Capitalism

[DeHerg]

Ok lets have a neutral look at a completely free Marked

Which I never mentioned. You seem to be going off in random directions with all kinds of bullshit you're pulling out of nowhere. Read over the discussion again and make sure you know what's going on before responding.

The way I see it, capitalism softly implements a darwinian system of natural selection in the market. As long as you can keep government corruption out of the picture, I think it's practically the most perfect economic system conceivable

They certainly do not. Pre-civilization they certainly did not. Pre-civilization everyone needed to work, and to work quite hard, for what they got. If they did not work for it, they starved. If they made bad decisions that put their resource supplies at stake, they likely perished. And if they worked hard and made smart decisions, they thrived. (And the beauty of natural selection lies therein.) Why should it necessarily be any different now?

how else am I supposed to read this?

you do know that evolution acts on Populations, not Individuals? But Ok lets have a look how an careless(of the Individual suffering(starving)) free Marked would influence a Population Sizeeople starve because the cant compete with the rest of the Market(get selected)->the demand Side for Goods shrink->the supply Side has to shrink aswell to equate->more People starve(because they are now in the same Position as the People before)->circle
how in hell would such a Population survive competition from others when its even kills itself of slowly by inner competition?

There's obviously good evidence that those exact circumstances will always play out the way you describe when you open a free market. I mean, look at America. We're all starving and povertous. Oh wait.

because of that nasty government corruption of the marked(like Unemployment benefits)

 

[obsidianavenger]

Slaves indeed had such 'rights'

yes, i realize that slaves had the opportunity to buy their freedom. that in no way invalidates what i said. slaves were subject to the caprice of their owners. for example, i am currently reading harriet jacob's incidents in the life of a slave girl. her grandmother saved up money for years in order to purchase her children and free them. her mistress asked to "borrow" the money from her, 300 dollars, and simply never repaid it. the end.

While my grandmother was thus helping to support me from her hard earnings, the three hundred dollars she had lent her mistress were never repaid. When her mistress died, her son-in-law, Dr. Flint, was appointed executor. When grandmother applied to him for payment, he said the estate was insolvent, and the law prohibited payment. It did not, however, prohibit him from retaining the silver candelabra, which had been purchased with that money. I presume they will be handed down in the family, from generation to generation.

http://www.enotes.com/incidents-life-slave-girl-text/chapter-ii-new-master-mistress


the slave had no recourse, no legal rights. they had no right to their own personhood, their own property, their own *lives*. murdering a slave was rarely, if ever, treated as a crime.

I speak advisedly when I say this,--that killing a slave, or any colored person, in Talbot county, Maryland, is not treated as a crime, either by the courts or the community. Mr. Thomas Lanman, of St. Michael's, killed two slaves, one of whom he killed with a hatchet, by knocking his brains out. He used to boast of the commission of the awful and bloody deed. I have heard him do so laughingly, saying, among other things, that he was the only benefactor of his country in the company, and that when others would do as much as he had done, we should be relieved of "the d----d niggers."

http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Literature/Douglass/Autobiography/04.html

slaves did not contract willingly with their employers, but were forced into working for them. literally forced, by other humans, with guns pointed at them. if they disobeyed they were whipped mercilessly. one man, being kidnapped from africa along with many of his kin, saw a young girl's leg CHOPPED OFF because she wouldn't stop crying after her older sister was shot between the eyes.

this is hardly the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the horror of slavery. trust me. i know all about it.

people today have rights, the have freedom. they can choose where they want to work. if they work for themselves, they can even name their own price. the two situations are nothing alike. the fact is, individuals (laborers) in a capitalist society have the exact same rights as CEOs... where they differ is in the resources with which to fulfill their desires... however, the simple fact of such a differential doesn't give the laborer the right to appropriate the property of the CEO in order to enact his personal wants.

Incorrect again. Please go school yourself and then return to me.

Labour power can be simply defined as work-capacity, the ability to do work

"ability to do work" is not equal to value. in physics the ability to do work is used to describe energy. in terms of laborers i suppose it could be considered a potential for how much they can produce in a given endevor. but this is not a measure of value, it is a measure of output. it is the employer who decides how much that output is worth to him, and how much he is willing to pay for it.

"By labour-power or capacity for labour is to be understood the aggregate of those mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being, which he exercises whenever he produces a use-value of any description."

a use value is a product- something that is valuable to an individual because of the use to which it can be put.

labor power is not inherent value, but the ability to produce that which is valuable... which was my argument all along.

and btw, your arrogance is unappreciated.

