The automobile market in Japan provides an interesting case study in how Japan restricts imports without tariffs. The internal Japanese car market is basically a no-growth market. An article from almost twenty years ago in the Seattle Times described why the Big Three American car manufacturers couldn't gain any meaningful market share in Japana's car market.

Auto company executives, trade officials and Japan scholars for years have analyzed and decried (or, in some cases, praised) the keiretsu system that exists in the Japanese auto industry under which auto companies and their suppliers and dealers retain longstanding relationships and often have cross-ownership.

If Toyota, Nissan, Honda and other Japanese makers decide to buy a cheaper foreign part, it means rejecting a component built by a company down the street, one that may employ their friends and neighbors, or even some former colleagues who have been farmed out to suppliers.

A dealer who sells a foreign car in Japan's no-growth market risks displacing a vehicle made by the large manufacturing company that has helped it out during tough times, including sending white-collar workers to act as door-to-door salesmen when sales slowed.

A lack of import tariffs doesn't mean an embrace of free trade FYI. You will need to find a different explanation for Japan's economic success of the last have century besides the false notion of no tariffs and embracing free trade.

"unfathomable numbers of people living in abject poverty"

2 billion people have been raised from poverty in the last 20 years, mostly in Asia. Incomes have climbed over 1000% during that time frame.

"On top all this are the inescapable catastrophes wrought by central planning."

Most of which were unraveled and privatized during the 1980s and then again during the early 2000s. The only thing left is banking, which I grant you is a huge problem.

When I say "China's time" I mean the preceding 20 years up until now. Over that time frame China has been the fastest growing country in the world. It is physically impossible for an industrialized nation to match its rate of growth. That is what I'm talking about. China will peak due to many of the structural problems you mentioned. Just as Japan has, and the UK, and the US. When I say "peak" I don't mean "Oh shit boys, it's all downhill from here" but rather that relative to other nations the growth rate will normalize.

And here is why Japan grew - a cheap, efficient manufacturing process and culture with an extremely productive workforce. However, this method and this workforce would not have developed without an export market to sell what they make to. If the US had protective trade barriers, there wouldn't be an export market.

+1 Goldfinger:

Capitalism has caused more poverty reduction then charity, foreign aid and any other political system or institution combined.

Poverty isn't caused by capitalism, poverty is ended by capitalism. I'm not sure the context of your post, but I 100% agree with what your saying, lol

"Capitalism has caused more poverty reduction then charity, foreign aid and any other political system or institution combined.

Poverty isn't caused by capitalism, poverty is ended by capitalism. I'm not sure the context of your post, but I 100% agree with what your saying, lol"

Poverty hasn't ended. While I think Sbyvl is an utter moron, you can't say capitalism is good because it does something it has not done.

capitalism does cause poverty, and only an idiot would deny that. even adam smith talks about how capitalism causes vast inequalities in the spread of wealth.

Of course it capitalism causes some poverty. But under Socialism, everyone would be under poverty

President Eden: Tolstoy was a Christian Anarchist

Fasces is right

"capitalism causes vast inequalities in the spread of wealth." Inequalities lmao, frankly, i dont find it 'equal' or fair to earn, (for example) as a doctor, who struggled through 8 years of med school, as much as a simple community college educated machinist. But to you, the $100 000+ earned by a doctor and the $20 000 earned by a machinist represent a huge inequality and "wealth gap" where everyone is shitting their pants at the lack of 'fairness'. lol. You want a system that rewards people based on need and not on ability.

no, socialism eliminates poverty, it just does it by lowering everyones living standards enormously, making standards above poverty, but only nearly, and wayyyy less than a human being deserves.

Hear! Hear! ILN

We accept that human beings possess vastly different abilities every single day, but we deny this when it comes to business. In basketball or baseball we never question that professionals possess qualities above and beyond the rest and deserve their salaries. Yet in business anti-capitalist keep shoveling the manure that we are all equal. How stupendously illogical.

All politics and economics aside, I find any statement, ideology, or person that accepts any level of poverty among its members completely morally unacceptable.

Poverty is morally intolerable.

I am by the way discussing true poverty, not "I can't afford to pay my A/C utility bill" poverty. Actual or absolute poverty, where basic human needs go unmet.

A billion people on this planet face these conditions. Whatever else you can say about the world and the systems that govern it, this number is unacceptable. Any number other than 0 is unacceptable.

And we're not doing all that well when you look closer at poverty. In the United States, the most powerful country in the world, poverty has risen since 1996.

http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/08/19/extr-a19.html

Meanwhile 1.2 billion people are poor. The number may be falling, but can we really content ourselves to sit and wait? What about the millions of people who will die this year of utterly and tragically preventable causes? What would we say to those people, if they could have been on this forum?

Just my thought on the matter. My criticisms would go to a socialist, capitalist, anarchist, whoever.

