XPost: alt.politics, alt.politics.socialism, alt.anarchism   
   From: briquenoir@freeuk.c0m   
      
   James A. Donald  wrote in message   
   news:k3uga3df6vptqcq092onpjg91kgvpm34op@4ax.com...   
   > uri   
   > > Poverty is caused by the payment system which compels   
   > > people to pay money in exchange for their needs. But   
   > > poor people don't have money to pay them.   
   >   
   > If poverty is caused by property rights and capitalism,   
   > why is that we see poverty were property rights are   
   > least secure, and most communist countries had episodes   
   > of famine.   
   >   
   > All recent famines resulting in widespread deaths by   
   > starvation were caused by war or socialism, and the   
   > worst famines - North Korea, Ethiopia, and Cambodia,   
   > were caused by socialism.  Where are the capitalist   
   > famines?   
      
   Where is there capitalism? After all, when examples are produced you weasel   
   out of the debate by claiming those places were not 'capitalist'. By such a   
   standard of proof, there is no evidence that 'capitalism' has produced any   
   benefit at all, anywhere, for it has not existed in the form you would   
   accept as being 'capitalist'. What seems to have existed is a mixed economy   
   with some capitalistic elements and some 'socialistic elements,. the ratio   
   varying from time to time and place to place. Therefore, who is to say it   
   was the 'capitalistic' elements that drove the success and not the   
   'socialistic' ones, or vice versa?   
      
   Another side of this argument is what do you mean by 'property rights' and   
   rights for who?   
   Massive famines occurred in India under British rule, but 'property rights'   
   were considered as sacred by the British as any example of 'capitalism' you   
   can produce. Of course, the sacrosanct property rights only applied to the   
   British, Indian property rights were somewhat less iron-clad but then, they   
   were all 'owned' themselves by the Crown so...   
   An equally disastrous famine occurred in Ireland and no property rights were   
   being impugned there, indeed, the right of the landed gentry to sell the   
   produce of their land in the more profitable English market place was a   
   major cause of the famine, the potato blight mainly affecting indigneous   
   farmers who still owned their farms and , no doubt in the spirit of   
   capitalism, were left to stand on their own two feet as best they could....   
   until they died and became a burden on the rates, of course.   
      
   But in the end, it is an article of faith for you., James.... capitalism can   
   do no wrong, if wrong be shown to have occurred, why.... it was not   
   capitalism at all......   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)