<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0"
	xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/"
	xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/"
	xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"
	xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/"
	
	>
<channel>
	<title>Comments on: Capital, Capitalists and Capitalism (Part VI)</title>
	<atom:link href="http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/feed/" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 29 Dec 2014 20:14:00 +0000</lastBuildDate>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
	
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5261274</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Aug 2013 06:50:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5261274</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;I cannot resist to do some psyhoanalysis myself&quot;



Strike 3.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;I cannot resist to do some psyhoanalysis myself&#8221;</p>
<p>Strike 3.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5261270</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Aug 2013 06:34:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5261270</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since this exchange has degenerated into a psychoanalysis of my person in which I have no interest to participate, I shall end the discussion at this point.
However,  before quitting I cannot resist to do some psyhoanalysis myself: your hysterical tone, your scribomania and ad hominem attacks are the result of your feeling that you got a spanking in the bible / religion dicussion of a few weeks ago.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Since this exchange has degenerated into a psychoanalysis of my person in which I have no interest to participate, I shall end the discussion at this point.<br />
However,  before quitting I cannot resist to do some psyhoanalysis myself: your hysterical tone, your scribomania and ad hominem attacks are the result of your feeling that you got a spanking in the bible / religion dicussion of a few weeks ago.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5261201</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 21 Aug 2013 00:43:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5261201</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Where my ideas come from is also none of your business. The only important thing is are they valid or not.&quot;

That&#039;s precisely the point. You have no evidence, nor authority.

&quot;That, and only that, was your task to demonstrate, but you failed miserably.&quot;

Your job is to demonstrate that your ideas are valid. Your judgment means nothing to any sensible person. That&#039;s the implication of the above point. You have no evidence and no &quot;expertise&quot; or authority on your own. You don&#039;t even know what you&#039;re talking about. You manage to spew a few talking points published by people whose ideas resonate with you. That&#039;s it.

In short, the message of the article(s) is that capitalism is wonderful...&quot;

It&#039;s more than wonderful, it&#039;s ESSENTIAL to deliver all of the free stuff you want to redistribute. You have to make the stuff first before you steal it and hand it to lazy people. Get it? If that&#039;s what you think is fair, make rational arguments for wealth redistribution, healthcare, roads, whatever. But do it rationally. If you have no clue how to run a business, and no clue what socialist ideology is, the discourse will confuse you. Not that you&#039;ll admit that, as we can see you won&#039;t.

&quot;...the free market is self regulating...&quot;

It doesn&#039;t say that at all. It essentially claims that it is already fair because you are rewarded for creating things of value. It doesn&#039;t talk about regulations at all except (I think it mentions) rules of law. What do you think laws do? They regulate conduct. That&#039;s regulation. Nobody is recommending anarchy and one can argue that free market capitalism can&#039;t exist, CAN NOT exist without rule of law.

You don&#039;t even understand on the most fundamental level. And since you have no humility at all, you can&#039;t approach the subject realistically as one that has a lot to learn before he understands anything useful past parroting socialist talking points.

&quot;...and that all pieces shall fall to place given enough time (time where those affected are stil alive).&quot;

Your summary reveals the full scope of your delusion and failure to comprehend the article and the topics.


&quot;That this is not so is not my fault.&quot;





That&#039;s right. You&#039;re ignorant because of capitalism. Nothing is your fault because...capitalism in America.


I love your last line. You have no clue just how much you have validated everything that we complain about. You&#039;re a crypto-communist through indoctrination.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Where my ideas come from is also none of your business. The only important thing is are they valid or not.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s precisely the point. You have no evidence, nor authority.</p>
<p>&#8220;That, and only that, was your task to demonstrate, but you failed miserably.&#8221;</p>
<p>Your job is to demonstrate that your ideas are valid. Your judgment means nothing to any sensible person. That&#8217;s the implication of the above point. You have no evidence and no &#8220;expertise&#8221; or authority on your own. You don&#8217;t even know what you&#8217;re talking about. You manage to spew a few talking points published by people whose ideas resonate with you. That&#8217;s it.</p>
<p>In short, the message of the article(s) is that capitalism is wonderful&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s more than wonderful, it&#8217;s ESSENTIAL to deliver all of the free stuff you want to redistribute. You have to make the stuff first before you steal it and hand it to lazy people. Get it? If that&#8217;s what you think is fair, make rational arguments for wealth redistribution, healthcare, roads, whatever. But do it rationally. If you have no clue how to run a business, and no clue what socialist ideology is, the discourse will confuse you. Not that you&#8217;ll admit that, as we can see you won&#8217;t.</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230;the free market is self regulating&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t say that at all. It essentially claims that it is already fair because you are rewarded for creating things of value. It doesn&#8217;t talk about regulations at all except (I think it mentions) rules of law. What do you think laws do? They regulate conduct. That&#8217;s regulation. Nobody is recommending anarchy and one can argue that free market capitalism can&#8217;t exist, CAN NOT exist without rule of law.</p>
<p>You don&#8217;t even understand on the most fundamental level. And since you have no humility at all, you can&#8217;t approach the subject realistically as one that has a lot to learn before he understands anything useful past parroting socialist talking points.</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230;and that all pieces shall fall to place given enough time (time where those affected are stil alive).&#8221;</p>
<p>Your summary reveals the full scope of your delusion and failure to comprehend the article and the topics.</p>
<p>&#8220;That this is not so is not my fault.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s right. You&#8217;re ignorant because of capitalism. Nothing is your fault because&#8230;capitalism in America.</p>
<p>I love your last line. You have no clue just how much you have validated everything that we complain about. You&#8217;re a crypto-communist through indoctrination.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260969</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 15:29:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260969</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;It may not be my business, but I&#039;m perfectly entitled to suggest that your ideas come only from...&quot;
Where my ideas come from is also none of your business. The only important thing is are they valid or not. 
That, and only that, was your task to demonstrate, but you failed miserably.
I understood very well the articles that are commented, and I would bet with 99.99% chance, that I have more actual experience than you have regarding the real world, and creating new value.
In short, the message of the article(s) is that capitalism is wonderful, the free market is self regulating, and that all pieces shall fall to place given enough time (time where those affected are stil alive).
That this is not so is not my fault.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;It may not be my business, but I&#8217;m perfectly entitled to suggest that your ideas come only from&#8230;&#8221;<br />
Where my ideas come from is also none of your business. The only important thing is are they valid or not.<br />
That, and only that, was your task to demonstrate, but you failed miserably.<br />
I understood very well the articles that are commented, and I would bet with 99.99% chance, that I have more actual experience than you have regarding the real world, and creating new value.<br />
In short, the message of the article(s) is that capitalism is wonderful, the free market is self regulating, and that all pieces shall fall to place given enough time (time where those affected are stil alive).<br />
That this is not so is not my fault.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260926</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 13:27:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260926</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;My life and my career are none of your business, neither are they of any importance for the discussion.&quot;

It may not be my business, but I&#039;m perfectly entitled to suggest that your ideas come only from using your imagination rather than actual experience. You&#039;re all theory, and not balanced either. You can&#039;t even demonstrate that you understood the article series that  you&#039;re theoretically commenting on.

