| | Since the days of slavery, American capitalism has depended on cheap foreign labor (though the labor has gotten a little more expensive over the years.) It could be argued that this thoroughly expendable and ever-renewing resource has put us out front with the rest of the world scrambling to catch up. 'Course as the world gets smaller, we run into trouble with the whole "ever-renewing" part of the equation. How do you expand markets, when all the untapped markets are tapped out? It hasn't happened yet, so we can still pretend that wealth is produced out of the Ether, but sooner or later we will hit that wall, won't we?
Elsewhere on this website there's an invitation to write an article denying "zero-sum."
Write an article that explains how wealth is produced, not merely taken from a zero-sum source. The article will fit into the "Foundations of Capitalism" category, and so should explain its importance to capitalism. It should explain why it is that Capitalism requires this foundation. The article should be aimed at laymen. Capitalism will be defined in another essay.
I'd be really curious what y'all come up with.
I'm feeling a little self-conscious here, since I'm, more or less, an interloper. I found this website entirely by accident, read your credo about rational discourse, after glancing at some of the threads on the board, found they reflected it for the most part, so here I am. I've been curious about Ms. Rand and her followers for a while. I have to admit, kind of assumed that she was the bunk, on account of because she denies anything spiritual (as a professional psychic--woowoo alert, feel free to write me off, used to it by now--I'm confronted with what I would term "spiritual" on a dayly basis). You folks are interesting. I didn't realize that she was such a fan of capitalism. One of the peculiarities of capitalism among socio-economic models as I have understood it, is that it's not based in an ethic, but rather, what you might call "a mechanic." Like a handgun, the principles of capitalism can be used for good or ill. Yet here's a philosophy, Objectivism, that postulates capitalism as the ultimate expression of human potential. Wowzers! After reading this article, I can't help wondering if the old "Socialism is a lovely system, except in practice" wouldn't aply to your utopian capitalism. I'm gonna have to read "The Fountainhead" for real now. Thanks for keeping it lively!
Oh, and Sharon, nice post.
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