what about mccarthyists?

er.. Jesusanity, Siddharthaism etc.

I think this was somewhat a problem for Kokoomus in the 70′s, as they didn’t have some star guru, who had invented the right-wing ideology and written a series of books about it, which you could study and impress everybody with your citations, piss off your oak leaf generation parents or wear as a trendy accessory, like the red book by Mao. They discovered Karl Popper though, but I guess Popper wasn’t hip enough

Maybe it has something to do with the general organization of the ideology. Lenin et al. present a detailed picture of their ideal society and the directions to get there. Later, the way becomes known by the leader. The right-wing philosophers don’t necessary give any complete and detailed picture, how the society should be organized, but study few principles.

It is ridiculous, if you call liberalism, say, chydenism, because the name ‘liberalism’ tells, what it’s all about, but if you have a collection of home blended ideas as an unique set, that collection is named after you, instead of calling it with some monstrous name, including all the possible -ism you use and whether they are in semi-, quasi- or pseudo-, classical, modern or post-modern form

I’ve never, ever heard of a libertarian who swears by Randian Objectivism. Neither do they ever engage in economist name-dropping.

3# Popper yeah. Was it “Critical Rationalism”?

Just when I was about to forget my years as “kokoomusnuori”… (radical leftist youth organization for the National Coalition party, i.e the Finnish Conservatives)

What about Thachterism?

Was Popper really some kind of guru for Kokoomus in the 1970s? That’s strange, since he is hardly a right wing philosopher. (Then of course Kokoomus with its middle class base is “conservative lite” compared to most conservative parties in Europe.)

BTW, what prominent libertarian thinkers are there? Ayn Rand may have a cult following in some corners of the world, but “prominent”???

Reganomics

Milton Friedman comes to mind as the most prominent. Historically, you could point to Adam Smith and John Locke.

Could it be that these guys were actually important enough to have something named after them? Stalin was an evil bastard, but he was also the successful leader of a great power and a great party. He won the WWII. And I haven’t read his collected works, but I’m sure they were more readable than ‘Atlas Shrugged’.

Do economists really qualify as “thinkers”?

What about Thatcherism? Somebody once came up with the term Reagonomics.

On #7, Of course, I’m leaning on contemporary witnesses on this, as I was in the “political youth organization age” later, in the 80′s actually, when it already seemed to be more about partying than politics. I understood that Popper’s criticism of Marx and the ideas on open society were well received in young kokoomus.

C’mon Phil, you can do better than that. Check out mises.org and tell me again there’s no libertarian cult of Mises or ideology named after him. Sure the Misesians like to call themselves anarcho-capitalist but that’s no different from Taistoites calling themselves (or others calling them, I’m not sure) minority communists.

“We need a Hayekian solution to the US” is an article written by (admittedly the über-Misesian) Lew Rockwell:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/hayekian-solution.html

Misesian, Hayekian, what’s so different from those Maoist, Stalinist etc. labels. Reagan wasn’t really a libertarian although the Reaganomics part of his politics probably was more libertarian than some of the other bits. Perhaps Thatcher in Britain qualifies as more of a libertarian conservative than Reagan in America? Reagan was also the favorite son of the religious right, which isn’t really a libertarian group of people (Reagan being one of them is exactly as difficult to prove as saying that he was a libertarian, he was above these small groups).

Still, I think Reaganite today means more of a libertarian than it did during Reagan’s time. Those Republicans who are dissatisfied with Bush and yet call themselves Reagan Republicans tend to be more Libertarian than the administration in Washington. Those Democrats who call themselves Reagan Democrats and used to be in the Republican Party but consider now trying their luck in the Democratic Party (dissatisfied with the Bush budgets and some of the faith-based initiatives) are indeed the closest to a libertarian wing the Democratic Party of today has or could have. Some of those blue state Republicans and red state Democrats who identify themselves more with Reagan’s economics and Cold War leadership than with any of his social conservatism are probably making Reaganite to sound relatively libertarian (although many libertarians never praised any Cold War policies to begin with).

Now if somebody thought Rockwell is way different from leftists who like one thinker because he can be both Misesian and Hayekian, I’d like to point out that Maoists used to be also Leninists and didn’t dislike Marx, Engels and Lenin just because they thought Mao was the coolest.

Who’s this Budda, a buddy of youir’s?

“Who’s this Budda, a buddy of youir’s?”

