[mdlug-discuss] Ethanol vs gasoline economy [Was: [mdlug] Automotive technical info ...]

[allen]

Wolfger wrote:
> On 5/31/07, allen <amajorov at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I think you're confusing economic systems with something else...
> And if you're using our country as your basis for capitalism, forget
> about it. There were a lot more deaths prior to socialistic things
> like labor unions and government regulation entering the picture.
> People in Chinese sweat shops are suffering for capitalist reasons,
> not socialist reasons.
>
>   
Naw, I think the distinction between economic systems and governmental 
systems inaccurately describes either. Capitalism requires certain 
features of society that are most commonly found in a democracy or a 
reasonable facsimile; rule of law, property rights, equality before the 
law. There are others but it's getting late and I'm tired.

Authoritarian regimes of all stripes - monarchies, communism, fascism 
and any other "isms" - are inherently inimical to capitalism since 
capitalism requires a number of freedoms and legal guarantees. That 
doesn't mean you won't have any capitalism, it's impossible to stamp it 
out entirely, even Joe Stalin and Mao couldn't manage that trick, but 
it'll be the poorest, most threadbare form of capitalism since most 
exchanges of value will occur at the point of a gun. Either figuratively 
or literally.

And about those Chinese? They're just doing what practically everyone 
who was born down on the farm does at the first opportunity. They split.

If you think a sweat shop is tough try the agricultural sector some 
time. Even now, here in America with all the latest technology and 
labor-saving gadgetry, it's still a tough way to make a living. It 
becomes progressively tougher the more primitive the agricultural 
technology in use until you get to subsistence farming.

 From the Chinese perspective, the only one worth considering, those 
factory/sweat shop jobs look pretty good and they're just part of a 
massive migration of humanity everywhere the option arises to get off 
the farm. It happened here in the U.S. and for the same reason; 
agriculture is hard work that's never done and, if you're a subsistence 
farmer, a reasonably good way to starve to death.
> I think you've got that completely backwards. Socialism strives for
> the betterment of society, capitalism strives for betterment of the
> individual.
>
>   
Oddly enough, the more socialism a nation embraces the less betterment 
it seems to enjoy. If you've got an example or two of the success of 
socialism's strivings feel free to provide them.
> Which is why the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening?
>
>   
Would that be the poor who own their own homes with central heating and 
air conditioning, cable TV, their own cars and have, as their number one 
health problem, obesity? If that's the poor to whom you're referring 
then they seem to be doing progressively better as that income gap gets 
wider.
> So capitalism leaves room for a person changing his social standing
> for better or for worse, I agree. I don't see how that levels anything
> when mostly the rich get richer and the poor stay poor. Each biography
> is offset by thousands of failures.
>
>   
As opposed to socialist nations in which there aren't any of those 
inspiring stories because there's no social movement?

And, lest we forget, you don't have to be rich or poor to benefit from a 
capitalist economy. One of the fixtures of a capitalist economy is a 
middle class which, in the more extreme examples of socialism, simply 
doesn't exist. If you're looking for an income gap I suggest you check 
out the comparative life styles of the upper and lower classes in those 
few classless societies still clinging to existence.
> Ha! Well, I think we'll be waiting a while to see who gets the
> position. Unfortunately, it's looking like Bill Gates.
>   
Bill Gates? I don't think so.

Touch base with younger techies, the ones in their twenties or less. I 
don't know whether they've quite come to the point of viewing 
Microsoft-bashing as a quaint anachronism, like high-button shoes and 
cell phones so big you can't lose them in a pocket, but he hardly stands 
astride the tech world the way he did in the distant past of, oh, six or 
seven years ago.

Allen