quote:
I'm not saying that pre-industrial life was a rosy wonderland, but in some of my darker moments I think the Amish might have the right idea (toss out this bLasted computer and go back to my family farm).
Well, I don't think you could pick any era and hold it up as a utopia. Problems have existed since the beginning of time, and they'll exist as long as mankind does. That said, no era has made technology and luxury as widely available as the current one. Don't believe me? You're reading this, for one example. Almost no one had computers twenty-five years ago. Walk over and flip that light switch on the wall. Go outside and get in your car. Open your refrigerator--wouldn't you rather go cut a block of ice out of your local iceberg to keep your food cold? Mankind can cure diseases today that were fatal twenty years ago. No other time in man's history has provided such things on such a wide scale.
As far as communism/socialism/capitalism goes, there are and always will be men who take advantage of the system they are found in. That goes for any area of life, though. The mere existence of fakes/frauds is not sufficient reason to discard any system. If a system fails to account for and deal with their existence, then it is faulty.
I prefer the free market as a system superior to both communism and socialism. A "purist" communist/socialist state will never exist. Men will seek power for their own benefit; others will not want to work as hard--after all, they still get all the benefits; still others will not want to fund their fellow-man's delinquence. The only means to ensure compliance is governmental intervention--loss of freedom.
In a free-market system, men are free to give--or not give--to others as their conscience dictates. They are free to choose who they give to--whether the truly needy, or the freeloader. In short, the free market means more individual freedom.
I'm not a libertarian who believes that government=bad and freedom from restrictions=good every time. I wear seatbelts and have a driver's license.
The government (who else?) should punish those who abuse the system. Freedom does not mean freedom to pollute, or freedom to clear-cut, or freedom to underpay employees. However, the institutions created to protest these abuses have gone too far in their own interests (another example of power-seeking men). Unions which originally were to protect their members now extort corporations. Low wages? The vast majority of the world lives far below our poverty level. The industrialized world lives in what the rest of the world would consider luxury. The selfishness on the part of employers has, in many cases, been replaced with selfishness on the part of the employees. Environmental Groups ask for tight restrictions on human development, giving more importance to plants and animals than to mankind. Whatever happened to balance? Whatever happened to stewardship of our natural resources? They're
resources--they're here to be used
wisely for our good. Enslavement to nature is just as bad as waste of nature. [/rabbit trail rant]
The free market system which used to exist in America has been turned into a half-breed of capitalism and socialism. Such a system loses out. Attempting to avoid abuses of the free market, we have restricted the freedom upon which it operates. On the other hand, while not preventing its abuses, we have added to them the abuses of the socialist system--power-seeking and freeloading.
People do not always win in the free market. Their product may not be marketable, or someone else may do it better. But the free market gives one the freedom to choose how to
earn (i.e., it takes work) one's living and better themselves.