User:Janosabel/DialogueWithUltramarine

Ultramarine,

You make these statements on your user page. Alhough you refer to statistics to support them, there are statistics that prove the opposite. Just one example: analysis of the 2004 US census shows that one in five Americans lives on less than 7 dollars a day.

Rather than getting bogged down in figure slinging, can we examine the issues with the help of general principles that characterise a good society?

Furthermore, the object of this exercise, I suggest, is to home in on the truth as closely as possible rather than winning arguments.

This is why I suggested the metaphor of a dialogue for the exchange, not that of an argument.

Political and economic freedom increases happiness
Fully agreed. Unfortunately we do not have political and economic freedom. In other words we do not have the best possible our knowledge and technology could warrant. What goes for today's arrangements for economic and political freedom is the first experiment in social reorganisation in response to the radical changes let loose on humanity by the industrial revolution.

Democracy is good
Agreed, but we do not have democracy. Today's Western party political framework is not democracy. It is not the people who decide what they want but their representatives.

Capitalism is good
Agreed, but we do not have capitalism. Why are there so few people who can live on the income generated by the capital they own? We have an employer/employee society with the large majority owning nothing an living by marketing their labour (if they are lucky enough to find a market for their labour)

Globalization = the world is getting better
No, not by the current mode of globalization. The essence of the current mode is to invest in poorer countries and repatriate all profits leaving the host country to benefit only from the creation of some low quality employment. The argument, that the population and government of the host country should be grateful for new employment offering near slavery conditions, is highly debatable.