"James J. Hughes" wrote:
> Capitalism has no ethics, and has no necessary relationship to liberal
> democracy.
False. Pure capitalism is defined by free trade, voluntary trade among
free agents. That has everything to do with an ethics of individual
rights and with democracy. It is democracy in action within the
marketplace of goods, services and labor.
> Capitalists will exploit repression as easily democracy. Under
> some circumstances capitalists have backed dictators, and under other
> circumstances "democrats." All they care about is their ability to generate
> and keep profit. Thats fine in its place, i.e. a strong liberal and social
> democracy.
>
Assumptions that capitalist sare only concerned with profits and that
there is no underlying justice or justification behind the system are
not proved simply by assuming such assumptions are a fact. Much of what
is called "capitalism" is actually fascism. An organization enslaving
people for the benefit of its rulers is NOT capitalism. State sponsored
organizations overruling individual freedom to choose is not capitalism.
> It appears from the debate on this list that there are a growing number of
> transhumanists hip to the fact that the defense of liberal democracy, which
> all members of the list benefit from, requires more than obeisance to some
> fantasy model of anarcho-capitalism. If we are to avoid profound social
> conflict in the coming decades there must be a vision of transhuman liberal
> and social democracy, one that can allow and protect the co-existence of
> humans 1.0 and post-humans. The hegemony of anacho-capitalism in transhuman
> circles just makes more likely that the coming changes will exacerbate gaps
> between rich and poor, and generate conflicts between the forces of reaction
> and those of progress.
>
It depends on what is meant. Many users of the term "social democracy"
are talking about something utterly abhorrent and dangerous. Gaps as
such are not a problem and the elimination of such gaps is a
superstitious fantasy goal. What is important for human well being is a
system where each individual's best potentials can be maximized and
where each benefits as much as possible from the abilities of one
another. It is not necessary that everyone is absolutely equal for this
to occur. The distribution of traits and abilities and
motivation/energy/dedication is simply not equal.
- samantha
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