Comments by "" (@freesk8) on "What Capitalism Gets Right – and Governments Get Wrong | Katherine Mangu-Ward | TED" video.

  1. Capitalism has serious problems. But government ownership of the means of production, ie Socialism, tends to be far worse.
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  2. I am so pleasantly surprised by this video! TED has been so biased against the free market for so long, I assumed they could never publish a talk like this! I have been a fan of Mangu-Ward for decades, through her work at Reason Magazine. Thanks so much for making this video! A breath of fresh air!
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  3. You also grew up richer because of the relatively free markets in your home nation, than you would have under a system of greater government control.
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  4. Recently, Steven Pinker, one of my favorite atheist intellectuals, came out in favor of the free market, as opposed to socialism. I love it!
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  5.  @Rudykawa  Universities should fund this basic research. Why should poor and middle class workers be forced to pay for research via taxpayer funding of science? They are struggling to pay rent. Who should pay? Corporations and the wealthy. Or voluntary donors to Universities.
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  6.  @majormononoke8958  Imagine if all of those smart Russian scientists had worked in a free country? They would have had more access to resources, and more freedom within which to achieve their great works. My bet is that had the USSR been a free market nation, like Hong Kong, Ireland or Switzerland, even more great technological achievements could have been made.
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  7. Just compare the innovation in the US from 1920 to 1990 to the same creativity found in the USSR (Socialism) over the same period. The Soviets copied US technology most of the time. They struggled to keep up, and ultimately went bust.
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  8. You really don't like it when smart people deliver evidence that opposes your own opinions, don't you Valentin?
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  9. So what do you think caused the improvements in human welfare over the period she discusses?
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  10. And public transportation is mostly a huge disaster. People vastly prefer individual cars, which is why so many are produced and sold.
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  11. Compare the technological advancement of the USSR to that in the US over the period from 1920 to 1990. The advancement produced much better gains for regular Americans than for Russians.
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  12.  @startrekmaniac1701  I'm on your side. Read my whole comment. I'm a free market fan, talking here to socialists (other than you!)
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  13. I'll bet you can't name one argument she expressed, and then say WHY it fails?
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  14. And where is the evidence that Socialism results in a more responsible society? Everywhere it has been tried, the result has been more poverty.
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  15. Yes, capitalism creates wild wealth asymmetries, but in doing so, it ALSO makes the poor better off than under socialism. So you have a choice: A) tolerate wealth inequality in order to reduce poverty, or B) have a society that forces everyone to be more poor in the name of reducing inequality. Seems to me that B) is sort of like cutting of your nose to spite your face.
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  16.  @technolus5742  Free markets tend to create more revenue to fund welfare programs. This is what the Scandinavian nations have done. They are all among the 25 most free market nations on the planet, but they have large, redistributive welfare programs. The opposite of free markets is not welfare, it is socialism. Socialism is government monopoly ownership of the means of production. Like N. Korea, Venezuela, and the former Soviet Union.
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  17. All of that research should STILL be privately funded, privatized, and divorced from government meddling. Such funding corrupts science.
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  18. Have you actually ever READ anything by Ayn Rand? My bet is that you have not.
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  19.  @heathersmith4042  Government is actually the greatest PROTECTOR and CREATOR of monopoly in the US. Short list of government-protected monopolies: cable tv, city water, natural gas, land line phone, sewer service, roads, home electricity, local bus, passenger trains, garbage collection, state ferries, postal service... And many private organizations have monopolies guaranteed by law. The AMA, major sports leagues like the NFL and NBA, etc... But old corporate near monopolies never last for more than a decade or two. IBM, Microsoft, Standard Oil, the "robber barons'" railroads, GE.... All lost their monopoly status. But the government-defended monopolies are forever.
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  20.  @jimmytimmy3680  Agreed. And the only way to short-circuit this whole corruption cycle is to reduce the power of the politicians. Then, they will not be subject to the temptation that corrupts them.
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  21.  @kvm1992  Total fantasy. Can you tell me where and when such a system has ever worked? Without money, there are no signals about what and how much to produce, and no information about whether to keep producing. Such a system collapses from inefficiency.
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  22. Socialism is government ownership of the means of production. Perhaps what you really mean is capitalist nations linked to large redistributive welfare systems, like they have in the Scandinavian nations?
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  23. As long as politicians have too much power, they will attract bribes whether they are overtly asking for them or not. The solution is to limit the power of politicians, and for us to look to non-profit orgs and our own personal efforts to solve social problems, instead of asking politicians to force government programs on society.
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  24.  Down with Corporate Amerika  I want you to be free, and get to keep more of the product of your own labor.
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  25. I do.
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  26.  @prikipriki30  All of these nations got more poor the more socialism was implemented.
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  27.  @daggerthedragon1582  "Life is pain, Princess. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something." Wesley
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  28. End the Fed.
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