(June 3, 2013 at 5:08 pm)Mister Agenda Wrote: Whatever else it's faults, capitalism is good at driving economic growth, and economic growth is the only thing with a record of getting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. 200 years ago, 90% of the world's population was in what would be considered extreme poverty today. 25 years ago it was about 45%. Today it is about 15%.
I'm all for mitigating downsides, but I'm not for slowing economic growth in undeveloped countries. When you're fixing a car, it pays to be careful with the engine.
You have a very narrow and wrong perception of history.
200 years ago, the industrial revolution was in it`s beginnings. Forcing hundreds of thousands (including children) to work under miserable working conditions in factories and mines, for 6 days a week, for low wages. Whilest their rights were literaly trampled uppon. Additionaly to that, in it`s early days, capitalism also helped such wonderfully humane things as slavery, to reach a level it had never been on before.
It was through the rise of the workers rights movements during the 1840s - 1880s that workers gained a chance to achieve the wealth and security which they were denied. These movements were the direct result of the then dominant culture of opression through miserable working conditions and minimal goverment intervention, and not the result of naiv ideas of creating a better society.
One can easily say that the 19th century with it`s complete ignorance towards the working classes and policies of minimal goverment intervention was a liberterians wet dream.
