The `Korea’ I pointed to is not `of old’ as you say – it’s the North Korea of today. While I agree it doesn’t usually pay to make cheap comparisons to the Eastern and Western blocs, that one is particularly illustrative. I can lecture you a bit on the differences between North and South Korea if you like – I’ve seen them with my own eyes.

I agree that better is possible, and that many nascent alternatives are indeed in existence. But that’s the problem – they’re nascent. The onus is on the champions of heterodoxy to demonstrate that there are clear and specific advantages to supplanting the orthodoxy. Of course it would be good if things were more equitable, were not based on greed and exploitation, etc. But it’s capricious to ask, since the language you use is so loaded. Look, I can be capricious too: how can anything be more equitable than voluntary exchange?

L

L

Get use to it Bill because it isn’t going anywhere.

I do think we produce and distribute our goods and services using a capitalist model f production and distribution.

I do not think that pointing to Korea or the Eastern Europe of old is a valid argument for supporting capitalism.

Better, much better is possible. Many nascent alternatives are in existence. If a production system built on more equitable foundations than exploitation and driven by motives other than profit ; which distributed goods and services in a more equitable fashion than the market can ever achieve came to be the the accepted way to do things then that would be a good thing would it not?

In any case, that wasn’t the issue – the issue was that, as bad as capitalism may be, it’s the best we have. And the DPRK is case in point, being the last vestige of the leading implemented alternative.

L

you miss my point entirely. I’m not suggesting for a second that the DPRK is democratic. Likewise for the ‘democracy’ that Churchill was referring to.

To spell it out. Representative parliamentary democracy is not democratic because the term democracy is used in the same way that the DPRK isn’t.

I dare ya.

L

If you could just drop this black and white view of the world you’d be in a position to better understand that the left way is the correct way…

(I’m still holding out hope for your late conversion to the side of goodness and light.)

The ‘democracy’ Churchill was referring to was parliamentary representative democracy which many would argue…..well, Tane’s comment on another thread about the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea comes to mind.

Yes. As Churchill once said of democracy, it’s the worst system, except for all the other systems which have been tried.

L

Guess I hit a wee nerve there?

I don’t think you understand what capitalism is. Technology, science, medicine, trade and social works pre-date capitalism by a long way. Capitalism is merely a production and distribution system. A very inequitable, wasteful and ultimately destructive one.

What/ where is your logic in saying that the internet, electricity etc should be forgone by me before I comment on perceived underlying mentalities ( common to us all) that are ensuring we continue going hell for leather towards the edge of a metaphorical precipice?

If you think the alternative to capitalism is scrabbling around in the dirt (implicit in your ‘reply’) then I suggest you educate yourself about our world a bit more and well, get real.

http://www.thestandard.org.nz/national-gives-act-consumer-affairs/#comment-104356 ?

Are they going to follow a hard right agenda or be “neutered”? Or are you just going to sit back and gloat about being right no matter which? Yeah, that figures…

This isn’t a series of hui to consult the wider populace of NZ, and in particular it’s not a series of hui to consult a bunch of lefties who seek to tell Māori what they ought to do `for their own good’ – it’s a series of hui to consult with the constituency the māori party represents in parliament. So I’d recommend against turning up and trying to tell ‘em what to do.

L