There are a huge number of problems crapping up. Overpopulation; polluting the environment; climate change; rich getting richer; poor getting poorer; corrupiton in gov; corruption in democratic process; pollution in demographic progress; redistribution of income, goods, services, races, religions and used goods; prepossessing priviledged status (the new aristocracy); the old aristocracy; racial relations; job losses; redistribution of overproduction crises; lazy bums; drug abuse, drug culture; the Capitalist Pharmaceutical-Military Complex; Shooting civilans en mass by terrorists, both foreign (politically driven) and domestic (fun types); terrorism by random political groups; terrorism organized by the Islamic fanatics; terrorism organized by the Pentagon whereby they bomb anyone on the map that the random country generator spits out of the computer; AIDS, hep C, West Nile Disease, lack of medicare in the USA. High cost of housing, high cost of food. Low cost of manufactured goods. Police brutality. Proliferation of Painful Puns. Alleged Autocracy over All Alliteration. The fall of the Roman Empire. Pestilence. The three horsemen of the Apocalipso Band of Indians.

The only saviour, the only safe place for the soul these days is singing rock and roll. Belting it out freely, without restraints or restrictions, from the bottom of your heart.

"Sziv es pohar, tele buval, borral,
Huzd ra cigany, ne gondolj a gonddal."

Translation:

"Heart and glass, filled with worry and wine;
Play it on, Gypsy, dont' fret, don't whine."

Desmond Morris a Zoologist who wrote books about human behavior, — Athena

Serves us right. Humanologists (Psychologists) usually write books about rat behaviour.

It is widely accepted that Nazi Germany was a result of German people’s fear of loss being exploited by right-wing populists all too eager to give them a list of Others to scapegoat for all of their problems. And only slightly less accepted that something similar is happening in America today. Something similar was almost happening in America back then: the War Department even produced a video warning the public of the dangers of demagogues stirring up ethnic hatred, directly comparing the version of that happening in America at the time to what brought Hitler to power.

↪Athena It is widely accepted that Nazi Germany was a result of German people’s fear of loss being exploited by right-wing populists all too eager to give them a list of Others to scapegoat for all of their problems. And only slightly less accepted that something similar is happening in America today. Something similar was almost happening in America back then: the War Department even produced a video warning the public of the dangers of demagogues stirring up ethnic hatred, directly comparing the version of that happening in America at the time to what brought Hitler to power. — Pfhorrest

Thank you Pfhorrest. I see in the warning of which you speak, normal human behavior. Biologically our brains are far more limited than we seem to think. We need groups small enough for everyone to know everyone and to know who is related to whom. We are lucky to remember the names of 500 people and some identifying facts about them. We do this interesting thing that other animals don't do. We can imagine a Christian is one of us, or a White Texan is one of us, or those who are Black like me are one of us, or that people of the American Medical Association are one of us if we are one of them, and that is accepting far more than 500 people are one of us. This is tribal thinking that has been civilized, making a stranger, one of us even though the stranger is not actually known. We assume because he is one of us we share agreements about how to behave and what to value. That is, we have adjusted to living with large numbers of strangers in civilizations that until recently in the US met the needs of the masses pretty well, except during temporary periods of economic collapse.

Now I want to say that adjustment to social agreements, making it possible to identify with complete strangers, as one of us, is breaking down. This is the point that took Germany down. This makes what is happening in the US today like Germany and different from how we managed human needs during the Great Depression. We are not in a period of economic collapse right now, but overpopulation has caused the cost of living to skyrocket, as inflation in Germany caused the cost of living to skyrocket. That is resulting in skyrocketing the number of homeless people. I am talking about this because short of a miracle I will be homeless in three weeks so I want people to know what I am learning about the problem we have today. In 3 weeks I will no longer be one of you, but one of "them" and this is part of how this happens.... Oregon has made it law that rents can increase by only 7% . In 2017 the Social Security cost of living increase was 2.8%. Obviously the Social Security increase is not keeping pace with the cost of living. Those of us who have below poverty level Social Security incomes are going down. How in heavens name is a 2.8% cost of living increase going to keep people in housing when the cost of housing is going up faster? And from my point of view, people are living with a false sense of security because they don't see this happening to them and the people they care about unless they are one of "them" and see this from the bottom looking up.