 

[obsidianavenger]

you do know that evolution acts on Populations, not Individuals? But Ok lets have a look how an careless(of the Individual suffering(starving)) free Marked would influence a Population Sizeeople starve because the cant compete with the rest of the Market(get selected)->the demand Side for Goods shrink->the supply Side has to shrink aswell to equate->more People starve(because they are now in the same Position as the People before)->circle
how in hell would such a Population survive competition from others when its even kills itself of slowly by inner competition?
[...]
because of that nasty government corruption of the marked(like Unemployment benefits)

few problems with this horror story.

1. you assume that without government run safety nets, people will starve. quite a grim view of human nature, eh? if we're willing to elect a government that "takes care of everyone" why aren't we willing to simply do our part to take care of people in need?

2. if people are so desperate that they are starving, then they probably aren't consuming much anyways. i doubt the effect would be dramatic.

3. the thinning of the population would raise the demand of employers for labor, putting an upward pressure on wages and actually leaving the remaining wrokers to make *more* money.

4. in general, no enterprise that paid its workers less than a living wage would be sustainable, because the employees would either die of starvation or seek out better paying jobs (ie any firm that paid a living wage would be more successful because it would have healthier/happier employees that are likely to stick around rather than leave them for greener pastures).

in general i find it creepy how people seem to think that without the government enforcing it, people would be completely indifferent to one another.

 

[creativesoul]

A system that determines the production, distribution, and consumption of goods.

Capitalism uses paper currency(money) in the implementation of all three aspects. The more money one has available to them, the more one can produce, distribute, and/or consume. In times past, the higher the quality of the product, the higher the cost to the consumer, because higher quality products used to cost more to manufacture. That has indeed changed, for several reasons which need to be gotten into, but not quite yet. To continue, a worker is employed and is re-imbursed for their contribution to the company with money. That contribution is measured in profit for the owner(the owner's money). The owner freely decides exactly how much of that profit s/he wants to give to the worker as pay for services rendered.

There are several factors which come into play here. One of which is the owner's overhead, which necessrily includes the labor cost. Simple arithmetic clearly shows anyone with common sense that the lower the labor cost, the higher the profit margin. Since the profit margin is what the owner gets to keep, it only makes sense that the less the worker gets paid, the more the owner gets to pay him/herself, and vice-versa. Now the owners arguably take more risk - in terms of capital investment - than the workers. In addition the owners obtain the work, set the market price for that work, provide the place of employment, and all of the other necessary responsibilities which come with the aspect of being an owner. It would only seem reasonable that the owner should make more money than a worker. Why else would one want to be a business owner, if not to make more money than s/he would make by working for someone else?

That is all for now... but I have much more to discuss after a good foundation is layed down.

 

[creativesoul]

WRG wrote:

I see no problem with the owner/worker system we use now. The owners are usually especially intelligent and trained in exactly that: owning and operating a business like a businessman should. Workers on the other hand tend to lack the skills and intelligence to manage that competently. Otherwise they'd've likely become businessmen themselves in some way, rather than settling for a working class life. This is yet another place I find beauty in a free market. Everyone fills their niche. I really think Darwin would admire it.

The owners are usually especially intelligent? You're kidding yourself. Enough wealth can buy the intelligence to run a company. That requires only less than average intelligence and something that one has not earned.

Workers lack the skills and intelligence to run a company? Again your kidding yourself. It takes more than just intelligence to start up and operate a business. Equal opportunity requires equal resources. Those need not be earned as it is.

Capitalism rewards and punishes the children for the 'sins' of the parents.

Labour is easy to come by. Practically anyone in the world is a suitable laborer. You can't expect to earn more than what your effort is in the longrun worth. If you can't manage to develop any special/scarce skills, you pay the price for it in being a useless, disposable worker. I don't see immorality in people being expected to plan for the future, or being punished for being consistently lethargic about it. It's not like it's hard to develop a special skill, and there's a near limitless amount of niches to fill in the market.

Disposable workers? Now there is a moral outlook. :? The profit is to be valued, the worker is a means to an end.

creativesoul wrote:

Moral = holding oneself and fellow humans with high regard: as valuable.

I wholeheartedly disagree with such a definition of moral. The way I see it, morality should be just consequentially. That's the most logical way. The consequences of your actions, both direct and indirect, define the morality or immorality of it. In that respect I don't think morality applies to capitalism at all. It may apply to the actions of large companies, or the actions of the politicians that ultimately can choose to control the market (in some way) at their whim.

