by americandream » Sun 21 Nov 2010, 18:20:24
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'T')he problem with doomerism and anti-doomerism is that both sets of proponents have seldom thought through the essential core characteristic of capitalism. They haven't contemplated its causes and effects (it's fundamentals), it's resilience and adaptability...
Well I've never doubted the power and resiliency of market forces. When I've brought it up from time to time, just even mentioning the word market caused some folks to jump on me like I'm a cornucopian.
You can't deny basic market forces, it's like denying gravity. Even if every last drop of oil runs out that doesn't mean capitalism stops -- even the ancient Greeks and Romans had basic capitalism.
Now that doesn't mean that the status quo is just fine; we don't really have a free market, we're drifting more toward a command economy. And things could be a lot more equitable -- adopting socialism wouldn't mean getting rid of capitalism.
But this core recognition of market forces, the idea that necessity is the mother of ivention and that the market drives solutions to problems as they arise, is what keeps me from ever being an uber doomer.
You missed my point entirely. Capitalism is a culture of salesmen. It's pinnacle is the snake oil salesman. In other words, in a world devoid of oil, there will still be someone trying to sell you something, hence it's adaptive robustness.
However, like all forms of delusional maladly, the endless urge to profit from selling things that are no longer here will ultimately be dealt with by being rooted out from our global culture by a reversion to COMMUNISM.