It&#039;s just an observation that you can respond to or not. It might technically be ad hominem but it&#039;s also relevant.

&quot;The quality of life rankings are aboundant on the web (the &quot;Physical Quality of Life Index&quot; as one of the examples) and make your choice to which one you shall trust.&quot;

They&#039;re not exactly scientific. But if you want to pick one or two, be my guest. But I&#039;m not here to go fishing for you.

&quot;They usualy rate life expectancy, literacy, employment oportunities, earnings, education ...etc. The US regularly comes behind the &#039;socialist&#039; countries except in one category: the inequality index.&quot;

That&#039;s fine, but you need to show me before we figure out which particularly fallacies they&#039;ve accepted. By the way, inequality in wealth is not bad. It&#039;s actually necessary. That&#039;s another deranged socialist fallacy that somehow having people with more stuff than you do violates your rights to not feel envious.

Anyway, I think I said already that you can do quite a bit when you&#039;re living off of accumulated wealth. At some point, someone has to produce it. In theory you can have &quot;socialist&quot; inspired policies and capitalism to pay for it. And it could last forever, in theory. But you&#039;ve got to navigate all of the problems with promising things to people when you may in the end fail at delivering. And that will always be a risk. When socialism fails, most of the victims have no idea it was their own lazy butts and the stupidity of their leaders that led to the failure. Just look at what stupid people say about &quot;greedy bankers&quot; causing the recent banking crisis. It was socialist policies that caused it. Straight up.

My point is, and just about everyone who understands capitalism agrees with me, that you are always better off making your arguments honestly. If you&#039;re making rational arguments for balanced social policies with an otherwise free market, and you want to call it socialism, that&#039;s fine. I won&#039;t yell at you as long as you are very clear. But the moment someone misunderstands your misuse of the terms and they fall for the fallacies of central planning and free lunch, I&#039;ll speak up then.

&quot;Just a question for good bye: do I correctly understand that the Scandinavian countries together with Canada Australia, and New Zealand and maybe some else (all of which I unfairly excluded from the list of &#039;socialist&#039; countries) are leech countries?&quot;



That&#039;s a complicated question, but the leeching I&#039;m talking about comes from social services offered to people who don&#039;t actually need it. That&#039;s leeching. Technically it&#039;s leeching even if you do need it as well, but leftist are so sensitive about word use. I must be careful.


And the problem is that you&#039;ve told them they have a rights to this. So if you have a budget problem, they&#039;ll riot if you even suggest services must be cut even a fraction, or perhaps the cost of living increase might have to be dialed back. The occupy movement was or is driven by deranged expectations based almost entirely on the fallacies of socialist ideology, like &quot;social justice&quot; and supposed &quot;rights&quot; that are not in fact rights held by anyone.

Look at the impasse with our own federal budget. If you go anywhere near entitlements, deranged leftists literally call conservatives murderers.


And you have the audacity to paint us as somehow irrational or cruel just because we try to enlighten people about certain realities. But you&#039;re like the guy who thinks he&#039;s rich because he&#039;s got money in his pockets and he doesn&#039;t understand the budget forecasting...when he&#039;s got looming payments due. Like all of those people who signed up for mortgages with massive balloon payments with no plan to deal with them. And then they blame the banks.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;My life and my career are none of your business, neither are they of any importance for the discussion.&#8221;</p>
<p>It may not be my business, but I&#8217;m perfectly entitled to suggest that your ideas come only from using your imagination rather than actual experience. You&#8217;re all theory, and not balanced either. You can&#8217;t even demonstrate that you understood the article series that  you&#8217;re theoretically commenting on.</p>
<p>It&#8217;s just an observation that you can respond to or not. It might technically be ad hominem but it&#8217;s also relevant.</p>
<p>&#8220;The quality of life rankings are aboundant on the web (the &#8220;Physical Quality of Life Index&#8221; as one of the examples) and make your choice to which one you shall trust.&#8221;</p>
<p>They&#8217;re not exactly scientific. But if you want to pick one or two, be my guest. But I&#8217;m not here to go fishing for you.</p>
<p>&#8220;They usualy rate life expectancy, literacy, employment oportunities, earnings, education &#8230;etc. The US regularly comes behind the &#8216;socialist&#8217; countries except in one category: the inequality index.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s fine, but you need to show me before we figure out which particularly fallacies they&#8217;ve accepted. By the way, inequality in wealth is not bad. It&#8217;s actually necessary. That&#8217;s another deranged socialist fallacy that somehow having people with more stuff than you do violates your rights to not feel envious.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think I said already that you can do quite a bit when you&#8217;re living off of accumulated wealth. At some point, someone has to produce it. In theory you can have &#8220;socialist&#8221; inspired policies and capitalism to pay for it. And it could last forever, in theory. But you&#8217;ve got to navigate all of the problems with promising things to people when you may in the end fail at delivering. And that will always be a risk. When socialism fails, most of the victims have no idea it was their own lazy butts and the stupidity of their leaders that led to the failure. Just look at what stupid people say about &#8220;greedy bankers&#8221; causing the recent banking crisis. It was socialist policies that caused it. Straight up.</p>
<p>My point is, and just about everyone who understands capitalism agrees with me, that you are always better off making your arguments honestly. If you&#8217;re making rational arguments for balanced social policies with an otherwise free market, and you want to call it socialism, that&#8217;s fine. I won&#8217;t yell at you as long as you are very clear. But the moment someone misunderstands your misuse of the terms and they fall for the fallacies of central planning and free lunch, I&#8217;ll speak up then.</p>
<p>&#8220;Just a question for good bye: do I correctly understand that the Scandinavian countries together with Canada Australia, and New Zealand and maybe some else (all of which I unfairly excluded from the list of &#8216;socialist&#8217; countries) are leech countries?&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a complicated question, but the leeching I&#8217;m talking about comes from social services offered to people who don&#8217;t actually need it. That&#8217;s leeching. Technically it&#8217;s leeching even if you do need it as well, but leftist are so sensitive about word use. I must be careful.</p>
<p>And the problem is that you&#8217;ve told them they have a rights to this. So if you have a budget problem, they&#8217;ll riot if you even suggest services must be cut even a fraction, or perhaps the cost of living increase might have to be dialed back. The occupy movement was or is driven by deranged expectations based almost entirely on the fallacies of socialist ideology, like &#8220;social justice&#8221; and supposed &#8220;rights&#8221; that are not in fact rights held by anyone.</p>
<p>Look at the impasse with our own federal budget. If you go anywhere near entitlements, deranged leftists literally call conservatives murderers.</p>
<p>And you have the audacity to paint us as somehow irrational or cruel just because we try to enlighten people about certain realities. But you&#8217;re like the guy who thinks he&#8217;s rich because he&#8217;s got money in his pockets and he doesn&#8217;t understand the budget forecasting&#8230;when he&#8217;s got looming payments due. Like all of those people who signed up for mortgages with massive balloon payments with no plan to deal with them. And then they blame the banks.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260861</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 09:00:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260861</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Could you, for a change, be less hysterical and avoid personal insults or what the &#039;learned&#039; call &#039;ad hominem&#039; argument(s), or attacks.
My life and my career are none of your business, neither are they of any importance for the discussion.

