i.e. compassionate and righteous monarchs). Those citizens who display talent in business or the arts are either oppressed, or their gifts are coercively utilized by the corrupt state. Despite purporting to be a fair and equitable system of wealth distribution, those in leadership positions seem to live a far more luxurious lifestyle than the mass of menial workers. Wealth is effectively stolen from the rich. Most destructively, virtuous and holy teachings (“dharma”, in Sanskrit) are repressed by the irreligious and ILLEGITIMATE “government”.
The argument that some form of government WELFARE programme is essential to aid those who are unable to financially-support themselves for reasons beyond their control, is fallacious. A righteous ruler (i.e. a saintly monarch) will ensure the welfare of each and every citizen by encouraging private welfare. There is no need for a king to extort money from his subjects in order to feed and clothe the impoverished. Of course, in the highly-unlikely event that civilians are unwilling to help a person in dire straits, the king would step-in to assist that person, as one would expect from a patriarch (father of his people). The head of any nation ought to be the penultimate patriarch, not a selfish buffoon.
DEMOCRACY is almost as evil, because, just as the rabble favoured the murderous Barabbas over the good King Jesus, the ignorant masses will overwhelmingly vote for the candidate which promises to fulfil their inane desires, rather than one which will enforce the law, and promote a wholesome and just society. Read Chapter 12 for the most authoritative and concise exegesis of law, morality, and ethics, currently available.
Even in the miraculous scenario where the vast majority of the population are holy and righteous citizens, it is still immoral for them to vote for a seemingly-righteous leader. This is because that leader will not be, by definition, a king. As clearly and logically explicated in the previous chapter of this Holy Scripture, MONARCHY is the only lawful form of governance. If an elected ruler is truly righteous, he will not be able to condone the fact that the citizens are paying him to perform a job (which is a working-class role), and that an inordinate amount of time, money and resources are being wasted on political campaigning. Furthermore, an actual ruler does not wimpishly pander to voters - he takes power by (divinely-mandated) force, as one would expect from the penultimate alpha-male in society (the ultimate alpha-male being a priest).
The thought of children voting for who will be their parents or teachers, would seem utterly RIDICULOUS to the average person, yet most believe that they are qualified to choose their own ruler - they are most assuredly not. Just as a typical child fails to understand that a piece of sweet, juicy, healthy, delicious fruit is more beneficial for them than a cone of pus-infested, fattening, diabetes-inducing ice-cream, so too can the uneducated proletariat not understand that they are unqualified to choose their own leader, even after it is logically explained to them (as it is in this chapter, as well as in the previous chapter). And by “uneducated”, it is simply meant that they are misguided in the realities of life and in righteous living (“dharma”, in Sanskrit), not in facts and figures or in technical training. Intelligence doesn't necessarily correlate to wisdom. No socialist or democratic government will educate its citizens sufficiently well that the citizens have the knowledge of how to usurp their rule.
To put it frankly, democracy is rule by the “lowest common denominator”.
It should be obvious that ANARCHY can never ever succeed, because even the smallest possible social unit (the nuclear family) requires a dominator. Any family will fall-apart without a strict male household head. In fact, without the husband/father, there is no family, by definition. The English noun “husband” comes from the Old Norse word “hûsbôndi”, meaning “master of the house”.
The same paradigm applies to the extended family, which depends on a strong patriarchal figure (customarily, the eldest or most senior male). Likewise with clans, tribes, villages, towns, cities, and nations or countries.
Unfortunately, there are many otherwise-intelligent persons who honestly believe that an ENTIRE country can smoothly run without a leader in place. Any sane person can easily understand that even a nuclear family is unable to function properly without a head of the house, what to speak of a populous nation. The reason for anarchists' distrust of any kind of government is due to the corrupt nature of democratic governments, and the adulteration of the monarchy in recent centuries. However, if anarchists were to understand that most all so-called “kings/queens” in recent centuries were not even close to being true monarchs, they may change their stance on that inane “system”.
Most of the problems in human society are directly or indirectly attributable to this relatively modern phenomenon (non-monarchies), since it is the government’s role and sacred DUTY to enforce the law (see Chapter 12), and non-monarchical governments are themselves unlawful.
One of the many sinister characteristics of democracy, socialism, and other evil forms of governance, is the desire for their so-called “leaders” to control, or at least influence, the private lives of every single citizen (hence the term “Nanny State”). For example, in the wicked, decadent nations in which this holy scripture was composed, The Philippine Islands and The Southland (or “Australia”, as it is known in the Latin tongue), the DEMONIC governments try, and largely succeed, in controlling the rights of parents to properly raise, discipline and punish their children according to their own morals, compulsory vaccination of infants, enforcing feminist ideology, limiting legitimate powers an employer has over his servants, subsidizing animal agriculture, persecuting religious leaders (even to imprisonment and death, believe it or not. Personally, I have been jailed thrice for executing God’s perfect and pure will), and even trying to negatively influence what people eat and wear.
Not that a government shouldn’t control what its citizens wear in public, but it should ensure that they are MODESTLY dressed, according to the guidelines outlined in Chapter 28, which is hardly the case in Australia, the Philippines, and similar nations. At least ninety-nine per cent of Filipinas, for instance, are transvestinal, despite Philippines pretending to be a religious nation.
Cont...
