[ExI] Socialism and Environmentalism are inevitable

[Tara Maya]

On May 26, 2014, at 5:42 PM, Omar Rahman <rahmans at me.com> wrote:

>> 
>> The amazing thing about capitalism is that it's the other way around. It's the only system where good people regularly exploit evil people; where the poor regularly exploit the rich.
> 
> I will pause here just to marvel at what you have written.


I wish you would, instead of merely scoffing. 

Things often have the opposite effect of what we think. We shouldn't assume we know how things will turn out until we have tested our assumptions. Another example, completely different, is that many feminists assume that widespread access to porn increases the incidence of rape. The feminist argument is perfectly logical; porn degrades women, and often glories rape directly, so it seems it would encourage more acts of rape. But the evidence doesn't support their theory. It seems to be the opposite. Societies with easy access to porn have lower incidents of rape. This is something we should continue to investigate and see it there's really a cause and effect, but no feminist (and I am one) has the right to say that just because a person says, "Let's allow porn," that person is saying, "Let's allow rape." We all want to stop rape, I hope. The answer about how to do so must not be assumed from the start.

You and I have the same goal. A more just, equitable society with the poor becoming wealthy and the current rich not monopolizing everything. It might seem obvious that capitalism leads to exploitation of the poor, but the evidence suggests otherwise. You ought to consider the possibility before you simply laugh it off.

There was an interesting archeological dig, using DNA analysis of bones, into a Canadian Native American tribe over a thousand years of history. To many of us, the society would have seemed idyllic. There were some wealthier families, who owned lodges and some poorer families, who only worked in them (I'm not sure if it would be fair to say they were slaves or not) but the difference in material wealth wasn't that great by our present standards. (All were relatively hand-to-mouth by modern standards, in other words). 

What stunned the researchers was that they found that the SAME families maintained their wealth over that period. A few families were essentially nobility and they never gave it up. There was practically no social mobility at all. For a thousand years.

Most traditional societies were like that. And social mobility, when it came, often came in a bloodbath.

In modern Amercian society, in contrast, it's well established that it's "three generations to rags or riches." The poor don't slay the rich and move into their houses, and I hope you're not suggesting they should. The poor get an education and outperform the rich. Speaking personally, I know that as an America, I am now in the elite of the global economy, but of my 8 ancestors who came here (all from different countries from all parts of the globe), 7 were either the "proletariate" (as they used to say) or essentially serfs in their own lands. Only one came from the "nobility" -- and he arrived with nothing and was dirt poor and discriminated against in this country when he arrived. It took one generation to move into the middle class for all 8. This is hardly a unique story. I claim no special genetic inheritance. It's the common story, the benefit of free enterprise. 

You cannot take any person in America today and know from his bank account how wealthy or poor his great-grandson will be. In fact, you wouldn't be able to tell from the bank account of a twenty year old what his bank account would look like at 40. (To make a prediction, you'd have to know other things, like his education and IQ and whether his parents were married, etc.)

What a contrast to a thousand years of frozen class hierarchy. 


Tara Maya
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