Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Trickle Down Economics Doesn't Exist" video.

  1. Libertarians are hilarious. They always start by sounding reasonable but within five minutes the mask slips and their inner lunatic starts to show. This guy was better than most but "most of the planet has enough to eat now", even if it was remotely true, is not a result of unregulated capitalism. It's a result of economies of scale, advances in farming technology, and better delivery.
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  2. That's EXACTLY the point the OP was making! :-)
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  3. Pointing to communism done wrong and using that to "prove" the veracity of capitalism is not a reasonable position. I could point to an ant, bee or termite colony and use that to show that capitalism is NOT necessary for a community to thrive. But I'm not really arguing against ALL capitalism in any case - I'm arguing against the Libertarian view of capitalism, in which business regulates itself, the wealthy takes care of their workers and share the wealth. We've had that experiment for thousands of years, never has worked, never will. The wealthy are parasites who will exploit until they suck the working classes dry, destroying the planet simply to make an extra buck.
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  4. In the western world, ish, although "ever before" is a stretch. Certainly income disparity is at a 50 year high, and today's poverty is way different to say 1930's depression era poverty. And that's a result of EXACTLY the kind of greed that libertarians want more of.
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  5. Yeah, they have to do mental gymnastics so that when they deliver their message which is basically, "I'm alright, fuck the poor", it doesn't sound like the words of a selfish monster.
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  6. You don't think that we've had unregulated capitalism more or less since the start of time? I don't know what nations you've been looking at, but on every continent, capitalism is exploitative and harmful.
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  7. There is evidence of trade using grain as currency going back 15,000 to the stone age. Where there is trade, there is capitalism.
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  8. What problem is that?
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  9.  @markislivingdeliberately  So you're asserting that people are fed now primarily because of capitalism? Not better health, large scale agriculture, more effective fertilisers and pest control, improved transport, better industry, democratic government, and an entire plethora of additional factors. Then you tell me to read a history book. Things must be so easy for you in simple land.
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  10.  @markislivingdeliberately You appear to be starting start with a conclusion then ignore all facts that contradict that conclusion. The ancient Babylonians, Egyptians and Romans all used fertiliser. That was not brought about by capitalism. There has rarely been a time since the birth of agriculture that it was not advantageous to grow more food for less effort. Capitalism as a political structure was started in the 17th century. Barter and then trade - the core essence of capitalism - has existed for many thousands of years. Fixating on the Paleolithic era 12,000 years ago as you r starting point is completely disingenuous and arbitrary. Why no neolithic man, or the Greeks? Man was only just starting to learn how to use tools during the paleolithic era, so your starting date is like looking at a baby and compaining that he's useless at body building. Man had developed farming by 11,000 BC, and was using a system of barter 6000 years ago. It was not capitalism that lead to trade - it was specialisation, domestication of beasts of burden and efficiency. It was also the growth in community size. But to be clear, I am not opposed to capitalism as a general principle - just unregulated capitalism. You have created a strawman of my position.
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