People forget capitalism is an economic system which demonstratively helps improve livelihoods and prosperity overall. It's one pillar supporting a thriving expanding society. But without the other supporting pillars, such as a government that respects individual rights, the society as a whole can quickly turn nightmarish.
Exactly right - and we can surely examine the results of this in the Biden administration. They hate capitalism -
The only way Biden and company can destroy capitalism is precisely by limiting our rights, which is underway.
The Sheep don't give a stuff about Individual Rights, just look at Voting behavior in the West
@@andrewkerr5296 In terms of voting, the main issue is how we exactly vote. We have a one vote system, but a ranked voting system has proven to be far superior than one vote. If you only get one vote, then you are forced to vote strategically. However, if you get to rank your votes, you can vote based off of what you most prefer to what you least prefer.
Therefore, a ranked voting system allows us to have a better "market of politicians" so to speak than if we were to keep with the one vote system.
As a whole, I believe anarchy, lack of government/state, is the better way of living than how we have today. However, the philosophy is not there yet to embrace a truer philosophy of freedom. But it is a whole topic in itself when I talk about anarchy. Nonetheless, removing government from our life little by little, allowing for self organization, is what will bring us more wealth and better health.
Like the right to Healthcare, livable wage, and tuition free 4 year college.
You are the sheep Andrew not smart enough to see through conservatives propaganda
Problem is not enough capitalism. I cant just buy a slice of land and put a trailer on it. Nooo its gotta be zoned residential, its gotta have an environmental study, has to cost what my neighbors homes cost etc. We've been robbed of a free market
Don't forget Land tax, the biggest commie scam of them all. Just watched No Hard Feelings with Jlaw, and the main dilemma she faces is she is gonna lose her house because she can't pay the rising taxes. So true.
Every time the government touches a market, it becomes a little less capitalist and a little more socialist. The only solution is get the government out.
Do you use any of the following (somewhat euphemistic) terms?
• gay
• homophobia/homophobe
• transphobia/transphobe
• trans-sexual
• transgender
• cis gender
• sex worker
• capitalism/capitalist
• any gender-specific pronoun other than he/she, him/her or his/her
Then CONGRATULATIONS - you are (either knowingly or unwittingly) a silly shill for the loony left!
@@markbranham7355 that's as simple as tax code. Corporations exist to make a profit. Does them no good to just randomly own land of it's not generating revenue. Looking at current corporate/LLC ownership of single family residential I'd say we're doing a bad job of keeping it affordable for the little guy. All you'd have to do is create a tax structure that would make investors want nothing to do with it. Higher taxes on multiple owners, LLCs, Corps. And lower on average joes. Simple fix but our gov is owned by corps and boomers that want nothing more than to see property values go to the moon.
Honestly, I'm not asking to be rich. I just want the basic quality of life standards to be livable and reasonably comfortable. We want to work to get what we want, not to get what we need.
The interesting thing is that the definitions of “basic needs” and “reasonable comfort” are subject to hedonic adaptation. The poorest people in the US have access to comforts and resources that the richest men of previous generations could only dream of.
Free markets have provided access to all-the poor just need to wait a few extra years for it to get cheap.
Your second and third sentences seem to be contradictory. Getting what you want rather than just what you need is one definition of wealth, it seems to me.
To be fair, comfort is a spectrum. Basic needs adds to comfort up to a certain point. After that, it acts more like a want. It's the difference between getting enough food to meet your nutritional needs (which also increases comfort) and getting more food despite already having your nutritional needs meet (which is mainly done for more comfort).
My reason for this suggestion is to allow people the opportunity to focus on doing what they want to do with their lives instead of being focused on struggling to have their basic needs meet (with the added comfort included to reduce stress for mental health reasons). @@SusanHogarth
Don't you want what you need? Seems like plenty enough overlap
Having more stuff doesn't make people happier. People need purpose.
Very true. Just look at women. The more access to men they have the more unhappy they become with the choices they have in the area. Same with men. Each group just handles with discontent differently.
Exactly. For all of our history our lives were a struggle to survive. That struggle is gone and we are bored with our fat easy lives.
@@stevenalvarado-doc7334 Conversely, people were never bored with their mortal diseases, rotten teeth, crippling wars, and lack of sanitation.
But having no stuff makes people miserable and desperate.
I would argue that we need to more embrace multigenerational living, like the old days. The would allow more money into the family for better housing potential, education opportunities for the kids, and a much better support system than most couples have.
yes, but it takes time
With the number of divorces and broken/dysfunctional homes, and younger people just giving up on having a family, this is unlikely to be widespread.
One problem is with the WORD capitalism, which was coined by the first self-described anarchist, Proudhon, to describe the political class using the state to monopolize capital.
And that's what most people who hate "capitalism" mean today, when they attack the word.
In other words, many anti-capitalists agree with us on the evils of the politicians controlling the economy.
So when we defend "capitalism" we are talking past them, making opponents of potential allies.
What is another word for private property, an open market and the profit motive?
No matter what we call it, those who want to take from those who have to line their own pockets will always hate it
For this exact reason I like the term “free enterprise” better
Many people I meet who are against "capitalism" are against all work in general. They believe they should be paid by the government to pursue whatever desire they want that makes them happy. I have met many people who scream about the evils of capitalism that want to be huge sums of money for being a social activist. Also America is not capitalist, it is a corportists country. They will gladly sacrifice the people to increase the power of the corporation.
