The problem of Capitalism

You mean like those (non-cheating, honest, non-thieving, hardworking) taxi drivers who paid big money for a licence to trade...wiped out by the gig economy, with no compensation. Suicides, depression...who cares?
Farmers crippled by drought?

Even you might begin to care......

Such is your Randianism: Goebbels-like, in its 'awareness' of others.

 

TOO GREAT A CHALLENGE?

Most European countries have more than adequate State Expenditures addressed to human needs and not political boondoggles. We have in Europe some of the finest Healthcare Services on earth.

The answer to your question above is painfully obvious in the US. It simply (and I do mean "simply") takes an effort of simple vision. That is, the pie-chart of the Discretionary Budget:


We are at war with WHO? Why should more than half the Discretionary Budget be allocated to the DoD?

Look at Education at a meager 5%. Look at Housing & Urban Development at 4%. Look at Health & Human Services at 7%. That's a total of 16% of the Discretionary Budget that is spent on "Citizen Services" at a time when the US is VERY LARGELY AT PEACE but the Discretionary Budget allots more than half its total-expenditure to the DoD.

After all is said and done, from where does the Discretionary Budget come? Not just taxation but Federal borrowing - our American debt has become astronomic! (See graphic charts here: U S Government Spending.)

C'mon boyz-'n-girlz, let's get our act together! Which should start at elections next year!

And which elects people who support the following sort of programs:
*First and foremost reduce the DoD-budget that causes the Budget Deficits that our kids will be paying for decades to come.
*Then enhance upper-income taxation and stop the human avarice that prompts people to earn not millions but billions of dollars - that are NOT reintroduced into the economy but go on to perpetuate the luxury of billionaire-family children. I say make all income above 5 megabucks per year 100% taxed and all death-taxation confiscatory of Wealth above 2 megabucks per child. (With no limit on donations to public health/learning institutions.)
*We must start (again because we used to do so but not anymore) Social Investments that pull 14 million Americans out from below the Poverty Threshold, which ...
*Means we make Tertiary Education as free, gratis and for nothing as Secondary Schooling! And,
*A National Healthcare System that has no "Emergency Rooms" but assures that From Birth-to-Death all Americans can see a Medical Doctor without having to pay $200 (average cost today) to prevent surgery that is astronomic in cost. Ditto Dentistry.)
*We must absolutely enhance Civics learning by making it a study that without a passing mark prevents one from obtaining a High-School diploma.

Is all that above too great a challenge for such a rich country as hours? Methinks not - and it is a strict minimum of any decently Fair Democracy ...

 

It’s not the concept of property rights that’s invalid, it’s the belief that some individuals have the right to make other individuals their property that’s invalid.

As in the Ayn Rand quote: ”The doctrine that “human rights” are superior to “property rights” simply means that some human beings have the right to make property out of others; since the competent have nothing to gain from the incompetent, it means the right of the incompetent to own their betters and to use them as productive cattle.


The human being is not a natural resource; it’s life’s highest expression of itself; and, as it’s nature is that of a creative mind, it must be free to live and enjoy the products of its creation. Without property rights, the human being’s individual rights are nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp filled with wistful wishes.

 

Gee. That’s what I was thinking about you.

 

It pays the electric bill. (See? It wasn’t hard at all).

 

You don’t like Aristotle , do you? I suspect you more towards Plato. You are Obama fan, aren’t you? (You didn’t build this.)

You believe that property rights and socialism can coexist. They can’t. If your mind belongs to the state, so does it’s creations.

 

No one could write such asinine insanity by accident. Your assertions are nothing but a moral claim to rape, rob, and murder in the name of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Well, go ahead, try. You’ll get what you’ll earn, and vice-versa.

 

Your assertions represent nothing more than a claim to maximise your own access to resources, backed by the violence of your greed.

 

She clearly made a mistake, as I already pointed out to you. Chattel slavery was abolished precisely BECAUSE we learned that human rights are more important than some so-called property rights. It's the other way around. The "property above all else" doctrine is what made this great evil possible.

Property which is not compatible with human rights is automatically void and does not qualify for the valid property rights subcategory of human rights. Automatically void are so-called property rights in chattel slaves, land, natural resources, and intellectual property. They all deny the victims thereof their natural rights to liberty.

If anyone claims land as property it merely becomes a way for its owner to claim the products of others' creation in exchange for his lordship's permission to even engage in the process of creation.

