Big O comes up with more than music that often makes for an interesting read

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HEADROOM

RE: THE WANING OF THE MODERN AGES

Human life before the age of capitalism was one of early death, high infant mortality, illiteracy, and suffering. The age of capitalism resulted in more advances in measurable aspect of human life then the previous 6,000 years of non-capitalist civilization.

The so called "capitalist system" is the only one (yet known) that relies on voluntary human actions and not on force backed up by the threat of violence. Capitalism allows individuals of endless varieties of worldviews to live together in peace. If you don't like what companies or individuals do, under capitalism one is allowed to ignore them and both parties can live in peace and go about different paths towards happiness. Socialism and other non-capitalist systems require all to conform to a single world view or suffer imprisonment, execution or other means to prevent non-conformist actions.

In a capitalist transaction, both parties have to think they benefit, as either party can back out of any transaction. No one is forced to shop at Wal-Mart or eat at McDonald's, these companies can only survive by providing things people want. Capitalism is freedom, almost all of the problems the author whines about came about due to government interference in the market, not the market itself.

Socialism has been tried in a wide variety of forms, including National Socialism (Nazis) in Germany, Stalinism in Russia and Mao's version in China, all failed miserably, and resulted in deaths of hundreds of millions of individuals.

Been there done that, didn't Berman learn anything from the 20th century?

America has not failed, the opposite is true, America has been a huge success (look at the number of applications for immigration to the USA), although we Americans have been facing slower growth (but still growth) as we have moved farther away from a true capitalist system to more of a mixed system with increased government regulations and involvement.

Silly arguments made here which are unlikely to appeal to anyone over the age of 22 (unless dreaming of being a '60s protestor) or anyone who has ever lived in a system like the one Berman advocates.

Let us not forget Malthus from 200 years and realize dire prediction of ecological disasters in the past have not come true, in fact the opposite has happened as capitalist systems have proven to be able to adapt to changing environments much better than other systems and continue to improve the quality of our lives.

Despite what the alarmists over centuries have claimed, the sky is not falling and life generally gets better for each generation and there is no reason to believe this trend over the past 600 years is about to change anytime soon.

Jack

via Internet