@@mustang607 Free markets, laissez-faire, free enterprise. Even just "free society", which will always produce a market system.
More capitalism (free trade) and much less government is THE solution to make the world a better place.
All the best.
Because people have been taught just enough socialism to resent capitalism for not working better, while voting for policies that make it worse. We're unlucky to have been born after an abnormally prosperous time that was never in no way, shape or form guaranteed to last forever. Now we want that again, all the while having proportionatelly more thanks to our technological advances, all the while defending causes and voting for things that have no relation to those days beyond the empty promises of activists recycling 100 year old talking points.
We'll never go back to supporting families on a single income and buying houses in our 20s because in their resentment and finger pointing, people prioritize appeals to emotion that _sound_ like they'd get us there and not what _could_ actually see it done.
Not mention the elephant in the room, that the people most likely to gasIight you over a paranoia over "you'll own nothing and be happy" are the most likely to be resentful and unhappy over how little they own.
Get rid of the income tax and restore the gold standard. That will prevent the theft from the working class.
In America, capitalism made us all wealthier up until the 1960's. The average American is not wealthier than 60 years ago, the purchasing power of our dollar has tanked and the cost of real wealth, land, healthcare, and real estate is priced out of reach of the average American. Having more devices that distract us like better phones, computers, and TVs are not wealth adding or have any real way to improve our mental or physical health. Material wealth improves our state of happiness only to the point that our basic physical needs are met. Our general state of happiness is more dependent on our personal relationships and sense of belonging to our community. Social media, and technology had only made us increasingly isolated, confused by too much information, and divided be mass media manipulation.
No, capitalism is not at fault for the devaluation of the dollar. That is the sole responsibility of government. The government interfering with the free market is the cause of all our ills today.
@@joeblogs6598 I agree. My point is that in the US, since the 1960's our economy has become too fascist for capitalism to make the average American wealthier. I should have stated that point more clearly. We really stopped being a capitalist society at the turn of the 20th century with the Spanish American war turning the US into an old world imperial state along with the creation of the FDA and passing of Anti-Trust legislation giving the federal government unprecedented power to regulate free trade between private entities within the US. By 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve, ban of alcohol, and creation of a federal income tax the US's transition from capitalism to fascism was solidified and the great march to serfdom began leading to ever more government interference and manipulation of markets and continual creation of new immortal beaurcracries after causing the Great Depression of the 1930's. Despite that, having come out of WW2 as a victor with our dollar being the global reserve currency and still being a manufacturing powerhouse with still some safeguards protecting individual property rights, the average American was able to achieve unprecedented levels of wealth for several decades. But once the dollar was no longer redeemable in gold and became fully fiat by 1971, there has been nothing stopping endless government printing, corporate welfare, and war that has hollowed out the economic middle class and driven up the price of essential goods and wealth building assets. Americans can nolonger accumulate wealth by simply working hard and saving, but instead have to become avid investors and debtors. Artificial low interest rates punish saving and reward debtors who accumulate debt and pump money into stocks and real-estate assets. Ever expanding regulations crush small businesses and innovators. Speculators and middle men, looters, and government/corporate colluders are rewarded most. Our economy is propped up by theft and deception. Whatever vestiges of capitalism remain intact, is not enough to save us from the downward trend where every successive generation now has a lower life expectancy than the last.
@@JEP-Tech I agree. The government has become far to big. It's expansion is the largest contributor to our woes.
A computer that lies to me less than the govt likes to DOES serve my mental health. I enjoy air conditioning everywhere lately, and the phone on the wall at home now fits in my pocket and does a zillion things I couldn't imagine in my youth.
I want more money too, but I'm pretty sure I'm still richer already
Where in the world is there actually limited government? Not here in the US for sure.
The interviewer asked such good questions. Good interview.
I have shifted and become more leftist and authoritarian in my views over the last few years, and I admit that this is in part a reaction to what I see as failing liberal systems. If my understanding of these problems is misplaced or exaggerated, I want to know. Even though my gut tells me this guy is probably wrong about a lot of things, I see here a good faith discussion that seems to be better informed than I am, so I’ll be getting the book and seeing for myself.
I just wish this stuff were simpler than it is.
I can't tell you how nice it is to encounter someone who's previously come to very different conclusions than I have, yet still has an open mind and acknowledges they may not have the truth yet. (I hope I don't stop believing that myself.) It gives me hope, which I've been in desperately short supply of.
We're raised being told that the U.S. has a free market system, because historically it has, but it's way less free than it used to be. It just happens that Europe, to which we usually get compared, has even less free markets, so the description still seems to fit. People generally aren't aware of all the ways the state constrains how markets are able to respond to economic disruptions and new, utopian state interventions. At the encouragement of politicians trying to sell their own "solution", people routinely misattribute bad results to natural market behavior, not realizing that the results we see are shaped _at least_ as much by past politicians' "solutions" as by natural market behavior. And it's only gotten more true, yet more obscured, over time as the patchwork of "solutions" has gotten thicker and more complicated.