Phil meant Buddha but if you google Budda, you’ll see that most hits have to do with Buddha. As Buddha’s name is written in Devanagari script in the original Sanskrit, it’s only natural that the spelling varies in different versions of the Latin alphabet. According to Wikimedia Commons, Buddha can mean the historical Buddha or “anyone who has attained the same depth and quality of enlightenment”:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Buddha

Buddaboys (the band name written purposefully without the “h”) is a Swedish band consisting of three women and led by Eva Dahlgren that made one record called Lost People’s Area some years ago:

http://www.blaskan.nu/Blaskan/Number9/Musik/buddaboys.html

The link is to a heavy criticism of the band, written in Swedish by someone who spelled the band name correctly but couldn’t spell the title of the album correctly. The critic tells Eva to stop recording “hobby pop” with the band and return to serious pursuits, something which she actually has done, concentrating on her solo career. Buddaboys’ album was recorded in English, whereas most of Eva Dahlgren’s records are in Swedish (although she did record stuff in English early on in her solo career), which made many of her fans disappointed since she had been seen as a key figure in resisting the total dominance of English language in Swedish pop music. That’s Buddaboys for you and Budda is just some really enlightened person. When you take the “h” out of Buddha it looks so much like “Buddy” and “Bubba” that it’s kind of a cool name, really.

Sorry about the wrong link, this was the short Swedish “internet essay” on Buddaboys that I came to think of when I thought of the question “who’s Budda?”:

http://www.blaskan.nu/Blaskan/Nummer9/Musik/buddaboys.html

Whereas the link to the essay on Buddaboys was strictly off-topic, maybe I could return to topic by checking out some other stuff written by the same Swedish internet critic Dr. Indie (Micheles Kindh). Phil’s original post was about leftist ideology. It so happens that Dr. Indie happened to be a member of the Swedish Left Party (Vänsterpartiet) and there’s also some words on why Dr. Indie resigned that party:

http://www.blaskan.nu/blaskan/Nummer39/Vansterpartiet/vansterpartiet_som_krisfenomen.html

“Writing about the party I just left is connected with a certain risk of letting your frustration take over the text. But still there’s my great anger over the party which went from being something good to throwing everything away in a lunacy of political sectarian behavior from the grave diggers of the 1970s Left which broke asunder it’s own radicalism to wander in the promised idiocies of pure doctrine. But of course there are great differences. But what’s happened is that since I joined the party in 1997 so there was this good small business platform with other modern bits of critique of globalization. A rational critique of power.” …

-Dr. Indie (my transl. from Swedish)

After saying what seemed to be right with the Left Party and what was behind joining such a party Dr. Indie goes on to the disaster that Left Party leader Lars Ohly’s “to-be-or-not-to-be a communist” meant to the party (and apparently led to Dr. Indie’s resignation from that party).

Then Dr. Indie (angry former member of the party, might have been a member still at the time of the interview) goes on to interview Lars Ohly himself:

http://www.blaskan.nu/blaskan/Nummer39/Vansterpartiet/intervju_med_lars_ohly.html

Basically, if I understand Dr. Indie in “Blaskan” correctly (there were some other articles as well on the topic), the party is not left enough (neo-left, critical of globalization, etc.) for Dr. Indie but has made the horrific mistake of still claiming a relation to the old left (communist, totalitarian etc.) and all these labels of the 1970s, which are so counterproductive.

Stalin was an evil bastard, but he was also the successful leader of a great power and a great party.

So if Hitler had won, he’d also be the “successful leader of a great power and a great party.”

Most of the problems Russia faces today (Chechnya come to mind) are the result of Stalinism.

I think that the American Left is actually (shock) an outgrowth of progressive religious movements. Historically, these movements have centered around charismatic preachers (Jonathan Edwards, Frederick Douglas, Martin Luther King Jr. etc.) – in fact, it is difficult to distinguish some aspects of the ‘cultural left’ in the US and aspects of new religions like Mormonism, Scientology.

And in fact, I am not exactly sure what “leftism” means. Nor am I sure what “rightism” means. I *think* that leftists favor state-sponsored solutions to problems, while rightists favor the actions of actors independent of the state to solve a nation’s problems.

And libertarians? They worship the cult of Ayn Rand, who thought that smoking was man’s symbolic triumph over nature. In other words, she was a chain smoking kook who invented some mumbo jumbo to justify her self destruction.

I know some libertarians and “Atlas Shrugged” and dispatches from the Ayn Rand institute are their mental bread and butter.

I personally think that any ideology is inherently false. How can you limit yourself to certain solutions? That seems the antithesis of progress to me.