But Soviet Russia, the entire population was in poverty. I'd rather have 15% in poverty than 95% in poverty

We can get rid of poverty by putting the poor to work making diamonds and things we couldn't import anymore.

*in Soviet Russia

People have different abilities, and socialists/anti-capitalist don't generally deny that (Emac you blithering idiot). The argument is that it is not fair that people get more because of luck (e.g. you may be smarter than someone else but the fact that you were lucky enough to be born smarter does not mean you should have a much better life).

And Sbyvl you make the mistake of saying Soviet Russia = socialism

They do not get more because of luck, they get more because of their EFFORT. And one is not simply "born smarter". Knowledge is wisdom is developed, not inherited.

I never said that, you blabbering idiot.

Sbyvl are you responding to me? Note my last sentence.

Soviet Russia was as morally culpable as modern America is for not dealing with its poor population.

In fact although the mass of poor people in the developing world is the most pressing moral concern of today, the persistent minorities of people in absolute poverty in supposedly developed countries is perhaps more disturbing for the long-term.

What are we to make of this? It seems to indicate that even if every country in the world were to reach a level of development similar to that of the United States, that there would remain a significant number (measured in millions) whose basic needs are going unmet.

What does this say about the American model? Clearly it needs to at least be tweaked, because as I said, any level of poverty is completely unacceptable. Prima facie.

Show me where in the Constitution does it say that the government should take care of the poor.

So you don't think people are born with different intelligence? Can you really say that? Can you really say that people aren't born with more potential? And on top of that people's parents don't set people up to be smarter/better at a sport/a better artist etc.? you obviously develop and use effort, but only a 'blabbering idiot' could say that there aren't natural differences.

yes but you are using soviet russia supposedly having 95% poverty as indicative of poverty with socialism, which is implicityly saying that the poverty in soviet russia is equal to what we should expect with socialism. sigh.

Definition of "smart":
"Having or showing intelligence."

Definition of "intelligence":
"the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills."

Thus, no one is "born smart".


That is exactly what we should expect from Marxism

"Show me where in the Constitution does it say that the government should take care of the poor."

What does the constitution, or the government for that matter, have to do with the ethics of the statement "poverty is unacceptable at any level in society"?

I don't need a fucking constitution to tell me that it is unacceptable to me if anyone in the world I live in is forced to go without food or water. It is natural law, above anything white men wrote 237 years ago, or 1237 years ago, or 12,370 years ago. It makes no difference.

But if you love revered documents more than anything else when forming your moral conscience, allow me to direct you to the Bible:

-Deut. 15:7-8 - "If there is a poor man among your brothers in any of the towns of the land that the LORD your God is giving you, do not be hardhearted or tightfisted toward your poor brother. Rather be openhanded and freely lend him whatever he needs."

-Proverbs 21:13 - "Whoever closes his ear to the cry of the poor will himself call out and not be answered."

-Matthew 25:41-45 - "Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

“They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

“He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’"

-James 2:15-17 - "Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well; keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead."

-1 John 3:17-18 - "If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him? Dear children, let us not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth."

Shall I appeal to other basic moral traditions, or do you agree that poverty is 100% unacceptable?

You want the government to take care of the poor, which you admit is unconstitutional.

If poverty is so unacceptable, why do the Franciscans do it?

"For also when we were with you, this we declared to you: that, if any man will not work, neither let him eat." (2 Thessalonians 3:10)

Poor people with intelligence seem perfectly capable of raising themselves out of poverty all over the world as long as they can avoid corrupt government officials, corrupt courts, criminal organizations, and politically connected rivals.

There are no smart poor people.

No, I want there to be no poor people. Damn the methodology, whatever works. If it's the government, then yes, but I'm not talking about how yet. I'm still trying to get you to admit that you believe it is acceptable for poor people to be poor.

If you want to contradict me and agree that it is unacceptable for there to be poverty, go ahead and do so now, else I will assume you have no problem with human beings going without their basic needs being met.

Voluntary poverty is completely different from forced poverty. The Pope has said as much. "Thus it is necessary to seek to establish a "virtuous circle" between the poverty "to be chosen" and the poverty "to be fought"."

http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/homilies/2009/documents/hf_ben-xvi_hom_20090101_world-day-peace_en.html

architects :P

"There are no smart poor people."

Haha oh jesus. Just World Fallacy, hurray!

Mother of God. I think you answered my question sufficiently. You have no moral fiber of any discernible or respectable variety. Thanks for making it crystal clear.

@Thucy: Once again, if these lazy bums decided to actually work for a living, and stopped collecting entitlements, then they would be better off. But if they refuse to work, nothing is going to change their situation.

@Thucy: Ok, give me a specific example of a smart person living in poverty. And don't use yourself as an example.