I think I need to use a cell phone to video my large library and relative nice home before I lose it and then begin posting my experience on the internet. I want everyone to know, some of "us" can become one of "them", through no fault of their own and to understand this the beginning of the problem of overpopulation. This is not an economic collapse but a period of skyrocketing cost of living that is hurting people as badly as an economic collapse. I want people to be aware of this and hopefully, figure out a way of stopping the destruction. Please, correct me if you think I am wrong about what is happening and why it is happening.

I am not convinced that it is overpopulation at fault but you are definitely right about the skyrocketing cost of living and I’m more concerned to express my sympathies for your situation than to argue about the causes of it. I’m in California where I make more than twice the median personal income for the US generally and still can’t afford to live better than a tiny trailer in a run down trailer park. My mom is on social security too and has been on and off the verge of homelessness for the past five years, and basically her entire check goes to renting a shitty bedroom in an overcrowded house in the slums and then food stamps have to cover the rest. I really hope you can find some way to manage your hardships, and more than that, that somehow we all can do something to make sure nobody like you has to anymore.

The skyrocketing cost of living has many causes, overpopulation is only one of them. If we collaborated with one another we would live much more easily, but we don’t.

I recall the example of Amazonian tribes who got evicted out of the forest so that some multinational could come and exploit its resources. In compensation these people were given a small house in a village outside the forest, closer to modern civilization. These people were interviewed and said that their life was much easier outside civilization, in the forest. Why? Because in the forest they only had to work 1-2 hours a day in order to hunt and cook food, and then they could do whatever they want, whereas in civilization they are forced to work all day long in order to pay for what they need to live.

When a few people own most of the land, most of real estate, and everyone else is forced to pay high rent in order to have the right to live somewhere, then the whole system becomes inefficient, people have to work all day long just to afford to live, and if something goes wrong and they can’t keep up and no one gives them a hand, they become homeless, within so-called civilization. One would think that if our civilization was so advanced this wouldn’t happen. It happens way earlier than it should if the cause was overpopulation. The main cause is people exploiting one another, and especially a few people exploiting the majority.

This exactly. There are several times more unoccupied homes in the United States than there are homeless people in the United States. Likewise with food surpluses in the world and hungry people in the world. We have so many resources available to us as a species now that it would be pretty trivial to meet all the needs of every person in the world at a comfortable standard of living. We just don't, because a tiny fraction of people are allowed to decide whether we do, and they gain some tiny advantage in their already-splendid lives by letting other people starve in the streets.

We certainly do have the resources, and it is very sad that there are so many around the world hungry when we do have so much abundance. I remember hearing or reading a study a while ago that most famines were essentially man-made and perpetuated by the governments themselves often for political motives. I think it's best to focus on establishing systems that lead to long-term prosperity and in reality to distribute much of this food could be quite dangerous. I'm not sure who you're referring to when you reference this "tiny fraction." Dictators? Billionaires?

I'm not sure who you're referring to when you reference this "tiny fraction." Dictators? Billionaires? — BitconnectCarlos

Yes. The few people who own or otherwise control all the abundant resources that could be saving the lives of many but aren't.

Ok, so what are your thoughts on someone like Bill Gates who has raised billions of dollars for charity to fight extreme poverty but, yes, of course, he still has billions more?

From what I recall there are nefarious motives behind a lot of Bill's charity, like it somehow helped his own investments, but I don't recall the details on that and they were from like two decades ago so I won't argue that right now.

Assuming instead that all of his charity was legitimately charitable, then that's nice of him, but the fact that the world is dependent on him being nice because so much of the wealth of the world is at his command is a symptom of a much larger systemic problem than a single billionaire.

I'm reminded of a bit I recently saw about all these news stories about things like "teachers, staff, even janitors donate sick days so fellow teacher can take time off to visit his daughter during her cancer treatment" spin that as being all about the loving charity of those people helping their colleague out, completely washing over the bigger story of "teachers normally aren't allowed enough time off to visit their children during medical emergencies". Yes, a bunch of individuals did a very nice thing, to plaster over one corner of an enormous systemic injustice.

but the fact that the world is dependent on him being nice because so much of the wealth of the world is at his command is a symptom of a much larger systemic problem than a single billionaire.

Do you have a better alternative? Surely it's more than just the billionaires too; multi-millionaires and even millionaires could donate more and it probably wouldn't have much an effect on their standard of living. I'd group mass affluent individuals in those category as well. Regardless of how much he gives he'll pay taxes on top of it.