Speaking of the U.S. getting less economically free over time, a lot of people on the left make the mistake of thinking that that's somehow intrinsically linked to the increase in social freedom that's happened over roughly the same time period. It's not. There's no reason that increasing economic freedom would bring back past bigotry or even slavery as you might think based on poorly thought through ideas like "capitalism caused slavery". Market forces actually disincentivize bigotry and any other irrational beliefs that lead people to turn away otherwise beneficial exchanges. A dollar's a dollar, after all. Many don't realize it because U.S. History classes usually don't go into enough detail about why they were passed, but Jim Crow laws requiring segregation in businesses are a demonstration of this. They were passed because the more bigoted in Southern society saw that the general level of bigotry had weakened to the point that the least bigoted white business owners were starting to cater to black customers too, and they didn't want the still-segregated businesses to be out-competed by those "greedy and immoral" businesses. So they used the state governments to require continued segregation. Without that state intervention, the South couldn't have sustained segregation nearly as long as it did.
@@PrezVeto Why can’t you tell me?
Johan is excellent all around, but as you can tell from this interview, most importantly, he is a great communicator.
Btw, it just so happens that another libertarian org is right now mailing free copies of a book that sounds like it might be a good read for you at this point given your (totally understandable) comment about economics being complicated. Its author is fairly well known among libertarians for his writing about the environment and global development. He too is Scandinavian, interestingly enough.
mises doot org slashy hapodfree
@@jacobstammgrrr the YT censorbot didn't like me completing the saying about what I'd have to do to you if I told you 😛
Because we have the leisure time and money to b*ch and moan about what we don't have..... before the public was just trying to survive and didn't have time to whine.
Very good point. Complaining is a luxury we were previously unable to afford.
It would be helpful to add the date or the moth and year of the interview.
I really need to listen to this podcast.
Has there ever been a time where 'people' have been happy?
Progressives is why we're so unhappy
Especially after they embraced the axioms of postmodernism and weaponization of language.
Conservatives aren't happy either.
@@ItsAllCulturalMarxism Conservatives aren't conservative and progressives aren't progressive. Each side just likes labels so they can attack the other group as being different.
@@redtiger7268 Responding to OP
@@redtiger7268 "progress" is debated by idiots these days. "conservatism" is retention of a previous state. The universe has entropy as a fundamental law.
We all need stuff and, in the current state of human development, we need money so that we can buy stuff. But, apparently, money and stuff are not the only measures of living standards of happiness and satisfaction. I remember a song lyrics that had the phrase, "I want it all and I want it now". I think that feeling has a little something to do with the dissatisfaction people feel. At the end of WW2, Winston Churchill not only wanted to keep the British Empire, he wanted to expand it. There is never enough. Never. I remember a movie line that went somewhere like, "you can never bee too rich". I could go on.
It seems to me that a 50% or even 70% marginal tax rate would be OK. A UBI with a 50% tax rate until it's gone could work. Sometimes our current welfare system creates marginal tax rates above 100%.
Tax on what, exactly? Myriad things can be taxed.
@@aliendroneservices6621 income. So for example everyone gets $260/week from the UBI and instead of the 1st dollar earned being from a job being taxed at 15.2% it would be taxed at 50%. Then when earnings go over $520/week and the tax equals the UBI, the tax on the next dollar earned would be taxed at the much lower normal rate, maybe about 20%.
Earnings
from job. UBI. Tax. Net
0 260. 0. 260
300 260. 150 410
520. 260. 260. 520
600. 260. 276 584
Until what is gone? The tax base?
Nice interview, love Johan Norberg
Because material possessions are not the only means of achieving happiness.
In the primary way that it matters, Americans got poorer in the last 50 years. Housing, education and health care were all far more affordable in 1970 than today. Sure, we have social media, amazon and cheap laptops, but I guarantee that the vast majority of people would forgo all that for an 80% discount on their house.
Even though I'm generally bullish on capitalism, I would say that whatever system is practiced by the US has failed the average American.
That’s not capitalism, it’s an oligarchy. The people are only as strong as our individual rights and our capacity for competition in the workforce and the business market.
Exactly 💯
Capitalism is great definitely helped in many areas. Problem is the those near the top are not properly allowing the masses to enjoy in this Capitalism. Now homeless is the fastest growing sector sector. They can't afford homes, food, transportation etc. Instead we have more Billionaires holding all the wealth. This is disastrous
@@rawgster Personally I don't think its as much a problem wealth hoarding as it is government incompetence. If capitalism could work properly, many more houses would be built, putting downward pressure on prices. Government guaranteed student loans basically allowed universities to increase tuition without limit and enormous bureaucracy around the health-care sector prevents increasing the supply of providers and other cost-reducing measures.
One thing is for sure, the status quo can't last and reforms are badly needed.
@@rawgsterdon’t forget many states have policies that create and encourage homelessness. It’s a racket. Just look at many non profits that have insane administration costs that curtail aid.
@@yevgeniygrechka6431reforms are badly needed. First we need to squash the ability for lobbyists to function. Pass single issue voting and force Congress to approach a bill individually, instead of as an omnibus bill. Until then, we can’t overcome the poor policies that are bleeding our country dry.
Your life being an empty wasteland is not because of an economic system.
I am happy and informed more with the podcast. My surprise is how Swedes speak very good English, yet they keep emphasizing Swedish in their society.
I want free markets, not capitalism.
Greed will never reach a peaceful place
"All" is the keyword. It made SOME people rich. I think capitalism is still the best system we've come up with but, and I know this is a naughty word here -with regulation. With not even "pure" capitalism, you end up with what we have now with the 1% controlling everything. Outsourcing for more profit, businesses too big to fail, no middle class, etc. Socialism would cause its own set of problems. You need a happy balance between them. Capitalism as a base but regulated at its highest level. Ban outsourcing, break up big companies, ALL companies pay taxes and their fair share and we have a healthy, social safety net.
