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The morality of the free market

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by Bubbler, Apr 23, 2008.

  1. jgmacg

    jgmacg Guest

    If by "environmental wings" you mean agricultural conglomerates like "Cargill" and "ADM", then you are correct.
     
  2. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    Overpopulation is not an issue?

    I read some months ago that the earth's resources can sustain a maximum of 10 billion people. We have north of 6 billion and growing now. I'm not advocating genocide, as someone else suggested, but those numbers should not be ignored. Our success as a species -- ever expanding, ever adapting to new habitats -- almost certainly be our downfall as a species. The only way the rest of these topics impact the downfall is the route we take to get there.
     
  3. Twoback

    Twoback Active Member

    Gold, when has health care ever been a part of the free market?
    Not here, certainly -- where hospitals hide behind not-for-profit and use it as a weapon against the people they pretend to serve.
    I'd love to hear about a country where free market health care was given a shot.
     

  4. Yawn, when you have these Emma Goldman moments of yours, I feel great hope for our nation.
     
  5. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Whoever said genocide is a raving moron.

    But, at some point... not in our lives.... the U.S. will have to impose a limit on number of children per woman/family.
     
  6. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Novelist, You may have already... but read some of the recent stories -- and the crisis around the world, being caused by how much rice prices have increased over the last 2 years. It is primarily an overpopulation problem. Rice production has held steady the last 5 years. But the population depending on rice for food as increased by more than 100 million people. Some major rice producers are ill-equiped to deal with it, also. Countries like India and China have been so focused on industrialization -- which is why their economies have been growing -- that they have lost sight of the importance of agriculture. One small irony is that the U.S. is a relatively small producer of rice when put in the context of the rest of the world, but we export a great deal. We account for about 2 percent of the world's rice production, but we export 10 to 12 percent of the annual volume. This actually gives us some odd leverage, although as the situation continues to become more dire, our exports should decline and more of that will go to our domestic market -- already some supermarkets are trying to limit the amount of rice customers can buy, because they can't stock their shelves. It's like bizarro world.

    As for some of those countries whose economies have been growing, inflation is rampant, particularly in China. And food shortages intensify that. That will have a spillover effect on the U.S., which relies on cheap imports from countries such as China and India. It shows how interconnected the world economy is, and how when things are going badly, a lot of things seem to go badly.

    But you were correct. The food crisis is being caused almost entirely by population growth. It's amazing how something you can't control or plan for can have such dire economic consequences.
     
  7. trifectarich

    trifectarich Well-Known Member

    Simon Cowbell made a very good point several posts ago concerning overpopulation.

    There's going to come a time very soon where we collectively are going to have to put greed aside for the common good of everyone on this planet.
     
  8. Boom_70

    Boom_70 Well-Known Member

    "I was also proud to stand up for the ethanol tax exemption when it was under attack in the Congress -- at one point, supplying a tie-breaking vote in the Senate to save it. The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be."
    Al Gore 12/1/98
     
  9. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Depends on what you mean by greed. Greed offers the best hope for the common good of everyone on the planet.

    People, at their best, love their work and the challenges of creating products and services that earn them profit -- whether it is a widget... or rice to meet an undersupplied world market. If that's greed, it's something we should praise.

    People who seek out money by any means, including fraud, government handouts, theft or special favors, work to the detriment of us all. If that is what you mean by greed, yeah, we should put it aside.
     
  10. D-Backs Hack

    D-Backs Hack Guest

    [​IMG]
     
  11. Simon_Cowbell

    Simon_Cowbell Active Member

    Utilitarianism is not greed.

    There is no legitimate definition of teh term other than the latter you posted.
     
  12. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    People actually more often use it to describe the former, in my experience. It is why I made the distinction. There is no "people joining hands and working for the collective good." That inevitably leads to the detriment of us all, and history has borne this out over and over again. It's why I agree with you that utilitarianism, as you called it, is not greed, and I'd take it a step farther to say that it provides the most people with the best quality of life.
     
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