Qwiss! wrote:Mirth wrote:But people are getting healthier, living longer, have more access to food, education and shelter than at any previous point in history despite that. That isn't to pretend things are perfect because the world we live in has come at the cost of natural resources and the environment but claiming that nothing good has come out the current system is also untrue. Of course that isn't to say we need to accept the status quo but any better option needs to keep whatever advantages people enjoy now otherwise there's never going to be any support for it.
The creation of new medicines etc isn't exclusive to markets though or even capitalist countries. Much of it comes from state funded university research in the west and communist countries like Cuba and China create medicines too. There was plenty of invention in the USSR too. The idea that invention is a by product of capitalism and not something that happens within all systems has always struck me as absurd.
Of course, but purely capitalist countries and communist countries don't exist anyway and its a matter of incentives whoever provides them. It's a question of where on the scale you sit but pretending markets don't offer anything isn't realistic because you could look at India post 1991 and China after 1979 to see a difference that has made by engaging with markets and the impact that has had on well being and development. The stupidity of the West in the past 30-40 years has been the belief that the government has no role to play in all this and should be shrunk. Countries that recognise that are the ones that seem best equipped - even supposedly hyper capitalist societies like Singapore have a stronger welfare net than the United States for example.
Ultimately what I disagree with is the idea that people would accept a system without 'absurd luxuries' as Coombs would put it because people do not settle for less. Whatever compromise that's reached will need to achieve that same outcomes regardless of how you go about it for people to support it.