Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submitlogin

While I agree with your general gist, "Capitalism and free enterprise produced everything good" is a bit of an exaggeration. Capitalism didn't "produce" labour rights, it didn't "produce" national parks, the sexual revolution or the abolition of slavery. I don't think we can simplistically say that captialism is the cause of all that is great in this world, even though it's a pretty major component.


I said "capitalism and free enterprise".

Not just capitalism alone.

Pretty much everything good came from free enterprise. The parts of society that engaged in free enterprise came up with the good stuff that would slowly spread free enterprise to the other parts of society.

Specifically:

Are labour rights really a thing? Were they created? "Labour rights" are a communication of certain realities, e.g., treat everyone nicely or we will poke your head with pitchforks.

National parks were not created either. They're an abstract political concept that simply communicates the wishes of a group and the consequences to those who contradict the wishes of a group.

The sexual revolution, another abstract thing, came directly from free enterprise because free enterprise produced the prosperity and technology that caused the changes. e.g. The Pill.

These above good concepts, which are all really just recognitions of the power of the masses, are tightly linked to the power of the masses. And the power of the masses comes from their productive interdependent free enterprise labour.


>Capitalism and free enterprise produced everything good.

>National parks were not created either.

National Parks consist of isolated bits of something good that was there long before man. They're definitely not something good produced by free enterprise, rather something good still there because it was protected FROM free enterprise.




Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: