At least there will be somewhere we can go to get good healthcare.
These things never impress me. Many times, nations are forced by reality to adopt more free-market policies. But being “forced”, as Papandreuo recently said, to choose between “collapse or salvation”, and choosing to survive, does not mean that the people/government…the individuals have on the whole accepted the moral reasons for Capitalism.
Basically, a nation that adopts political elements of the free market without having the necessary ethical foundation in the population will never work. Neither will any veiled attempt to adopt elements of the free market out of necessity in order to further fund the denial of reality/advocacy for socialism.
So they will be like china now. That isn’t freedom. Just enough freedom to let the cattle make stuff.
A parasite who suddenly sees the wisdom of not killing its host. (Which is more than could be said of James Taggart, Wesley Mouch, et. al. from Atlas Shrugged.)
Didn’t Putin warn us about going down the path of socialism? It seems like Russia is actively trying to reverse the damage that was done
Putin is an old-fashioned gangster a la Mr. Thompson meets Al Capone. I agree with the others that this is probably just trying to survive and not any kind of principled liberalism.
I am new face of Kapitalism, da?
Capitalism only possible with principles; Russia is just being pragmatic.
You know-I wanted to come back and say, though, that I believe there is a positive. The more you give people freedom, especially those who are not accustomed/“comfortable” with it, the harder it is later to take it away. Look at China. Any attempt to increase controls would meet in fierce resistance/violence. Their only options are to maintain the status quo, or reform.
You know-I wanted to come back and say, though, that I believe there is a positive. The more you give people freedom, especially those who are not accustomed/“comfortable” with it, the harder it is later to take it away. Look at China. Any attempt to increase controls would meet in fierce resistance/violence. Their only options are to maintain the status quo, or reform.
People need to have identified their freedoms before they can even worry about it being taken away from them.
The amount of concrete “freedoms” and amount and quality of goods does correlate with increased freedom (usually, more on that later).
Does this mean that they will appreicate freedom? No. They most likely, if they have any opinions on the matter at all, take some fence sitting position.
They will say to themselves, that absolute capitalism, freedom, anarchy, whatever they believe it is, and absolute communism, or government, or whatever they believe that is, are both dangerous extremes to be avoided, and that the best policy is a sort of open non-militant corporatism, a conservative (in the old sense of the word) fascism.
Also, an decrease in government controls does not necessarily mean a move towards capitalism. For example, if a government has awarded a monopoly to a steel company on steel, and has price controls on steel as well, is it really a move towards capitalism to remove the price controls and let the steel company have free reign?
That is an oversimplification, but privatization can end up being a form of corporate welfare.
People need to have identified their freedoms before they can even worry about it being taken away from them.
The amount of concrete “freedoms” and amount and quality of goods does correlate with increased freedom (usually, more on that later).
Does this mean that they will appreicate freedom? No. They most likely, if they have any opinions on the matter at all, take some fence sitting position.
They will say to themselves, that absolute capitalism, freedom, anarchy, whatever they believe it is, and absolute communism, or government, or whatever they believe that is, are both dangerous extremes to be avoided, and that the best policy is a sort of open non-militant corporatism, a conservative (in the old sense of the word) fascism.
Also, an decrease in government controls does not necessarily mean a move towards capitalism. For example, if a government has awarded a monopoly to a steel company on steel, and has price controls on steel as well, is it really a move towards capitalism to remove the price controls and let the steel company have free reign?
That is an oversimplification, but privatization can end up being a form of corporate welfare.
I said the same thing in my original post 
. So there is no disagreement.
All that I was attempting to say is that since freedom is the natural condition of mankind, the mere tasting of it has a positive effect. Like I said-study China. While the system will never truly advance to a Capitalist system without the proper moral system in place, individuals will indeed act differently and be impacted by the freedoms gained from government corruption.
In essence, actions like these create new breeding grounds for ideas about liberty and Capitalism.