Thread: Каддафи хотел заменить доллар золотом

Originally Posted by Hanna

Not sure Crocodile, if less consumption would be such a bad thing. Do you really think that consumerism as it is at the moment is a good and fair thing? People don't NEED massive houses, or a car if they live in a city. We don't NEED a gazillion gadgets and luxury designer items.

I can understand where you're coming from. The only problem is that to tell people they don't need this and that is no fundamentally different from telling them you do need this and that. Both are the acts of brain washing. I would say let the people decide what they need and in what quantities. Don't make that decision for them. In the market economy the balance of the demand is regulated through the price mechanism and in the planned economy it is regulated by the government. The government would tell you what you want and what you don't want. Can you see the difference?

Originally Posted by Hanna

Look at what it is doing to the environment and at how unfair it is!

OMG. We've been through that like a hundred times. It's not the consumption that's doing the damage to the environment, but in order to keep up with the consumption and the population growth we need a better technology. Compare the way we produce the food these days (farming) with what we used to do in the Paleolithic Age - hunting. It wasn't renewable back than and it's renewable now. As a result, we adversely affect the environment MUCH LESS (in this respect alone) than those guys who allegedly live in harmony with the Nature. And there are many more of us too. Viva to the technogaianism!

Originally Posted by Hanna

But at least noone was starving and everyone had a roof over their head [...]

Huh? When? There were times that LOTS OF PEOPLE died from hunger in the Soviet Union. Are you talking about the 1980s? How many starving people there were in the US at that time? How many hadn't had roof over their head (and not on any kind of the relief like Welfare)? I'm not sure you realize that a person in the US could live on the street and would be visible to everybody, but in the USSR if you chose not to work, you would be imprisoned and forced to work anyways. Also, people like the street cleaners in the USSR worked but lived no better than those on welfare in the US who chose not to work at all. Can you see the difference? The total employment does not necessarily imply the high living standards.

Originally Posted by Hanna

and there was no exploitation or globalism needed to keep that economy going.

Don't get me started. The planned economy implies the exploitation of everybody by the state. By doing that it strives to eliminate the social injustice caused by the exploitation of a person by a person. All the decisions are made by the state officials. That's like an ABC. As to the globalism... have you ever heard the USSR was a country which purpose was to become global? Have you ever heard about the World Revolution? Things are relative, please judge them in comparison. (We could probably have a separate discussion about the Lenin's work of the Imperialism as the highest stage of the Capitalism and start comparing it to the globalization. That might be interesting discussion, but I'm not sure you're familiar enough with Lenin's publications. )

Originally Posted by Hanna

But frankly I would not want to live like a working class person in Britain or the USA either, and certainly not like a regular person in the third world.

Let's compare apples with apples, working class people in various countries, and the North Korea to the South Korea.

Originally Posted by Hanna

So far as I am concerned, globalist economy is both unfair and unsustainable in a longer perspective.

We have a fundamental disagreement here. I mean, do you at all support the cause of the free trade? Did you have a chance to read Adam Smith and other classical economy guys?

Originally Posted by Hanna

Fixing the currency to gold would be a step in the right direction according to me.

Why? Have Karl Marx ever mentioned the golden standard is the must?