[extropy-chat] Futurist priorities was ex-tropical

[The Avantguardian]

--- Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal at smigrodzki.org> wrote:
> 
> ### Tellingly, all these numbers came *after* the
> end of communist economic
> policies in China. If anything, China is a poster
> boy for the free market,
> not central planning.

     Actually China is a poster boy of pragmatism and
the willingness to change for the better. It is not a
free market economy in the sense that we are. They are
only gradually relaxing state control but they have
nowhere near done away with it completely. My point is
not that centralized economic planning is better than
laissez-faire capitalism, but that there is an optimum
combination of the two.
     Some industries should be be more tightly
regulated than others. I am willing to bet the ideal
state is economically somewhere Right of China and
Left of the USA, in that grey area between capitalism
and communism. 
     The real problem facing our country is that we
give companies (not individuals) way too much freedom.
Special interest controlled politicians are taking
away individual liberties and yet giving corporations
rights that put them above the law. We see this with
the export of manufacturing jobs out of the country to
take advantage of looser pollution laws and cheaper
labor. Because of this, America is becoming a service
economy- a country composed of servants- a nation of
burger-flippers and waitresses. 
     In my opinion, an American company that fires
Americans and hires Malaysians to do the same job for
cheaper is comitting treason and should be punished by
the American government by tariffs. If an American
company moves overseas in order to circumvent
anti-pollution laws, then the companies shopuld be
extradited back to America and penalized just like any
other fugitive from justice. It would not be so bad,
if the companies passed those savings on to the
consumers and lowered the cost of living in the US.
But that sure didn't happen. I don't remember Nike's
getting any cheaper when they moved their factories to
the SE Asian sweatshops to make their shoes for
pennies instead of minimum wage. Nike gets all the
benefits of an American company, yet it doesn't give
anything back to America. Also I think if an American
company moves overseas in order to circumvent
anti-pollution laws, then the company should be
extradited back to America and penalized just like any
other fugitive from justice. Either that or we face
government of the people, by the companies, for the
companies, and I don't think that's what Lincoln had
in mind.  


> ### Yeah, yeah, we heard it before, silly commie
> rhetoric.

well ok, I realized after the fact that the rhetoric
sounds communist, but my ideas are not. It's funny how
if you aren't all for the wanton rape of the world by
greedy businessmen, you are labeled a communist. 

=====
The Avantguardian 


"He stands like some sort of pagan god or deposed tyrant. Staring out over the city he's sworn to . . .to stare out over and it's evident just by looking at him that he's got some pretty heavy things on his mind."

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