Is Capitalism God-Ordained?

[ThomasJMullally]

… Shutting off new ideas for fear of protecting inefficient processes and products might be peace in your little utopia but I’d sooner be the lone rebel overturning such a stagnant society.

So you’re blaming new ideas for the inflation of unrelated costs of insurance and salaries? Didn’t they ever tell you that correlation doesn’t imply causation?

It is a simple fact of our society: only a small fraction of what is new, actually represents progress. A truly efficient (not to mention ethical and moral) economic system would not kick up so much waste and so much false starting, bankruptcies, etc. That is a lot of human and environmental destruction, all for naught.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

It is a simple fact of our society: only a small fraction of what is new, actually represents progress. A truly efficient (not to mention ethical and moral) economic system would not kick up so much waste and so much false starting, bankruptcies, etc. That is a lot of human and environmental destruction, all for naught.

Of course there’s going to be a lot of waste in order to get to the next step. It’s called trial and error. How much gold did you think past societies wasted before we stopped minting them for currency? How much wood, wax, and wicks did we have to burn before we had the electric light? How much time did you think we wasted poring over useless books before electronic catalogs (and eventually the internet) made it easier to comb through?

Insurance? Salaries? Politics? Honestly, you’re really just complaining about what is very inherent in human nature. The only way you’re ever going to solve this problem is raw omniscience. You can’t fix something unless you realize it’s broke and you don’t stay sure about your solution all the time or else your competitor turns you into the figurative Emperor with New Clothes.

And really? All for naught? Stop using your PC then. Apparently it’s all for naught.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

… Honestly, you’re really just complaining about what is very inherent in human nature. The only way you’re ever going to solve this problem is raw omniscience. You can’t fix something unless you realize it’s broke and you don’t stay sure about your solution all the time or else your competitor turns you into the figurative Emperor with New Clothes.

And really? All for naught? Stop using your PC then. Apparently it’s all for naught.

Intensive competition is sanctified by our system, but it is neither God-ordained nor integral to human nature. You have the sad and primitive, Hobbesian outlook, that the government and industrialists want you to have…

As for the PC, yes I have to say that it was (and remains) a step giant backwards from the original mainframes, which were a system of cooperation, not atomization (!)

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Here’s the thing, ZC-- how can a person hate regulations, but wish the police to vociferously work on behalf of property owners? It doesn’t make sense. What we have now is the paramount exercise and defense of property rights, at the expense of more basic human rights.

Bear in mind that the right to property is a right to action. It is not the right to an object, but to the action and the consequences of producing or earning that object. It is not a guarantee that we will aquire any property, but only a guarantee that we will own it if we earn it. It is the right to gain, to keep, to use and to dispose of material values.

As distributism would have it, there are things that sometimes need to be defended by communities from buy/sell price mechanisms, from disruptive interference. Disruptive interference is the goal of the new capitalists… there is no real innovation anymore, just a goal to undercut established trades long enough to drive them out of business, or take them over.

In a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire Capitalist economy…the theory of disruptive interference would not exist.

Lowering prices to better compete ALWAYS benefits consumers. When my lower prices drive my competitors out of business and I increase my prices, I am opening the door to more competition…

As long as innovators are free to innovate there will be someone who can offer better prices and/or better service than I can. The bottom line is that the consumers benefit.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

In a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire Capitalist economy…the theory of disruptive interference would not exist.

Lowering prices to better compete ALWAYS benefits consumers. When my lower prices drive my competitors out of business and I increase my prices, I am opening the door to more competition…

As long as innovators are free to innovate there will be someone who can offer better prices and/or better service than I can. The bottom line is that the consumers benefit.

Well, I am glad you can (I think) see the perversion and inefficiency of so much concentrated money just wanting to destroy a market in order to control it. And that is the point, it is ONLY MONEY that is saved by the consumers acting in self-interest, and disloyally, as elicited through the price system. However there are many contingent, human and environmental damages.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

Intensive competition is sanctified by our system, but it is neither God-ordained nor integral to human nature. You have the sad and primitive, Hobbesian outlook, that the government and industrialists want you to have…

Yet it’s my ‘primitive’ mindset that’s creates people who manage to make more money than most and have their mark on history. But hey, feel free to keep complaining and condemning. (Oh and worshiping the likes of Chamberlain, who valued ‘peace’ over a lick of sense.)

Personally, I used to think as high up on that pedestal as you are… till some loser tripped it up and sent me crashing down on all levels. You don’t win the game by not playing. You just end up in a place worse than pawn. You’re the flat board that even the pawns have an easy time sliding over.

As for the PC, yes I have to say that it was (and remains) a step giant backwards from the original mainframes, which were a system of cooperation, not atomization (!)

Yet you use it. Or better yet, have the courage to actually prove your statement instead of just wasting your time debating about it on an online board.

Then again, you’d probably just use the excuse that you’re selling out to the satanic, inhumane notion of ‘competition.’

Maybe that’s how real ideas are lost. Because people hesitate to realize it. As always. The whiner keeps himself locked in perpetual self-defeat.

As long as innovators are free to innovate there will be someone who can offer better prices and/or better service than I can. The bottom line is that the consumers benefit.

It’s so simple yet I really don’t get why people are so averse to the idea of competing with ideas as a means of progress purely on the basis that pricing somehow complicates things.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

Yet it’s my ‘primitive’ mindset that’s creates people who manage to make more money than most and have their mark on history.

What good is a mark on history, if someone gains it through treachery? You are still spouting the “Might Makes Right” rhetoric that put us at loggerheads the other time.

