Humane Capitalism Is Southern

Shotgun writes:

“Cantwell did a good job in pushing back against the socialist naivete Wallace was proposing.

Yes, yes…the talking point is that Yang’s economic ideals aren’t “socialist”, rather, they’re “humane capitalism” or some such…but if words have any meaning at all, then Yang’s proposals are socialist. Unfortunately, I don’t think Cantwell pushed back hard enough, especially given his supposed libertarian roots. …”

I encouraged Cantwell to break out of the “capitalism vs. socialism” paradigm and consider other points of view. This should be even easier for you as a Southerner.

After all, Southerners used to be extremely fond of criticizing the North’s system of free-market capitalism precisely because it was inhumane. They contrasted the free-market capitalism of Free Society with the humane capitalism of Slave Society. Back then, blacks were the laborers, Whites were the managers and both derived wealth from the plantation.

“Right now, the official numbers for U.S. welfare expenditures are around 600 billion. There are around 350-million people in the US, and if the state gives each of them 12,000 a year, that’s upwards of 4-trillion dollars! Quite an increase from a mere(!) 600-billion.”

Really?

How much government revenue was cut by the Trump tax cuts? The Trump tax cuts will cost the U.S. Treasury trillions of dollars, but the GOP didn’t seem too concerned about that because it was largely their corporate donors and wealthy backers who stood to benefit.

“And how is this to be financed? Through a value added tax…says Yang.”

Why shouldn’t corporations like Amazon or Google pay a VAT? Many people in Silicon Valley think they should pay a VAT. What are they currently paying now in taxes?

“Really? Close to 3.5-trillion dollars through a VAT?

Recall the maxim that whatever pollyanna “good” socialists want to do on the “front-end” (economically), their policies always end up destroying on the “back-end.” While Cantwell highlighted some social implications of UBI (ie: it would encourage people not to work), he failed to hammer-home the “back-end” disaster such an enormous VAT would have.”

Why does capitalism have to start at zero? Why can’t it start at $24,000 a year? If more people cashed out of the labor force to focus on their own lives, it would drive up wages and reduce income inequality. I think people should have more leisure time.

The South was Southern when there was a slower, more relaxed pace of life. Now, we are losing our accents and talking as fast as the Yankees.

“Think the UBI will be a way to forcefully redistribute the wealth of the jewish international business elite? Think again!”

Seeing as how there are so many more White working class people in rural America than Jews and how much relatively better the Jews are economically, it does seem like rural Whites would disproportionately stand to benefit from UBI. It would inject investment into rural White America.

“They’re not going to cut their corporate pay-checks at the end of the fiscal year. No. They’ll either pass the new expense on to the consumers of their products, or they’ll invest in more automation to get rid of the “workers” (whom the socialists claim to care so much about), or they’ll move their business out of America completely. Then where are the sainted “workers” going to be?”

I don’t really see this happening at the grocery stores in my area.

How many grocery stores would collapse in North Carolina without EBT? Virtually every black person in North Carolina already has an EBT card. They go into the grocery store every month and buy ribs and steaks and pork chops and green beans and chicken wings. Now, has the result of that been the demise of grocery stores in North Carolina? What impact has it had on consumers? Does the spending stimulate the economy? I don’t see the consumers who are getting free food complaining too much about it.

I’m not persuaded by the arguments for student loan debt, our current health care system or our current entitlement system. If it was so great, why are Whites committing suicide in record numbers? Why has their standard of living declined under the glorious free market?

“Socialist policies *always* hurt those they’re ostensibly intended to help. Always. And they do it while robbing individual liberty and the hard-earned resources of the very people socialists supposedly want to help.”

Yeah right.

Do you seriously believe this? Maybe we should go back to the sharecropping system that used to exist in North Carolina, child labor in textile mills around Charlotte, malaria, pellagra, company towns, Tobacco Road and the vast bulk of the population being illiterate.

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