You guys are talking about capitalism plus a load of baggage that is somewhat related. I’m talking about the acumulation of resources (i.e. capital) by individuals (which is explicitly not permitted in non-capitalist systems) allowing advancement of research and individual projects that benefit humanity and would not be possible (due to public apathy, other group priorities, or a dozen other factors) under a truly representative government that did not allow capital accumulation through market participation. If you don’t want dictatorship, or oligarchy, or profit redistribution at gunpoint making everyone too poor to accomplish expensive things like getting rid of fossil fuels, you have to allow people to earn, save, and spend capital. And that’s capitalism. Your dislike of Elon Musk should not blind you to the advancement of the human race that Tesla Motors represents - electric cars do not poison the global atmosphere. Empirically, capitalist Teslas are better than collectivist Trabants.
@anon50609448, if we did welfare the way we supposedly intended, the only people not receiving income would be those who refused to do any work whatsover under any circumstances - sociopathic intentional parasites. And even these would be minimally fed and sheltered. Did King’s guaranteed income promise to provide more? Freud said humans require work, love and play and nobody’s disproved it yet. Paying people who can’t get a job is profoundly different from rewarding lazy sociopaths for refusing to do the dirty but essential work of waste stream management and the like. How would this moral hazard be managed? The soviets never managed to find a solution.