You say "with not even 'pure' capitalism" like you'd expect even greater concentration of wealth with "pure" capitalism. That's not the case. The concentration of wealth we see is greatly driven by political cronyism. If you took that away, as in "pure" capitalism, competition would greatly reduce the concentration of new wealth.
We put a handle on that control that only the 1% could possibly grasp because they sold us that as a solution to the problems of too much elite control.
And now they're doing it again, for more control.
Should we give them more power?
I would love for the youth to fight against the government with the same useless rigor that they do against capitalism. Sit in front of government vehicles like regulation inspectors.
“Just be shallow and self centered and you will be happy. Maybe all these suicides are mostly accidents.”
The problem isn't capitalism itself....it's runaway capitalism. We've lost all balance, and the corporations are getting far too big.
Sounds like runaway corporatism. Corporations are a fiction supported by govt.
Capitalism is not unlike a Republic. It runs great when there is an accepted moral order. It falls apart when the moral order falls apart. Not that other forms of government are any better in these same circumstances, because immoral dictators can be more dangerous than immoral citizens. But with the abandonment of morality the potential for evil between these types of governments very nearly equalizes.
Because: What else do we have to bitch about.
God is my strength. Every month I struggle to pay rent and I struggle to buy groceries for my children. But yet God has provided. These past three years have been hard. Since suffering a heart attack two years ago and my on going battle with lupus I’m overwhelmed. Both of my sons are autistic but they are thriving now that I’m homeschooling them because the public school system wasn’t working, my hours to work are limited like my finances. I TRUST YOU LORD blind faith even as I struggle. I feel ashamed because I get put down over my situation. Thankfully I find strength in you Jesus. I love you Heavenly Father please continue to keep me in your grace and mercy.
We're rich, but house poor.
We're not hungry, but our food is full of toxic seed oils, synthetic hormones and too much sugar.
We're well-off but we're over-medicated and over-stimulated.
We're working, but not with anything fulfilling. Our jobs are busy-work that steals our best years.
We don't know our neighbors.
We don't participate in local government.
Our families are broken or too spread out.
We don't believe in god and replaced the spirit with materialism and vanity.
There is too much pornography all around us, so much so that we don't even notice how bad it is anymore.
The free market isn't to root of our problems, but we aren't solving them with more money.
You still have the power to control all of those things. But it requires commitment and persistence every day.
@@Sandman2007 I do as an individual, yes. My post was meant relatively. Many many people are in significantly worse shape that myself and they don't even understand why.
@@blarghblarghblarghand they have every opportunity to right their own ship. Sure, not everyone was dealt the same cards, but we make do with it. They have knowledge at their fingertips, all they got to do is separate the real from the misinformation.
@@Sandman2007 "All they have to do"- It has never been more difficult to separate fact from fiction. Most of our children are completely brainwashed by propaganda in their schools, the internet, TV, music, etc. Unless you were keen on the cogs before the internet became a giant prison, you are completely in the dark.
Sounds like you aren't taking responsiblity for your life and are making many poor choices. Freedom to chose is work but with trial and error or good mentors it all pays off. Grow up and live a better life
I am old......... I have no optimism about anything. Young people that I know say that no good things about America are taught..... none.
But it is a zero-sum game indeed!
Humanity wins, the ecosphere loses...
This is so ridiculous, I can go down a never ending list and objectively show how our environment is better now for humans and animals than it has been in hundreds if not thousands of years. The environment is different than the ebbs and flows of pure nature but man as a gardener makes nature more prosporous. Study more than surface material and use that brain you were born with
21:11 That's an argument in favor of UBI.
Good discussion.
because enough is never enough.
Lack of humility.
What makes us unhappy is that all these dummies are constantly trying to make things worse by proposing and implementing ideas that get in the way of freedom and free markets.
Yep
Dumbmocracy
So did he answer the question or simply dismiss it as a drug problem?
He said scholars are still not sure whether or not it is mostly a drug overdose problem. That's a lot more tentative and humble than how you characterized it.
Having more wealth can be offset by an increase in living costs. Would need to look at purchasing power.
"Because we are materially rich and spiritually poor" -Yaron Brook
There is no “me” in “we”.
The reason we're so unhappy is because, not only have we lost God in our hearts but we can never be content with what we have but we also, generally speaking, are too lazy to achieve to make our desires a reality. It's important to be content with what you have but always striving to do/be better.
Capitalism isn't to blame for our discontentment. Laziness is. It's like how Seamus from Freedom Tooms says, there's nothing wrong with being lazy, but keep in mind that you're CHOOSING to not invest that time in something more productive, and all choices have both good & bad consequences.
If capitalism is better than socialism, why do we always try to sabotage socialism when our enemies adopt it? Shouldn't it just fall under its own weight? Shouldn't we encourage our enemies to adopt socialism so they will fail faster? The scheming to sabotage socialism wth sancstions such as to Cuba and Venezuela makes me think that maybe capitalism isn't that powerful and socialism is stronger that is why we need to adopt such methods.
The enemy of your enemy isn't necessarily your friend
rhetorical, yeah?
Purpose
Because we destroyed all the structures of society (faith, family, community). This doesn't have to happen in capitalism (we had both for a long time), and certainly does happen when socialism occurs.