Morality applies to humans. Humans use capitalism as it is constructed. The construct itself rewards blatent dishonesty. It devalues humans for what they are, and transforms them into a 'disposable' means to an end. The general attitude of monetary wealth equaling more value is carried over into personal value assessment. Those with more hold themselves as 'better' people than those without far more often than not. Even going as far as to wrongfully conclude that they are smarter because they are wealthier, much like in this response from you WRG.

Second, you didn't actually refute anything I said. I don't see how what you said about humans has anything to do with the market whatsoever. The market is its own darwinian system, with its own set of niches, predators, prey, and basic self-regulation.

The market begins with money and each niche is defined by it as well. Tell me where money naturally<i></i> plays a role in the universe. Hardly a Darwinian system. Geez.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Yeah, my main problem with capitalism is that it "punishes the children for the sins of the father", as creative mentioned. Every hardcore capitalist seems to believe we all come to some big open table where anyone can step in and take the lead if they just work hard enough.
If any of them truly believed it, they would have the balls to make their children and themselves live in the low-rent district, feed them only the cheapest food, send them only to the cheapest doctors, get a public education and then put all the money they saved into their business. This outlook that everyone has their shot completely ignores the reality of the situation.

The idea that someone can just leave their job, no one is forcing them, is utter bullshit. We are abstracting the enslavement and coercion to some ambiguous level where no human is responsible for anything or anyone. We are relegating our moral choices to some heartless sky daddy called the market. When we use our corn to make biofuel because there's good money there, we aren't causing people to starve, the market is. When we determine that it is much cheaper to hire child workers in indonesia for a dollar a day so we shut down a plant that was profitable in order to squeeze out some extra cash - we're just doing what the market indicates. When we determine that in order to cut costs we have to get rid of thousands of high cost insured patients by qualifying them as having preexisting conditions - the market determined what had to be done. We don't want to have to face the consequences of our actions, or look our fellow human beings in the eye and telling them: yes, I'm screwing you. And there's not a god-damn thing you can do about it.

 

[WRT54G]

The market begins with money and each niche is defined by it as well. Tell me where money naturally<i></i> plays a role in the universe. Hardly a Darwinian system. Geez.

You sure you understand the words "darwinian" and "natural"?

By your logic if I build a machine out of synthetic materials it can defy the laws of physics.

Everything, be it a logical construct or a physical one, follows the laws of nature, including the laws of logic that implement natural selection in the first place.

The owners are usually especially intelligent? You're kidding yourself. Enough wealth can buy the intelligence to run a company. That requires only less than average intelligence and something that one has not earned.

Workers lack the skills and intelligence to run a company? Again your kidding yourself. It takes more than just intelligence to start up and operate a business. Equal opportunity requires equal resources. Those need not be earned as it is.

Bullshit.

Capitalism rewards and punishes the children for the 'sins' of the parents.

So does evolution in precisely the same respect (to a MUCH greater extent). Clearly nature must be evil, no?

Should we push our scientists to develop the technology to make everyone gene-agnostic while we take away their inherited wealth? We should pull them out of their household too so they don't have to inherit their parents ideas. But how are we supposed to pull them out of our culture so they don't have to inherit it?

Oh wait, I think I see the problem here.

I wasn't born rich like Money McStuckup! BAWWWWWWWWW!

 

[xman]

..."The slave has the opportunity to work for his freedom".

the slave has no such freedom.

Slaves indeed had such 'rights'

yes, i realize that slaves had the opportunity to buy their freedom.

Moving the goal post I see.

slaves were subject to the caprice of their owners.

Workers are subject to the caprice of the owner.

in physics the ability to do work is used to describe energy.

Physics is not economics as evolution is not cosmology.

I'm not going to keep this up with you. You don't get it. That's fine.

and btw, your arrogance is unappreciated.

It seldom is, but I still employ it from time to time.

 

[Ozymandyus]

By your logic if I build a machine out of synthetic materials it can defy the laws of physics.

Everything, be it a logical construct or a physical one, follows the laws of nature, including the laws of logic that implement natural selection in the first place.

The difference between IDEAS and Matter is clear to almost everyone but you. Ideas do not follow any specific laws. We have CREATED capitalism, and therefore it follows no laws except the ones we created, which can be changed.

The owners are usually especially intelligent? You're kidding yourself. Enough wealth can buy the intelligence to run a company. That requires only less than average intelligence and something that one has not earned.

Workers lack the skills and intelligence to run a company? Again your kidding yourself. It takes more than just intelligence to start up and operate a business. Equal opportunity requires equal resources. Those need not be earned as it is.

