Most of the main Green policies are terrifying

actually you might! I know loads of people who work at minimum wage and always go above and beyond what is asked of them. You have too little faith in humanity.

well no you didn't the other guy did??? and it was just to prove that money isn't the dest incentive.

that does not have to be the case. And right now we live in a dictatorship really where a tiny minority of the very rich have almost all the power. I envisage a Communist country with no leader at all and where everyone is voice is equal. That to me is perfection and that to me is what the Borg are.

we should not need the super rich as they are called to give the poor money. If we rely on the super rich for everything then they have all the power and it makes a very very unfair society.

The environment and the people are far more important than money. We can get along without money if we have too. we cannot get along in a polluted environment that will kill us. I've much rather be poor and only have the basics then dead and I think you agree.

but if everyone puts the collective first then no one would be lazy...

there are plenty of incentives, it might surprise you that some people actually like working and would actually hate to do nothing all their life.

what 'violent power of the state'?

and no, poverty is reduced by stopping the super-rich exploiting everyone.

The environment and the people are far more important than money. We can get along without money if we have too. we cannot get along in a polluted environment that will kill us. I've much rather be poor and only have the basics then dead and I think you agree.

Sigh, can someone else step into this conversation. Its getting absurd.

The main way the super-rich exploit people nowadays is because of the large state. If the state were smaller and we had a different monetary system, exploitation would become much harder.

You seem to assume that government is automatically better at protecting the environment which I would say is patently false. States are the biggest polluters in the world, not private businesses.

Why is everyone working for the "colective" perfect? What if I don't want to work for the collective or feel that my work is exploited by the lazy in the collective?


No, one is saying that volunteering doesn't exist and the only thing people care about is money. What they are saying is that if you had no incentives beyond altruism that there would be many people who would become lazy or freeloaders etc. Plus very few people would volunteer to do the necessary but distasteful work in society if you could sit on your arse instead.

China has the biggest middle class in the world. Guaranteeing an income to people through the violent power of the state does not get rid of poverty. What reduces poverty is economic freedom and free trade.

China's rising capitalistic economy is, as QuantumOverlord pointed out, the biggest anti-poverty force the world has ever seen. You know what else will help the poor more than any government in the history of mankind? When 2 capitalists Bill Gates and Warren Buffett die and 95%+ of their wealth goes to Bill Gates charity.


At least they'd turn the country into such a dump that no one would want to come here.

I think you're going to have to elaborate on this one.

Do you have a source for this?

To be fair though it's only a fraction of their population. The economic policies that have been so successful in urban China haven't reached the rural population.

Can you at least try to be open minded?

a) Fine so you know some people that work the minimum wage and do more, nevertheless that is the exception not the rule. Do you have an iphone? For that matter do you have any sort of phone? Well you should know in the 1970s the State controlled all phone companies? The result? Stagnation and **** phones. The same is true of every industry, competition is what fuels progress. If a company knows it has to be the best to survive, then that is a damn good incentive to be the best. Its very much like evolution/natural selection, only the best survives. Everyone cooperating on the same thing sounds good in practice, but with a lack of competition the worst is the best. And that's all there is to it, there is simply no point in making the product better. Note that sometimes its not even possible to tell what the best is, the beauty of a capitalist system is that you get a natural selection of the best. Anyway your point about me having a lack of faith in humanity is just true, deny it all you like, be idealistic and naive. But just tell me, if your view is correct, then why is capitalism so bloody successful and communism is nearly always hell on earth?

b) FFS we do not live in a dictatorship. This is a lie, and an irritating one at that. Go to a real dictatorship and then tell me we live in one. This is a serious conversation, stop being so childish. And you are still blabbering on about the very rich without even acknoleging these points which I have made over and over again:

1) The wage gap doesn't matter, the average wealth and the proportion of people that are poor does.

2) ALL societies have an elite super-rich class with the exception or primitive tribal cultures with populations under 100.

3) The super-rich actually do a hell of a lot of good, their taxes lift the poor out of poverty and the process that allows them to become super-rich helps the economy

c) No we can't get a long without money, again a complete lie. Name a single advanced civilization that does. Oh right we have to go back thousands of years to find one. What you are proposing is a civilization that can support thousands or at most hundreds of thousands. We have a population of 7 billion. It won't work. Oh and if you care about the environment then capitalism is the best chance we have to get renewable technologies that can help.

Sigh, can someone else step into this conversation. Its getting absurd.

