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cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:06 PM Nov 2012

Something I tell libertarians that a few of us lefties could stand to hear...

Last edited Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:59 PM - Edit history (7)

20th century capitalism and pesticides and vaccines and modified foods and capitalism (it deserves two mentions) more than doubled the size of the human race, and fed them and cared for them at least as well as they had been fed throughout history.

I like to point this out to libertarians who rail against how our economy doesn't work. Our post gold-standard economy that somehow doesn't work and hinders the economy is precisely what has done things no previous economic structure could. It is amazing, really. Our terrible, terrible fiat money boondoggle economy has created, in a blink of history's eye, half the people who have ever lived, and most of the infrastructure humans ever built, and most of the buildings human's ever erected, and an amazing amount of human produced food. (But hey, people were so much happier in the middle ages...)

And, goose and gander-wise, critiques of modern economy from the left face the same obstacle. Capitalism and franken-science have done amazing things, and if the billions of surplus people alive as a result were polled they would probably say that was a good thing... in that way we all have of thinking our existence is better than the alternative.

For all their ills, were it not for all these marvels of the corrupt modern world, most people wouldn't exist. They would never have been born, or died in infancy, or starved in childhood.

I am a curmudgeon and I tend to agree that it was probably a mistake to use our economic and material technology to allow the world to support billions of more people.

I am not, however, in a hurry to tell several billion people they are an error, and need to be put down (or sterilized)—particularly since there is a good chance that I am one of the "extra" people.

And I don't know a human moral framework that doesn't value persons intrinsically... even if they 'shouldn't' have existed in the first place. So I am stuck. I cannot see my way clear to breaking a few eggs to make an omelet when those eggs are units of a billion persons.

Yes... I will admit it. Part of me is more comfortable with some unknown-to-me person out a billion starving rather than eating the last chimpanzee. I watch a documentary about people supplementing their diet with fantastic animals and I'm irrate... how dare they! But I would do the same if I lived in some exotic locale and had a hut full of my hungry children.

People breed too much. No doubt. But having a family is, to most people, the ultimate satisfaction of human nature. Simply saying, "people shouldn't breed so much" is not easy. And saying that we are overly baby-happy because our nature evolved in a reality where half of infants died in infancy is, despite being true, probably not entirely comforting to would-be parents.

If I was designing the world from scratch it would be more sustainable. It is not easy, however, to find a non-sociopathic moral space from which to easily rectify these ills. We are not going to let the system crash and take down billions through sarvation, disease and war. We, human beings, are not going to just let the system find equilibrium at an immense human cost. And that probably speaks well of us.

I do not think people fixated on stagnant sustainability, and how Greece would do better with a barter economy, and how vaccines are a major health problem are actually in the moral space of a Stalin or Mao. I think they just haven't thought through the unpleasant implications of identifying half the people in the world as surplus.

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Something I tell libertarians that a few of us lefties could stand to hear... (Original Post) cthulu2016 Nov 2012 OP
Capitalism had little to do with it. Arctic Dave Nov 2012 #1
Inventions have effect within their economic framework cthulu2016 Nov 2012 #3
Agreed. I can't imagine not owning what I invented. banned from Kos Nov 2012 #4
If it was just capitalism then all other forms of governing bodies would not have Arctic Dave Nov 2012 #6
Buying/adopting something is not the same as inventing it, and the USSR cthulu2016 Nov 2012 #8
You realize a lot of the you say "we invented" Arctic Dave Nov 2012 #9
We have evidence.. Permanut Nov 2012 #2
If we're going to cull the herd... reusrename Nov 2012 #5
people like easy black and white answers liberal_at_heart Nov 2012 #7
What a great argument for all the things the 'left' generally opposes. sabrina 1 Nov 2012 #10
Yes... the OP is quite obviously an argument for wars and prisons. cthulu2016 Nov 2012 #11
Personally, I'm all for genetically modified food... reACTIONary Nov 2012 #12

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
3. Inventions have effect within their economic framework
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:37 PM
Nov 2012

Modern chemistry is not separable from an economic system. The German dye-works were not charities, nor were the arms makers.