Bullshit.

Brilliant analysis.

Capitalism rewards and punishes the children for the 'sins' of the parents.

So does evolution in precisely the same respect (to a MUCH greater extent). Clearly nature must be evil, no?

The problem here is that you think because nature is natural it is somehow desirable. The fact that nature is amoral doesn't mean we should create amoral systems to mimic it. How about we create something GOOD instead?

 

[WRT54G]

The problem here is that you think because nature is natural it is somehow desirable. The fact that nature is amoral doesn't mean we should create amoral systems to mimic it. How about we create something GOOD instead?

Because moral legislation is not good. Forcing people to help others is counterproductive to a free society. And handouts are counterproductive to breeding productive citizens.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Because moral legislation is not good. Forcing people to help others is counterproductive to a free society. And handouts are counterproductive to breeding productive citizens.

What is an inheritance if not a handout? If we instead instituted a 100% estate tax and put that money towards schooling that gave all children the tools they needed to be productive citizens, that would make MUCH more sense.

I should know, I have the benefit of a large inheritance and haven't had to be productive a single day in my life. I have been but not because the market has forced me to but because I was instilled with good values. Perhaps my parents were doing me a disservice by Forcing me to be kind to others, and punishing me when I lied, stole, or cheated. Counterproductive to a free childhood - those bastards.

As for 'moral legistlation not being good... Moral legislation is the only kind of legislation there is... Prohibitions of murder, theft, cheating, rape... all based on human decisions on what is right and wrong.

 

[WRT54G]

What is an inheritance if not a handout? If we instead instituted a 100% estate tax and put that money towards schooling that gave all children the tools they needed to be productive citizens, that would make MUCH more sense.

Somebody earned it, likely with the goal of giving their children a good life. Why should the state take that away from them? It's theirs. Not the state's. Not the peoples'. They worked for it. Nobody else did. And they give it to whom they want to. This is a basic freedom to property.

I should know, I have the benefit of a large inheritance and haven't had to be productive a single day in my life. I have been but not because the market has forced me to but because I was instilled with good values. Perhaps my parents were doing me a disservice by Forcing me to be kind to others, and punishing me when I lied, stole, or cheated. Counterproductive to a free childhood - those bastards.

Fascism is bad mm'kay. Citizens should not be forced to "love thy neighbor". Those values are up to parents to be taught, in precisely the way you have been taught. It doesn't matter if forcing them by law would make society more productive. It matters that it strips basic rights from citizens.

Legislation serves to protect the people from extremes, not from assholes.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Your defenses of capitalism are all just spouted talking points that have no actual thought or truth behind them. The way capitalism works here in the real world is clear to anyone not mind-washed and over-privileged. It rewards dishonesty more than truth, rewards power with more power, callous disregard for fellow human beings with wealth... and the only good things that exists in such a system comes from parents teaching the exact opposite to their children.

You claim that socialistic programs that enable public good makes people lazy (which is untrue, I would go so far to claim that the accumulation of wealth caused by capitalism makes people lazy - how many privileged college students do you know that have barely worked a day in their lives?): Well then what does working within a system that rewards dishonesty, callousness, greed, and narcissism do to people?

Programs like public education give people the tools they need to become productive citizens, tools that the market seems to do its best to put out of the reach of ordinary citizens. The high schools in my town that put you in touch with the elite and give the best education cost upwards of 16-20k a year.. more than half my take home pay as a teacher.

If socialism tries to force people to be nice to each other(if they want to stay out of jail), and that's bad, why is it good when capitalism forces people to be greedy and selfinterested(if you want to eat and get healthcare)? Why when we have worked so hard to escape the state of nature would we subject ourselves to it by recreating the dog-eat-dog world that was the whole point of trying to live in a society in the first place?

 

[WRT54G]

The way capitalism works here in the real world is clear to anyone not mind-washed and over-privileged. It rewards dishonesty more than truth, rewards power with more power, callous disregard for fellow human beings with wealth... and the only good things that exists in such a system comes from parents teaching the exact opposite to their children.

You seem entirely brainwashed against capitalism that you take such a cynical view of it.

Programs like public education give people the tools they need to become productive citizens, tools that the market seems to do its best to put out of the reach of ordinary citizens. The high schools in my town that put you in touch with the elite and give the best education cost upwards of 16-20k a year.. more than half my take home pay as a teacher.

I'm not against universal schooling. That falls under the category of things that it would be blatantly stupid and overall dangerous not to provide.

