Paul Hughes wrote:
>What is their alternative? Sounds to me like anarcho-capitalists don't
give a
>damn about the poor ~80% of the world!
Hey! I do! I also happen to think they'll be just fine under capitalism,
thankyouverymuch.
>In several days of hashing out these issue
>out on both the transhuman-list and now the extro-list, not a single
person has
>been able to come up with a free-market alternative. They conclude that
either we
>will have to work like dogs until the end, or if we're very lucky,
compassionate
>transhumans will give the rest of us a hand up as we approach the
singularity.
Uhm... How about people work, buy their upgrades, and live posthumanly
ever after?
>I
>have always liked the idea of a minimum guaranteed income and others
similar to
>it. Unfortunately Damien, you appear not to be a rabid free-marketeer, and my
>challenge was to *them* to come up with a solution. So far they have
failed to
>so.
Grrr. Last time I write an essay for YOU, smarty pants. :p
>**** So again I ask, is their any anracho-capitalist who can demonstrate
how the
>free-market can support and sustain a wide-spread liesure-class society
without
>resorting to "faith" that it simply will. If your conclusion is that we
must all
>continue to work in some form or another, then I DON'T WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
>****
Well, first of all, as I think I may have already showed, it's very likely
that people will WANT to work. There's always another planet to colonize,
after all. ;) So this question may be ill-founded.
However, your point. Even if a couple of essential goods DO become so
cheap as to be free, (food for example,) there are a number of ways
capitalism can deal with it. Consider how we've dealt with matches,
drinking water, etc. I imagine food machines as ubiquitous as bathrooms
(which were a luxury within my grandmother's lifetime). Expect to see free
lunches being offered wherever there is something worth selling. Hell, if
there's even one charitable organization interested in distributing food,
and it becomes cheap enough to do so freely, we can expect that
organization to distribute food like there was no tomorrow. Similarly, I'm
imagining free hospitals set up to advertise other goods... stuff like
that. We've dealt with water in abundance, we can deal with honey just as
easily.
Satisfied?
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