"Want to figure out why some countries are so poor and others so rich. This sums it up right here. Our comforts and wealth are built on the back of the impoverished and exploited. It just can't work any other way."
I would only disagree with you on one point while this is the current system, I think it could work another way. Wealth can be generated without impoverishing anyone else. In a direct barter economy I can simply make more of my good to sell eventually I'll hit a wall where the demand drops off but I will still be generating wealth for myself as well as others by the increased trade. If I have food which you need and you have water which I need we both grow in wealth by trading.
It depends on what you mean by wealth. Wealth in the terms that most people think about it is not possible without huge economic disparities. Wealth in the sense of being able to sustain oneself and their family would be possible without such disparities. Yet, the exact process in which to do this would be complicated. It has been tried with Communism and has failed, miserably at that. A direct barter economy works for basic necessities, but what about for technology and other sorts of items? How many loaves of bread is a desktop computer worth?
Most people do think of wealth only in terms of its extremes. I consider wealth in older terms, this wikipedia quote sums my idea of wealth up decently: "'Wealth' refers to some accumulation of resources, whether abundant or not." I would add that a direct barter economy is one of the most problematic types. I was just using it as an example. You can still use a central monetary unit and have a mutually beneficial exchange. As technology increases it less manpower is needed to produce goods. In a fair economic model that would buoy everyone's standard of living. That should be the real goal. It was never really a zero sum game. That was an idea used to justify making easy wealth on the backs of others. The reality is that we could raise the baseline high enough that everyone has a level of wealth that would be surprisingly high if we put our minds to it as a planet
( ... )
See what happens when I am deprived of decent conversation? I really need to start some sort of group to talk about shit that actually means something.
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I would only disagree with you on one point while this is the current system, I think it could work another way. Wealth can be generated without impoverishing anyone else. In a direct barter economy I can simply make more of my good to sell eventually I'll hit a wall where the demand drops off but I will still be generating wealth for myself as well as others by the increased trade. If I have food which you need and you have water which I need we both grow in wealth by trading.
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It depends on what you mean by wealth. Wealth in the terms that most people think about it is not possible without huge economic disparities. Wealth in the sense of being able to sustain oneself and their family would be possible without such disparities. Yet, the exact process in which to do this would be complicated. It has been tried with Communism and has failed, miserably at that. A direct barter economy works for basic necessities, but what about for technology and other sorts of items? How many loaves of bread is a desktop computer worth?
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