@giustino,
I was comparing these figures to all the great Libertarian leaders I could think of. (None, that is.) No moral valuations implied. And yes, if Hitler had won, he’d have written the history books.

Why are leftist ideologies always named after people?

“Captive hitlerite Field Marshal Paulus cellar to be reconstructed in Volgograd (Stalingrad)”
http://english.pravda.ru/region/2002/07/16/32597.html

ideology is all about core values:

Conservatives care about: enabling people to do their best by not putting the yoke of government all over them, thus the mantra of lower taxes, less government, and the freedom to fail

Liberals: take away any extra cash (Its not theirs anyway it’s the states) for the common good (Like free dental care), thus the mantra of “Tax and spend”, only government is good, with a free social net for all (No failures allowed as it makes one cry). Thus liberals are all about enabling people to be dependent on the Government free handout.

Both can actually have the same solution, example: it takes a military to keep the country safe. So both support a military.

@Hank W.
and let’s not forget ‘Tanner-mannerheimiläinen rosvokopla’ and other brilliant Soviet propaganda formulations…

Conservatives care about: enabling people to do their best by not putting the yoke of government all over them, thus the mantra of lower taxes, less government, and the freedom to fail

Bull *fucking* shit. The conservatives in the US have consistently 1) failed to balance a federal budget (as opposed to Democrats), 2) Grown the size US government and bureaucracy, 3) Spent US tax dollars on frivolous projects with lucrative contracts for their financial backers, and 4) Supported more limitations on personal freedom (anti-choice laws, anti-gay laws, and let’s not even get into circumventing FISA).

The conservatives of today’s US are the ideological descendents of Lyndon Baines Johnson and no one else. They are the 1960s liberals of the 2000s.

PS. the conservatives in the US do not believe in the freedom to fail – hence their consistent support of corporate welfare for businesses (airline industry comes to mind) that should have failed long ago.

giustino: perhaps winter was confusing conservatives with libertarians. After all, unlike conservatives, libertarians tend to believe in the freedom to fail. It so happens that’s a platform that seldom gets votes. It might also be that Libertarian Party has been pretty adept at practising the freedom to fail in losing elections.

Check out mises.org and tell me again there’s no libertarian cult of Mises or ideology named after him

I read Lew Rockwell and I have yet to hear anyone call themselves a Misesian or Hayekian, but I’m sure there’s a few. But that’s no where near the number of people who have considered themselves Marxist/Leninist over the years.

Niggers, eskimos, chinks…

And we white people are never being grouped in one of those! It is because we are all individuals!

What? They are calling us crackers? Milk Faces? Snowmen?

*world view destruction sequence started*

Simple – Communists are stupid collectivists who need a leader. It’s about taking responsibility and passing it on to someone else.

giustino

Right, tell me one time (What year) the Demms put forth a single ballanced budget.

Answer… Zero… Nada one. It took the republicans to force one down the demms loud mouths protesting all the way on how they could have spent all that money.

the republicans also like the demms to fail. Its time for another round in the 06 and 08 elections.

Naw- the demms have no new ideas except one, the Al Gore tax, tax, tax for global warming no less. What a scam he is.

@winter,
under Clinton there was an actual budget surplus.
Then came in the ‘lets not tax and spend, lets only borrow and spend and let some grown-up take care of the mess later’ Republicans.

Not to mention the “hey, let’s spend billions of tax payers’ money on a colonial war in the Middle east, just because the war boner feels so good” Republicans.

Phil: “I read Lew Rockwell and have yet to hear anyone call themselves a Misesian or Hayekian, but I’m sure there’s a few.”

Yeah, there are a few and sometimes libertarians throw labels at each other in a way that reminds of Marxists. After all, many leftist groups got named as they did because someone else called them names. Marx is famous for having said “I’m not a Marxist”. Well, that would’ve been bizarre since he was Marx, but anyway.

I found some thoughts on these libertarian labels from the archive of Karen DeCoster’s website (this 2001 debate is on the question of war and peace and which libertarian guru said what):

“Let’s look at one guy who accused LewRockwell.com of glorifying Ayn Rand and her writing, when we paleolibertarians typically battle with the Objectivists. The Freepers called me – and others at LewRockwell.com – a Randian, a lover of Rand’s writings, etc., and this always amazes me how people can be so comfortable putting words into the mouths of folks they don’t even know!

People claimed ‘Whatt’ya expect from the Randians?”, but anyone who isn’t an idiot knows that Rand was NOT a non-interventionist, and I saw only one person mention that on the thread. In fact, many of the Randian types are part of the warmongering problem.

