MONSTER POST [a.k.a. my rebuttal to CoffeyCan's rebuttal]
A debate! I love these...
But first let me say to CC, I love your Real Maps site. It's in my daily round of sites to check, always eagerly anticipating the next review! You, BuddyPickle & Loki do a great job. Thank you!
Now, on to the rebuttal:
WARNING: after writing this post I realized I had written a virtual thesis!! Or is it a speech? /infopop/emoticons/icon_eek.gif But I just couldn't leave CC's rebuttal to my previous post unanswered. It was a strong rebuttal, and I had to reach way down to effectively defend my position! So unless you're riveted by this debate, it might be a good idea to skip this post. Just be warned... /infopop/emoticons/icon_biggrin.gif
CC started out by saying:
I think that profit driven medical care is morally reprehensible. Some of the older people on the board will remember when HMO's did not exist. Things to me, were much better. HMO's are only interested in one thing: money. It will always come first over any persons life, and is utterly disgusting.
It seems we have two issues we're dealing with here. Profit motivated health care providers, and profit-motivated medical research. Both are parts of the whole that is medical care in the U.S. In my previous post I demonstrated how profit-motivated medical research results in greater advancement in technology & capability. Thus my contention that the profit motive is vital in this area. I challenge anyone to name a communist/socialist country that ever surpassed a capitalist western country in medical technology.
The issue of profit-motivated health care providers is more complicated. Like CC, I also remember the days before HMOs. Medical costs were generally far lower then, so naturally things were better. HMOs were formed as a way to deal with costs that began to rise rapidly with increasing medical technology. Unfortunately, this purpose has been perverted to an extent by greed. As I said in my previous post, the profit motive can do ugly things to a health care system. And it does so when greed enters the picture. The U.S. system is by no means perfect. Reforms should be enacted to address abuses by these HMOs. I'm in favor of something like the Patient's Bill of Rights being considered by Congress. No one should be allowed to get greedy at the expense of people's health. That is morally reprehensible.
But should profit be completely taken out of health care services? Doctors and other professionals who run our medical infrastructure need to make a living. Where will their salaries come from if not profits? The answer, of course, is taxes. Make the government be the health care provider for the nation. It's the only way to remove profit from the picture. Is a government-run health care system desirable? Would it be better than what we have now? I guess that becomes a matter of opinion. If you like what you've seen in examples of socialized medicine, then the answer is yes. If you don't, then the answer is no. For me the answer is no.
I contend the best solution is to keep medical services profit based, but enact controls to prevent services from becoming greed-based. Hence my support for things like the Patient's Bill of Rights, as I mentioned earlier.
Now on to CC's rebuttals of my more general points about capitalism and the USA:
CC rebutted my contention that no one need be poor in a capitalist system in a free society, saying:
...the US and many other countries need the poor to produce products for them. ... Without using the poor nationally and internationally our cost of living would be through the roof.
I can give a specific, powerful example that demonstrates this is incorrect. Look at the history of the cotton industry in the United States. In pre-Civil War America, this industry benefitted from the most extreme case of low-wage labor: slavery. Many people said at the time the U.S. needed slavery to produce cotton. Many said if slavery were abolished, the cotton industry would collapse from increased costs. Many believed there was an inherent need for a source of free labor. And CC similarly argues today there is an inherent need in our system for a source of poor, low-wage labor, though he comes from a different perspective certainly (i.e. disapproval with resignation rather than support).
Well, let's look at what happened when slavery disappeared from the U.S. economy. History shows the cotton industry did not collapse. In fact, it has only thrived in the 20th Century. Even the poorest Americans can afford to buy cotton products today. All without the free labor that many had once believed was vital to the cotton economy.
Similarly, today poor low-wage labor is not an inherently-needed commodity. Yes we benefit from it, but we don't have to. It's not hard-coded into capitalism any more than slavery was 150 years ago. And though we can't abolish poverty like we did slavery, the poor in any free society can pick themselves up by their bootstraps and aim higher than they think they can go. And if all the poor were no longer poor, and there was no longer a source of subsistence-wage labor anywhere in the world, industry would adapt, and in fact be far better for it in the long run. As was the U.S. cotton industry after it no longer had the source of free labor it had once grown to depend on.
Speaking of the poor picking themselves up by their bootstraps, CC also rebuts the following statement I made previously:
Everyone has a chance at prosperity. Not a guarantee. The essence of America isn't that everybody will be taken care of. It's that everybody gets a fair shot at taking care of themselves, and even striking it rich.
He responds:
This is also largely untrue, based on your skin color your chances of success can vary accordingly. ... While everyone has opportunity, some have more than others, and its far from 'fair'
Ok, I will cede him this one point. My use of the word "fair" was incorrect in that context. He's right, some do have it easier than others in the U.S., which by definition is unfair. I never said we have a perfect society. One of our faults is indeed that we don't universally treat all people equally. And that's wrong.
I do make this point, though. Look at how immigrants from Asia respond to the difficulties they find trying to "make it" in America. Especially those from Southeast Asia, who see the same level of prejudice that other minorities see. I certainly witnessed plenty of it growing up here in the Pacific Northwest. Yet instead of spending all their time and energy complaining about it, they just work harder at prevailing over it. Instead of being perennial victims, they become fighters, and refuse to give up. And despite the fact that nearly all of them arrived at our shores with nothing more than the shirts on their backs, no one today quotes statistics of Asian-American poverty rates. Because these immigrants don't mess around. They buck the odds and aim their efforts high.
Lastly, CC said:
...we ALL stand on the backs of the poor nationally and internationally and benefit from it, to think otherwise is lunacy.
In today's world, sadly, this is indeed true. But as I argued earlier, it doesn't have to be that way. The flaw is not in the system that gives the individual the freedom to determine his own economic destiny. The flaw is in the global society that we are all a part of. "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves..."
As a global human society, we must all work to be better than we think we can be, and strive to see a better day. A day that I believe is possible. The late Robert F. Kennedy had it right,
"Some men see things as they are and say why. I dream things that never were and say why not."
Amen, brother.
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[skip the usual quote here, I think I've filled my quota for quotes in this post /infopop/emoticons/icon_wink.gif]
[This message was edited by Alpha_9 on Jun 22, 2000 at 19:53.]
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