Evidently it is, altruism by definition is selfless. that it exists proves it is not self-serving. the human condition is one of empathy not self serving. "Human nature" seems an excuse for people to be pricks. which means they need to be justified, they may be evil bu they're still human.
dude, i don't mean to get caught up in semantics here cuz we're about on the same page. here's a link that might be able to explain better than i am Neuroscience of altruism - Boing Boing
Wealth inequality isn't a bad thing. It doesn't make one person less free than the other. It's as if you don't understand the concept of freedom. Also, your blatant strawmanning of capitalism is amusing. Reminds me of some other forum boards...
most people understand that there are different forms of freedom. two common forms this takes are negative and positive freedom. negative liberty is about other people leaving you alone to do your own thing. positive liberty is about the agency to pursue your goals. negative liberty is the type championed by conservatives like burke and issaih berlin. positive liberty is championed by left-leaners. examples? negative freedom - i am allowed to ride a bus to new york city. no government will deny me this. positive freedom - i am able to ride a bus to new york city. no government or corporation will charge an unreasonable fee. both freedoms are important. it's as if you don't understand freedom. in china, if you're from the countryside, you are not allowed, by the government, to ride a bus to city. in alabama, if you come from a poor family where educational opportunities are not available and you work hard every day at mininum wage to provide for you family, you are not able to ride a bus to new york if you wanted to because you can not afford it in terms of money or in terms of 'time-is-money'.
Positive freedom isn't freedom at all. You don't have a right to goods/services to be provided to you at a reasonable price.
please provide one example of where i strawmanning capitalism is responsible for food shortages, famine through imf policies of structural adjustment. if capitalism was just neighborhood markets downtown of local business freely competing, i would be the first to sign up to support it. but we all know that this isn't how capitalism exists in the world.
you're confusing rights with freedom. in china, you have no right as a rural migrant to come to the city without a work permit. and therefore you are not free to do so. in america, of course, you have no right to have anything without some sort of monetary exchange and therefore you aren't free to engage in those things. you're limiting of freedom to mean only things that you have a right to is very scary, especially on a board devoted to illegal plants.
lolwut lolwut I think the word you're looking for is voluntary exchange. Money is not required for exchange in the United States. lmfao.
if you don't think the imf is capitalist, then what do you think it is? are you like the lefties who always claim that marxism isn't what the USSR practiced? the international monetary fund and the world trade organization are some of the of the main arms of international capital, besides multinational corporations. through it, the chamber of commerce and other business interest groups lobby for access to markets. this is how capitalism functions. remember when china joined the wto? why do you think republicans / business groups were so excited about that? because it meant that to join, china (which never took structural adjustment loans) would have to open it's markets to multinational capital. capital is always looking for new markets and new products because of the declining rate of profit. this is how capitalism functions.
It's corporatist/fascist. Capital =/= Capitalism. Corporatism =/= Capitalism. Says the non-capitalist. Why don't you let the capitalists explain how capitalism functions and you can explain how your system of theft and coercion in order to bring about equality will work.
since you asked : capitalism will destroy itself. world wars are a result of global capital and inevitable. maybe the small amount of workers who control most of all the essential functioning of capital (like shipping) will bring it to a halt. all things come to an end, at sometime. something new will replace it. this might be some sort of communism, some sort of facist corporatism, some sort of decentralized warring states, an islamic empire, who knows? there is nothing to do to bring about the end of capitalism or corporatism as you nice apologists like to call the actually existing system. equality will most likely not be the outcome. and because this is most likely the case, any action involving the state (welfare state, socialism) is automatically corrupt. and action involving fighting the state, ala insurrectionary anarchism, is pointless. international capital along with the state with continue on until it doesn't. for myself, i'll smoke weed and write on internet forums about it bout it.
yup. cuzzzz capitalism exists in real life in this way. marxists do the same thing. they always claim that the soviets didn't inact marxism the way marx intended. which is true, i guess, but in the actually existing world this is the way marxism unfolded. just like how capitalism in theory is all beautiful roses but in reality, this is how capitalism has unfolded. to agree with the premise of theoretical capitalism is to apologize for the system, just like all the marxists in the 60's who supported mao. it's not that these theories aren't useful, but when declaring support, you have to be able to accept how it unfolds in the actually existing world.
please explain. all i mean is that through praxis, theory and action together, there is a historical outcome. because you don't accept capitalism as it's unfolded historically means that you can't accept the theory of capitalism, no matter how different it is from this existing world, because the historical outcome of capitalism is the 'true shape' of capitalism. for example, child labor and slavery were both integral parts of capitalism, until they weren't, and even if theoretical capitalism has nothing to say about these things, or even opposes these things, the fact that they were an integral part of capitalism means that when theoretical capitalism is applied to the actually existing world, the result is child labor and slavery, sometimes.
That's not what you said at all. You said by agreeing with the premise of capitalism that one somehow apologizes for the current system, which just isn't the case, hence equivocation fallacy. EDIT: Maybe it was a non sequitur as agreeing with 'premise of capitalism' certainly does not mean that one is apologizing for the system. Oh please. Capitalism an economic system. Your pathetic attempts to equivocate 'historical capitalism' (whatever the fuck that is) and 'theoretical capitalism' is complete nonsense. At least define your terms if you're going to spew complete bullshit. No they weren't. Building and then tearing down strawmen must be fun.
Nah man, its cool. Don't apologize, it happens. That pic for some reason just cracks my shit up. Been waiting to use it.
thanks, you have some good points. i've been smoking continually so i am pretty sure my arguments are suffering for it. we'll just have to disagree on the whether or not supporting theory means supporting practice. by theoretical capitalism, i mean capitalism in theory. in theory, the free market will give people the freedom to follow their self interest which will benefit the entire society. by historical capitalism, i mean capitalism as it's unfolded in history at a specific time and place. and by capitalism i mean the economic system of private ownership of the means of production. private ownership of the means of production means that capitalism relies on labor that doesn't own production. the historical capitalism of the american colonies, for example, relied on slave labor. the historical capitalism of today's america relies on wage labor. child labor was a big part of the mining industry in the industrial revolution, which was a capitalist venture. i.e. private ownership of the means of production.
So, by historical capitalism you really mean corporatism. Why don't you just use the accepted terms instead of creating nonsense-terms to better fit your narrative? 'Historical capitalism' hasn't really existed throughout history. Your definition is completely bunk as the situation described has never actually existed throughout history. Which government has respected private property rights? During what time period and what area of the world were private property rights respected? Just because something can be privately owned does not make the entire system capitalism. If there's slavery, it's not capitalism. Slavery is a violation of property rights and goes against everything that capitalism is about (private property rights, voluntary exchange). Just because something can be privately owned does not make the system equivalent to capitalism.