If socialism tries to force people to be nice to each other(if they want to stay out of jail), and that's bad, why is it good when capitalism forces people to be greedy and selfinterested(if you want to eat and get healthcare)?

It doesn't force that at all. It may encourage you to disregard the interests of others in favor of your own pursuit, but I don't care. We should not be forced to consider others in our decisions. I want to get ahead. I don't care if Johnny Idonthelpmyself does.

Why when we have worked so hard to escape the state of nature would we subject ourselves to it by recreating the dog-eat-dog world that was the whole point of trying to live in a society in the first place?

Well for one there's nothing wrong with it. There's no reason to escape it. You seem to think we as humans can be anything more than animals to begin with. I don't think we can. I'd rather have a system that takes into account my personal freedoms while encouraging competition, than a system that forces me to share and hands out entitlements and is outright wasteful of resources.

 

[obsidianavenger]

Moving the goal post I see.

yes, pointing out that slaves lacked human rights is a complete reversal from my original position :roll:

if a worker wants to leave his job, he can do so without being chased, threatened, jailed, or killed. no such rights for a slave. try again.

Physics is not economics as evolution is not cosmology.

I'm not going to keep this up with you. You don't get it. That's fine.

really? :shock:

lol convenient of you to quote that one line and ignore the rest of the paragraph made up of explication. good call!

 

[obsidianavenger]

Yeah, my main problem with capitalism is that it "punishes the children for the sins of the father", as creative mentioned.

so instead you punish random people for the sin of being successful? that makes much more sense!

If any of them truly believed it, they would have the balls to make their children and themselves live in the low-rent district, feed them only the cheapest food, send them only to the cheapest doctors, get a public education and then put all the money they saved into their business. This outlook that everyone has their shot completely ignores the reality of the situation.

they would decide to hobble their children? to what purpose exactly?

no one denies that poor nutrition and a tough upbringing makes it harder for people to rise to the top, or even be successful in life (at least no one with half a brain ). bad parenting leaves its mark, as does childhood poverty. what i take issue with is the conscription of every member of society to rectify this issue, even though none of them have actually done anything illegitimate to the people who are less well off (not to say that business owners never commit fraud, but thats why we need laws against fraud )

if you want to dedicate energy and resources to helping those less well off in a capitalist society, you are more than welcome to. you can even start organizations that provide for other people's needs collect donations from a wide range of individuals, and spread the message that helping people is a good and necessary thing. and you can convince other people to do the same. but my issue, and the reason i support capitalism, is the fact that you shouldn't be able to *force* people to give things to other people because those others are in need.

 

[xman]

try again.

I give up. You win. :|

 

[Andiferous]

It rewards dishonesty more than truth, rewards power with more power, callous disregard for fellow human beings with wealth...

I tend to agree. It lends itself quite easily to corruption. (Admitted, almost everything does, but we see far more of this in the free market these days.)

I'm not sure everyone is arguing about the same thing anymore, honestly. Pure capitalism takes us back to the Industrial Revolution and sweatshop conditions. I doubt anyone is arguing for this (are you?) And by the same token I doubt those of us criticising the concept are idealising a "communist" (or possibly even Marxist) philosophy, but are pointing out the incredibly useful nature of various social programs.

Labour laws, public education, public services, employment insurance, health care, old age pensions, and any number of different social programs (and even the military... ) are quite decidedly not capitalist. They are supplemental, and perhaps we agree that Industrial revolution conditions need to be upgraded to suit modern ethics?

I could go on about specific points, but it seems no one is debating the same thing, anymore. If I'm totally off, let me have it, and I'll take of my gloves.

 

[Ozymandyus]

Yeah, my main problem with capitalism is that it "punishes the children for the sins of the father", as creative mentioned.

so instead you punish random people for the sin of being successful? that makes much more sense!

It's not punishing random people. That's silliness. It's asking for help from EVERYONE so that EVERYONE is helped. It is bad for societies to have a malcontented underclass. Not to mention it is bad for the children, who are actually the random people that are being punished. There is nothing random about taxes - there is plenty random about a child without the tools that it needs to compete in the crazy ass capitalist world where its every man for himself, the very situation that societies were created to escape.

And now we have capitalists saying 'if you don't like working for the man, you can just go off and be self sufficient.' Fuck that - pure capitalists can go be self sufficient and run around in their dream world where you can do whatever you want and no one can tell you what to do or tell you that you should take care of your fellow human beings.

I will reply to the rest later - things to do. Have a good one!

