Zim, You gave a list of assertions without any definitions, backing facts, nor logic. You may win a food fight that way, but not a reasoned debate. I tried to start with MY definitions, and then I tried to lay out my logic and my PREMISES. What I wrote wasn't perfect, I didn't expect that it was, but it was reasoned. Your counterargument isn't well reasoned, and your emotional flag waving doesn't substitute for that.
You've been alive a LONG time. Haven't you noticed the vast changes in the SYSTEM? But, for starters, if you will back up and *carefully* read the totality of Ricardo's treatise on Comparative Advantage, and pay attention to his PREMISES, it may occur to you that you CAN'T have "free trade" when: (1) the currency/credit system is utterly bogus, centralized, and manipulated on a daily basis, (2) when there are government sanctioned monopolies (3) when the laws aren't equally enforced across parties (4) when you have government mandated "minimum wage" laws and other "transfer payments", including government mandated social security programs (5) when you have government subsidies (6) When factors of production can be, and are, trivially moved to other countries (actually encouraged to be moved, with tax incentives).
Capitalism, as with reality, isn't whatever you want to be. And to have a reasoned discussion I need you to lay out your definitions, your facts, and your reasons.
Let's start with an easy one:
Zim: "Let me take 'socialism' first. EVERY country that has tried it over any length of time has, eventually, been reduced to utter poverty."
What is "any length of time"? What is "utter poverty"? And then give me a list of example countries. Venezuela is not socialist. Neither is Cuba. Nor is N. Korea. They are totalitarian dictatorships - no pretence of democracy, socially 'agreed' redistribution channels, few to zero social benefits, etc. Nothing actually socialist about, them as far as I can tell?
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