Socialism doesn’t come close to being a satisfactory explanation for these changes in structures and values in the US. We can talk intelligently about the pitfalls of socialism without uncritically making it a boogeyman that we blame any and all problems on. Might as well just blame Satan while you’re at it.
all? who is all? few? yes all? no
Is it Capitalism ,Socialism, or POWER AND GREED thats the bane of mankind ?
Lack of character.
Money buys convenience and pleasure, not happiness.
Most of us aren't rich though. Just because something improves doesn't mean it's the best. Never marry a system.
most of us are not running huge companies. most of us are not 2 meters tall. most of us are not extremely beautiful. the irony is that most of us have food, phones, place to live, etc., better than most of us had 200 years ago (prior to industrialization)
Well alternatives like socialism do not improve, even the most modern capitalism problems are caused by the left/progressivism
See, this is why I can’t seem to figure out what I *really* believe. I agree with all three comments above lol
This guy can’t even distinguish between trade and free trade. Almost every single currently wealthy nation has imposed some of the strongest tariffs to nurture and protect its arising industries besides Hong Kong (if you can even call it a country) and the Netherlands. So he is supporting something that isn’t even used by the vast majority of countries to become wealthy. In other words, basically no evidence for his claims
How about we stop using "capitalism", a word defined by Karl Marx for his straw man argument, and we call it what it is. Common sense!
It's all Socialist, the question is: do you want to live under National or International
Since the 1980s and the huge distortions to the market from the influence of the massive cocaine black market we have been in a kelptocracy since 1980, sure the average of everyone is doing better but this hides the fact that the majority of big winners int he economy are people who can legally inside trade to make money, people who have a legal pass from CIA involvement to do drug trafficking carte blanche.
Because Democrats won't leave us the hell alone with their nonsense.
lol the apparently AI-generated introduction betrays this as garbage propaganda in about 15 seconds.
25:16 Björn Norberg: "Socialism seems like a better way to go about it."
I don't think either of these guys understands the problems of a common person. One's plight is the others opportunity for investment. Just because global poverty isn't as bad overall doesn't mean we're moving in a good direction. The average person in the west is poor then they were two years ago even if they're making more money now
I’m not.
I'm not wealthy.
Are you unhappy because you are not wealthy or what do you mean?
2 rich guys discuss how capitalism has solved every problem, everywhere, all at once. I wonder how many will be convinced? Not to promote socialism but neither of this systems are as good as their biggest proponents advertise.
It's made the rich richer and the poor poorer. That's how it works
few things i have to say, before i continue watchign this video:
1. wages has remained stagnant since the 08 housing crisis.
2. inflation has remained high despite the census beaus attempts at downplaying inflation by not counting factors that make it much higher.
3. under capitalism you are not guaranteed shelter, food, clean water and basic healthcare.
4. under capitalism, you are also not guaranteed that the money will have the same value and that banks have common sense to not make the same mistakes.
5. under capitalism, the free market does not respect your own civil rights and liberties as well, such as free speech, self defense, not searching or seizing your property without just cause, etc etc etc.
there needs to be regulations on the free market that are common sense. there is too many regulations that is not common sense and will make it needlessly hard for anyone to get a leg up in the world, that much we can all agree on as libertarians.
however, i think the only laws that should be enforced are the following:
1. wages that keep up with national inflation and local cost of living.
2. for property owners and developers, they have to provide the individual ability to grow food, and produce clean water and electricity on site that powers and waters and feeds the household living in it. i think its safe to assume that groceries stores are not gonna be around forever, and we should make sure every apartment has its own year-round greenhouse and rainwater collection system that is filtered and recycled, as well as apartments that power themselves or the entire building through solar, wind, geothermal, hydro power or gas generators. during WWII, you had people growing their own food, and lets be honest here, the current grocery store system will not last forever, especially during a time of global conflict.
3. employers and business owners have to respect individual rights of citizens and cannot fire them on the basis of self defense, or remove protestors for protesting, so long as the protestors do not block any part of the business.
4. banks cannot make money from thin air or virtually, that they cannot make unsafe loans unless they are backed by government bonds and they cannot use customer money as colladeral for any loans lent to anyone else other than the customer who has their money or personal items in the bank.
5. no immunity should be granted to any corporation regardless of stance or relation to the constitution
6. and finally, make sure private doctors and pharmaceutical companies cannot force or fearmonger any form of treatment to anyone and informed consent of the patient must be enforced heavily. we cannot have a privatized equivalent to nazi germany like what we've had for the last 3 years and employers have to respect what a doctor says their patient working for the company does/needs without firing the patient, or laying them off. employers also cannot enforce treatments for any reason whatsoever and dangle the employees jobs in exchange for treatments. this includes vaccinations, and medications, as well as any other treatments like surgery, changes in diet, more exercise, homeopathic remedies, home remedies, etc.
again we cannot continue having a medical fascist system thats recently turned privatized by elites and politicians wanting to score extra brownie points with voters. we had laws that mandated treatments since the late 1800s, and its time we ended it once and for all.
we have to make sure people are able to live decent lives without working over 8+ hours a day, and i think as a more social libertarian that some regulations like the above should be at minimum in any regulatory addition to the constitution. at one point we will have to make additions to the constitution of the united states, that legalizes basically everything while restricting some stuff. i think the 6 regulatory steps should be very key. yea grocery stores will still be a thing but they won't be a part of modern society, we could still buy flour and eggs if the year round greenhouse don't produce em, we just have to make sure developers have the greenhouse so people are not reliant on grocery stores. thats been a mistake since day one, because it leaves people to be needlessly unprepared for certain things, like global conflict and economic downturns.