The quality of life rankings are aboundant on the web (the &quot;Physical Quality of Life Index&quot; as one of the examples)  and make your choice to which one you shall trust.

They usualy rate life expectancy, literacy, employment oportunities, earnings, education ...etc. The US regularly comes behind the &#039;socialist&#039; countries except in one category: the inequality index.
Just a question for good bye: do I correctly understand that the Scandinavian countries together with Canada Australia, and New Zealand  and maybe some else (all of which I unfairly excluded from the list of &#039;socialist&#039; countries) are leech countries? 
Whom are they soaking?]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Could you, for a change, be less hysterical and avoid personal insults or what the &#8216;learned&#8217; call &#8216;ad hominem&#8217; argument(s), or attacks.<br />
My life and my career are none of your business, neither are they of any importance for the discussion.</p>
<p>The quality of life rankings are aboundant on the web (the &#8220;Physical Quality of Life Index&#8221; as one of the examples)  and make your choice to which one you shall trust.</p>
<p>They usualy rate life expectancy, literacy, employment oportunities, earnings, education &#8230;etc. The US regularly comes behind the &#8216;socialist&#8217; countries except in one category: the inequality index.<br />
Just a question for good bye: do I correctly understand that the Scandinavian countries together with Canada Australia, and New Zealand  and maybe some else (all of which I unfairly excluded from the list of &#8216;socialist&#8217; countries) are leech countries?<br />
Whom are they soaking?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260735</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Tue, 20 Aug 2013 00:09:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260735</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;we established that for you and the most of contributors to this site, &#039;socialism&#039; means not N.Korea, Cuba or the ex-USSR &amp; co, but systems found in places like the EU, Scandinavia, and even in the endeavours of the Democratic party in the US.&quot;

Wrong. You don&#039;t do very well speaking for others. You can barely manage speaking for yourself.

&quot;That said, let us examine how these systems compare with what is until now been the norm in the US (and still is, and is likely to remain); In short most of them score better (prticularly the Scandinavian ones but also some other like Switzerland for example) than the US on any measure related to the quality of life.&quot;

Which objective measures, what period etc. Sure, in some cases spending other people&#039;s money makes more people &quot;feel good&quot; or &quot;live well&quot; if that&#039;s how they measure &quot;quality of life.&quot; It just doesn&#039;t last that long.

If you have natural resources that are used for revenue, that always helps. If you want to call that socialism, be my guest because we know that deception is a big part of selling modern socialist ideas.

Notice how you haven&#039;t actually tried to sell any specific policies. You just want to make vague references to what are supposedly successful socialist projects. Worse, you offer this as evidence that capitalism is somehow evil and must be either &quot;replaced&quot; or managed &quot;socially.&quot;

But here we are on part 6 of a series, and you haven&#039;t demonstrated at all that you comprehend any of the arguments.

&quot;What the quality of life means (or is consideres to be), can be found in the web.&quot;

Psshh. Whatever. Many opinions can be found on the web. Should I try www.objectivemeasuresofqualityoflife.org?

&quot;Nevertheless you and co. find the intelectual courage...&quot;


Intellectual courage? What does that have to do with any of the arguments?




&quot;...to boast about he advantages of &#039;capitalism&#039;.&quot;


How is it boasting? Capitalism is owned and exploited by every free adult and most Western children.

&quot;One specific point: can we afford it?&quot;


Switching back to socialism I assume.

&quot;If Sweden was able to afford it in 1953 the US should be in 2013.&quot;





That makes no sense at all. It is obviously way over your head. You haven&#039;t demonstrated at all that you even understand the essential fundamentals of producing anything of value. You think it&#039;s all about dividing up the pie because the pie falls out of the sky or grows on trees that need no cultivation.


Have you ever led an organization that creates anything? If you don&#039;t know how to build things and &quot;feed the people&quot; then you&#039;re arguing over distribution of &quot;stuff&quot; you can&#039;t even produce yourself. If you&#039;ve ever produced something, you hated it because you think the &quot;rich greedy people&quot; should just give you the things you need.


Go and start a socialist democracy on an island somewhere and document everything so that we can learn from your expertise on how to build &quot;the great society.&quot; That ought to be really awesome when we hear of your successes.


And by the way, we already do many of the same things socialist nations do. We have a lot more leeches and subversives who aren&#039;t happy because it&#039;s not enough. They want more. Leeches are often just as greedy as successful people if not more so.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;we established that for you and the most of contributors to this site, &#8216;socialism&#8217; means not N.Korea, Cuba or the ex-USSR &amp; co, but systems found in places like the EU, Scandinavia, and even in the endeavours of the Democratic party in the US.&#8221;</p>
<p>Wrong. You don&#8217;t do very well speaking for others. You can barely manage speaking for yourself.</p>
<p>&#8220;That said, let us examine how these systems compare with what is until now been the norm in the US (and still is, and is likely to remain); In short most of them score better (prticularly the Scandinavian ones but also some other like Switzerland for example) than the US on any measure related to the quality of life.&#8221;</p>
<p>Which objective measures, what period etc. Sure, in some cases spending other people&#8217;s money makes more people &#8220;feel good&#8221; or &#8220;live well&#8221; if that&#8217;s how they measure &#8220;quality of life.&#8221; It just doesn&#8217;t last that long.</p>
<p>If you have natural resources that are used for revenue, that always helps. If you want to call that socialism, be my guest because we know that deception is a big part of selling modern socialist ideas.</p>
<p>Notice how you haven&#8217;t actually tried to sell any specific policies. You just want to make vague references to what are supposedly successful socialist projects. Worse, you offer this as evidence that capitalism is somehow evil and must be either &#8220;replaced&#8221; or managed &#8220;socially.&#8221;</p>
<p>But here we are on part 6 of a series, and you haven&#8217;t demonstrated at all that you comprehend any of the arguments.</p>
<p>&#8220;What the quality of life means (or is consideres to be), can be found in the web.&#8221;</p>
<p>Psshh. Whatever. Many opinions can be found on the web. Should I try <a href="http://www.objectivemeasuresofqualityoflife.org?" rel="nofollow">http://www.objectivemeasuresofqualityoflife.org?</a></p>
<p>&#8220;Nevertheless you and co. find the intelectual courage&#8230;&#8221;</p>
<p>Intellectual courage? What does that have to do with any of the arguments?</p>
<p>&#8220;&#8230;to boast about he advantages of &#8216;capitalism&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
<p>How is it boasting? Capitalism is owned and exploited by every free adult and most Western children.</p>
<p>&#8220;One specific point: can we afford it?&#8221;</p>
<p>Switching back to socialism I assume.</p>
<p>&#8220;If Sweden was able to afford it in 1953 the US should be in 2013.&#8221;</p>
<p>That makes no sense at all. It is obviously way over your head. You haven&#8217;t demonstrated at all that you even understand the essential fundamentals of producing anything of value. You think it&#8217;s all about dividing up the pie because the pie falls out of the sky or grows on trees that need no cultivation.</p>
<p>Have you ever led an organization that creates anything? If you don&#8217;t know how to build things and &#8220;feed the people&#8221; then you&#8217;re arguing over distribution of &#8220;stuff&#8221; you can&#8217;t even produce yourself. If you&#8217;ve ever produced something, you hated it because you think the &#8220;rich greedy people&#8221; should just give you the things you need.</p>
<p>Go and start a socialist democracy on an island somewhere and document everything so that we can learn from your expertise on how to build &#8220;the great society.&#8221; That ought to be really awesome when we hear of your successes.</p>
<p>And by the way, we already do many of the same things socialist nations do. We have a lot more leeches and subversives who aren&#8217;t happy because it&#8217;s not enough. They want more. Leeches are often just as greedy as successful people if not more so.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260486</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 14:37:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260486</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[It is difficult to argue with someone whose argumentation looks like a stream of consciousness novel. 

