[ExI] anti-capitalist propaganda

[Olga Bourlin]

From: "Damien Broderick" <thespike at satx.rr.com>
To: "ExI chat list" <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 09, 2009 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] anti-capitalist propaganda


> At 09:23 AM 5/9/2009 -0700, spike wrote:
>>
>>It sets off alarm bells in my head when he
>>utters comments like "We all benefit when we spread THE wealth around." 
>>THE
>>wealth?  Define THE, sir.
>
> I always assumed this is an incredible beat-up (as Aussies say of 
> journalistic hysteria where a statement is taken out of context and 
> inflated absurdly).
>
> THE wealth is the wealth created by all the productive forces of the 
> community. As everyone knows, in recent years an increasing proportion of 
> this wealth has been funneled into the richest segments of (so-called) 
> capitalist nations. Some of this upward drainage is due to unmitigated 
> theft and scams on a colossal scale, pyramid schemes and other 
> depredations. Some might be deserved, as brilliant and risky 
> entrepreneurship increased wealth and convenience and lifespan etc for the 
> entire community, and Atlas deserves his payment. Nevertheless, it can be 
> argued that a disproportionate cut has been scooped up by the richest, and 
> that this is not only morally dubious *but damages future wealth-making 
> processes*--by, for example, as we are seeing, leading to a clusterfuck of 
> such enormous dimension that 539,000 jobs disappeared last month in the 
> US, and nearly 6 million in less than a year and a half.
>
> I'd have thought that good capitalists would *want* to see as many 
> citizens as possible creating and sharing in the wealth of their 
> community. If shunting more and more into the pockets of the wealthiest 
> plutocrats actually *despoils* the productivity of the community, throwing 
> millions out of work, it might be rather a good idea to find ways to have 
> the communally-produced wealth spread around again. Hostile rhetoric about 
> "welfare queens" can deafen us to this call to a return to real 
> functioning capitalism. Yes, there are spongers and petty criminals, but 
> it seems to me extremely unlikely that Obama was appealing to them in his 
> invocation of traditional American values of fairness and community.

I've read some brilliant stuff on this discussion forum.

But this one beats all.  Thank you, Damien ...

Olga