It has long become a fetish; worshiped for powers attributed to the "free market" to make all things clean and pure — Banno
Doubtless some great economist will come along and reify self interest to be inclusive of cooperative behavior, which is an ongoing task in the field today. — Wallows
I don't give a flying fuck what you believe. your arguments are simply not that interesting. — Banno
Edit: Thinking on that, what the fuck is a flying fuck? — Banno
OK, so we keep a few cheats on to serve as bad examples...
Actually, a fairytale about how putting too many cows on the commons leads to disaster is the usual approach. — Banno
One of the great virtues of the Westminster system was a professional body called the Civil Service. In the fairytail these folk gave up worldly things in pursuit of the good of the nation. They gave independent and courageous advice to whomever was in government, while standing outside of the political process.
A similar thing was dreamed of in Classical China. — Banno
That has little to do with the teeth of the natives. — Banno
even though we've defined ourselves as social animals and have attributed our success to being such, our cooperative behaviour can't hold a candle to that of other social creatures like bees and ants. — TheMadFool
However, even though we've defined ourselves as social animals and have attributed our success to being such, our cooperative behavior can't hold a candle to that of other social creatures like bees and ants. — TheMadFool
I guess what I'm getting at is that we're failing to notice internal threats to our social structure. The fact that such "threats" are subtle and not like the direct frontal assault of pride of lions, something our proto-social ancestors probably faced on a daily basis, makes it almost impossible to detect such threats and the risks involved. — TheMadFool
I'm so glad you are impervious to corruption, because otherwise such power could drive a fool mad! — counterpunch
Isn't that why we have elections? — Echarmion
Have you never noticed how the right represent peoples interests whereas the left assume, the people exist to represent their interests? — counterpunch
Democratic communism is an oxymoron. — counterpunch
People would vote for the freedom of self interest every time! A command economy necessarily implies totalitarian government - prone to corruption - and inclined to genocide when its latest five year plan falls short. — counterpunch
In a functioning democracy, those that only assume to represent the people's interests will have the disastrous surprise defeat in the elections. And those can be also on the right. One might think this might improve things, but many times it doesn't, especially if the winners are populists, again who can be either on the right or the left. Populists are great in portraying every problem of having emerged because of the evil corrupt rulers. And usually that's all they have, apart of being incapable of reaching any kind of consensus in the democratic process and not having actual solutions to the problems. If they are also authoritarians, what a great mess it will be.Have you never noticed how the right represent peoples interests whereas the left assume, the people exist to represent their interests? — counterpunch
The tragedy of the commons is a capitalist myth. — Banno
I have not, but then I'm not caught up in some ideological straightjacket. — Echarmion
It is indeed, because communism would imply there is no "ruling" at all. — Echarmion
There are some things that make sense having under a "command economy". Vaccine production during a pandemic, for example. — Echarmion
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