Or a Dadaist product.

Let me make a little synthesys: we established that for you and the most of contributors to this site, &#039;socialism&#039; means not N.Korea, Cuba or the ex-USSR &amp; co, but systems found in places like the EU, Scandinavia, and even in the endeavours of the Democratic party in the US.
 
That said, let us examine how these systems compare with what is until now been the norm in the US (and still is, and is likely to remain); In short most of them score better (prticularly the Scandinavian ones but also some other like Switzerland for example) than the US on any measure related to the quality of life.
What the quality of life means (or is consideres to be), can be found in the web.
Nevertheless you and co. find the intelectual courage to boast about he advantages of &#039;capitalism&#039;.
One specific point: can we afford it?
If Sweden was able to afford it in 1953 the US should be in 2013.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>It is difficult to argue with someone whose argumentation looks like a stream of consciousness novel. </p>
<p>Or a Dadaist product.</p>
<p>Let me make a little synthesys: we established that for you and the most of contributors to this site, &#8216;socialism&#8217; means not N.Korea, Cuba or the ex-USSR &amp; co, but systems found in places like the EU, Scandinavia, and even in the endeavours of the Democratic party in the US.</p>
<p>That said, let us examine how these systems compare with what is until now been the norm in the US (and still is, and is likely to remain); In short most of them score better (prticularly the Scandinavian ones but also some other like Switzerland for example) than the US on any measure related to the quality of life.<br />
What the quality of life means (or is consideres to be), can be found in the web.<br />
Nevertheless you and co. find the intelectual courage to boast about he advantages of &#8216;capitalism&#8217;.<br />
One specific point: can we afford it?<br />
If Sweden was able to afford it in 1953 the US should be in 2013.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260430</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:48:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260430</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?&quot;

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/17/obama-uses-radio-address-describe-health-insurance/

&quot;Obama’s radio address describes health insurance as a ‘right’&quot;



What if we can&#039;t afford it? Then whose &quot;rights&quot; matter more? The rights in the constitution, or the &quot;rights&quot; that deranged lunatics promise to people who for whatever reason, want or &quot;need&quot; more? What about my right to purchase the best healthcare I can afford? Except that the federal takeover of more and more policies limits what I can even find a doctor to provide.


These &quot;rights&quot; may destroy our entire economy and destroy our standard of living for people who work and don&#039;t work. They&#039;d be much better off accepting what charity they can talk people out of rather than demanding things they have no right to demand.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/17/obama-uses-radio-address-describe-health-insurance/" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/aug/17/obama-uses-radio-address-describe-health-insurance/</a></p>
<p>&#8220;Obama’s radio address describes health insurance as a ‘right’&#8221;</p>
<p>What if we can&#8217;t afford it? Then whose &#8220;rights&#8221; matter more? The rights in the constitution, or the &#8220;rights&#8221; that deranged lunatics promise to people who for whatever reason, want or &#8220;need&#8221; more? What about my right to purchase the best healthcare I can afford? Except that the federal takeover of more and more policies limits what I can even find a doctor to provide.</p>
<p>These &#8220;rights&#8221; may destroy our entire economy and destroy our standard of living for people who work and don&#8217;t work. They&#8217;d be much better off accepting what charity they can talk people out of rather than demanding things they have no right to demand.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260422</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 09:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260422</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;But we have seen that the Nordic countries are the best gorverned in the world.&quot;

By what measure? 

&quot;Whom they should have coppied?&quot;

They didn&#039;t copy anyone directly. Marx didn&#039;t know much about oil prospecting. 

So in any case, even if I agree that &quot;Nordic countries&quot; are &quot;the best governed&quot; you still can&#039;t show how that would scale up. You&#039;ve given just enough testimony to warrant a further look and yet we&#039;ve already explained many concepts that you haven&#039;t been able to refute or even demonstrate an understanding of.

Let&#039;s just reboot the USA &quot;just like Norway&quot; and things will be grand. You&#039;ll have to kill everyone and start over with ethnic Norwegians and recreate every factor that they depend on. And that is also assuming we want to risk that their model will work longer than our own.

You&#039;ve given us no reason at all to believe in any of your theories. 

&quot;The capitalist system based on the motto &#039;no money, no health&#039;; or better still &#039;no money, no life&#039;&quot;

You&#039;re just as good at attacking capitalism as you are at attacking the Bible.

&quot;Norway, Utopia; Norway is no Utopia, it&#039;s real.&quot;


Correct, it is no Utopia and it is not something any rational person would suggest we could &quot;copy.&quot; At best you might be able to cite specific policies and see what arguments you get for and against emulating that here. At best. Norway proves nothing about ideology.


&quot;Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?&quot;



If you&#039;re going to do something coercive, use rational justifications, not pie in the sky promises about how having socialist elites planning everything will put a chicken in every pot. Explain costs and benefits rationally and honestly, see if you can do it legally, and then move on. You make it sound like you&#039;ve never heard of a tax you didn&#039;t love. 


