(June 11, 2012 at 2:58 pm)Minimalist Wrote: You're right, Rythm. They are doing their dead level best to create one by dragging us back to the pre-Teddy Roosevelt days when the Robber Barons ran rampant and the poor lived in shitty tenements and worked in unsafe factories for a pittance. The republicunts and the libertarian allies call that "freedom" but its really only freedom for them.
I just finished Bertrand Russell's Proposed Roads To Freedom. His ultimate conclusion was a guild socialism. I don't see this as a viable solution, but I have 90 years of hindsight to argue with.
What he did say, that caugth my attention, was that nobody should have to work more than four hours a day, with advancing technology, to subsist. I don't think anyone can imagine that Russell meant that subsisting means living in a tent city or in a water drainage system or that we cannot be compassionate as a society to ensure that we are all fed and properly looked after; dare I say medically?
Proponents of capitalism claim that there has never been a greater force for the advancement of the human condition, but only repeat this bromide when given examples of those that don't enjoy the advancement. This claim is true, but only if one has the capacity to exclude those that don't enjoy its fruits (the losers in previous arguments in this thread). Although there is an opportunity for advancement of situation, it still largely depends on a lucky sperm (or egg) club mentality. In the very sage words of Everlast "You know where it ends/ Yo, it usually depends on where you start".
The problem with the 1%/99% argument is that most people through propoganda (non-political propoganda = marketing) don't realize they are part of the 99%.
I would go on, but I've already proven myself to be brevity challenged in this matter.
