Your perfect society

[Miri]

where do i begin?.....
5) i firmly beleive that us human beings are the dominant force on earth and that we have free reign to do as we must to survive. meaning that the animals have no actual rights. i am not saying that we should abuse them freely and act like it's ok, but when it comes down to it they don't matter. i think hostile animal species should be killed or contained so they no longer cause a threat to human beings. but no. animal rights protesters think they should roam free and do as they please.

Ok, that's the point, lets protect humans!
First step - lets make a list of beings that are killing humans, then lets eliminate every species from this list, beginning from the first place, from the most fercious killers...
*checks the list and grabs her crossbow* ok, time to hunt humans!

[Chris]

I think it's perfectly reasonable to be human-centric. However, we should use our brains to look out for our long-term interests. That means realizing that all life fits into a complex system, and damaging one part can damage another, until it comes back to us. This perspective has nothing to do with animal rights. It's just enlightened self-interest.

[Money]

I agree. Animals are important, I have three in my household but I would still look after my family before them. If you had to give away your child or your dog to have enough money to put food on the table who would you choose? I think one awnser would be dog.

[Piscator]

The most elegant solution would probably be to eat the dog. ^^

Sorry...

[SekoETC]

I'm reading Faith of the Fallen by Terry Goodkind, and it offers a good example of how charity can be disastrous.

There was a man running a metal workshop, and hiring the best workers, producing high-quality products such as chain mail, and being famous for it. His wife was fussing with charity and always complaining how wicked her husband was for charging a lot of money for the products, thinking that the money is away from the poor people. She also got her daughter to work for charity, and the daughter talked her father into hiring a man who had no skills and a bad back but needed a job to support his ten children. I think later they hard to hire more of these unskilled workers just because the company could afford it. After the man died, his wife took over and kept hiring more poor people. A lot of the old workers quit. They couldn't keep up with the orders, the quality of products dropped and the company was no longer considered trustworthy. Suppliers were demanded to be paid in advance, a lot of customers went away and the ones that remained wouldn't pay their bills. Soon the company went down. Many other local companies had to cut down workers or go out of business since they were dependent on the steel mill. Which lead into more unemployed and poor people. Failing companies left empty buildings, which were given to settlers and they were used for crimes. The widow gave unsold weapons to the poor people so that they could defend themselves but that lead into even more crimes.

[Money]

So if you want to create a company that is good for the community charge 10 times the amount your goods or services cost.

Sorry just had to say that.

[Tiamo]

I read that book by Goodkind too. Didn't like it, though, he is exaggerating things extremely (creating incorrect chains of cause and effect), just to promote US values. He does the same in some other books.

Too bad, because he is a very good writer.

[SekoETC]

I've liked the series so far. Very few series have ignorant people but this has a lot of them. I kinda like books where the main characters are made to suffer but sometimes I feel like ouch, haven't they suffered enough? Can't they have a little bit of happiness for a change?

[Money]

I believe that the capatalist system is the best economic system humanity has come up with. So in a perfect society I believe this system would be present.

[formerly known as hf]

Because, you know, there's no chance that something better might develop?

I don't get people who seem to think capitalism is the end of the line. Economic systems have constantly evolved and fallen - to think capitalism will be no different is to have extreme myopia.

Anyway, capitalism is an inherently contradictory system. It, fundamentally, attempts seperates the economic from the social, and fails. You cannot have free, open markets and a liberal, equal society. The two concepts are completely at odds.

I always point to China as the best example we have of capitalism. It is hardly communist anymore, and has embraced the market system. It has economic growth which makes the US so very jealous, and is booming in more markets we can count. It will manage to sustain such growth because it is has so few social freedoms.

I have said this before, and I will stand by it - if, on my death bed, I am seeing the contraditions of capitalism ripping, or having ripped the system apart, I will die happy.

[Money]

I did not say that it was the end of the line.

I believe that the capatalist system is the best economic system humanity has come up with

Currently I cannot think of a working economic system that is better as such I think it would be in my perfect society. also free, open markets and a liberal, equal society can co-exist. A few examples would be Canada Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, U.K, France, Italy, Germany, many other european countries. All examples of this.