Western capitalism created modern industrial chemistry. The elements had had the same properties for billions of years before man even existed. Modern industrial chemistry springs up in the USA and Europe during the 19th century.

To say that capitalism was not the chief driver of progress for the last few centuries seems almost perverse to me. Akin to saying that Christianity eliminated slavery. (In the sense that Christianity had 1800 years to do so and did not, whereas after the enlightenment when the educated classes started taking religion somewhat less seriously there is an inexorable moral progressivism.)

But I do realize that different people think different things.

 

banned from Kos

(4,017 posts)
4. Agreed. I can't imagine not owning what I invented.
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:45 PM
Nov 2012

The merit system works along with a social safety net.

 

Arctic Dave

(13,812 posts)
6. If it was just capitalism then all other forms of governing bodies would not have
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 09:52 PM
Nov 2012

had the population expansion as you suggest.

Nor does it account for all the inventions brought forth under the USSR or any other governments.

cthulu2016

(10,960 posts)
8. Buying/adopting something is not the same as inventing it, and the USSR
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 10:46 PM
Nov 2012

with a truly pathetic technological culture, given it's size and power.

Of course all nations would adopt fertilizers, pesticides, vaccines, etc. once they were available.

As for the native contributions of the USSR to feeding the world, they were negative. Lysenkoism is a perfect example of something that could never have happened in a capitalist system.

Russia had many, many brilliant people, and a ton of resources, but a government and economy that kept them backward.

The USSR stole the A-bomb, stole the H-bomb, imported grain from the US, had jet fighters with wooden dashboards, horrible consumer goods, chronic food shortages... a science culture rife with cultism. And horrible medicine.

I admire the heck out of Russian culture, and the USSR did occasionally produce a worthwhile piece of military hardware. But a seriously bad example of an economic system producing quality or innovation.

They could set to a brute force task and produce magnificently. Chess, gymnastics... genuinely awesome. Their production of fighter-bombers in 1944 would have impressed Henry Ford, and Sputnik was a nice variation on their military technology, but a lot of the reason they were focused on rocketry while we still depended on airplanes to deliver nukes (JFK's supposed missile gap) was that our planes and anti-plane measures were far superior so missles were they way to go.

 

Arctic Dave

(13,812 posts)
9. You realize a lot of the you say "we invented"
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 11:45 PM
Nov 2012

was actually borrowed from other countries too. Especially brain power.

As for food imports, they will always have to do that, population and farmable land dictate it. Unless climate change brings a blessing to them.

Permanut

(5,439 posts)
2. We have evidence..
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 08:37 PM
Nov 2012

that the carrying capacity of the Earth is being exceeded:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carrying_capacity

Carrying capacity includes food, habitat, water, and other necessities. If we have found a way to monkey with the food supply, we have not found an elegant way to provide water for all, and rather than enhancing our habitat, we are destroying it.

 

reusrename

(1,716 posts)
5. If we're going to cull the herd...
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 09:09 PM
Nov 2012

... we need to start with the 'right-to-lifers' and work up from there.

liberal_at_heart

(12,081 posts)
7. people like easy black and white answers
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 10:02 PM
Nov 2012

For most big problems there are no easy black and white answers. Life is messy and complicated. Things that people like to deem as either evil or good are usually both evil and good and getting rid of the evil would also destroy a lot of the good as you mentioned. There is no yin without the yang. That doesn't mean we cant try to find balance but balance means taking some of the good and some of the evil which most people find very unappetizing.

sabrina 1

(62,325 posts)
10. What a great argument for all the things the 'left' generally opposes.
Sat Nov 24, 2012, 11:51 PM
Nov 2012

Genetically moderated food, wealth going to the top 1%, slave labor, a great and profitable Prison Industry, Wars for Profit etc etc.

I give you credit, good job!

reACTIONary

(5,749 posts)
12. Personally, I'm all for genetically modified food...
Sun Nov 25, 2012, 03:44 AM
Nov 2012

...been doing good for human kind since, like, the neolithic.

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