Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

As usual the "Middle Path" is the way to go. Siddhartha figured that out thousands of years ago and so have countries like Sweden and France. Not being afraid to pragmatically choose the best bits from many differnt "isms" is the way to go. I hope my home country figures this out before it dissolves.

I don't have much hope for it, Dag. When you're talking about a society where a very large minority prefer "faith" and propaganda over facts and evidence, you're not going to get rational decisions.

It still amazes me how many people apparently think we're too dumb or incompetent to do what every other first-world country has managed to do. And it's usually the same people who think the free market will solve everything if government just gets out of the way...regardless of what history would suggest about that alternative.

They don't seem to be capable of realizing that pure capitalism is completely analogous to pure communism. Both are wonderful ideas, completely workable, and lead to a beautiful utopia...if and only if, you manage to change human nature. Unless human nature changes, neither will work...both lead to tyrannies that are nothing short of disastrous for everyone but the rulers.

Corporatism != Capitalism

Also, Human nature is the cause of stupid. No matter how you look at it half of society will always be stupid (bell curve)...until we genetically engineer ourselves into perfect clones, that is.

Via this logic, half-evil is better than all-good. Have to say I disagree.
>> ^dag:
As usual the "Middle Path" is the way to go. Siddhartha figured that out thousands of years ago and so have countries like Sweden and France. Not being afraid to pragmatically choose the best bits from many differnt "isms" is the way to go. I hope my home country figures this out before it dissolves.

ohh read my sifttalk. Garret Johnson coins the term "hypercapitalism"
http://www.videosift.com/talk/Economic-Policy-is-A-Tool-For-Capitalists

Good government is hard to engineer, but anyone can tell when it goes bad.
Yes?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

That's a poor comparison. It's like: "they say sour milk is half-way between fresh milk and cheese. Are you saying sour milk is better than cheese???"

We're talking about government systems here- not subjective, morally nebulous terms like "evil". This kind of attempted derailment is itself unpragmatic, unrealistic and unhelpful.

>> ^imstellar28:
Via this logic, half-evil is better than all-good. Have to say I disagree.
>> ^dag:
As usual the "Middle Path" is the way to go. Siddhartha figured that out thousands of years ago and so have countries like Sweden and France. Not being afraid to pragmatically choose the best bits from many differnt "isms" is the way to go. I hope my home country figures this out before it dissolves.

Sometimes A and B are both wrong and the best path is not a compromise between A and B, or either of them taken to an extreme, but something that is not even colinear with them.

POOR HEALTH!-Body Mind Spirit....all conjoined at the organic heart of all misfortune and discomfort-Which is a major cause of why health care programs start with reeducation in the US- of states.....problems dissolve with the energy and sharpness of mind to overcome and adapt...relearn how to eat first-stop poisoning your bodies with food.

When did the terms 'capitalism' and 'free market' become conflated with 'corporatism'.

I had a great conversation last night with my good friend and a self-proclaimed hardcore Marxist about this very thing. Somewhere and somehow someone wanted to paint those terms with the same broad stroking brush. And a number of people on here use them interchangeably and think pointing out differences in them is just arguing semantics.

Capitalism is working from capital (savings). That's it. Our current US system is one based on debt and credit, and therefore not working from savings, and therefore cannot be capitalism.

Free market is a mutually beneficial agreement among private parties without coercion. That's it. There are no private agreements that do not require government oversight. None in business, anyhow.

Corporatism is a government created business cooperation. It has nothing to do with free markets and capitalism. Nothing. A corporation may work from capital or may want to create mutually beneficial agreements, but correlation is not conflation.

As @imstellar28 said: Corporatism != capitalism.

Perhaps about the time someone started thinking that astro-turf videos backed by huge corporations designed to block against against their own threatened abuses, were libertarian. The confusion appears to me to be primarily driven by self-professed libertarians, who somehow always seem to come down on the side of business (big or small), no matter how egregious their behavior might be.

As long as you hold the "government can do no right" point of view and refuse to admit any other possibility, you can't really expect other people to honor, or even necessarily perceive, the subtle nuances -you- think are important.

>> ^blankfist:
When did the terms 'capitalism' and 'free market' become conflated with 'corporatism'.
I had a great conversation last night with my good friend and a self-proclaimed hardcore Marxist about this very thing. Somewhere and somehow someone wanted to paint those terms with the same broad stroking brush. And a number of people on here use them interchangeably and think pointing out differences in them is just arguing semantics.
Capitalism is working from capital (savings). That's it. Our current US system is one based on debt and credit, and therefore not working from savings, and therefore cannot be capitalism.
Free market is a mutually beneficial agreement among private parties without coercion. That's it. There are no private agreements that do not require government oversight. None in business, anyhow.
Corporatism is a government created business cooperation. It has nothing to do with free markets and capitalism. Nothing. A corporation may work from capital or may want to create mutually beneficial agreements, but correlation is not conflation.
As @<a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.videosift.com/member/imstellar28" title="member since April 2nd, 2007" class="profilelink">imstellar28 said: Corporatism != capitalism.

Go away little troll. I have no candy for you.