IcarusAngel

I felt the need to respond to this point thought the thread was closed:
The Western nations built themselves up by using protectionism, government funded science, Universities, etc., not by capitalism. We succeeded by violating the rules of capitalism.
They didn't violate the rules of capitalism. These are simple rules - utilize capital - be that political, economic or social - to accumulate capital. If anywhere these nations were seeking to disperse capital, rather than centralize the concentration (and to be fair there are a few niche believers in this method in Western history) they would be violating the "rules." But the fact is that they didn't do this in any real way.

Don't let the free-market children redefine capitalism for you. The fact is that they are two separate things - in a free market, capitalism will certainly prevail. But there is no inherent need for "free markets" or even "competition" to have capitalism.

Note how hayenmill operates: "source" requests are diversions. Debaters learn it as something NOT to do unless you're a snake. Demanding "evidence" for every sentence is done to derail. A web search often turns up sources; the proper thing is to take one at his word for the sake of discussion, because you want to follow the implications to their conclusions, not play one-upsmanship. I'm often so loathe to click another Mises link that I just accept that it affirms my opponent's claim, then proceed to look for ways to show that the claim is nonsense anyway. This basic level of decency never occurs to reactionaries, who'd rather dump a pile of demands on you so they can claim "victory" when you say "fuck it." Certainly if an argument is devastating, then one should go back & check the sources. But the place to do it is not mid-stride, unless the objective is to trip one's opponent & make an escape.

Couldn't agree more.

Lol @ your sig