Anti-Capitalist Sentiment (with some morality)

[Renton]

Here's what I think. Everyone deserves a certain standard of living. Why should the billionaire businessman and the penniless homeless man be treated differently when it comes to the standard of healthcare they receive? Does the homeless man not have a right to live because he has no money? A certain standard of healthcare should be provided for everyone, if the billionaire wants to pay for better healthcare over and above the standard given to all that's fine.


I don't think you would be preaching free market doctrine with such gusto if you were the one in desperate need of food or medicine. Would you be telling your starving friends and family to "stop whining, aren't you aware the earth has scarce resources? We have no money to pay for food so we don't deserve to live. How is this not obvious?" I doubt it.

If I were poor I'd obviously be in favor of anything that would make me not be poor. But that doesn't make it a good argument. That resources are scarce is a fact. That scarcity will express itself one way or another. When a state has a heavy hand in distributing resources, massive amounts of resources invariably get wasted. That's not an opinion, but another fact. States attempt to blunt poverty by deciding what prices of essential goods and services ought to be with a woefully insufficient amount of expertise on such matters, or by taking money from the some people to give to others. This tends to result in more poverty, not less. Capitalism naturally addresses poverty by distributing resources in a highly efficient way which results in increased standard of living for all, including and especially the poor.

I think that pure capitalism breeds inequality and corruption. Not furiously competitive markets and scrupulous businessmen. The greed and constant drive for ever increasing profit makes businesses ignore externalities one of the most important being the environment, that's not my opinion, it's scientific fact. Big fossil fuel companies pump out propaganda trying to influence public opinion and cast off claims from the scientific community that climate change is a real and imminent problem so as to protect their profits. This cannot be justified, the continuation of the species and health of the planet is more important than a companies profits/share price.

We've already addressed in this thread and in others that states have done no better a job of internalizing costs or protecting the environment. The environment will get wrecked regardless of how free the market is, until people start to attach a value to clean air. However, in a completely private society that gives greater property rights to individuals, a building that pollutes the air of surrounding properties would be liable for the damage that pollution causes to those properties. This is unlike the current scenario in America, where pollution must be addressed at the state level and a tragedy of the commons scenario is very tough to avoid.

Finally this might come across as snarky but it's not intended to be, my view is just as valid as yours regardless of how much you think you know.

You actually weren't snarky at all until that sentence. I attempt to be civil in these discussions, but I will apologize for my blunt dismissal of your Bangladesh clothing company. I just thought the idea of state takeover of an entire country's clothing industry was demonstrably absurd.