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I just heard on the news that ‘opportunists’ are flocking to the bushfire affected areas to try to buy cheap land.
The story was done in a negative way, as in these horrible people who are trying to make a profit during these terrible times.
Well, Suck it up people. That is how this country works. You can’t be capitalist while things are good and then expect protection from the ‘evil opportunists’ when you are the weak one.
Don’t get me wrong, it sucks that the fires were that bad and people died. I’m not trying to say that isn’t terrible.
Im just saying that if our economic structure is something to complain about while you are vulnerable, then maybe you should say/do something about it while you are strong. Maybe, the people who aren’t involved in this who are upset at the ‘opportunists’ should have a look at their own lives, who is it that they are taking advantage of to live their lifestyle.
You can’t have it both ways.
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I really believe that Liberal Capitalism has a net posative effect in the fight against poverty.
We set a lower bound on how opertunistic we will allow capitalism to be. We say that we won’t allow child labour and we won’t force people to work too many hours a week. But we will happily import goods made in horrific condiditions.
We don’t have a totally free capitalist system. We have a capitalist system that is supposed to be bounded in such a way to make it fair.
Unfortunately we happily turn a blind eye to the standards in countries we trade with.
I think that is totally against the spirit of the system.
Comment by Jared Kells February 20, 2009 4:22 pm @ 4:22 pmSo true meags. Great post!
Comment by mini meegs February 20, 2009 4:46 pm @ 4:46 pmI totally agree that we should think about the dangers of a capitalist free market economy not just when we are weak but also strong, but I think that we should take this outrage at opport-unism during this time as a positive sign that people do see the limitations of a laissez-faire capitalist system and are ready to hear about how
Comment by Luke February 24, 2009 9:05 pm @ 9:05 pmthey might participate in the world economy in a way that gives a “fair go” to all peoples of our world. Look at that, I actually agreed with Jared!
I have just one small thing to add. I have to say that I’m uneasy about this notion that our pros-perity is fundamentally based on the exploitation of other peoples, atleast not always, maybe not even most of the time (although with one reserv-ation, the dispossession of Aboriginal peoples and exploitation of what was once their land is fairly central to Australian prosperity, I think) It may be that I’m in denial so I don’t have to feel guilty or responsible for third world poverty, but it seems to me that often in our particular Christian circle their is this tendancy to need to blame people for things in order to get them to do something about it, which I must say I dont find a particularly Christian attitude to charity, was the good samaritan a participant in the wounding of the traveller? but regardless he loved his neighbour. This is what a Christian ought to do, help people, regardless of whether they were culpable for it or not. It may be that we in Western society are collectively responsible for a significant amount of poverty in the world, or it may be that there are a number of significant causes of poverty. Whatever the case, our (first world) sin is undeniable, the sin of ommission, of not doing what we could do with our great wealth to eradicate poverty
Comment by Luke February 24, 2009 9:25 pm @ 9:25 pm