One guy paints Lew Rockwell of the Mises Institute as un-Misesian, meaning Mises promoted Empire and “entangling alliances” (since Lew doesn’t). It becomes obvious that not only has this guy never cracked open Mises’s 900-page treatise, but, he certainly does not have even the slightest grasp of Misesian thought on a classical-liberal foreign policy.

One looneytune adds that my ideas of paradise are ‘Red China, Democratic Republic of Korea, Cuba, and Vietnam’! Then one says ‘I’m bleating ChiCom party lines.’ All this because I don’t support US aggression against China! Does this guy know what a Rothbardian anarcho-capitalist is? Does he understand that I am one? Does he care?”

http://www.karendecoster.com/archive.php?incfile=archives/2001/jeeper_freep.html

Let me clarify that in that quote Karen DeCoster was defending her own Rothbardian views against claims by “Freepers” (conservatives from the FreeRepublic.com forum) that she is a Randian, something that she found insulting. Someone had said that Lew Rockwell is an un-Misesian, which DeCoster answered with the claim that checking out Mises’s 900-page treatise would somehow be the prerequsite for making any such claims.

The debate on war vs. peace is of course also a classic in Communist history and it used to be done by quoting a person of authority on the issue. V.I. Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg were in a debate on war vs. peace during World War I and some leftists were still engaged in that debate in the 1960s, quoting Lenin and Luxemburg to find support for their war or peace arguments.

While I was looking for others apart from Karen DeCoster who tout the label “Rothbardian”, I came upon this anti-Rothbardian post at the No Treason blog archives. Apparently Rothbard, the libertarian peace advocate, even had views on Finland’s Winter War:

http://www.no-treason.com/archives/2003/07/03/more-rothbardian-lies-about-the-winter-war/

Naw- the demms have no new ideas except one, the Al Gore tax, tax, tax for global warming no less. What a scam he is.

Dr. Howard Dean could balance his state’s budget and appease his gay and NRA constituencies simultaneously.

Republicans are fiscally reckless and they love nothing more than growing bureaucracy so they have another post to fill with a worthless sycophant (see Mike Brown at FEMA).

Most Americans care about the rising cost of gas, the War in Iraq, health care, the economy. But the Republicans? They had to waste more time on a ban on gay marriage amendment that couldn’t muster a bare majority when it failed this week.

And Al Gore hasn’t been elected to do anything as of late, let alone propose more taxes …

Lets summarize:

1) on the “(What year) the Demms put forth a single ballanced budget.” I saw no answer.

Thus, we must all agree on that one. By the way the Republicans have also never put one forth (From the President).

2) the second question “demms have no new ideas except one, tax” also was not questioned. We agree on that one?

but there was one counter “fiscally reckless and they love nothing more than growing bureaucracy “.. Right. the Demms insisted on combining all agencies into one, killing FEMA off as a working organization. Did they take credit for their wonderful work? No, they blamed the other side.

Don’t you just love fiscally reckless talk from a demm who would spend it all (After all its not your money)? And even tell you when they get power back…. its time to raise TAXES. YEA (The Howard Dean yell)

“even tell you when they get power back…. its time to raise TAXES” (winter)
I agree with Ted Rall on this one: if the Dems ever get back to power they shouldn’t do a thing about the debts the Reps have run up. It’s all Republican war debt, a Republican president and a Republican Congress can take care of it, if they want. Cleaning up after these bozos is just enabling them.

“Cleaning up after these bozos is just enabling them.”

In 2008, when the next administration takes office, cleaning up will be done, either by the Dems or by a different team of Republicans.

The next President’s job will be to take care of the economy, not to make George Bush look bad. Sure cleaning up will encourage future administrations of both parties to do whatever they want, since there’ll always be someone to clean up. Voters don’t even always remember those who spend their time in office cleaning up after other people’s mistakes, it’s not that glamorous but it has to be done. American debt is American debt, not the debt of Republicans or Democrats.

There’s much more to the Republican Party than the current administration and my guess is many Republican candidates will run in the November elections saying that they had nothing to do with the officeholders in Washington D.C., they just want to protect their state’s interests against those of the federal government.

The current administration is in flux – very important changes of personnel have been in the making lately, not least Secretary of the Treasury.

