General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Capitalism is NOT a dirty word. [View all]fleabiscuit
(4,542 posts)IMHO, worth a quick site search and a watch.
A paraphrase of a couple of my favorite parts.
Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2013: David Simon
7:55 ...that notion that profit is the metric by which we are going to measure the health of our society is one of the fundamental mistakes of the last 30 years. It begins, I would date it in my country, to about 1980 exactly, and it has triumphed. And ultimately the farce of this argument that seemingly where capitalism stomped the hell out of Marxism by the end of the 20th century, and was predominate in all respects. The great irony of it is that the only thing that actually works is non ideological, is impure, has elements of both arguments, and never actually achieves any kind of partisan or philosophical perfection. Its pragmatic, it includes the best aspects of socialistic thought and of free market capitalism, and it works, because we dont let it work entirely
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11:50.
And ultimately we abandoned that. And we believed in the idea of trickle down, and the idea of the market economy, and the market knows best. To the point where now libertarianism in my country is actually being taken seriously as an intelligent mode of political thought. Its astonishing to me. But it is, people are saying I dont need anything but my ability to earn a profit. Im not connected to society. I dont care how the road got built, I dont care where the firefighter comes from. I dont care who educates the kids others than my kids. I am me. Its the triumph of the self. I am me, hear me roar
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