“Capitalism” and “socialism” – what do these words even mean? You could just say that capitalism is the economic system of countries like the United States, and socialism is the economic system of countries like the former Soviet Union. In that case, I’d say that capitalism is at least ok, while socialism is hell on earth. Perhaps my opponent would even agree! It’s more fruitful, though, to treat capitalism and socialism as positions on the ideal economic system. Something like: the capitalist ideal is that government plays very little role in the economy – and the socialist ideal is that government plays the leading role in the economy. In that case, I say that capitalism is awesome, and socialism is terrible.
Tag: business
Don’t Fake Your Way Out of Naïveté
“Faking it till you make it” is at its best a confident, earnest approach to a problem, with the hope that your “old college try” will bring you closer to mastery. If (like me) you are a relatively inexperienced young person in the professional world, that’s a necessity. But “faking it till you make it” goes wrong when you try to fake your way out of your naïveté.
Hippies With Money
The fact that massively influential multimillionaires (sometimes billionaires) in the soon to be dominant crypto space spend time on Twitter calling each other names, using coarse language, and angrily arguing on live YouTube broadcasts is a radical deviation from past generations of leaders in business, tech, and finance.
Schools, Not Guns, Are The Problem
Allowing government schools to continue to exist is a safety nightmare. First of all, you are putting your kids in the hands of cowards and ethical cripples. They ban the decent people from being armed, which encourages evil losers to treat the school as a shooting gallery. If you work for or in a school, and you don’t fight against the “no guns/weapons” policies you are part of the problem. If you help those policies be enforced you are so much worse.
Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Russiagate
In case anyone’s forgotten, Russia is a nuclear power. Throwing around the phrase “act of war” is over-the-top insanity. It’s a call for the transformation of some Facebook ads into burning cities and piles of body bags, all because an election didn’t come out the way some people wanted and expected it to.
“Daddy, What’s a Citizen?”
This question is not as easy to answer for me as it once was. Before understanding the facts about government, I would have answered to the effect of , “A citizen is someone who is a recognized subject of the government.” *almost vomits* (My apologies, but that was very difficult to write.) Or rather, in a way understandable to an 8-year-old. Today, that’s not the answer that I can honestly give. So at first, I resisted, and made a few jokes. I needed to time to think on it. While we were brushing our teeth, the following ensued.
Is Education Worth It? My Opening Statement
Is the education system really a waste of time and money, as my new book claims right on the cover? This is a strange topic to debate with Eric Hanushek. Why? Because if Hanushek had absolute power to fix the education system, education might actually be worth every penny. Hanushek is famous for focusing on what schools teach rather than what they spend – and documenting the vast disconnect between the two. If you haven’t already read his dissection of “input-based education policies,” you really ought to. Hanushek, more than any other economist, has taught us that measured literacy and numeracy are socially valuable – but just making kids spend long years in well-funded schools is not.
Inconsistent Conservative Interventionists
With the recent news about North Korea and South Korea uniting for the Olympics and perhaps further diplomatic discussions, I am reminded of the (numerous) inconsistencies of the supposedly conservative, free-market neocons. Here is one in particular: These folks often believe in the market rather than a central planner and at the same time believe the communist government of North Korea is an existential threat to the US.
“Peace Through Strength” Is a Racket
“I’m going to make our military so big, so powerful, so strong, that nobody — absolutely nobody — is gonna to mess with us,” Trump says. On other occasions he’s said similar things: “We want to defer, avoid and prevent conflict through our unquestioned military strength” (same link) and, a year ago, “Nobody is going to mess with us. Nobody. It will be one of the greatest military build-ups in American history.”
One Simple Shift to Turn Life Into an Adventure
When I was young, I would run barefoot through the jungles of Guam, being chased by bad guys, imagining I was on an Indiana Jones-style adventure. The world was filled with possibility, excitement, discovery, exploration, and a delicious sense of danger and the unknown lurking in the darkness. It was fun, play, and curiosity. Adulthood and the responsibilities of family and work all did their best to beat out this sense of adventure, and create a sense of routine and discipline in me. But I’ve always still become lit up by a sense of adventure.