If you want to live near other bright people and fruitfully engage in creative conversation, you have to pay a landowner for permission to do so. If you want to build a factory, you have to pay a landowner for permission to do so. If you want convenient access to any government or community provided benefits, you have to pay a landowner for permission.

DID THE LANDOWNER CREATE THE LAND?

When some so-called property rights violate others' liberty rights, the human being's individual rights are nothing but a will-o'-the-wisp filled with wistful wishes, as proven by chattel slavery, or if somebody threatened to send the guns of the government to prevent you from making productive use of what's in your mind, or if somebody owned the atmosphere and decided to charge you for permission to breathe, or if somebody owned the audio frequencies charged you for permission to make sounds, or if somebody claimed to own the island you just shipwrecked on and gave you the choice of either working for him or swimming somewhere else, or if somebody claimed to own the natural oasis you just stumbled upon in the desert and didn't let you drink from its natural supply of water,...NEED ANY MORE?

 

Talking about electricity, it didn't take long for you to short-circuit in this discussion. You are are avoiding our actual position like the plague and pretend it doesn't exist. The cognitive dissonance of being confronted with the reality that your position is not all about liberty and freedom, but about getting something for nothing, must torture you. That might be a sign that you aren't too consumed by the dark side yet to see the light after all.

 

My actual position: property rights are a political and legal concept used to protect the rights of the individual to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” They are the physical implementation of those rights. They are absolute within the boundaries of the principle of Individual Rights.

For example, I build a skyscraper and rent the office space. As a free man, I have the right to charge whatever rent I wish, just as other free men have the right to go elsewhere if they can get a cheaper price.

What can’t i do? get a gun, force other individuals to move in and pay my rent. My rights are limited by the principle of Individual rights. I can argue, harangue, badger, advertise, present my case for renting, but under no circumstances use force.

That’s the principle of Individual and Property Rights in action. Works wondrously.


Your position: Property Rights refer to manmade concretes. Any other application is tyranny against human rights.

For example: The creative mind writes a song, but all it owns is the music sheet it wrote the notes on. Not the melody, not the arrangement, and not any other media form of it. Everybody has the individual right to use it however they wish—make copies, do performances, make media reproduction, stream it, upload it to YouTube. Everybody but me, the integrater of the notes, the artist of the song, the creator of the music, has the right to whatever they wish with that music, including making money.

And it it’s me with the cognitive dissonance.

Your position is the enslavement of the creative soul to serve the needs of humanity. Mine is the liberation of the creative mind so that I can selfishly and happily enjoy the wonders it makes possible, like Filet Migon and Caribbean cruises.

 

No, you are still rambling, Not everything you have a right to is free in this life. Some things you have a right to, but you must also work and pay for them. You have a right to food, but not free food. You have a right to own a car, but not a free one.

It amazes me that there is a segment of the population which honestly believes they are entitled to success without working for it.

 

This is just an attempt at begging the question by assuming that whatever is currently considered property is automatically rightful property within your argument for justifying said property.

Skyscrapers...
WHO BUILT THE LAND? WHAT GIVES ANYONE A PROPERTY RIGHT TO IT?

Yes, your principles work wondrously for those who wish to get something for nothing:
"Landlords grow richer in their sleep, without working, risking, or economizing. The increase in the value of land, arising as it does from the efforts of an entire community, should belong to the community and not to the individual who might hold title." - John Stuart Mill

Our position is that valid property rights can only originate in an act of production, or having gained the property rights to the creation of said act of production through consensual transactions where no third parties' natural rights to liberty are violated in the process. The past cannot be changed, but the practical implementation of this principle needs to be as close as possible to it in order to minimize future transgressions.

Guilty as charged, and proud of it. If YouTube wants to have their own copyright rules, however, then more power to them. It's a private platform. Problem is that YouTube is bending over for the law.

Try to live without use of written or spoken English, or any other language for that matter, musical notes, mathematics, paper, or, in fact any other discovery or invention which have not originated from you. Humans have always learned and copied from one another in order to develop as a species. I'm not going to feel sorry for you because somebody else decided to make use of something that originated in your own mind for a change. If you want nobody to be able to duplicate your song then DON'T MAKE IT PUBLIC. You have no moral right whatsoever to use the big, bad government to kick down innocent people's doors who are merely exercising their natural rights' to liberty by making copies, or using productively or for pleasure combinations of sounds that are in their OWN MINDS. You wish to use violence against people that want to draw Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, or perform their favorite artist's song as a tribute to them. A true artist does it for the creativity and for the feeling of serenity, wonder, and pride to be able to spread his message and stimulate so many minds.

