GDP per Capita Rank (top 150 )
U.S. 6
United Kingdom 16
Belgium 19
Germany 21
France 23
Italy 25
...and Roger Moore's Utopia, Cuba? It is unranked as it doesn't make the top 150. That's right, capitalism and free enterprise is the most productive system in the world and produces the most output per person, even after being hamstrung by our government's steady drift toward socialism and the scourge of the most litigious society in the world.
Secondly, from where did the most innovation, the most productive inventions and developments come? From commercial development of the automobile to flight to TV to the computer to the telephone to plastics to the integrated circuit to the polio vaccine to the tractor to the microprocessor to the first nuclear power reactor to the laser to the mobile phone to global positioning systems to DNA...it was America. The United States had more than 60% of all patents issued in the world in the decade I was your age (1967 to 1977). The U.S agriculture system is the most productive in the world (even slowed down by government subsidies to not produce). And, ...who were those guys who landed on the moon?
Do you remember staying at a hotel in Rochester, Minnesota on one of your basketball roadtrips? Do you remember seeing the entourage of the Shah of Iran, one of the richest men ion the world, as he was being treated across the street at the Mayo clinic for his cancer? He wasn't on his way to Cuba.
When were the golden years of capitalism and free enterprise in America? I lived a lot of them in the twentieth century...commonly known as "the American century".
In order for historical facts to hold meaning, one has to rely on more than subjective accounts. Eye witness testimony is one of the weakest forms of evidence for good reason. It is adaptive for our memory to be highly selective in what is retained. Much of what we remember is full of gaps and often total inaccuracies. This is why historians do not rely on it, and nor do judges.
ReplyDeleteThe polio vaccine was developed by a research group at the Children's Hospital in Boston, not a pharmaceutical company. The integrated circuit by a scientist working for the British Ministry of Defense (not an American). The nuclear reactor by a team at the University of Chicago. The foundation for the laser was laid by Townes working at Columbia University. DNA was also discovered in academia.
While the prospers of 20th century capitalism surely influenced these discoveries, it is misleading to view them as products of capitalism. Many come from the government (the moon landing) or publicly funded academic institutions.
Albeit the microprocessor was indeed a product of capitalism.
Invisible hands centered capitalism had its time in the sun. Its weaknesses are becoming clearer by the day. In 2009 things are much different than in 1967-1977. We need to find a more viable economic policy (ours is what - 200 years old?). It's time to move on.
Well said. Let's also not forget the lesson of the government-funded Human Genome Project. Because the project was publicly-funded, it could make its data freely available. Widespread, free dissemination of the entire human genome has had an enormous impact on innovation and development in biology and medicine. Tonight I listened to Francis Collins, former head of the Project, speak about how privately-funded competitors were trying to get there first. If the private competition had succeeded, the human genome would have only been available on a paid/subscription basis--probably at a very high price, in order to turn a profit for the stockholders who funded the research.
ReplyDeleteSurely the Human Genome Project is a case where society's interests would not have been served by strict adherence to private enterprise.
Open source software also utilizes a similar philosophy.
ReplyDeletehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software
The information is free, and the software is community maintained. This results in software with better security ratings and exponentially faster update curves than proprietary software.
While the Microsoft and Apple behemoths still dominate the software industry, open source software is gaining in popularity as information from the IT industry disseminates to lay persons.
Taking web browsers as an example: in 2004 Internet Explorer had 85% of the market, and as of December 2008, that share is down to 46%. This rapid decline is almost entirely due to Firefox, an open source alternative.
Anon,
ReplyDeleteIs Firefox a private enterprise entrepreneurial , pofit making company... or a government run, product ofsocialism?
Neither. The Mozilla Foundation is non-profit organization. The Mozilla Corporation is a owned subsidiary of the Foundation but no shareholders, no stock options, and no dividends payed. All profits are reinvested into the Mozilla project.
ReplyDeleteOn a side note, I wasn't advocating socialism as our next step forward. I was thinking a more regulated form of capitalism.
Other notable open source applications: Songbird (an alternative to Apple's iTunes), OpenOffice (an alternative to Microsoft Office), Pidgin (an alternative to all instant message clients), and Ubuntu (a version of Linux and an alternative to Microsoft Windows).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source_software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_license
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyleft
Anonymous,
ReplyDeleteBe careful, Anon...you're committing that cardinal sin of liberalism when you use Firefox as an example of great progress outside of the capitalistic, free enterprise system. That sin is in two parts...believing the rhetoric that says what you want to hear, and surface level thinking (not digging in a little deeper to understand what's going on).
Sure, Firefox Foundation is a non-profit. (By the way, that's just a tax status, and doesn't mean the profit motivation for the owners and founders is necessarily absent). But ...Firefox CORPORATION...is a...you guessed it...for profit corporation. Guess where all the Firefox employees work? You got it...at the profit making CORPORATION, not the Foundation. Guess from where the initial funding came for the start up? That great product of socialism Time Warner and the millions of dollars its founder (Mitch Kapor) made from Lotus when he took it public (you guessed it...capitalism at work again). You see, Anon, as I said earlier, things happen in systems, and the capitalism, free enterprise system is....well, the best system.
You might be interested in the press release in August of 2005, which started out "The nonprofit Mozilla Foundation has set up a commercial subsidiary to cash in on the popularity of its flagship browser." and continues"...announced a major reorganization, that includes the creation of the Mozilla Corporation, a for profit subsidiary to ride the Firefox gravy train." One of the founders (Frank Hecker) is quoted in the article as saying "The people involved from the very beginning knew that there were commercial interests involved." And Mitch Kapor?...he's made more millions taking Lotus (and others ) public than most of us can dream of. Firefox...yep...a great example of capitalism at work.
The Old Man
Again, I was not advocating socialism, communism, or any other form of government Obama is supposedly leading us into.
ReplyDeleteI acknowledged the corporation in my comment. The point is that Firefox is free, along with all of those other examples of open source software. I'm also aware they have a deal with Google, which wasn't reached in your below surface level digging. Google is as "corporate" as you can get, and I am an advocate of Google (save for a few issues). I was arguing against the point that companies (Microsoft) make, which is that you can't have a high quality product that is free.
The bigger projects are too time consuming, and well, too big to be done in people's spare time. The software developers have to make a living somehow.
I don't think capitalism is inherently evil or wrong (I opposed the bailouts). I just disagree with the way people trust it blindly, as if the market will always repair itself. The "invisible hands" if you will.