The burden of proof for creating new taxes should be very, very high. It&#039;s not something to do casually. It&#039;s worse when you lie or talk about how someone else has rights that they don&#039;t in fact have to money of &quot;greedy rich people.&quot;]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;But we have seen that the Nordic countries are the best gorverned in the world.&#8221;</p>
<p>By what measure? </p>
<p>&#8220;Whom they should have coppied?&#8221;</p>
<p>They didn&#8217;t copy anyone directly. Marx didn&#8217;t know much about oil prospecting. </p>
<p>So in any case, even if I agree that &#8220;Nordic countries&#8221; are &#8220;the best governed&#8221; you still can&#8217;t show how that would scale up. You&#8217;ve given just enough testimony to warrant a further look and yet we&#8217;ve already explained many concepts that you haven&#8217;t been able to refute or even demonstrate an understanding of.</p>
<p>Let&#8217;s just reboot the USA &#8220;just like Norway&#8221; and things will be grand. You&#8217;ll have to kill everyone and start over with ethnic Norwegians and recreate every factor that they depend on. And that is also assuming we want to risk that their model will work longer than our own.</p>
<p>You&#8217;ve given us no reason at all to believe in any of your theories. </p>
<p>&#8220;The capitalist system based on the motto &#8216;no money, no health&#8217;; or better still &#8216;no money, no life&#8217;&#8221;</p>
<p>You&#8217;re just as good at attacking capitalism as you are at attacking the Bible.</p>
<p>&#8220;Norway, Utopia; Norway is no Utopia, it&#8217;s real.&#8221;</p>
<p>Correct, it is no Utopia and it is not something any rational person would suggest we could &#8220;copy.&#8221; At best you might be able to cite specific policies and see what arguments you get for and against emulating that here. At best. Norway proves nothing about ideology.</p>
<p>&#8220;Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?&#8221;</p>
<p>If you&#8217;re going to do something coercive, use rational justifications, not pie in the sky promises about how having socialist elites planning everything will put a chicken in every pot. Explain costs and benefits rationally and honestly, see if you can do it legally, and then move on. You make it sound like you&#8217;ve never heard of a tax you didn&#8217;t love. </p>
<p>The burden of proof for creating new taxes should be very, very high. It&#8217;s not something to do casually. It&#8217;s worse when you lie or talk about how someone else has rights that they don&#8217;t in fact have to money of &#8220;greedy rich people.&#8221;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260414</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 08:46:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260414</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;People know why: Their politicians tax policies. They accept the greater good arguments. That doesn&#039;t mean they could not have done it better.&quot;
But we have seen that the Nordic countries are the best gorverned in the world. Whom they should have coppied?
The capitalist system based on the motto &#039;no money, no health&#039;; or better still &#039;no money, no life&#039;
Norway, Utopia; Norway is no Utopia, it&#039;s real.
Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;People know why: Their politicians tax policies. They accept the greater good arguments. That doesn&#8217;t mean they could not have done it better.&#8221;<br />
But we have seen that the Nordic countries are the best gorverned in the world. Whom they should have coppied?<br />
The capitalist system based on the motto &#8216;no money, no health&#8217;; or better still &#8216;no money, no life&#8217;<br />
Norway, Utopia; Norway is no Utopia, it&#8217;s real.<br />
Coercive, non coercive; taxes are coercive by definition. So what?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260304</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Mon, 19 Aug 2013 00:37:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260304</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Since we are free to define social system as we wish, let us stuck on the definition of &#039;socialism&#039; as the system that is nowdays more or less found in the Scandinavian countries.&quot;

OK, in what context? I was explaining the gamut of what you might encounter. My wish is that these fallacies never existed.

&quot;However since you are inclined to expand this discussion uncontrolablly and I have neither time nor desire to follow suit, a shall limit myself to a few observations.&quot;

You object to your inability to control the discourse. Noted.

&quot;About expectations; The expectation that playing by capitalist rules may secure you &#039;vertical mobility&#039; is probably a far bigger delusion that any that &#039;socialism&#039; could offer.&quot;

That&#039;s a shocking statement in the level of ignorance required to articulate it. You evidently did not read the series of articles.

&quot;About &#039;free lunch&#039;; most people (in &#039;socialism&#039;) are fully aware that the question is not about free lunch, but about human solidarity.&quot;

Solidarity through coercion. No, that&#039;s not delusional at all.

&quot;This comes at a cost. A cup of coffee at an Oslo caffe costs $8.93 ($4.30 in New York) and people know why.&quot;

People know why: Their politicians tax policies. They accept the greater good arguments. That doesn&#039;t mean they could not have done it better. It just means they haven&#039;t failed and haven&#039;t had enough people object yet. You&#039;re not actually refuting anything that I&#039;ve said. It&#039;s either done deceptively, or people have agreed to pay for certain benefits to society at large. That&#039;s inspired by socialism. But if it&#039;s truly noncoercive then it&#039;s not really socialism. If that&#039;s the kind of socialism you&#039;re promoting then you ought to make that more clear. Don&#039;t just point to Norway and say, &quot;See how happy they are?&quot;

You only have to look at the failure of the &quot;Great Society&quot; to see what kind of insanity comes from following bogus theories.

&quot;This is the price that one pays for not listening about the glory of croaking for lack of means to pay for the health care.&quot;




Yes of course; if people would just be more enlightened, we&#039;d have our Utopia, just like Norway.


Call your representatives and have them promote a &quot;Norway bill.&quot; We should be &quot;just like Norway.&quot; That will make it clear to everyone that you&#039;re talking about the &quot;good socialism.&quot;]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Since we are free to define social system as we wish, let us stuck on the definition of &#8216;socialism&#8217; as the system that is nowdays more or less found in the Scandinavian countries.&#8221;</p>
<p>OK, in what context? I was explaining the gamut of what you might encounter. My wish is that these fallacies never existed.</p>
<p>&#8220;However since you are inclined to expand this discussion uncontrolablly and I have neither time nor desire to follow suit, a shall limit myself to a few observations.&#8221;</p>
<p>You object to your inability to control the discourse. Noted.</p>
<p>&#8220;About expectations; The expectation that playing by capitalist rules may secure you &#8216;vertical mobility&#8217; is probably a far bigger delusion that any that &#8216;socialism&#8217; could offer.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a shocking statement in the level of ignorance required to articulate it. You evidently did not read the series of articles.</p>
<p>&#8220;About &#8216;free lunch&#8217;; most people (in &#8216;socialism&#8217;) are fully aware that the question is not about free lunch, but about human solidarity.&#8221;</p>
<p>Solidarity through coercion. No, that&#8217;s not delusional at all.</p>
<p>&#8220;This comes at a cost. A cup of coffee at an Oslo caffe costs $8.93 ($4.30 in New York) and people know why.&#8221;</p>
<p>People know why: Their politicians tax policies. They accept the greater good arguments. That doesn&#8217;t mean they could not have done it better. It just means they haven&#8217;t failed and haven&#8217;t had enough people object yet. You&#8217;re not actually refuting anything that I&#8217;ve said. It&#8217;s either done deceptively, or people have agreed to pay for certain benefits to society at large. That&#8217;s inspired by socialism. But if it&#8217;s truly noncoercive then it&#8217;s not really socialism. If that&#8217;s the kind of socialism you&#8217;re promoting then you ought to make that more clear. Don&#8217;t just point to Norway and say, &#8220;See how happy they are?&#8221;</p>
<p>You only have to look at the failure of the &#8220;Great Society&#8221; to see what kind of insanity comes from following bogus theories.</p>
<p>&#8220;This is the price that one pays for not listening about the glory of croaking for lack of means to pay for the health care.&#8221;</p>
<p>Yes of course; if people would just be more enlightened, we&#8217;d have our Utopia, just like Norway.</p>
<p>Call your representatives and have them promote a &#8220;Norway bill.&#8221; We should be &#8220;just like Norway.&#8221; That will make it clear to everyone that you&#8217;re talking about the &#8220;good socialism.&#8221;</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260148</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Aug 2013 13:35:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260148</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A correction:
The price of a cup of coffee in Oslo is $9.83.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>A correction:<br />
The price of a cup of coffee in Oslo is $9.83.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260143</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Aug 2013 13:20:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260143</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Since we are free to define social system as we wish, let us stuck on the definition of &#039;socialism&#039; as the system that is nowdays more or less found in the Scandinavian countries.
However since you are inclined to expand this discussion uncontrolablly and I have neither time nor desire to follow suit, a shall limit myself to a few observations.
About expectations; The expectation that playing by capitalist rules may secure you &#039;vertical mobility&#039; is probably a far bigger delusion that any that &#039;socialism&#039; could offer.
This delusion is comparable to the delusion that &#039;vertical mobility&#039; shall be acheived by buying a lottery ticket.
About &#039;free lunch&#039;; most people (in &#039;socialism&#039;) are fully aware that the question is not about free lunch, but about human solidarity. This comes at a cost. A cup of coffee at an Oslo caffe costs $8.93 ($4.30 in New York) and people know why.
This is the price that one pays for not listening about the glory of croaking for lack of means to pay for the health care.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Since we are free to define social system as we wish, let us stuck on the definition of &#8216;socialism&#8217; as the system that is nowdays more or less found in the Scandinavian countries.<br />
However since you are inclined to expand this discussion uncontrolablly and I have neither time nor desire to follow suit, a shall limit myself to a few observations.<br />
About expectations; The expectation that playing by capitalist rules may secure you &#8216;vertical mobility&#8217; is probably a far bigger delusion that any that &#8216;socialism&#8217; could offer.<br />
This delusion is comparable to the delusion that &#8216;vertical mobility&#8217; shall be acheived by buying a lottery ticket.<br />
About &#8216;free lunch&#8217;; most people (in &#8216;socialism&#8217;) are fully aware that the question is not about free lunch, but about human solidarity. This comes at a cost. A cup of coffee at an Oslo caffe costs $8.93 ($4.30 in New York) and people know why.<br />
This is the price that one pays for not listening about the glory of croaking for lack of means to pay for the health care.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5260067</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sun, 18 Aug 2013 04:08:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5260067</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;We should make clear one thing: what should we call
&#039;socialism&#039;?&quot;

