You still haven't addressed any of my arguments, just made the same arguments everyone does. The money is just a way of keeping score and a direct response to your question so it's hardly fair to bust my balls over it.
Orwell may have been wrong in Wiggan Pier, that's irrelevant to the fact that he flew into Spain to write a newspaper article and was so moved by what he saw that he immediately signed up to fight for the anarchists. Neither you or I have that experience and it obviously changed his arguments and is entrenched in his subsequent ideas.
So yes my analogy is correct, what's your point? He can be wrong about some things and right about others.
Yes you could buy land and grow vegetables but not on minimum wage. It's only enough to survive on.
Am I not correct that you propose that land and property are "private" I can't go live in your back yard and grow vegetables can I? You would therefore deny me the neccessaries of life.
Think about a property transaction, that's an agreement between two individuals to own land - but the ownership of land is your right to exclude me from it.
What did you pay me for that right, how can your guy's contract be legally binding on me without consideration?
Your system of 10 people in a boardroom deciding the fate of thousands is not totalitarian? That Buffett having hundreds of thousands of wage slaves is compatible with freedom?
For the 5th time I don't propose a perfect system of government as there isn't one. I just point out that your system is exactly the same as that of the Soviet commissar or the slave owner in the Confederacy that you profess to disagree with.
He also wanted a comfortable life and treated his slaves well, what right did the Yankees have to threaten that?
They both claimed to represent freedom as you do. Freedom to maintain their lifestyle at the expense of others' freedoms.
If you could have capitalism without coersion then I wouldn't have an issue with it. Perhaps you could.
I agree that there's an issue just giving people money but I don't agree that money is a sole driver of human beings. The only reason it is important to me and others is that many hate their jobs and are bothered by being wage slaves.
Everyone is different of course, if you don't mind being a wage slave that's fine.
The argument you make is that state capitalism/communism/totalitarianism is neccessary as lazy people won't work for themselves.
There's just two positions you can have the position compatible with freedom which says that people have a right to define how they would contribute to society or the totalitarian/big brother knows best approach.
I can speak for my own motivations not for others but I would say in general people are not lazy but very active, self motivated and purposeful. It's a cultural thing though we have a work hard ethic that exists in our society largely independent of capitalism.
Whether that ethic is "good" or "bad" is entirely another question but probably a digression.
The unemployed today are "lazy" in that they would refuse the meaningless work you offer, so the answer is offer meaningful work.
It's like in the elections, many people do not vote as neither party represents their interests so the answer is not force them to vote but ask why they are disenfranchised.
I am not so advanced as you in that I would not attempt to define what human nature is. Most of what you speak of as human nature is how certain people in today's society react to the structure of our society.
As to how economics works I have very much a practical working knowledge of this I can assure you - I am going to say I have spent a lot more time and very few understand it as I do.
As I said before markets allow for decentralised decision making and allocation of scarcity - this I approve of.
There's no contradiction for me to observe the things which work well and those which don't.
I also never advocated seizing assets as that way leads to Zimbabwe or South Africa but I see that as the natural flip side to the opinion that extreme wealth accumulation is acceptable so it's a self inflicted injury you are bitching to me about.
Yeah the lazy can exploit the hard-working in our society, that's a valid and correct obsevation. The political argument in our day is just about who gets the spoils - I don't side with either as I say they are both wrong.
SHJ Price at posting:
88.0¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
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