I'm reminded of a bit I recently saw about all these news stories about things like "teachers, staff, even janitors donate sick days so fellow teacher can take time off to visit his daughter during her cancer treatment" spin that as being all about the loving charity of those people helping their colleague out, completely washing over the bigger story of "teachers normally aren't allowed enough time off to visit their children during medical emergencies". Yes, a bunch of individuals did a very nice thing, to plaster over one corner of an enormous systemic injustice.

I sympathize. I don't know what the leave policy is like there, but I know in the military they have something called "emergency leave" which I think can be taken even if you have no leave days. I think the danger is that with public employees - since they get paid a fixed salary - could potentially abuse leave policies. It's a case-by-case kind of thing though.

Do you have a better alternative? — BitconnectCarlos

Some form of socialism. I have my own thoughts fleshed out near the end of my essay On Politics, Governance, and the Institutes of Justice.

Alright, we're on waaayyyy different pages politically so it's probably not worth going into that. Do you believe in forced redistribution though? Should there be a wealth cap?

I feel like even if I were to concede to you that a wealth cap was moral it would be impossible to implement. The millionaires would either just flee on conceal their wealth which can definitely be done.

Do you believe in forced redistribution though? — BitconnectCarlos

Not ideally, but while there are still other less direct but still coercive wealth redistribution systems running in the opposite direction (like rent and interest) it's an acceptable stop-gap measure. I'm a libertarian socialist, opposed to both the state and capitalism, but also a pragmatist, and while we're stuck with both states and capitalism I'd rather they be balanced against each other than in cahoots together.

Should there be a wealth cap? — BitconnectCarlos

No. Not by law at least, but in effect people should not generally end up owning things they aren't using that other people are or could be using instead, so if there are people who own wealth thousands of times more than they're personally using, and controlling other people's lives because of that, then something somewhere has gone wrong, and that needs to be addressed.

Just curious, how do you see the connection - if there is one - between wealth and freedom? And, say, private property and freedom (i.e. not being required to live on government land)?

Those are such broad questions, it'd be paragraphs to answer, and I've already got those paragraphs written: the relationship between wealth and freedom is discussed in On Teleology, Purpose, and the Objects of Morality, while the relationship between private property and freedom is discussed in On Deontology, Intention, and the Methods of Justice.

Alright, that might be too big of a question so I'm gonna go back to the comment you made earlier about rent and interest being coercive redistribution systems. It's interesting because I'm someone who pays rent and I've never felt it to be coercive. If there's a problem with my apartment I talk to the front desk and they send maintenance people up to fix it immediately. If I really don't like their service I could either move or gather other dissatisfied residents and probably get the managers fired. It's not a one-sided relationship where I'm always at their mercy.

Additionally, no one is forcing me to pay rent. If I wanted to cut costs I could probably either buy an RV or just live with roommates. I do believe there are homeless shelters as a last resort, but the cost to that would be that you'd always be under their rules and have little privacy and have the bare minimum. I've lived in the barracks for years and even though it was free and I could have stayed in I was happy to move out and pay rent rather than stay there. It's hard to understate the difference in quality.

I feel like as long as you actually have alternatives - and having savings certainly expands your options and extends that freedom - that paying rent isn't really coercive. As much as I'd love to live for free where I am it's not like I can just walk into a random city and feel entitled to someone's space.

Rent is coercive for exactly the reasons you describe. You are not free to just exist somewhere except on someone else's terms, payment or otherwise, unless you have enough wealth to own a place that is yours. That means that people who don't own land of their own, as a class, have to do whatever those who own enough land to lend out, as a class, want, which is not freedom. Yeah, I'm not forced to pay my landlord in particular, unless I want to live on his land, but if I don't live on his land I will live somewhere else, and have to pay someone else to live on their land. Even if I want to buy land of my own, if I don't already have an equivalent amount of wealth to trade for it, I have to borrow from a bank, and pay them rent on that money -- interest -- if I want to continue living in "my" house, which makes it really their house. I cannot avoid somehow or another owing someone money just to be allowed to exist in some place, just to be left alone. Which leaves me severely disadvantaged when it comes to saving money with which to buy a place that's truly my own, because I have to pay so much to borrow someone else's place in the mean time.