Clearly. Why is why you have yet to address the FACT OF PHYSICAL REALITY that land is not created by anyone.

Your position is the bottle necking of the creative process and the destruction and oppression of people's free will to engage in non harmful, non others' liberty violating EXPRESSION OF WHAT'S IN THEIR OWN MINDS. You want to threaten them, fine them, and jail them for exercising their NATURAL RIGHT TO LIBERTY.

 

What gives Man the right? His mind.

 

Before capitalism? Death. After? Life. Not a hard choice.

 

Think you might be the Missing Link—the step between the perpetually concrete and conceptually creative. Are you?

 

WTF...
What's the point of having "rights" when you have to pay to exercise them? Only if your rights are being violated could you be made to pay for wishing to exercise them. Otherwise we could just get rid of our concept of there being such a thing as rights and live like antisocial spawns of hell where might is right.

As soon as I obtained something through consensual transaction where no third parties' rights are violated, I have the right to have them. I do not have to pay for the right to have them once they're already mine.

Having a right to food would mean not having to work for food. You have a right to exercise your natural right to liberty to use land and natural resources to obtain food. Such as by growing it yourself or by having access to land near a food store. You do not have a right to food created by others, unless you obtain it through consensual transaction. Once its yours, its yours. You don't have to pay for it anymore because you now have a right to it.

?????? Inconsistent:
Having a right to own a car would mean others' having to get you one for free, otherwise your right to own a car wouldn't be respected. I think we both agree that that's nonsense.

You haven't thought that one through.

It amazes me that there is a segment of the population which honestly believes that financial success automatically means that it was obtained by purely productive contributions to society, value for value, and not by means of legal entitlements that harm others.

 

What's the point in living if you have to think to do it? I'll tell you--my happiness by my own effort, in my own name, and for my own sake; not servitude to humanity, community, God, or the state.

 

It amazes that any human mind gives two shts about what society thinks. The majority of the time the majority of societies and their majority are wrong about the majority of that which they believe in. I could care less about what society thinks. Tell me what you think, and I'll decide for myself if you're worth interacting with.

 

The big bad state is big and bad unless it helps you violate others' natural rights to liberty by giving you land titles or intellectual property so that you can threaten, oppress, and rob other people. I get it. And again, I never said anything about anyone having to "serve" humanity. I will continue to show contempt and disgust as you harm others in your pursuit of happiness where you disingenuously pretend that you are doing it solely by your own effort and not with the state's generous help. Try to enforce copyrights and patents yourself. Kick people's doors down yourself and jail them in your basement for having the audacity for wishing to exercise their natural liberty rights. Boohoo they made copies of music. Stop pretending your hands are clean just because you delegate the dirty work to the authorities.

 

I mean, really, your rights give you the right to my ideas. Sounds more like the power to enslave, then liberate.

The only fools who believe this are those like AOC and Trump—Ms. “needs supersede everything”, and Mr “Might makes Right”.

 

Slight adjustment: You of course have your rights even if you have to pay to exercise them. They are merely being violated. Not sure if that was clear.

A musician has a natural liberty right to perform his favorite artists' song, improve them perhaps, even if copyright rules deny him this right unless he pays up.
A man dying of thirst has a natural liberty right to drink from the natural spring in the desert even if a thug violated it by requiring him to work for it or die.

 

What you consistently fail to recognize is you do not, will not and never have had a right to property someone else owns. You can’t have my house, or the land. If I choose to sell it, you can make an offer to purchase it. If I reject your offer, you don’t get it. This is reality.

 

You DO NOT have a claim to what's in MY head. What's in MY head is MINE. MY information in MY brain cells. You cannot prevent me from making creative and productive use of them unless you cry for the big bad state's help and threaten me with violence.

Why do you feel that you have the right in your pursuit of your "own" ideas to make use of the alphabet, mathematics, natural sciences, musical notes, and all manners of discoveries and inventions ever made, which have not originated in your own mind, but then turn around and believe you have some sort of special inalienable right to have a legal privilege to prevent other people that want to do the same with ideas that you disingenuously pretend to have come up with yourself?

 

Just to clarify:

If a thief saw or obtained your bank information, then that doesn't mean he should be allowed to use that information to plunder your bank account. Then the thief would be taking something from you, even if he has your bank information on paper, in a disc, or in his brain.

If a dj or musician likes a song and chooses to use or perform the same song, his own version, or something similar, then that doesn't mean that the song was taken away from you in any way shape or form.