AlexVocat wrote:Thundril wrote:Or there might be a push to innovation precisely because feeding everyone is so important.
Interesting point. But the incentive is greatly reduced. Remember selfish desires. If we want development to help secure our next meal then the idea that any profit will be instantly spread like a raindrop in a swimming pool reduces the selfish incentive. Granted it's still there, but to a much smaller extent. The greatest prosperity comes from bottom-up trade. As soon as you dictate who does what and where products go, rate of prosperity is reduced.
AlexVocat wrote: But the incentive is greatly reduced.
How is it reduced? Why doesn't this apply to, for example, soldiers? Why are so many people willing to give time, energy, even blood, quite freely for the common good? Remember
unselfish desires are just as real!
AlexVocat wrote:If we want development to help secure our next meal then the idea that any profit will be instantly spread like a raindrop in a swimming pool reduces the selfish incentive.
Well, it would. But how would that neccessarily impact on production, given the prevalence of other motives for working?
AlexVocat wrote: The greatest prosperity comes from bottom-up trade.
Can you explain this statement? indeed, can you substantiate
any of the unsupported assertions you have repeatedly made, and for which I have repeatedly requested explanations, Alex?
AlexVocat wrote:As soon as you dictate who does what and where products go, rate of prosperity is reduced
Who is proposing such a dicatorship over production and distribution? Another strawman.
AlexVocat wrote:
Thundril wrote:Marxism is certainly not 'idealist' in the philosophical sense.
I'll concede that.
Thank you!
AlexVocat wrote:
There are direct consequences of socialism which would be repeated in any country it was tried in.
Thundril wrote:Name some.
Stagnation of economy, and the knock-on effects of this.
"stagnation of economy". - Why?
"knock-on effects". - For example?
AlexVocat wrote:Thundril wrote:I noted earlier your appeals to human nature, but have yet to see exactly what you think human nature is. I wonder if you could point to any parts of human behaviour (individual or collective) which can be attributed to anything other than human nature?
Perhaps human nature is a confusing phrase to use.
Well, why have you used it so consistently? and why do references to 'human nature' crop up with such dreary predictability in so many capitalist apologias? And why do they so consistently fail to say what this 'human nature' is supposed to be, that fits capitalism so well?
And, if we drop all the appeals to human nature from your own contributions to this thread, what are we left with? -arguments against over-population which, AFAICS, go something like this:
1. Capitalism is better than any other system for solving human need. You have to take this as a flat statement of (unsupported) fact, because I can point to some other systems that are worse.
2. There are too many poor people. I see this as a problem. But if there weren't so many poor people I wouldn't see such a problem.
3. If there weren't so many poor people then capitalism would be able to solve everyone's needs; but there would have to be not so many of the most successful capitalist enterprises as well. So we need to stop the poor from breeding, and then find some (not-too-onerous) way to get the most successful capitalists to stop doing the things that
made them the most successful capitalists in the first place.
Admittedly this is a rough (and perhaps rather unkind) sketch of your position, but can you say which parts of it are actually wrong?