"...I think [...] laws that should be enforced are..."
1. Would outlaw employment.
2. Would outlaw housing.
3. Would outlaw employment.
4. Would outlaw finance.
@@aliendroneservices6621taking my stuff out of context is akin to selling a lie.
none of the constitutional regulations i proposed would outlaw any of it. hyperbolic much or are you willfully wanting total economic anarchy?
@@Zeakthecat "taking my stuff out of context..."
Obviously couldn't have been anything I did in my reply to you, since I used the same item-numbers you did.
"...are you willfully wanting total economic anarchy?"
Anarchy isn't what results from absence of economic-distortives. See: *_The Birth of Plenty_* (2004), by William J. Bernstein.
@@aliendroneservices6621its called manipulation and half truth.
something libertarians despise.
if you are a true man of your worth, then spill your arguments without manipulation, or any half truths whatsoever. be blunt.
@@Zeakthecat It's called *_using the same item-numbers you used._* Stop being so sensitive to criticism.
"something libertarians despise."
Libertarians are latent-socialists. What they might despise is irrelevant.
Because happiness/peace and all our blessings come from Jesus Christ. An immoral society is an unhappy and sick society.
You’re free to believe what you want, but we’re trying to have a serious conversation about economic systems. Divine providence is not at all in the scope of that conversation.
@@jacobstamm Discuss what about economic systems? There is no serious discussion to be had there. Capitalism produces far far better outcomes than the alternative.
This is a discussion about happiness, and that is only derived from faith in God.
@@bobhill4364 So all of the profoundly happy people around the globe who’ve found prosperity, happiness, and purpose outside of a theistic worldview are… lying? Conspiring to trick us into becoming nihilistic hedonists? I’d love to hear how the millions of us in this camp factor into your worldview.
Snore. What is Capitalism? What is the definition being used?
If it's the book definition, there has never been large scale capitalism on the face of the earth. There has been natural resource extraction and slavery.
What is slavery? Is having to trade your labor for food slavery?
@@noone8418 Slavery is trying to walk away from a master and being bludgeoned in the back of the head. This is not difficult to understand, and if you think the history of economic growth has been anything other than slavery, you are absolutely psychotic. Self-absorbed libertarians, when it comes to economics, are perpetually insufferable and willfully dishonest.
@@Mike-fx4nuwhat if a slave enjoys his food and shelter so much that he chooses to not try to escape? Is it still slavery then?
@@benjamindover4337 Ironic question given the title of this video. And of course, it's a question that has nothing to do with what I said.
As if we couldn't return to the economic freedom of the late 1800s without bringing back slavery. 🙄
Resource extraction is part of meeting human needs and reasonable desires. Infinite sustainability doesn't exist on a single planet.
Government propaganda
If you take out China out of "extreme poverty reduced" argument as a data point, extreme poverty has actually increased. Massively. As a percentage. And China practices nothing close to free market neoliberalism these guys propose. China practices state owned enterprises. BTW, SOEs have higher productivity in China than Western equivalent corpos in free economic zones. China has built its infrastructure and standard of living with the administrative state. Not free markets reigning in. Where free markets reigned in is India. And India compared to China has seen much lesser growth, proving that the Chinese approach is better. And that approach is socialism with Chinese charateristics, not free markets.
I'm on the fence when it comes to these "capitalism is the greatest thing since sliced bread" hucksters-- there is obviously 'something' to these claims-- but most of the alleviation of "extreme poverty" has come about through a redefinition of what constitutes "extreme poverty". Anyone who believes that whereas $1.99 per day is "extreme poverty", $2.99 per day is not, is clearly an idiot. And as we all know, there is no use in talking to idiots.
Why not read his book and see what definitions he's actually using?
@@PrezVeto I'm sure he's using the World Bank definition since the numbers lifted out of "extreme poverty" meme are always the same and always related to the WB figures. Not only do they change the level when looking for uplift, they change the year from which the change is measured in order to ensure that China's poverty alleviation success gets included in the figures. If you exclude China, because Chinese capitalism bears little resemblance to the "free market" boondoggle beloved of libertarians, the number of impoverished people globally has increased. As I said, I'm on the fence about the net positive effects of capitalism overall. I don't doubt the Chinese "political capitalism", with its locus of control in the Party, has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty. But guys like this pretend otherwise.
When did that definition change exactly?
@@spencerantoniomarlen-starr3069 Once in 2000 and again in 2008. If you are interested in this, you need to do some research on your own. The Divide by Jason Hickel goes over this. Articles have been published critiquing these sleight-of-hand magics to make non-Chinese poverty disappear. The truth is out there.
Tell that to all the jobs that were replaced or outsourced via cheap labor.... capitalism has been great for the rich
Yet all those people have jobs.... whats the highest unemployment rate we've seen in he past 40 years?
who helped that? leftists
That isn't capitalism, that is corporatism.
Thank the unions for that.
Get rich then, only you hold yourself back
Cultural freedom? In China?
Unsubscribed.
Why?
