Just a thought here...Jonas Salk. Not everyone is motivated by selfish greed. I'll take my leave now.
Perhaps you can enlighten me then. What exactly was Jonas's? It was he who said he would not patent the vaccine . I believe his quote when asked if he would was "would you patent the sun". This does not sound like someone "motivated by their own self interest" Perhaps you can show us how it was motivated by self interest?
You're committing a straw man fallacy. You're acting as if I said, "there is no act which is not done in self interest". I said "everyone is motivated by their own self interest". Self interest can commonly manifest in nationalism. But regardless, the point isn't about any isnividual act, it's about a fundamental nature of humanity. Any idea which is predicated on denying a fundamental nature of humanity is one bound to fail. Humans, whether you like it or not, are motivated by self interest. It is no coincidence that free market economies are more efficient and produce more. It is no coincidence that the U.S., with the strongest patent laws, produces far more medical research than any other nation in the world. There's nothing wrong with selfless acts - but why stifle the natural incentives? If two scientists work on developing vaccines selflessly, and two more work on improving surgical procedures selfishly , why would you want to stifle the second set? We all benefit.
It sounds like the most wasteful, corrupt, and least productive system imaginable. It didn't "work" for the Fascists (not that it's really what happened), unless you define "work" as seizing functioning economies and smothering them.
Correctly allocating resources is exactly what prices do automatically without any bureaucracy trying to track and determine when and where untold numbers of freely choosing people(hopefully) need more or less of untold numbers of things. The government was warned, by real economists, about the housing bubble and the tech bubble before they collapsed, and they scoffed at the warnings until it was too late. Why would you expect an organization with a track record of getting such things so wrong so consistently to be any good at it?
You stated that fast food was a luxury item that needed to be taxed, indicating you wanted to tax it to disincentivize people to eat fast food. If you wanted to raise revenue for the government while attempting to let consumers pursue their preferences unhampered, then you would be looking for "neutral" taxes which are less likely to distort consumer behavior. On a free market, you get "in the top 1%" by creating that much value for your fellow human beings-- if you deny this statement, I would like you to tell me the group of people who are handing out bags of money for nothing (other than the state). Usually, in order to receive money you have to convince someone that you've provided them with value. That's the voluntary, virtuous, and wealth-creating mechanism of free markets, people partake in mutually beneficial exchanges. Other things equal, we should celebrate people who have amassed fortunes-- they have created that much wealth for their fellow man and have yet to "cash in" that money, allowing us to do valuable things with those resources they've yet to consume like investing them in capital which makes us all richer. You say that the government shouldn't dictate the economy, but then say that the government should tell business what wages should be. Wages should be at the level set by the market, to prevent surpluses and scarcity, as all other market prices do. "Cold capitalism" has raised the standard of living for the common man more than any other system-- that is the undeniable truth, whether you want to admit it or not.
How does the government know that we need more cars? Government has no way of knowing such things, and, if we do need more cars, this will be expressed through consumer preferences. Profits of cars will go up, incentivizing evil greedy capitalists to open up shop in the car manufacturing business to serve this (until now) unanticipated consumer demand. Government intervention, as usual, only serves to retard this process. It may be instructive to look up the essay "I, Pencil" by Leonard Reed. This essay illustrates the critical role that markets play in coordinating factors of production for consumer desires in ways that could not be done by a central plan. You also seem to be under the impression that men grow wings and become angels, or have greater knowledge when they go into government bureaucracy. This is creating a false category of people, where, if anything, such categories should go in the opposite direction (bureaucrats are usually more inept at doing anything-- the top of the class does not become a bureaucrat.) Indeed, the government at the time encouraged the housing bubble with low interest rates, the FHA, and Fannie and Freddie accepting securities from banks. There was an unspoken rule that banks would be bailed out by the Federal Reserve if things went south, creating socialized losses and privatized profits. This creates moral hazard and encourages banks to act more recklessly. You assume that the federal government knew the housing crash was coming and simply had its hands tied behind its back and was unable to act correctly. Nothing could be further from the truth-- indeed, there were folks at the time who warned that a housing crash was coming, specifically, Austrian economists and Ron Paul. [video=youtube;9S3lXDOQ7ec]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9S3lXDOQ7ec[/video] Note that your support of fascism only serves to continue this cronyism and further exacerbate inequality. On a free market, you can indeed become very rich but only as long as you create value for consumers. When you no longer serve your fellow man, your profits disappear unless you can use the force of the state to your benefit-- as you can in a fascist, corporatist, interventionist economy. I don't want to get into outsourcing and how it's actually a good thing-- all I can say there is please pick up an economics textbook. It's clear you haven't even read the neoclassical stuff. You're proposing a "third way" when you don't even understand your opponents. In terms of the wealth gap, I see nothing inherently immoral with this. As I said before, so long as those profits are earned on a free market they're largely earned by serving your fellow man. You also assume that these top 1% hang out there through their whole lives, but indeed that isn't true. Many who are in the bottom quintile can move up to the top quintile and vice versa throughout their lives. We actually have pretty decent income mobility in the United States, and it would be even better if we could get rid of the very cronyism you propose.
Yeah that's the biggest argument against nazi Germany, but Italy and Spain also experienced the economic skyrocket and they did not loot the Jews money. The Italian mafia even virtually dissolved under mussolini because crime truly didn't pay.
