Thus spoke Milton Friedman:
“In the only cases in which the masses have escaped from grinding poverty are where they have had capitalism and largely free trade. If you want to know where the masses are worst off, it’s exactly in the kinds of societies that depart from that. So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free-enterprise system.”
A few years ago when I used to waste time on Quora, I couldn’t resist responding to someone who asked, “How has capitalism ruined the world?”
Here’s my response, for the record.
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- Before capitalism life was Hobbesian — solitary, poor, nasty, mean, brutish, and short. Capitalism brought unprecedented, unimagined, unimaginable prosperity to billions of people. That’s simply unacceptable.
- The modern world was created by capitalism. Nothing that we take for granted — the transportation system, the communications systems, the astonishing productivity of agriculture, modern medicines, artificial materials and composites, and so on — every one of them was brought to you by capitalism. It is a true curse.
- Countries that are capitalistic are a magnet for people from countries that are not. Quite intolerable how people from socialist countries do their best to get to capitalist countries.
- Capitalism brought global trade, thus reducing potential conflicts. When you trade with others, you have an incentive to not fight with them. War and conflict bring out the best in people.
- Capitalism gave content to the abstract ideals of freedom. People are not equipped to handle freedom. Capitalism is to blame for allowing people freedom.
- I am afraid that capitalism will continue to ruin the world. We just have to get used to it. We just have to say goodbye to our dreams of a socialist utopian heaven on earth. Only a few countries have achieved that. I wish I was living in communist Cuba instead of in a capitalist hellhole that is the US.
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Without the curse of capitalism, we’d have the dawning of the age of Aquarius.
{END of Quora post.}
Since I have Milton Friedman at the top of this post, let’s listen to more on socialism by Prof Friedman.
The song for the occasion is Aquarius/Let the Sunshine in.
Cheers.
Atanu Dey : Life is a Random Draw 