Is Capitalism a Game of the Survival of the Fittest?
It is quite common to be in a discussion about economics and proposing a capitalist solution when someone pipes-in “that’s just survival of the fittest.” What they are talking about is “Social Darwinism” and the image they mean to conjure up is that capitalism is like a bunch of gladiators fighting it out to the death until there is just one winner. Unfortunately, this tends to trip many of us because we often say that capitalism is about competition and that competition is what makes America great.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 3.
believe it was Ayn Rand who said "does not apply
to capitalism nor to dogs") implies attacking others
rather than competing with them. However I am
unfamiliar with the expression "rent seeking" as a synonym for "laziness".
ncome tax has as it's purpose control of the wealth of the citizens with money collecting a secondary objective at best. I'll add VAT is not value added as it adds no value but rather subtracts value making goods or services cost more and is a tax on a series of embedded taxes from tree cutting or mineral mining etc. to a finished product in the house and paid for with value diminished paychecks which have been raided for income tax. Paying for something with value diminished earnings as an employee and value diminished by embedded, enhanced etc other taxes and value diminished by devaluation of the buying power to add it all together is all about control. The governments already taken huge bites before the cash register rings up ...oh yes one last bite called sales tax.
Basically you are working for approximately half your salary or less and getting little in return except more of the same.
At the end when an income tax form is sent in and it used to take a signature now it's just a goes without saying law you also walk away with not only less money but complete liability and a felony charge hanging over your head.
No one can say their taxes are correct when the Revenue Service Itself disagrees with itself and or refuses to explain how to do the taxes. Catch 22 you sign the form or not but send it in you are automatically a criminal.
That's the fascist part government control of the citizens by any and all means.
the result is get less spending power while prices are going up as each level in the production chain adds to their overhead.
Business taxes including VAT are not paid for by the corporation or small business but are added under Cost of Government even if it's just the cost of collection.
And that's the way it goes with a lot of shinola to fool people.
One more is with holding tax ...people commonly say they didn't pay taxes the government sent them money. they forgot about with holding which IF "refunded offers no interest another way of saying cost of the loan to the government including loss in buying power of the years time..I like to owe a little bit and pay them in devalued dollars far more than get a refund.
I also pay $100 a month for Medicare for which I have zero use and only got a flu shot if i paid $200 for travel expenses north of the border. Now the government of Mexico gives them at no charge including visitors and expats.
I don't give a hundred dollars a month it's taken and we were supposed to get for our military service lifetime medical care....So i survived 24 years in the infantry and pushing five years in combat areas only to find out i now have to pay for what I earned.
How does it work down there with Evita and Juanito gone? We refer to them as left wingers.
Based on your analysis of what is an improvement, why do you say that Drebble (Leewenhook) is the inventor of the microscope? Was he not just turning a telescope around? Was he not just using two lenses together, which had already been done?
I am sure about Wm's philosophical foundations - because it follows logically from his statements and Austrian Economics is wrong and dangerous - as dangerous as any socialist.
even the indigent -- by increasing the size of the pie,
of course. . convincing others of this takes persistence,
IMHO. -- j
.
Even in his above comments, Wm says only that 'the majority' of the patents are due to improvements to make a product more competitive; this leaves plenty of room (in his brain, my brain, and potentially your brain) for totally 'new stuff'. Cornelius Drebble is accorded the credit for invention of the first microscope. (I did not know that Drebble even existed...thought it was Leewenhook.) All microscopes since then have been 'improvements'. But WOW, what a difference our modern microscopes are from the 17th century variety. There is value in improvement; there is also value in total innovation. Win-win.
Were Wm to write an AS style book, the hero would be triumphant. I know this because I have read some of the things he has written: the heroes are smart (/brilliant), competent, and win out over their opponents in the end.
Jan
Shipley is a perfect example of what i have been posting on conservatives and Austrians and libertarians. He is the product of Hume, Burke, Hayek and Mises. He is skeptical of reason and he really does not believe that anyone creates anything, a perfect follower of Hayek's cultural evolution. He is impervious to empirical evidence since like Mises he does not think economics is subject to empirical evidence.
He of course would deny this, however Obama denies he is trying to turn the US into a socialist state. He may be unaware of all the intellectual influences that shape his ideas. However, he is a true believer either way and he has absolutely no interest in objectivism and he is only here to disrupt and attack objectivism.
If Wm Shipley wrote AS the ending would be that Galt was a fraud, not a great inventor and philosopher, and Galt would be thrown in jail as a fraud. Wm is the very personification of Ellsworth Toohey.
What your confused with is called "Crony Crapitalism" and is a progressive perversion.
One should listen when I say that it is 'governments'.., the worlds kakistocracy's that control big businesses...mostly through the board room, majority stock holding and always by someone connected to the kakistocracy.
(And I would note that I do not condemn that person for business failures which result in a loss of fortune. Most entrepreneurs fail several times before finally succeeding.)
Australian? I know they use different definitions down under. If you are a Gold Coaster go to Town Center area and find the Zarraffas's Coffee headquarters. One of the owners is a former yankwank turned honest Ozzie. As for me I'm an Ozzies worst nightmare even more than a kiwi. Half Yank and half Pommy
The 'newness' of our product was not that it invented a mousetrap, but that it invented a Better mousetrap. (No, the world did not beat a path to our door.) I have not observed any game-changing innovation in any of our competitors (they are now graphic too, but since we were the first, they can't take credit for that); many of them compete on the basis of having a good sales team to sell what is essentially 'the same thing everyone else has'.
Wm's remarks were not venomous, and he did not swear. This is a discussion.
Jan
Load more comments...