How do you achieve that? What is to stop people from not putting the collective first? How do you even define the collective?

Yes, plenty of people enjoy the work that they do and enjoy doing productive things with their day, I'm not saying otherwise or that money or material wealth is the only thing that motivate people. There is also the issue that you haven't addressed of how does the most undesirable or dangerous jobs if no one can paid more for those jobs as compared to the really fun or easy ones?

You seem very confused if you cannot understand that the state is essentially a monopoly on "legitimate" violence within a given geographical area.

What happens if I don't pay taxes? I'll be thrown in jail obviously which is clearly an act of violence, whether justified or not.

What happens if I sell something currently illegal like heroin? I'll be thrown in jail.

What happens if I start a unlicensed taxi service? I'll be thrown in jail.

What happens if I resist arrest? I'll be shot.

How is this not violent? You think the state is some voluntary union that we all sign up for?

It's really bizarre and worrying that you don't even seem to understand the institution that you want running the whole economy. It is my opinion that voluntary and mutual interaction is a far better way of solving complex social problems like poverty or racism or whatever than the use of violence by the state.

The main way the super-rich exploit people nowadays is because of the large state. If the state were smaller and we had a different monetary system, exploitation would become much harder. The only way you can give a business your backing is if you pay for its services. There are ways such as boycotts to force businesses which harm your interests to change.

You seem to assume that government is automatically better at protecting the environment which I would say is patently false. States are the biggest polluters in the world, not private businesses.

i am. You just aren't convincing.

because of dictators. As I have said for the millionth time now I believe in power of the people and there is nothing to say that competition cannot exist in a non-Capitalist society. People are naturally competitive and outcompete to be the best at something. Science new song on because people want to learn not because money drives it.


any society where power is in the hands of the few elite is a dictatorship. The UK fits that criteria so whether you like it or not the UK is a dictatorship. And I think you find the super rich avoid paying taxes and all they care about is money they are a drain on society and should not be tolerated.


One that is like suggesting back when you were dominated the vacuum market that any other vacuum was rubbish and then and then along came Dyson and changed all that. Just because something is old and has been around a long time does not mean that it is good. And again you do not need money for scientific advancement scientists like researching because they enjoy it not because they need monetary incentive. If it weren't for capitalism we would have gone all green by now. But as it stands people care far too much about money as opposed to the environment.
in the next 50 years to have computers that can go inside your body. When that happens we will not need to talk any more because we can just communicate telepathically. That is when a utopian society where everyone understands each other and gets along will be achieved.


like cleaning? Well either robots or I'm sure after a few months people will come together and care.


oh now I understand that completely. I just wasn't sure what you actually meant when you said what you said. And if you had read of things that I said I don't believe in a state I think the state should be abolished.


im sorry but that nonsensical. The state protects people, if it weren't for the state I'm sure we would all not have health care, rights, the minimum wage, the powerful have always exploited tge weak all thoughout history.


they are the biggest polluters because they have to work with money. If they didn't need money they could switch to green overnight.

An example would be how our central banks continuously inflates the money supply which hurts the poor the most as the purchasing power of the currency is less so those with less to begin with are squeezed even further. Another example which is closely linked to that is stuff like the bank bailouts. These policies actually increase the gap between rich and poor and are a direct result of government intervention in the economy and control of the money supply.

I presume you are a socialist or socialist-leaning, correct? I think we would agree on many things such as that the balance of political power is heavily towards the rich. We just disagree on the solution.

Nope, sorry. Saw it in a youtube video which obviously isn't a good source but I can't go searching to check it's validity as I'm already procrastinating as it is. I'll retract that remark but I would make the point that aph seems to assume that government is necessarily better at protecting the environment when I don't believe there is much evidence for that assertion. We can also look at the terrible environmental record of the Soviet Union to see that getting rid of the profit motive and the private ownership of the means of the production is no guarantee of great environmental policy.

We don't live in a dictatorship that's idiotic.

A dictatorship is a country rules by a dictator (a ruler with total power) we do not have this and therefore are not a dictatorship.

In every society some people will have more power than others. Even in a caveman society the strongest person had the most power, or maybe the most intelligent.

And anyway, tax avoidance is fully legal, anybody can do it. Tax evasion is illegal, and anybody who does this gets caught out and punished, but most people do not do this, they go by legal means in way of loopholes. If you're so bothered what needs changing is the law.

The super rich aren't a drain on society. They contribute more than you and use less than you, they use private healthcare etc.

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