Bush may even regret in November his lifting of the gay marriage amendment to the fore. First Lady Laura Bush already spoke against using gays as a campaign weapon. Dick Cheney certainly doesn’t like it, because his daughter has been in charge of the near hopeless task of trying to get out the gay vote for Bush in a couple of campaigns. The Log Cabin Republicans and whatever gay Republican voter base they represent may all turn into Democrats just because of this one issue, even if they would’ve supported the administration on many other issues. It’s not just alienating conservative and libertarian gays from the Republican Party, the idea that this one issue of gay marriage is the number one threat to American families is turning off many others who aren’t members of the Religious Right.

Bush played the gay card because he desperately feared the Religious Right would abandon him and his party. Their very active role in many recent campaigns has in the end helped him more than hurt him. He can’t do without the money and organizational support of key churches. It’s not just the Christian Right that is at stake. Playing the gay card Bush could get conservative Imams, conservative Rabbis and conservatives of every religion (in almost all religions conservative people are the most actively religious group), not just the Vatican and Protestant right-wing preachers cheering for him. All these assembled religious leaders could witness that forty-nine senators share their anti-gay marriage agenda. Sure, many senators supported Bush’s amendment not out of conviction but because they couldn’t afford to be branded a traitor to religion in a tight upcoming re-election campaign. GOP senators don’t want to be targeted for defeat by a core group of Republicans when they have to put their energies to fighting Democratic contenders. Getting forty-nine senators to support a constitutional amendment that would limit the civil rights of Americans is a remarkable feat by any President. It may look like the President is a quixotic religious crusader who is willing to put his party’s fortunes at stake but basically it was a huge show of power by all religious conservatives, showing that they have nearly half the senate in their pocket (one Democrat, Ben Nelson of Nebraska also supported the anti-gay marriage constitutional amendment) and religious activists will work hard to defeat further liberal candidates in red states in November.

The Senate is an ideal tool for the religious conservatives since every time a liberal moves into a state like California or New York, they’re moving to a state that has only two liberal senators to represent their tens of millions inhabitants, leaving many a small rural state with one or two million people represented by two conservative senators each.

I guess Bush won’t be long depressed by the failure of his anti-gay initiative (or better than expected support for it still not being anywhere close enough), or his fiscal policy troubles for that matter, the news from Iraq of Zarqawi having been killed will boost his mood considerably:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5058304.stm

1) on the “(What year) the Demms put forth a single ballanced budget.” I saw no answer.

Thus, we must all agree on that one. By the way the Republicans have also never put one forth (From the President).

No, we should define the terms of debate. Are we going to talk about federal budgets, or state budgets? At both levels, the Party of Santorum has failed to live up to their decades old ‘fiscal conservative’ talking point.

2) the second question “demms have no new ideas except one, tax” also was not questioned. We agree on that one?

Pssh. And the Party of Santorum has ‘new ideas’? Gutting Social Security isn’t a ‘new idea’, Winter – that’s a 70 year old idea.

Do you want to read more about Democratic values and ideas and get a sense of the big picture, read here:

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/6/7/131550/7297

but there was one counter “fiscally reckless and they love nothing more than growing bureaucracy “.. Right. the Demms insisted on combining all agencies into one, killing FEMA off as a working organization. Did they take credit for their wonderful work? No, they blamed the other side.

The ‘playing politics’ argument is the last resort of an argument that goes nowhere, as is the ____ Party are hypocrits, because…

The bottomline is that it was asserted that the Party of Santorum stands for smaller, less expensive government, but this is not the case. The Party of Santorum spends nearly as much as Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2006-04-02-federal-spending_x.htm

Like I said – the Party of Santorum are the 1960s liberals of the 2000s.

Don’t you just love fiscally reckless talk from a demm who would spend it all (After all its not your money)? And even tell you when they get power back…. its time to raise TAXES. YEA (The Howard Dean yell)

The difference between the party of Santorum and the Democrats is that the Democrats spend from their bank accounts, while the Party of Santorum puts it all on their credit card.

Except the people that have to pay that credit card bill eventually are US. And something tells me, there’s going to be one hefty finance charge.

G

#1 I never said the republicans ever put forth a ballanced budget, yet for some reason the Demms think that a Demm has.. Go figure, when both have failed.

#2 Gutting SS is a good idea. If we don’t it will fail in 20 years anyway, so why not fix it now by going private?

By the way when you quite KOS, please answer this:

is Kos 0 for 16, or 0 for 20? It’s so hard to keep track of all the failed endorsements of the Kossacks.

And please let me know when the Demms have NOT proposed budgets that where not larger than the Republicans? Can’t find one? Yea I know its tough, but please try.

