[ExI] I see pitchforks.

[John Clark]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2019 at 7:52 PM Rafal Smigrodzki <rafal.smigrodzki at gmail.com>
wrote:

>> Rafal I'm a capitalist same as you,
>>
>
> > *### Dunno, reading some of your statements makes it hard to believe
> it. *
>

I guess neither of us understands the other. Capitalism just covers
economic freedom but libertarianism is a broader term and I think there are
other freedoms that don't involve money that are also important. And given
your support of Trump I find it hard to believe you're a libertarian.


> > *I am a brazen, balls-to-the-wall Capitalist*
>

Until 5 or 6 years ago I was too.  I knew from day one that my
unconditional support of Capitalism simply could not continue forever but I
figured the day when it needed to be modified was so far in the future I
didn't need to worry about it now. But it happened faster than I thought.
Because of advances in technology well paying jobs are going away and they
are never coming back. The number of jobs that still require a human
operator gets smaller every day, and you can bet that Billions of people
who no longer have an income are not going to starve to death without first
making a rather large fuss. Newton's theory always worked until it didn't,
and then we had to move onto General Relativity, I think the same sort of
thing is happening right now with Capitalism.

*> **with a pinch of ancap. *
>

And for years I had more than a pinch of Anarcho-capitalism I was all in.
And I still think if we were starting from scratch that would be the way to
go rather than with nation states; but we are not starting from scratch and
there is not a snowball's chance in hell of reorganizing human society in
that mode before the technological Singularity.

*> Your support of capitalism appears to be rather subdued. *


My theory was that Capitalism is the best basic organizing principle for
creating wealth that a society can have, and the dramatic difference
between Capitalistic and Communist countries (such as North and South
Korea) was powerful empirical evidence in favor of the theory. Capitalism
was my favorite economic theory but it was never my religion, so I was
willing to support it up to the point it stopped working but not beyond
because in my view the Scientific Method outranks everything, even
Capitalism.  So if a non-chaotic society is desired and I see signs
Capitalism is working less well (and I have) then my support of pure
capitalism will indeed become more subdued, although it is still much greater
than in most people I know.

> *Money will set us free!*
>

If you think money related freedoms are the only sort of freedoms there are
then you are not a libertarian. And if you support Trump's tariff policy
then even with my reservations I'm still a more balls-to-the-wall
Capitalist than you are.

 John K Clark
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