The Rich...

[Era Might]

I was never clear on what exactly you yourself were advocating here.  

 

So the solution to your perceived problem is individuals freely making choices to be more self-sufficient in their lives, rather than government coercion against "capitalists" and such?

 

I'm not advocating anything. Simply pointing out the destructive effects of capitalism and industrialization.

[Era Might]

Happened to read this today, pretty much sums up my view of things:

 

[quote]I have been trying to show that some of these historical conditions are not inevitable at all but are the working-out of willful policies that aggrandize certain interests and exclude others, that subsidize certain styles and prohibit others. But of course <i>historically</i>, if almost everybody believes the conditions are inevitable, including the policy-makers who produce them, then they are inevitable. For to cope with emergencies does not mean, then, to support alternative conditions, but further to support and institutionalize the same conditions. Thus, if there are too many cars, we build new highways; if administration is too cumbersome, we build in new levels of administration; if there is a nuclear threat, we develop anti-missile missiles; if there is urban crowding and anomie, we step up urban renewal and social work; if there are ecological disasters because of imprudent use of technology, we subsidize research and development by the same scientific corporations working for the same ecologically irrelevant motives; if there is youth alienation, we extend and intensify processing in schools; if the nation-state is outmoded as a political form, we make ourselves into a mightier nation-state.

 

In this self-proving round the otherwise innocent style of input-output economies, games-theory strategy, and computerized social science become a trap. For the style dumbly accepts the self-proving program and cannot compute what is not mentioned. Then the solutions that emerge ride even more roughshod over what has been left out. Indeed, at least in the social sciences, the more variables one can technically compute, the less likely it is that there will be prior thinking about their relevance rather than interpretation of their combination."

 

--Paul Goodman, "The Psychology of Being Powerless"[/quote]

[Socrates]

I'm not advocating anything. Simply pointing out the destructive effects of capitalism and industrialization.

 

People voluntarily choosing to lead lives of greater independence and self-sufficiency is a good thing.

More government busy-bodiness and unnecessary meddling in private commerce is not.

[Groo the Wanderer]

I'm not advocating anything. Simply pointing out the destructive effects of capitalism and industrialization.

 

woo.  find a system please that has not had destructive effects of some kind.

 

 

the industrial age has given way to the information age anyway.  it also is destructive.  we have an entire generation of add kids who are so overloaded with information they cannot sit still for 5 minutes without picking up a smartphone, laptop, tablet, or ipod.  

[theculturewarrior]

The mentally ill...

 

 

...add zest to parties.

[Socrates]

The mentally ill are crazy.

[Winchester]

The mentally ill are crazy.

 

We're all mad, here.