Need A Good Response

[hassan monwar al-moudjahid]

i have a friend who is a born-again capitalist, he used to be a socialist but now he admires people like ken lay of enron (and surprisingly still che guevara) and i always get in arguments with him when he suggests things like "any body can make it in this country", "poor people just arent motivated", "i know somebody that made it out of poverty....", "only the people with ideas get any where", "people need to follow rockerfeller's example", "survival of the fittest", "welfare gives people an excuse to not do what they are too lazy to do", "people can't rely on the state to do everything for them".....and so on. how can i counter such talk?

[Janus]

We have discussions over this all the time here.

This is one of the latest.
http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=53013

[hassan monwar al-moudjahid]

thanks!

[Janus]

No problem.

There are countless threads on this in here. There are several on the first page of this forum right now.

[Krypto-Communist]

"any body can make it in this country",

What does he/she mean by "making it in this country"? Getting a job or getting rich?

Reply: Yes, it is possible to get a job in this country or in any other country for that matter, America isn't unique in this context.

Reply: Getting rich? Define rich? Why is it so important to get rich? Depends on what type of work they are in regardless of education. A PhD is Social Work isn't going to make the same salary as a stockbroker or a financial analyst who only holds a B.A. and or knows the right people.



"poor people just arent motivated",

Motivated to do what exactly? Get rich? Maybe they're smart enough to realize that the odds of failing are greater than those that of succeeding.

Capitalism is a system that naturally produces rich and poor...regardless of how much they are motivated or how hard they work.


"i know somebody that made it out of poverty....", "only the people with ideas get any where", "people need to follow rockerfeller's example",

That is anecdotal evidence. That's like saying, "smoking isn't harmful, why my grandmother smoked for 50 years and she lived to be 100." There are millions of examples backed up by research that reveal the harmful effects of smoking and others who have fallen into an abyss of debt due to their efforts to try to get rich.


"survival of the fittest",

I know man, we should kill off all of the people who can't defense themselves from the ones who can just so the rich and the well-off can have the luxury of not putting up with these unfit bastards.

Life is a matter of chance; nobody gets to choose their parents, class, ethnicity, or whether or not they want to be born mentally retarded.


"welfare gives people an excuse to not do what they are too lazy to do", "people can't rely on the state to do everything for them".....

Who in their right mind believes that people can live sufficiently off of what the government gives them? Only Rush Limbaugh junkies....like your friend.


and so on. how can i counter such talk?

Do you best to avoid these people if you can but just ask them if they got to choose their parents and their mental capabilities or handicaps.