Land is the primary example, because you cannot help but exist somewhere at all times and so always are in immediate need of some place in which you are allowed to exist. But all manner of rent and especially interest, which is just rent on money, enable a coerced transfer of wealth from those who have less than they need to those who have more than they need. That's because the lenders necessarily have more than they themselves think they need (if they have enough to be renting or lending out and so not using themselves), and the borrowers necessarily have less than they themselves think they need (if they're willing to be exploited like that to get it immediately instead of saving however long it would take to buy outright).

It's coerced and exploitative because it is not a straight-up equitable trade of one thing for another. At the start of the transaction, the lender has whatever he's lending out and the borrower has nothing. At the end of the transaction, when the lease is expired or the loan paid back, the lender has what he started with plus the rent or interest payments, and the borrower still has nothing, minus what he paid in rent or interest. But because the lender has enough to lend, more than he has to be using himself, and the borrower is in immediate need of it, the borrower has no choice but to accept those terms.

And that mechanism where the whole transaction moves wealth from those with less than they need to more than what they need is what breaks the naturally distributive nature one would naively expect form a free market. It's supposed to work so that the rich buy labor from the poor so that they don't have to work so much themselves, and the poor labor for the rich so that they can get richer, until the hardworking poor have wealth enough that they only need to labor to fund their ongoing consumption, and the idle rich lose wealth until they run out of excess to sell and have to start working to fund their own ongoing consumption too. If the rich want to stay rich, they'd need to work as hard as the hardworking poor do. That's how it's supposed to work in a truly free market, wealth goes to those who are doing the work, and if you slack off you lose it. But with rent and interest, so much of what the poor "buy" with the proceeds of their labor just gets returned to its rich owners, who can then use the proceeds from "selling" that "service" of lending it to pay for more of the labor of the poor, who then spend that back on rent and interest again, and so on, so the rich can sit idly forever making money off of the same wealth lent out over and over, while the poor keep working and working forever never making any headway.

If the gap between them is big enough, at least. If the difference in wealth is small enough then extra hard work or extra good luck or some combination thereof can surmount it still. But the point is that the existence of rent and interest systemically transfers wealth from the already-poor to the already-rich, in the process creating a pressure away from the middle class (defined here as those who have exactly as much as they need, and are neither lenders nor borrowers). That increases the gap between rich and poor more and more and makes it harder and harder for more and more people to cross it.

So long as that pressure away from center exists, some kind of counter-pressure toward the center is warranted. Ideally, there would be neither, but we're far from ideal right now.


Put another way: rent and interest enable what's basically a multi-nodal feudalism. Instead of working on one lord's land to generate profit (crops) only to then have to pay that same lord most of that profit in exchange for the right to have land to live and work on, we're "free" to work one "lord's" "land" (some employer) for our profit, only to have to pay most of that profit in exchange for the right to live on some other literal lord's land. We're still serfs, we've just got multiple lords now. We're not free until we own the things we need to work and live ourselves, and don't have to borrow them from others at interest.

I think it’s a little strange to point the finger at prominent public figures in the billionaires world - Bill Gates especially as he’s been going around the world getting other billionaires to donate billions to help his foundation (non-profit) to solve global problems.

When it comes to Zuckerberg there is also an issue. People expect him to police the globe? He cannot do this. Should he allow only rich people access to people’s data or allow anyone to access this data more readily? Note: if he didn’t then it is not exactly difficult to hack and find this information out through freelancers.

There is no ‘law’ online. China spotted this very early on and so made blanket bans to control misinformation. The US is exporting is culture via the internet and it likes to do so.

All that said, I do agree that the US needs a large injection of socialism, but I don’t see that happening for a president or two. At some point we’re going to have to transition from economies based on a core of capitalism to something ‘new’, and the transitionary period will seemingly have to involve socialist structures - I think both have too many flaws in today’s world but a better balance between the two will be the better course for birthing a paradigm shift in terms of how economies are run.

:up:

But coercion is never the solution, coercion is what got us there in the first place. The wealthy won’t let themselves be coerced into distributing their wealth. Many of them are blind to what you say for various reasons, for instance they believe they deserve what they have, they believe they are inherently superior to other people, they believe that if others want to stop being poor they simply have to work for it, or they believe that necessarily there has to be a minority at the top and a majority at the bottom so they want to stay at the top, or they fear that they might become poor again if they let themselves be coerced into giving their wealth, ...