I do not “worship” Chamberlain, but (as you say about all the “trial and error” of capitalism) just because someone loses out, doesn’t make them immoral or wrong. Lambs of God lose quite a lot, in earthly struggles. I will repeat, Chamberlain’s effort to avoid a new war, only to become vilified when his good faith was unfortunately dashed, is an example of a horrible reckoning of history.

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

What good is a mark on history, if someone gains it through treachery? You are still spouting the “Might Makes Right” rhetoric that put us at loggerheads the other time.

Treachery is a matter of perspective. To a loser, and a bitter one, everything is treacherous except himself. Ironically, the worst kind of loser is the one who betrays himself by letting others get the better of him. He refuses to get up and fight again. You know, because he thinks he’s above such things and all.

I’ll keep spouting the might makes right rhetoric because I have never seen an initiative that succeeds through institutionalized spinelessness. That’s how we first lost to Hitler. That’s how the elites you so despise stay the elite.

Too many people still are intimidated from challenging them. Might makes right? Thanks to your rants against competition and desire to protect inefficiency, it does. “Whether you think you can or can’t-you’re right.”

I do not “worship” Chamberlain, but (as you say about all the “trial and error” of capitalism) just because someone loses out, doesn’t make them immoral or wrong. Lambs of God lose quite a lot, in earthly struggles. I will repeat, Chamberlain’s effort to avoid a new war, only to become vilified when his good faith was unfortunately dashed, is an example of a horrible reckoning of history.

Excuse me? I think you’re a little off on your interpretation. The learning process of trial and error requires a wrong. That’s how you’ll know what’s right. That’s how you’ll know that firewood is a bigger waste than switching on the lights. That’s how you’ll know what mistakes to avoid.

And in the case of your little Lamb of God (Really, you’re advocating for Chamberlain’s sainthood now?), the mistake was ‘good faith.’ Today, it’s become good faith with military insurance.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Well, I am glad you can (I think) see the perversion and inefficiency of so much concentrated money just wanting to destroy a market in order to control it. And that is the point, it is ONLY MONEY that is saved by the consumers acting in self-interest, and disloyally, as elicited through the price system. However there are many contingent, human and environmental damages.

No I don’t see any perversion or inefficiency of concentrated money that wants to destroy a market. I assume that you consider it wrong to want to control a market…
I cannot understand how a consumer, acting in self-interest (saving money) can be disloyal…and disloyal to whom?

What contingent , human or environmental damages are you speaking of…?

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

It’s so simple yet I really don’t get why people are so averse to the idea of competing with ideas as a means of progress purely on the basis that pricing somehow complicates things.

I am confused about that also.

I can only speculate that some people are so hung up on the “equality theory” that the concept of progress via individual success has become abhorrent to them.

Or

Maybe they just don’t know anything about business.

 

[ThomasJMullally]

I am confused about that also.

I can only speculate that some people are so hung up on the “equality theory” that the concept of progress via individual success has become abhorrent to them.

Or

Maybe they just don’t know anything about business.

Well, I’m just looking at results… world depression, over-production, destruction of traditional culture, displacement of indigenous peoples, wars etc… If you fellers are happy with the world as it is, so long as you are comfy, then I am happy for you…

 

[ThomasJMullally]

As long as any economic system, no matter what it is called, is not God-Oriented, it is hard to imagine it as God-Ordained.

Tell 'em Sally!.. I said it before and I’ll repeat: we have a system built on the concept that men should be harnessed into labors through the lure of greed (profit-making), only to be stymied through price competition. Therefore the goal is that men (and women) waste their lives on production of economic goods, instead of on family, instead of just going fishing, instead of worshipping God, etc…

 

[Lost_Wanderer]

I am confused about that also.

I can only speculate that some people are so hung up on the “equality theory” that the concept of progress via individual success has become abhorrent to them.

Or

Maybe they just don’t know anything about business.

If you ask me, this whole ‘equality thing’ (yes, I’m starting to just call it a ‘thing’ and not so much of a ‘theory’) is really envy. It says a lot when people cry about economic/business/human competition and claim it’s driven by greed. Pot meet kettle.

Therefore the goal is that men (and women) waste their lives on production of economic goods, instead of on family, instead of just going fishing, instead of worshipping God, etc…

Oh yes, because we’re involved in business and make money, it must mean we’re incapable of simultaneously involved in family, living a life, and spending time in prayer.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Well, I’m just looking at results… world depression, over-production, destruction of traditional culture, displacement of indigenous peoples, wars etc… If you fellers are happy with the world as it is, so long as you are comfy, then I am happy for you…

Tell me Tom, is the world a better place, generally speaking, today than 100 years ago?
Was the world a better place before the Industrial Revolution?

I see better health longer life spans and higher standards of living due to innovators.

We are producing more food with less land than ever before due to agricultural innovation.

I bet you didn’t know that Capitalism (real Capitalism) gave mankind the longest period of peace in history—a period during which there were no wars involving the entire civilized world.

I’m happy. Glad you are happy too.

 

[Zoltan_Cobalt]

Tell 'em Sally!.. I said it before and I’ll repeat: we have a system built on the concept that men should be harnessed into labors through the lure of greed (profit-making), only to be stymied through price competition. Therefore the goal is that men (and women) waste their lives on production of economic goods, instead of on family, instead of just going fishing, instead of worshipping God, etc…

If you think about it for a minute you realize that mankind cannot enjoy things like fishing, tending to a family, or even properly worshiping God until mankind becomes prosperous.

In our early days it was all we could do to survive. There was no time for the arts, music, recreation or religion. We were out hunting or gathering in order to feed ourselves. It was not until some of us gained a little more that we could then enjoy the simple things of life…because we had the time. That led to sharing and the specialization of work and gave more people the time to enjoy life.

 

[Matilda_Bennett]

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