http://historysage.com/jcms/images/stories/Euro_PDFs/Socialism_in_History.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism

The word means many things to many people and the ideas predate Marx. Marx viewed socialism as a stepping stone to communism. It seems to me he considered communism as a kind of scientifically optimized or perfected socialism.

Now you can&#039;t defend socialist policies by simply showing that they have not entirely replaced our free markets. That never actually happened. The question is what direction are we going and what are the underlying principals?

There is also the fact that some &quot;socialist&quot; policies are purely fraudulent. But because they are justified by or sold with socialist ideology, we tend to lump those projects together under the socialist rubric. If you want more nuanced discussions, you have to have the conversation. But certain projects under &quot;green energy&quot; are conjured up after being inspired by socialist ideas.

&quot;According to Marxist theory &#039;socialism&#039; means the collective ownership of the means of production.&quot;

That&#039;s a feature of socialism. No sovereign has ever achieved absolute socialism as far as I know.

In any case, we don&#039;t have to prove which sovereigns have done it &quot;correctly&quot; or not because our position is that these theories are false, even though technically some of the policies can be implemented. Our concern is with the actual harm of the policies and attempts or arguments for socialism and what the ideology does to expectations among the populations that think it would be good for them. We don&#039;t need to define absolutely what &quot;true&quot; socialism is because our concern is the  harm caused by the false ideas about it that people have.

Socialism more or less promises &quot;free lunch&quot; with a nutshell game that destroys incentives for large swaths of populations to remain productive. It also destroys opportunities for even more people. It&#039;s an oligarchy disguised as Utopia. Which is hypocritical because it promises to flatten the class structure but merely flattens productive people.

I&#039;d say that any time you want to do something in the name of &quot;social justice&quot; and you imply that disparity of results is a negative thing for society, you&#039;ve been duped by false socialist ideas. Lunch is never free. Someone has to produce and prepare it. Always.

&quot;Here (in this essay, and on this website generally) the
label of socialism is attached to everything. From systems with extensive welfare, public services, redistribution of wealth, and of course high taxes (all of
this found in the Scandinavian countries), to Obamacare.&quot;

There&#039;s a very good reason for that if you understand the history and underlying ideas. Some of the things we label as socialist could in theory be employed under different justifications. If you don&#039;t promise that free lunch and people know honestly what to expect and what they&#039;re paying for, we can&#039;t rightly call that socialism. Maybe we could say it was inspired by socialist theory but as long as people pay for these things noncoercively, that&#039;s not socialism.

And at this point we can&#039;t probably ever purge all socialist policies. But at least if we understand the true costs, we can come to compromises that most of us can live with.

&quot;In particular this label is attached to the state of affairs that precede major disruptions in capitalism.&quot;

If you disrupt the free market with ideas based on socialism, then that&#039;s how we&#039;ll call it. There are plenty of regulations related to disclosure and risk management that are not based on socialist ideology. So you&#039;re not quite right. Other free market limits are justified by public safety. That&#039;s probably not socialism unless you make delusional arguments about &quot;the greater good&quot; without objective evidence.

&quot;Scandinavian style is described by the Economist of London (no friend of the ‘left’) as:… Nordic countries&quot;are probably the best-governed in the world,&quot; with Sweden in first place.
Despite &#039;socialism&#039;.&quot;



Usually socialism delivers a slow death. And I&#039;m not at all sure I agree with their analysis. But in theory it&#039;s possible to kill your economy slowly with socialism, and feel good about it for the early stages. But it&#039;s also possible to implement socialist policies in a balanced way. We&#039;re not saying that we need to be pure. We&#039;re saying it&#039;s generally harmful, and never more harmful than when it&#039;s presented as some kind of self-funded solution. 


In the USA we&#039;ve been suffering under the burden of stupid socialist policies for decades now. We could have initiated similar projects with the same initial costs, and done it with much better results if we first purged the false ideas of socialism.