 

[Nogre]

I don't see how you make these jumps. Whether or not those shareholders exist, the workers are in exactly the same position: they are filling a low-wage laborer niche in the market. You seem to want to twist that fact around to make it look ugly and wrong just because some people are profiting too easily. All I see in that is resentment of the rich.

Uh, no. Particularly that last part. Not only is it just argumentum ad hominum, I come from a rich, upper-middle class family. I don't resent the rich. What I resent is any system where the best way to get something valuable is to have that something and then do zero work yourself. Furthermore, I dislike any system where the unlucky work for the lucky's benefit, not their own. Mere compensation doesn't change the fact that the system us utterly rediculous. You should directly get the fruits of your labor and profit from them. You shouldn't be forced to sell it to some lucky bastard who happened to fall into money for him then to profit off of.

Once again, this isn't capitalism. I'm fine with capitalism. This is incorporation. And that is the thing that I think is wrong with Western society. While I agree with a safety net, programs for equal opportunity (like education), and all legislation that prevents harm (lide fraud, etc.), I think a competitive market is, by far, the best general strategy for an economy. The benefits of competition leading to progress are far too huge, plus there's some legitimacy to the whole "don't take my money" thing after a certain point.

Also, a worker-owned business would work entirely differently. Workers would come together, decide on a leader (who is also a worker), and all remain joint owners as they work together. All profits go to the people that did the work themselves. Isn't this what you want? Don't you want the fruits of peoples' labor to belong to them? But it's not enough to say that it shouldn't belong to a government. It shouldn't belong to a bunch of shareholders, either.

Anyone can do it.

Uh...this is either ignorance or a blatent lie. Besides, isn't everyone benefiting from everyone else's work socialism? Investment by everyone is just redistribution of wealth based on currant wealth rather than need. But it's still redistribution of wealth. And it's no more voluntary, either, and if you honestly think anyone can just start up a company or just start investing...open your eyes and start living in the real world. Please. Even I know this, and the closest thing I've ever had to a job is working with a philosophy professor and getting paid for it. You can't say choosing between feeding your children or investing is a choice. Nor can you say that you have a chioce whether you get $2 million to do the research to start your company or not.

Edit: Let me come back to the evolution analogy. Is it immoral for a small population of animals that can hardly sustain themselves to come across a free ticket that sustains them through a harsh winter, thus saving their species solely on luck, where other species died, or at least had to work incredibly hard to make it?

Nature of the beast. Luck (non-supernatural) exists. You may not like it, and you may outright resent the lucky for not being one of them, but forcing them down to your level doesn't help anyone, it just ultimately strips the world of that much more freedom.

Look...I was nice last time and you didn't even notice. I'm not going to be this time. First, this is a blatent naturalistic fallacy and can be rejected on that alone. Second, scientists who work on evolution, incluing Darwin have never seen it as a source for morality. The idea of applying evolution as a type of morality was called "social Darwinism," but it is probably second only to Ray Comfort's book in bastardizing Darwin's name. This was simply made up by greedy corporate owners trying to justify stomping all over the people doing the real work. It has never gained any legitimacy as a real moral theory. Third, you're legitimizing the theist claim that atheism leads to accepting evolution as your moral code, which is so far from true, it's absurd. It's a scientific theory. It's not an ethical theory. Simply because we don't deny the fact of evolution doesn't mean that we suddenly start worshipping that instead.

Please, quit it with the evolution argument. To be blunt, but honest, it's insulting.

And after all, is it not your choice as the consumer to not buy from a company that does clearly immoral things? Is it not my choice to never shop at Walmart?

By the way, this is my whole point. I'd really like to see you quote me advocating government intervention on incorporation. Oh wait...you can't do it, because I've explicitly stated that I advocate all of us taking down the corporations by refusing to give them our bussiness. You seem to have missed this, though, as some of your arguments are straw manning against typical redistribution arguments.

Capitalism rewards and punishes the children for the 'sins' of the parents.

*cough*incorporation*cough*

Capitalism in no way requires such things. Social institutions to create more equality of opportunity, such as inheritance tax, etc. isn't pure capitalism, but no sane person is truly going to advocate truly pure capitalism. In fact, you could argue that (if capitalism's main defining aspect is competition, which I would agree with), such things are exactly in line with capitalism. Noninterference doesn't facilitate perfect competition, so capitalism as I would normally think of it, is only partially made up of lassaize faire and includes things like public education and such.

And I think that covers most things...if I missed anything someone things I should adress, just let me know.