The above statement separates the civilized from the tyrant. Where do you stand?

–David Green, thanks for agreeing with me, however, I wouldn’t call Bill Jenkins a moron–I think that he used the plane analogy to make a point…but correct, the laws of gravity aren’t suspended by the plane, they are overcome by Bernoulli’s principle.

Many of the posts equate socialism with totalitarianism, but that view is incorrect. Marx and Engels never intended for the state to be empowered.

thus a potential creditor needs to think twice before extending credit….it also protects the people from the perpetual servitude, slavery, and oppression by the powerful….the practice turns out to be quite healthy….

our current crisis arises in part from abuse of credit….not only was credit itself mandated for poor risks by the government, but the greedy banksters invented derivatives to protect themselves from that artificial risk….the ballooning of derivatives is the cancer which will kill the stroke victim….contrary to many faux experts, the swaps are not inert and will wreak massive destruction as they come due….that process has already started in earnest….

otherwise it is dreary to read the emotional rants from anti-intellectual minds deploring private property and free enterprise….your jobs require capital…..insisting that it be impaired with lusts on your neighbor’s property is self-defeating….and the blather about socialism being virtuous has been destoyed both academically and practically as we have seen the carnage which stalin, mao, pol pot, castro, and other virtuous saints of the left leave in their wakes. the western european socialocracies have a differnt set of problems which fetters the human potential and discourages work through its procrustean limitations and destruction of people’s persons….

yes it looks like salon has sent some folks over here to spread the arrogance of socialism….no economic system can prevent the corruption of people…but that government which protects property will do best in its restraint of carnal instincts.

the fact that there is such hostility toward free enterprise and fondness for socialism spells continuued collapse of america without any countervailing benefits from the socialism to follow….mediocrity will fill all and bring us to 3d world status just as it nearly did to britain before thatcher intervened to reverse the tide.

socialism is a religion with a false god whose goal is to deify the one who can grab power for ordering a world in his own image. free enterprise is about relesing the spirits of the many so that they can achieve the good for which god created them. the former is about fear the latter about love.

There is a petty autocrat in every socialist.” There is a petty crook in every capitalist.

Gravity is a law from God. Capitalism is not.

Jason, the first poster, had it right on the definitions of capitalism and socialism.

All people in all systems in all civilisations will cheat and steal and lie and exploit others. This is human nature. A socialist system in which every one is a Christlike nice guy will work better than a capitalist one in which everyone is a ruthless SOB.

Capitalists claim that since not everyone can be Christlike, however, their system accounts for human nature and therefore works better. This is inane, of course, because a capitalist system in which a few oligarchs exploit the cheap labour of peasants is also a disaster (if one cares about human rights and justice, which most capitalists do not).

So who wins? It all depends on the time, the circumstances, etc. Democracy, for example, is a good idea, but I’ll take an enlightened philosopher-king over an uninformed, moronic majority-rule public (like today’s United States) any day.

Since average people can not possibly look ahead far enough to see that a system is going to collapse, it will, and then they reverse course a la FDR’s 90% marginal tax rates, which after 20 years did turn the tide, but not for long, and now it is going to change yet again.