Basically socialism treats people as fungible, and takes dynamic economic factors and oversimplifies them. It breaks things that they consider unbreakable. It creates commodity value out of labor as if people will work just as hard with lower incentives. Those are just a few examples.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;We should make clear one thing: what should we call<br />
&#8216;socialism&#8217;?&#8221;</p>
<p><a href="http://historysage.com/jcms/images/stories/Euro_PDFs/Socialism_in_History.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://historysage.com/jcms/images/stories/Euro_PDFs/Socialism_in_History.pdf</a></p>
<p><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_socialism</a></p>
<p>The word means many things to many people and the ideas predate Marx. Marx viewed socialism as a stepping stone to communism. It seems to me he considered communism as a kind of scientifically optimized or perfected socialism.</p>
<p>Now you can&#8217;t defend socialist policies by simply showing that they have not entirely replaced our free markets. That never actually happened. The question is what direction are we going and what are the underlying principals?</p>
<p>There is also the fact that some &#8220;socialist&#8221; policies are purely fraudulent. But because they are justified by or sold with socialist ideology, we tend to lump those projects together under the socialist rubric. If you want more nuanced discussions, you have to have the conversation. But certain projects under &#8220;green energy&#8221; are conjured up after being inspired by socialist ideas.</p>
<p>&#8220;According to Marxist theory &#8216;socialism&#8217; means the collective ownership of the means of production.&#8221;</p>
<p>That&#8217;s a feature of socialism. No sovereign has ever achieved absolute socialism as far as I know.</p>
<p>In any case, we don&#8217;t have to prove which sovereigns have done it &#8220;correctly&#8221; or not because our position is that these theories are false, even though technically some of the policies can be implemented. Our concern is with the actual harm of the policies and attempts or arguments for socialism and what the ideology does to expectations among the populations that think it would be good for them. We don&#8217;t need to define absolutely what &#8220;true&#8221; socialism is because our concern is the  harm caused by the false ideas about it that people have.</p>
<p>Socialism more or less promises &#8220;free lunch&#8221; with a nutshell game that destroys incentives for large swaths of populations to remain productive. It also destroys opportunities for even more people. It&#8217;s an oligarchy disguised as Utopia. Which is hypocritical because it promises to flatten the class structure but merely flattens productive people.</p>
<p>I&#8217;d say that any time you want to do something in the name of &#8220;social justice&#8221; and you imply that disparity of results is a negative thing for society, you&#8217;ve been duped by false socialist ideas. Lunch is never free. Someone has to produce and prepare it. Always.</p>
<p>&#8220;Here (in this essay, and on this website generally) the<br />
label of socialism is attached to everything. From systems with extensive welfare, public services, redistribution of wealth, and of course high taxes (all of<br />
this found in the Scandinavian countries), to Obamacare.&#8221;</p>
<p>There&#8217;s a very good reason for that if you understand the history and underlying ideas. Some of the things we label as socialist could in theory be employed under different justifications. If you don&#8217;t promise that free lunch and people know honestly what to expect and what they&#8217;re paying for, we can&#8217;t rightly call that socialism. Maybe we could say it was inspired by socialist theory but as long as people pay for these things noncoercively, that&#8217;s not socialism.</p>
<p>And at this point we can&#8217;t probably ever purge all socialist policies. But at least if we understand the true costs, we can come to compromises that most of us can live with.</p>
<p>&#8220;In particular this label is attached to the state of affairs that precede major disruptions in capitalism.&#8221;</p>
<p>If you disrupt the free market with ideas based on socialism, then that&#8217;s how we&#8217;ll call it. There are plenty of regulations related to disclosure and risk management that are not based on socialist ideology. So you&#8217;re not quite right. Other free market limits are justified by public safety. That&#8217;s probably not socialism unless you make delusional arguments about &#8220;the greater good&#8221; without objective evidence.</p>
<p>&#8220;Scandinavian style is described by the Economist of London (no friend of the ‘left’) as:… Nordic countries&#8221;are probably the best-governed in the world,&#8221; with Sweden in first place.<br />
Despite &#8216;socialism&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
<p>Usually socialism delivers a slow death. And I&#8217;m not at all sure I agree with their analysis. But in theory it&#8217;s possible to kill your economy slowly with socialism, and feel good about it for the early stages. But it&#8217;s also possible to implement socialist policies in a balanced way. We&#8217;re not saying that we need to be pure. We&#8217;re saying it&#8217;s generally harmful, and never more harmful than when it&#8217;s presented as some kind of self-funded solution. </p>
<p>In the USA we&#8217;ve been suffering under the burden of stupid socialist policies for decades now. We could have initiated similar projects with the same initial costs, and done it with much better results if we first purged the false ideas of socialism.</p>
<p>Basically socialism treats people as fungible, and takes dynamic economic factors and oversimplifies them. It breaks things that they consider unbreakable. It creates commodity value out of labor as if people will work just as hard with lower incentives. Those are just a few examples.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5259820</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Aug 2013 13:15:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5259820</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[We should make clear one thing: what should we call
&#039;socialism&#039;?
According to Marxist theory &#039;socialism&#039; means the collective ownership of the means of production.

In the USSR the system was called &#039;socialism&#039; by its
protagonists (&#039;communism&#039; being something in the same category as the second coming of Jesus Christ)

Here (in this essay, and on this website generally) the
label of socialism is attached to everything. From systems with extensive welfare, public services, redistribution of wealth, and of course high taxes (all of
this found in the Scandinavian countries), to Obamacare.

In particular this label is attached to the state of affairs
that precede major disruptions in capitalism.

I would stick to the latter definition since it is fashionable and would draw the attention to the fact that, (‘socialism’in USSR &amp; co style being historically discredited) ‘socialism’ Scandinavian style is described by the Economist of London (no friend of the ‘left’) as:… Nordic countries&quot;are probably the best-governed in the world,&quot; with Sweden in first place.
Despite &#039;socialism&#039;.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>We should make clear one thing: what should we call<br />
&#8216;socialism&#8217;?<br />
According to Marxist theory &#8216;socialism&#8217; means the collective ownership of the means of production.</p>
<p>In the USSR the system was called &#8216;socialism&#8217; by its<br />
protagonists (&#8216;communism&#8217; being something in the same category as the second coming of Jesus Christ)</p>
<p>Here (in this essay, and on this website generally) the<br />
label of socialism is attached to everything. From systems with extensive welfare, public services, redistribution of wealth, and of course high taxes (all of<br />
this found in the Scandinavian countries), to Obamacare.</p>
<p>In particular this label is attached to the state of affairs<br />
that precede major disruptions in capitalism.</p>
<p>I would stick to the latter definition since it is fashionable and would draw the attention to the fact that, (‘socialism’in USSR &amp; co style being historically discredited) ‘socialism’ Scandinavian style is described by the Economist of London (no friend of the ‘left’) as:… Nordic countries&#8221;are probably the best-governed in the world,&#8221; with Sweden in first place.<br />
Despite &#8216;socialism&#8217;.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5259614</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:30:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5259614</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Another point in this series is worth mentioning; when capitalism shows its superiority ( say in the period of the breakdown of USSR and with it the communist system as a whole), it is praised by all, and in particular by the &#039;free marketeers&#039;, as a system so awesome, so superior that one had only to bow as a sign of recognition and appreciation.&quot;

You mean for the past 400 years or more? When global trade and stock markets began to emerge? That&#039;s modern capitalism.

&quot;However when the depression visited the capitalist world as was the case in the recent half of a decade, we suddenly learn that up to that time we in fact (which was cleverly hidden by the &#039;left&#039;) lived in a socialist economic system, which is to blame for the woes that befell us.&quot;



The root problems with any recession are not caused by capitalism. They are usually caused by people who try to exploit (cannibalize) it without understanding or respecting it. Usually from the left.


If you read the article (and understood the whole series) you&#039;ll see that it&#039;s not a question of capitalism or not, but who has sovereignty. Capitalism itself is essential for ANY sense of equal opportunity. Capitalism is the means in which &quot;wealthy&quot; people (or anyone who can manage to preserve valuables that can be invested in any project, large or small) use their assets to produce goods or services such that they can be sold or shared.


If I&#039;m a billionaire and I swear off capitalism, I&#039;ll put all my funds in to gold or other commodities. Then what? I hand that out to the poor? They can&#039;t eat it. They can only trade for something else. If they do that, they&#039;re participating in the fruits of capitalism.


Without capitalism you have virtually no upward mobility other than by winning wars to seize lands. And then you&#039;ve demoted someone else. That&#039;s a zero sum game. With capitalism you create synergistic projects.

Can you at least understand the theory before you try to break it?


The debate about capitalism vs. socialism is a false one. Socialists want control, not a &quot;new economic system.&quot; It&#039;s not actually new. It just uses BS justifications to change who controls industry and assets. And economies are far too complex for this to occur without cronyism and corruption. There are no rational ways to balance productivity incentives with socialist perceptions of &quot;social justice.&quot; You can&#039;t have socialism without proportional increases in corruption.