So coercion isn’t the solution, coercing them like they coerce everyone else will simply increase tensions and lead to violent repression or revolution, fighting fire with fire doesn’t stop fire. And when there is a revolution through force, fundamentally things don’t change. New people get in power, and those in power are more easily corrupted, often they start feeling like they deserve to be there because they fought for it, and then they start feeling superior to others, and so on and a similar system gets perpetuated only with new individuals at the top.

That coercion isn’t the solution doesn’t mean that there is no solution, it doesn’t mean that we have to accept this state of affairs, but we have to think differently. There wouldn’t be a problem in the first place if people cared about their surroundings (other people, other animals, their environment) and not only about themselves. Obviously saying it doesn’t change much, it doesn’t make people who only care about themselves care about others, and again coercing them into caring about others would be counterproductive, but first of all it’s important to realize it.

Now why do many people only care about themselves? Because they have been hurt by others in some way and so they feel like they have to protect themselves from others, they feel like the others are the enemy and that they are owed nothing. Sometimes it gets to the point that they willfully hurt others. It is clear that many who are in power do not have our best intentions at heart, that they are moved by other desires. They’re not only doing what they do to increase their personal wealth, they are influenced by other forces, for instance lobbies that hold great power themselves, and have a strong influence on the laws that get passed, on how society functions.

There is plenty of evidence that some of these lobbies have evil motives. At some point we have to call evil evil, some acts cannot be excused as ignorance, or as the mere desire to protect oneself or increase one’s personal wealth, some acts are purely evil, stemming from a will to destroy people, to destroy life. It may be hard for some to accept, but there is also plenty of evidence that some people who have great power worldwide worship evil deities. I wish this was a false and crazy conspiracy, but it isn’t, if you look for the clues you will find them.

So when we realize what it is we are facing, there is no easy solution. Any system will be used against us, be it capitalism, socialism, communism, anarchy or whatever. Violent revolutions won’t solve the underlying issue. The only hope really, is to stick together against this evil, spread love and understanding, because there are forces that work to destroy this love and prevent people from opening their eyes, so as to make them obedient and willing slaves contributing to destroying the planet.

Violent revolutions won’t solve the underlying issue. — leo

If it’s violent enough it would wipe the slate clean and allow a new system to form.

I’m pretty damn sure what the underlying problem is, but it’s hard to see an applicable means of countering it. Capitalism is in its death throes and I expect applying band-aids will help transition to something else because there needs to be a social paradigm shift toward what is regarded as ‘meaningful’ for most people.

I honestly don’t see this happening for an economic model anytime soon, and once it does happen it’ll likely be a few generations before such a model is instilled on a global scale. Violent conflict appears to be the most likely outcome - perhaps being aware of this will help people to dig to the heart of the problem.

If it’s violent enough it would wipe the slate clean and allow a new system to form. — I like sushi

The more violent it is, the more counterproductive it will be. The military today is much more powerful than it used to be, things would really turn ugly, especially if other countries join the fight and then we got ourselves a world war with nuclear weapons, we really don’t want to see that. Then after all that, what would change fundamentally? The slate has been wiped clean many times in history, what would be different this time?

I’m pretty damn sure what the underlying problem is, but it’s hard to see an applicable means of countering it. Capitalism is in its death throes and I expect applying band-aids will help transition to something else because there needs to be a social paradigm shift toward what is regarded as ‘meaningful’ for most people. — I like sushi

In capitalism people are coerced, in socialism people are coerced too, the fundamental issue remains the same. What do you see as the underlying problem? I explained what I see as the underlying problem: evil. Capitalism and socialism and even anarchy would work great without evil. And none of them will work as long as we don’t address the elephant in the room: evil.

↪Athena I am not convinced that it is overpopulation at fault but you are definitely right about the skyrocketing cost of living and I’m more concerned to express my sympathies for your situation than to argue about the causes of it. I’m in California where I make more than twice the median personal income for the US generally and still can’t afford to live better than a tiny trailer in a run down trailer park. My mom is on social security too and has been on and off the verge of homelessness for the past five years, and basically her entire check goes to renting a shitty bedroom in an overcrowded house in the slums and then food stamps have to cover the rest. I really hope you can find some way to manage your hardships, and more than that, that somehow we all can do something to make sure nobody like you has to anymore. — Pfhorrest

People like you are making this a wonderful experience! That is pretty easy to say as I sit in my heated library protecting from the elements with absolutely no fear of a police officer telling me to move or arresting me for sleeping in an undesignated sleeping area.