[formerly known as hf]

also free, open markets and a liberal, equal society can co-exist. A few examples would be Canada Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, U.K, France, Italy, Germany, many other european countries. All examples of this.

Most of those, especially the first five have relatively strict policies on the markets they are part of, not only in regards to international trading, but also internally. Various taxations etc. make none of them a free market - most of them, in return, are able to have fairly sturdy welfare systems.

The UK is the most odd one out there. We've sacrificed all manner of social freedoms in this country and have a fairly open market, though not free.

[Money]

Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are owned by private persons, and operated for profit[1] and where investments, distribution, income, production and pricing of goods and services are predominantly determined through the operation of a free market.[2] Capitalism is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and corporations to trade, using money, in goods, services (including finance), labor and land. [2] Ideally, capitalist systems are governed by the free price system set by the law of supply and demand rather than government regulation,[3] though this does not exclude government defining and enforcing the basic rules of the market

Canada is known as a mixed economy a combination of the capatalist and the direct control system It resembles the capatalist system in most ways because it enforces and defines basic rules. The market because of this is essentially free.

[formerly known as hf]

I wasn't saying that those countries weren't capitalist - that would be nonsense. I was saying that capitalism is essentially contradictory.

Free market is a summary term for an array of exchanges that take place in society. Each exchange is undertaken as a voluntary agreement between two people or between groups of people represented by agents.

To that ends,

exchanges are not necessarily free. Many are coerced.

and, whilst they note robbery is a coercive exchange;

Government, in every society, is the only lawful system of coercion. Taxation is a coerced exchange, and the heavier the burden of taxation on production, the more likely it is that economic growth will falter and decline.

From the concise encyclopedia of economics - http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/FreeMarket.html

Thus, none of those countried you listed have a true free market system. Any form of taxation denies a true free market.

However, systems such as the welfare state, public health, public education, etc. - systems which work for social production, social mobility and equality - they are all, in most cases, funded by those same taxations.

Thus, you cannot have both a free market and state social systems - hence the current form of capitalism we have is a system which is being pulled from both ends, and will (hopefully) tear istelf apart.

A form of anarcho-capitalism, may, some suggest, provide an alternative - true free markets, but whereby basic services currently funded by the state are funded by philanthrpy and charity. Whislt I'm ideailstically an anarchist, I very much doubt the anarcho-capitalist utopia, as I disagree with the traditional view of anarchists which appeals to some fundamental humanism. I much prefer a communual anarchism which is non-hierarchicl in all senses, and to take it from there. but I can dream my pipe dreams I guess.

Anyway, enough of the babble - basically, capitalism is by no means the best form of economic or social production we have. Ideal free markets are entirely at odds with the state-based welfare, health and education systems which are currenhtly de rigeur for most of the world. It's very easy to see this. The US = which is arguably the most capitalist of countries (despite very, very hefty coercive measures against imports - but enough about US hypocrisy as they go about touting free market economics and open borders to developing countries whilst they keep their own shut). Anyway, the US has some of the flimsiest state welfare and health systems in the 'West'. It has made that sacrifice for the ideal of free amrkets. Some of the Scandanavian countries, for example, have some of the best, by far, state education and welfare systems, because of stringent coercive measures on markets.

[Money]

If Canada is not a free-market system then what is it exactly? All of the laws are based on the fact that people may enter into voluntary agreements between two people or groups of people represented by an agent. This is means that every time you buy food, clothing, dvds and computers, you are depending on the fact that the capatalist system which is usually considered to involve the right of individuals and corporations to trade, using money, in goods, services (including finance), labor and land is in place. I agree canada is not a total free market/capatalist system is is a mixed economy, but it is still a pre-dominantly capatalist system with assumptions that it uses the free market model as a guide line if not actually using employing it as a whole. Anyway as I have stated before, I do not think that capatalism and the free market system is the end of the line and the best economic system we can come up with. I merely think that it is currently the best system we have and as such it will be in my perfect society until humanity has come up with a better system.