> It's exactly reactions like this one I expected. That happens when a
> free market capitalist gets the tool of cloning. Earn a living or die
> out. Everybody can do it. Those so-called poor people just don't try
> hard enough.
>From your anecdotal, stricty personal evidence, would't you agree that
welfare is overrun by defectors? (Just have a stroll through the corridors
of the Sozialamt, or do some field research among your friends). Don't you
think that hunger _can_ be a motivating experience? Governmental monopoly
is imo one of the worst monopolies imaginable. It breeds static societies
which are unable to compete on the long run, and can lead to _very_
painful catastrophic breakdowns. Believe me, what I am seeing right now on
the street is not very pretty. Mostly, it's a result of explosive
decompression of long-shielded society. Sudden power vacuum has made
energetic individuals grab for economical and political resources. The
resulting power structure is a mafiocracy, worsened by monopolism.
There is a perfect example of failed govermental pension system right
under your own nose. Several decades ago in Germany, with lots of smoke
and mirrors a high-ranked criminal cheated several generations out of
their pension -- yours included. Strong state artefacts as creaking
conservationalism (amplified by some teutonic specifics), technological
neophobia and a totally failed tax policy running rampant _plus_ random
factors as a skewed population age histogram do not seem to make Krautland
a good place to live for the next decades. (Nor Russia, btw, but for
different reasons).
There is a spectrum of economic systems in real life: diverse brands of
socialism/communism (deceased), the Scandinavian model (failed), Germany
(failing) and the U.S. (doing tolerably well) at the other side of the
spectrum. Radical free market capitalism is a new thing, never tried
before. Like many radical systems, it may fail. However, we would be fools
not to try.
ciao,
'gene
> Erik