@@jacobstamm Capitalism has not made us all richer, all of us are not. Forall persons x: exists x , x lives under capitalism: therefore x is richer. While sound is invalid. Not to mention the wishy-washy proposition “richer”.
@@relvar3158 I swear I’m not trying to bust your chops here, but that pseudocode you used to explain what you mean went completely over my head. Could you clarify?
@@jacobstamm maybe we should start with definitions. Define “richer”.
@@jacobstammThey seem to be implying that humanity got richer despite capitalism rather than because of it.
Because capitalism erodes social bonds, which are a deeper source of happiness than material goods.
The emphasis on the individual and their particular happiness is the root of the problem, stemming from the original classical liberalism, carried on through its mutation into the Left and its current mutation in Wokeism. Individual liberty is an important value, no doubt, but it's only one among several that have to be balanced by a State.
To put it another way, if the individual can truthfully be said to be born with certain liberties, it's equally true to say that they're born with certain duties, namely to to the ethnic/racial/civilizational collective into which they're born. As soon as you conceive of the individual as born with liberties _only,_ you're on a direct logical line to Transhumanism, via socialism and wokeism. The individual must be free - first from economic bonds, then from social bonds generally, and eventually from the bonds of reality itself. There is nothing _within_ that logical cluster of ideas to stop this "progress." Which is why the Right is just a tardy version of the Left - it shares the same premises as the Left, so it has no argument against the Left.
Economic efficiency, which is capitalism's strong suit, is also an important value, but again, it's only one value among several that a State has to balance. Same for cheap goods, etc.
I agree social bonds and relations are extremely important to happiness and meaning, but I don't agree capitalism in any way erodes them. Social trust was extremely low in Soviet countries compared with the capitalist west.
Capitalism is not the answer to life's big questions, but it makes us wealthy and free to pursue meaning and happiness.
Also I do not agree wokeism and current leftism are heirs to Classical Liberalism, they may use liberal words as camouflage, but their intellectual heritage is from Marxism and Collectivism. Group identity over individualism etc. Sadly the right seems to be falling into the same pit recently.
@@AnaIvanovic4ever And what's social trust like now, in the West? Much of mass immigration is justified on the ground of economic benefits, much of outsourcing the same. But the effect of both of those has been bad for the West - communities destroyed, etc. As I said, economic efficiency, cheaper goods, etc., _is_ a value, but it can't be the _ruling_ value. The ruling value must always be the continuity and reproduction of a people on their own land, their cohesion as a group, and their total well-being on all levels - material, social and spiritual. Insofar as economic efficiency serves that function, then it's good, when it doesn't, then it's bad.
Going slightly deeper, it's often been said that things like Communism and Fascism required the development of a "new X Man" - and that's true. But so does capitalism - it requires the Individualistic Utility Maximizer Man. People just aren't like that, they're more of a mixed bag with elements of some of all of these things. For example, in the West, which has always most favoured capitalism, there was also at the same time the idea of caring for the poor, the sick, the elderly as a collective effort, quite outside the capitalist system (in fact, even in Iceland, the lauded example of anarcho-capitalism, there was a parallel system of welfare).
But that's precisely an element of socialism. IOW, what people in the West have always wanted is a mixed system. Now that mixture will certainly introduce some economic inefficiency (some goods may be more expensive, production goods may be used less efficiently, with less left over for the making of other things), but that may be a cost worth paying for the non-economic benefits. Some central direction of the economy by the State, some element of keeping capitalism in check, can be a good thing - not to the point of "picking winners and losers," but to the point of, as I said, weighing up and balancing the various values it's worth pursuing in a civilized society.
@@gurugeorge That was a lot of text. Yes social trust has declined some due to migration. I do not agree capitalism require some kind of new man, homo economicus or whatever. Rather the opposite, already Adam Smith noted that the baker doesn't bake bread out of the kindness of his heart but to earn a living, and we all benefit. Capitalism is the system that takes our basic urges and turns them into wealth for everyone.
There is no contradiction between capitalism and helping others. I want to get paid for the work I do, and I give money to things that give me no immidiate reward. The great thing with capitalism and liberal democracy is that you are free to do what you find rewarding and meaningful.
What is your alternative, what do you want to change?
@@AnaIvanovic4ever There is no contradiction between capitalism and individual charity, but there is a contradiction between capitalism and any sort of collective provision of welfare.
Re. the Smith point, that doesn't mean we should rely only on that - rather, his point is that even selfishness can be turned to collective benefit given the right social structure and incentives. Which is true; that much of the capitalist narrative is true - e.g. the kind of predatory, sociopathic instinct manifest by top executives can indeed be harnessed to collective benefit with the right system.
My position is Third Positionism (Fascism, National Socialism). The legitimacy of the State comes not from the pursuit of any abstraction (liberty, equality, justice, etc.) but rather from the State's fundamental remit being the preservation and flourishing (on all levels) of the genetically-interrelated people living in the nation - it's a concrete goal, rather than an abstract one. With that in place, questions of economic system are merely pragmatic - whatever works. If taking charge of the "commanding heights" works, then do it, if not, don't. Economically speaking, the general pattern for Third Positionism falls out more or less like "social democracy" - you have a broad free market/small business foundation but with strong State oversight, public goods (infrastructure, medicine, welfare, etc.) provided by the State, and some measured degree of nationalization (especially if a company gets to the point that it needs government handouts to survive - then it should be nationalized, no question).
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