[ExI] Money and Human Nature (was Re: Capitalism, anti capitalism, emotional arousal)

[Kelly Anderson]

2011/11/16 Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>:
> On 16 November 2011 05:41, Kelly Anderson <kellycoinguy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I am not an expert on the Jesuits... I wonder though, did they starve
>> first when famine hit, or last?
>
> Well, Libertarians would be the first to point you to the difference between
> relatively well-fed members of a communist society, including eg the Soviet
> Union of the fifties and the sixties,  and even incompetent or unlucky poor
> members of an ideal capitalist society. The latter can do whatever they like
> with whatever they may own; the former simply are simply maintained, not
> necessarily on egalitarian terms, with resources on which they have no
> private control and for which they are answerable at any time.

Yes, better a pauper in America than a rich man in the former USSR...

>> And what other way was there at the
>> time to pursue a life of book learning?
>
> The same way as a researcher in Krusciov's Russia. Abolition of private
> property of course does not mean that collective property is equally
> abolished.

Sorry, you lost me on this one...

>> Yes, though the retirement benefits for US politicians are
>> considerable. Lavish speaking fees have made the Clintons rich. Even a
>> one term congressman gets a nice little retirement package... as well
>> as a lucrati e lobbying job, if he wants it.
>
> Yes, they are granted/grant themselves a position firmly and permanently
> entrenching them in the middle class. But this is peanuts, and I am not
> aware of any Western statesman other than Mr. Berlusconi who has personal
> assets of a scale making him independently powerful.

Yes, but you can't deny that former president Clinton is powerful.
Even Al Gore is powerful... and he didn't even win his run... barely.

>> Ya, there is always the exception to the rule. Glad he's gone.
>> Khadaffi, Castro and Hussein too...
>
> One wonders if this is really going to be invariably true for their
> respective peoples... :-)

I'm with you on that Stefano... I'm really worried about the eventual
outcome of the Arab Spring movement... could end up with a bunch of
Irans at the other end of the pipe... scary.

Even the Italians aren't guaranteed better... in fact they are most
certainly going to go through worse before it gets better. i hope they
are patient, and that there isn't too much of a brain drain while it's
bad...

-Kelly