You might get some productivity, but it pales in comparison to what free markets deliver.


If you want to balance free markets with safety nets to address social concerns, that&#039;s fine in and of itself if you make the case rationally. But when you call the most productive people &quot;greedy&quot; just because they produce the most, and when you tell people that in essence they have rights to feel life is fair even in their own ignorance, that&#039;s a recipe for disaster. Which is what you always get when you indoctrinate people with that kind of insanity.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Another point in this series is worth mentioning; when capitalism shows its superiority ( say in the period of the breakdown of USSR and with it the communist system as a whole), it is praised by all, and in particular by the &#8216;free marketeers&#8217;, as a system so awesome, so superior that one had only to bow as a sign of recognition and appreciation.&#8221;</p>
<p>You mean for the past 400 years or more? When global trade and stock markets began to emerge? That&#8217;s modern capitalism.</p>
<p>&#8220;However when the depression visited the capitalist world as was the case in the recent half of a decade, we suddenly learn that up to that time we in fact (which was cleverly hidden by the &#8216;left&#8217;) lived in a socialist economic system, which is to blame for the woes that befell us.&#8221;</p>
<p>The root problems with any recession are not caused by capitalism. They are usually caused by people who try to exploit (cannibalize) it without understanding or respecting it. Usually from the left.</p>
<p>If you read the article (and understood the whole series) you&#8217;ll see that it&#8217;s not a question of capitalism or not, but who has sovereignty. Capitalism itself is essential for ANY sense of equal opportunity. Capitalism is the means in which &#8220;wealthy&#8221; people (or anyone who can manage to preserve valuables that can be invested in any project, large or small) use their assets to produce goods or services such that they can be sold or shared.</p>
<p>If I&#8217;m a billionaire and I swear off capitalism, I&#8217;ll put all my funds in to gold or other commodities. Then what? I hand that out to the poor? They can&#8217;t eat it. They can only trade for something else. If they do that, they&#8217;re participating in the fruits of capitalism.</p>
<p>Without capitalism you have virtually no upward mobility other than by winning wars to seize lands. And then you&#8217;ve demoted someone else. That&#8217;s a zero sum game. With capitalism you create synergistic projects.</p>
<p>Can you at least understand the theory before you try to break it?</p>
<p>The debate about capitalism vs. socialism is a false one. Socialists want control, not a &#8220;new economic system.&#8221; It&#8217;s not actually new. It just uses BS justifications to change who controls industry and assets. And economies are far too complex for this to occur without cronyism and corruption. There are no rational ways to balance productivity incentives with socialist perceptions of &#8220;social justice.&#8221; You can&#8217;t have socialism without proportional increases in corruption.</p>
<p>You might get some productivity, but it pales in comparison to what free markets deliver.</p>
<p>If you want to balance free markets with safety nets to address social concerns, that&#8217;s fine in and of itself if you make the case rationally. But when you call the most productive people &#8220;greedy&#8221; just because they produce the most, and when you tell people that in essence they have rights to feel life is fair even in their own ignorance, that&#8217;s a recipe for disaster. Which is what you always get when you indoctrinate people with that kind of insanity.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5259608</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:12:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5259608</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Even In Russia (or the former USSR) life for most was better in 1970 than in 1930.&quot;



Upward mobility on the backs of corpses who produced the wealth. That&#039;s a lovely image of social justice.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Even In Russia (or the former USSR) life for most was better in 1970 than in 1930.&#8221;</p>
<p>Upward mobility on the backs of corpses who produced the wealth. That&#8217;s a lovely image of social justice.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: objectivefactsmatter</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5259607</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[objectivefactsmatter]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 17 Aug 2013 00:11:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5259607</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;If that is the measure and/or definition of &#039;upward mobility&#039;, then almost all countries and economic systems in the world have or have had experienced &#039;upward mobility&#039;.&quot;



Partly true. If you want to count &quot;other economic systems&quot; then you must count those who elevate themselves through political corruption. Technically that&#039;s also upward mobility but I wouldn&#039;t say communists are likely to brag about that.


So you&#039;ve actually arrived at the most salient question, which system is better, the one that rewards honest productivity or the one that rewards political corruption?]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;If that is the measure and/or definition of &#8216;upward mobility&#8217;, then almost all countries and economic systems in the world have or have had experienced &#8216;upward mobility&#8217;.&#8221;</p>
<p>Partly true. If you want to count &#8220;other economic systems&#8221; then you must count those who elevate themselves through political corruption. Technically that&#8217;s also upward mobility but I wouldn&#8217;t say communists are likely to brag about that.</p>
<p>So you&#8217;ve actually arrived at the most salient question, which system is better, the one that rewards honest productivity or the one that rewards political corruption?</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
	<item>
		<title>By: Consider</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2013/mark-hendrickson/capital-capitalists-and-capitalism-part-vi/comment-page-1/#comment-5259333</link>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Consider]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 16 Aug 2013 15:05:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=200478#comment-5259333</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[&quot;Upward mobility does not imply that you must pass others in the percentile ranks (though that happens too) but it means that you can improve your own wealth and standard of living.&quot;
If that is the measure and/or definition of &#039;upward mobility&#039;, then almost all countries and economic systems in the world have or have had experienced &#039;upward mobility&#039;.
Even In Russia (or the former USSR) life for most was better in 1970 than in 1930.
Another point in this series is worth mentioning; when capitalism shows its superiority ( say in the period of the breakdown of USSR and with it the communist system as a whole), it is praised by all, and in particular by the &#039;free marketeers&#039;, as a system so awesome, so superior that one had only to bow as a sign of recognition and appreciation.
However when the depression visited the capitalist world as was the case in the recent half of a decade, we suddenly learn that up to that time we in fact (which was cleverly hidden by the &#039;left&#039;) lived in a socialist economic system, which is to blame for the woes that befell us.]]></description>
		<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>&#8220;Upward mobility does not imply that you must pass others in the percentile ranks (though that happens too) but it means that you can improve your own wealth and standard of living.&#8221;<br />
If that is the measure and/or definition of &#8216;upward mobility&#8217;, then almost all countries and economic systems in the world have or have had experienced &#8216;upward mobility&#8217;.<br />
Even In Russia (or the former USSR) life for most was better in 1970 than in 1930.<br />
Another point in this series is worth mentioning; when capitalism shows its superiority ( say in the period of the breakdown of USSR and with it the communist system as a whole), it is praised by all, and in particular by the &#8216;free marketeers&#8217;, as a system so awesome, so superior that one had only to bow as a sign of recognition and appreciation.<br />
However when the depression visited the capitalist world as was the case in the recent half of a decade, we suddenly learn that up to that time we in fact (which was cleverly hidden by the &#8216;left&#8217;) lived in a socialist economic system, which is to blame for the woes that befell us.</p>
]]></content:encoded>
	</item>
</channel>
</rss>

<!-- Performance optimized by W3 Total Cache. Learn more: http://www.w3-edge.com/wordpress-plugins/

Object Caching 960/1009 objects using disk
Content Delivery Network via cdn.frontpagemag.com

 Served from: www.frontpagemag.com @ 2014-12-29 15:52:22 by W3 Total Cache -->