I grew up in California and I thank God I do not live there. How can you live there and doubt the problem is overpopulation? When my parents divorced my mother moved us to Hollywood because want to be in the movies and loved being on stage and entertaining people. Hollywood was like an old lady with too much makeup. We could take the trolly to the beach. I have such fond memories of Hollywood and I witnessed the degrading of Hollywood.

We moved to the Valley when it was still mostly orange orchards, and I witnessed this beautiful valley become mountain to mountain blacktop and concrete. Not realizing the problem is overpopulation is to me like living on Easter Island when it was forested and not realizing what deforestation was doing to the island, finally driving the people to cannibalism.

:lol: I am feeling pretty bruised and scared and I sure am not into arguing, but I have to fight for people's lives and that means knowing the truths so there is a chance of resolving some problems. This is not the first time in history mankind has dealt with overpopulation. With technology, we have been able to increase our population more than humans could in the past, and need we to learn from history. I forget the title of the book that explains why good times become bad times and bad times become good times. If a plague reduced the population of California by 1/3, wages would go up and the cost of property would go down and humans would start being a whole lot nicer to each other. My life has been extremely good since retiring and living an apartment for people over 55 and going to the senior center often. My life is full of caring people and in general, we are very caring of each other. I have not lived the dog eat dog reality for many years. My life is nothing like your mother's because we are still surrounded by nature and we can walk along a beautiful river. My life has been so good. :lol: Stepping into homelessness is a huge shock and I am not sure how well I do. But for sure, I am going to record it with a cell phone and put it on the Internet. I pray I maintain my humanity and do not become like a feral cat as so many people do when they are homeless. The cold and the pain I will experience may reduce me to the manner of a frightened animal. This old body is not going to do well.

Gosh, I love what you have said, and I will stick to the problem of overpopulation because of what this does to how we behave and experience life. In small numbers, everything is managed on a personal level, The rules are informal and 100% managed with social pressure. The word civilization means city life and that is a large number of people organized by formal laws. In the city and with laws, life is impersonal. We can look away from the starving mother and child, and go about our lives as though they don't exist. The rich have a reality totally different from the dirty masses, and they come to believe their difference means they are superior and they are more deserving. I am sorry to say, but Christianity reinforced this division of people and slavery. Jesus would be so hurt by today's reality and how good Christians believe they are doing very well, but "those people", the dirty masses are unworthy.

Oh my, I am a Senior Companion. That means for $2.65 an hour, I pick up an older person and take this person shopping or to doctor appointments, or to a nutrition site for lunch. The idea is to keep them engaged with the larger community, independent and happy. It is very difficult for me when these very sweet people, often Christians, point at the homeless people we pass and say unpleasant things about "those people". I tried to get them to stop that or to see it differently without offending them. Well, it will be interesting to see how they react to me being homeless. I am not sure how well I will be able to be "professional" when I no longer have a home to come to and feel like a human being, instead of like a wounded animal in danger. :wink:

I’m not willing to discuss religious conspiracy theories - flagged.

We can not be ignorant of human nature and that we are violating the laws of nature, and save everyone. The rich know things must be as they are or they would be no better off than the lowest people. Let us put this fact of life in a more manageable way.

Islam and the Quran have much to say about protecting women. However, they also put men above and women and it is a tradition for the men to eat first. This practice is based on a survival need when it is essential for men to provide for and defend the family. That reality becomes a belief that men are more important than women, and this is true of all our patriarchal societies. Okay, let's say the family has 6 children and has only enough food for 4 people. Who is going to get that food and who will not eat that night?

If we do not have rich people who can invest in our capitalist system, we sure as blazes will not have a high standard of living with all our technology and wonderful hospitals. Undeveloped Muslim countries see the immorality of our capitalism. Ever since the beginning of the industrial age, those with the most money are the men who provide and protect us. I don't mean the gender of being male, but the social position of being male. How to say? The family in less developed societies is not safe and can not be well fed without a strong male. We can not have a high standard of living without the rich. They must be fed first. We can not distribute the food evenly because that would make everyone weak. And there is absolutely no way, this mass of humanity can return to the land and live in harmony with human nature and environmental nature.

