quote:
Some interestingly defensive replies though
Not me ...
Just going with a reflexive counterpoint (as in "oh yeah?").
..on a more serious note.
With Capitalism you've got to have "losers". No two ways about it. This is the nature of the economic theory. It may be quite fair, although many could debate that to death. When you have too many "losers", for whatever reason, you ARE going to see a shift to a more soicialist political environmnent IF you have a democracy (or democratically elected Republic).
No one can argue that we have far more losers than we once had. It doesn't matter "why" we have more losers, if you can't make this not so ...you're gonna still have losers. I personally don't think that the composite of personalities/class/social distinction has changed that much ..but the environment in which they live HAS.
With unthrottled trade we have the entire world providing our consumerism (the backbone of the world economy). Free trade is good. It provides competition and allegedly "improves the breed" so to speak (actually not-America has always produced the absolute BEST of everything - most of us just cannot afford it). The older economic theories never took into account the RATE of change. What used to take decades to evolve ..now happens in a very few years. We can't retrain our workforce in the time alloted and then we have a 'gap' that all the world feels.
This is where socialist nations DON'T suffer. They control their trade, don't have big trade deficits and can produce "needed" people with the integrated business/government authority. They don't waste resources. They don't have radical surges of feast or famine.
They also don't have a whole lot of crime. Virtually no murders ..and a population that is, for the most part, happy. The sacrifice they make for this ..is NO ECONOMIC GROWTH.
..and that's something our capatains of commerce will never sacrifice for the benefit of the many ...nor would I recommmend that they do. We're in a trap. We can't do anything like that due to our global obligations. We provide the vast majority of the world with a living ...yet can't do the same for just our population.
So ..get used to the losers. No "pick yourself up by your bootstraps" Rush Limbaugh horse manure rhetoric is going to fix our demographic/global economy/evolutionary woes. Imagine if all the population had a Phd.. Which one would be the street sweeper? The "would you like fries with that?" person? The WallMart cart retriever? There are only so many slots of 'gainful' employment ..and the list keeps changing and dwindling. Any rhetoric to the contrary is just to convince you that you're on the upper tier ...which you may very well be ..for now. We're like the Titanic ..except that we've managed to continue to build the part that is still above the waterline as the ship sinks ..but the race is getting closer ..and the waterline is gaining on us.
..and you wonder why socialist agendas are adopted?
Me? I'll still slug it out ..but what about my son and daughters? What do they do? Just float with the tide ...getting jerked around with every twitch of the economy?? What discapline would you advise to a young person? IT? Medicine? Law? Business? All these things are destined for major evolutions (revolutions actaually) ..and probably not for the better.
So ..you can look at the two political parties as an exercize in "loser managment". The Right says "let them eat cake" ..the left wants to pacify them. That's about the only difference. Either way ..you've still got the losers and more to come.