U.S. forces rocked terrorist Abu Musab “Dick” al-Zarqawi’s world last night when they tossed a thousand pounds of explosive whupass down his big mouth.

They found his body in the bedroom.
And the kitchen.
And the den.
And the garage.
And the neighbor’s apartment.

Now thats an Army that the EU needs to build. One that can deliver some whupass.

@46,
and of course they also found bits of several other people, including a child. It’s much easier to just bomb, bomb, bomb than do something risky like try to capture the guy. How many houses full of civilians do you think they had to bomb before they got this one? What difference will this make? Nobody even claimed this as a turning point, the way they played Saddam’s capture etc. Just raining on your parade…

Now thats an Army that the EU needs to build. One that can deliver some whupass.

Now I can agree on that…

#2 Gutting SS is a good idea. If we don’t it will fail in 20 years anyway, so why not fix it now by going private?

It’s an idea, but it’s not a new idea. The Santorumites consistently say the Dems have no “new ideas” – but most of the Santorumites’ ‘ideas’ are between 30 and 80 years old. Hence they are old, not new.

SS is your best example of passing the dollar burden on to the next generation. And yet you claim “Democrats spend from their bank accounts”.

SS is Certainly not a good example of spending from a bank account, but rather a very very bad ponzi scheme on the young workers.

Please, Please tell me how you rationalize this one?

prince

This guy sent a bomb into a market, it stood in a bread line, it blew itself up killing 30 people including children.

And you really want me to worry that when we took this low life out, we might, just might have harmed someone?

Please go ask those 30 in line.. Stop… note to self… these 30 are dead, so we can’t ask them anything. I forget I am talking to the EU waive the French white flaggy thing, we surrender folks.

SS is your best example of passing the dollar burden on to the next generation. And yet you claim “Democrats spend from their bank accounts”.

Every state has a pension system set up. It recognizes that in order to basic quality of life for all residents, it will provide its elderly and disabled residents with pensions. Even flat tax utopias do it. It’s a universally recognized concept.

Our pension system has been in operation for 70 years. It may run short of funding in about 35 years (I believe 2041 was the date that money withdrawn exceeds money put in) due to demographic reasons. The solution would be just to ensure that more money goes in.

We could, God forbid, make people who earn more than $200,000 a year actually pay their social security tax (which should be universal because it universally cuts down on the number of people that would become a state charge in other ways) or we could do it the Bush way, and just borrow the money from China.

Or we could bite our fingers and worry about ‘raising taxes’ and ‘class warfare’ by being faced with a funding crisis for our pension system. But that would be a job for ideologues. Not pragmatists.

Giustino

Your only answer is to raise taxes? Nice try but thats not going to happen.

One reason for this nonsense ‘why leftist’ -topic is that the rightists are often presenting like they don’t have any ideology. They are just fot the liberty (of their unlimited monetary power in the society) and capitalism is just a law of nature.

Wow

Anonymous does get it.

The Right just wants the natural flow of money to juice up an economy (capitalism is just a law of nature, and it does work exceptionally well).

The left thinks they can tax and spend all the money as they think Nature is flawed.

It is about that simple.

buhahahhaahhahaaa

winter are you a comedian ?

just giving you a complement for knowing all the facts. You must be studing the EU with its less than 2% GPD against the USA 3.7% GDP growth.

Keep it up EU (with your super high tax and spend policy) and the USA economy will continue to out grow you. Heck we have been doing this for the last 20 years, you should be observing the difference by now.

Unfortunately the anonymous who seconded my ‘capitalism is a law of nature’ is probably not a comedian but truly believes in that and also probably missed that I ‘don’t get it’. There are many such people around and they’re not comedians, mostly engineers and other well doing people.

Capitalism is reaching the end of the road. The unlimited financial flows are not juicing up anything anymore to the benefit of the societies.

‘Leftism’ does not equal taxes although it may be easier for the more simple people to stick to that idea.

I’m not a ‘leftist’, but I surely think that the society should protect the lives of the people and not just try to please the rich in the fear of losing investments in production etc.

‘Free unlimited ownership’ diminishes the democratic one vote principle into nothing. Now it’s just like a billion votes for one, one vote for millions.

Capitalism is reaching the end of the road?

What bull. Check out the GDP grouth in India and China before you say that lie. Hint, its just getting started.

winter: capitalist China or communist China? China has one political system (communist dictatorship) combined with two economic systems (partly communist, partly capitalist). The Indian government is led by Dr. Singh, who represents Congress Party (a social democratic party).