I fight so that we might do better, and we can not do better unless our knowledge is all the knowledge we need. Our way of life depends on the wealth of a few and the poverty of the dirty masses who work for low wages and create the wealth of the few. This is what made the growing middle class possible and it has lifted far more people out of poverty than ever before. We depend on those with financial strength as in simpler times we depended on strong males. Socialism may offer a better reality than laize fair capitalism? I am not sure?

PS however, we should demand replacing the autocratic model of industry with the democratic model, and that our education does not prepare us for the democratic model of industry could be considered a conspiracy or perhaps a problem with Christian control of our nation and false beliefs based on the Bible.

I like sushi — leo

Whoo! I think we need to avoid a belief in the supernatural and the mythology of God of Abraham religions if we are doing to resolve problems. We most certainly need to avoid violence. We absolute need to return to education for democracy and stop leaving moral training to the church!!!

So many of my friends are Christian and this hurts me deeply because Christianity is not compatible with democracy and it has been the root of our evils, as ignorance is the root of evil. In 1958 we replace education for good moral judgment with education for technology and left moral training to the church. This was a huge mistake. A huge mistake!

PS even in the most primitive tribe people live with coercion. Another term for coercion is "social pressure". All social animals including dogs, apes, and humans must minute by minute decide to put others first or to put self first. Those who can not put self first are most apt to die, and those who do not put others first are apt to be killed, severely wounded or just driven away. Humans are social animals like dogs and apes, and that means learning to get along with others.

The sooner we can replace religion with science the better.

I apologize for the interjection, but maybe you et al who have a good grasp of economics can help me understand something. Where is all this money that is being made by multibillionaires going? I imagine much of it is being hoarded - problematic, and some of it is being invested - constructive, but do financial mechanisms necessitate that most of the money be hoarded for investment to even be possible? Could restructuring or reinventing the investment process be a means of making capitalism more equitable in its distribution of influence, without necessitating political or ideological upheaval? If a dozen billionaires invest some fractions of their wealth to speculate in the most profitable markets, that is a tolerable risk, but a billion citizens investing a hundred dollars each every decade is an equally powerful mechanism if it could be coordinated towards specific goals, like funding cancer research or clean energy technology for instance. Maybe investment could be orchestrated in a way that does not even require monetary profit. This idea is based on a book written recently by an economist.

Alright, there's sooo much here I could address so I'm just going to pick out a few points and provide some commentary. Obviously we're too far apart on the spectrum to really change each other's minds 180 degrees so I'm considering this more of a discussion/exchange of ideas than a debate where I'm working vociferously to change your mind.

At the start of the transaction, the lender has whatever he's lending out and the borrower has nothing. At the end of the transaction, when the lease is expired or the loan paid back, the lender has what he started with plus the rent or interest payments, and the borrower still has nothing, minus what he paid in rent or interest.

In reality it's a little more complicated. The lender is taking a risk with the borrower (this is true for both rent and interest) and also the risk isn't just with the borrower it's with many extraneous factors. I feel like socialists/Marxist don't have clear account of risk which is really, really central to capitalism.

If we're just talking a normal loan the borrow could just run off with the money, or inflation could become such so large that by the time the borrow repays he's actually paying off less (in real terms) than the original amount. If we're talking about a renter here we need to take into account renovations, trash removal when the renter leaves, problems with facilities, replacing older appliances, and a billion other factors that could arise. The landlord could be sued.

The landlord needs to worry about constant upkeep and the highs and lows of the real estate market. Landlords and lenders can very easily lose money and I never see this risk mentioned when this point is brought up by leftists/marxists/etc.

That's how it's supposed to work in a truly free market, wealth goes to those who are doing the work, and if you slack off you lose it.

Not necessarily - maybe their investments go up. I actually find some capitalists tend to agree with you here (i.e. they really stress hard work and how those who work the hardest make it to the top and deserve it) but this just certainly isn't how I see things. I mean don't get me wrong - much of the top earners do pull insane hours, but risk tolerance again can definitely play a role. I don't know about you, but I would never want to live in a world where the ultimate determinant to making wealth was how many hours you worked. It would be like slavery. Investment helps you escape this.

I don't know what you're going to think of this, but those who don't work don't necessarily deserve to be poor and those who do work long hours don't necessarily deserve to be rich. Would you agree? "Deserve" has a place when it comes to morality and justice, but we need to be very careful with it when it comes to economic status.