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RE: Capitalism: A Game of Mario Kart

in #politics6 years ago

Well to be clear, in Mario Kart the leaders in a race get the worst weapons (usually bananas or green shells); those in the middle get mid-grade weapons; those in back get blue shells and huge speed boosts. It's all designed to keep things as close as possible without one's ability to race wholly determining the outcome.

This is a ridiculously complex topic, because strict free market will tend to favor those happy to abuse the rights of others for their own financial gain; so we put some laws in place just to stop the abuse of rights, and it creates new wrinkles; so then new laws to address those, and so on. Until the point that the legal system gets incredibly complex so that lawyers become hot commodities and therefore extremely expensive; and suddenly justice becomes too expensive for some; etc.

I don't mean this as a whole picture, but to suggest that even putting together the brightest minds truly looking out for the good of the whole would have deep arguments on how to accomplish the desired outcome.

I agree that it's unideal to purposely craft laws that favor one group over another -- the spirit of your article here. This type of agenda is racist, sexist, and divisive while usually promoted by those who accuse the same on others. I also don't think there's any sort of simple fix and that the only ultimate fix is for humans to collectively become better.

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Yes, this is the problem. We need some government to fix certain issues like regulate monopolies in industries where competition is difficult because of high initial capital requirements and exclusive ownership of infrastructure. But too much government creates more problems, so then we go back to reducing government. We end up in the current situation where every 1-2 election cycles we vote in rightwing parties, then leftwing parties, then rightwing parties, then leftwing parties.

You're also right that Mario Kart item generation is balanced such that the bottom players get better items to use as catch-up mechanics, while the top two players only draw banana peels and green shells. But when you're the top player, you're also free to drive at max speed, with maximum coins because nobody is knocking you over. But if you're a bad racer, you will make mistakes and others will catch up, so it's still your own merit if you win the race from that position.

The point I'm making is that morality is symmetry. Leftists see the asymmetry of outcomes as immoral, while rightwingers see the asymmetry of rules as immoral. Leftists want to rig the rules to allow players to win who otherwise wouldn't, but the system by which they try to fix this becomes too complicated and resource-heavy. Big government drains society's resources.

For example, in my country the taxes are so high, I closed my company last year. My ad revenue is considered "freelancing" and it's taxed only as income, so I don't have to pay VAT (value-added tax) which is 24%. I was also paying a 2500€ yearly mandatory pension payment, which was the main reason I closed my company. And now, without a company, I cannot enter the gaming business, because selling games is in the range of the VAT. I'd be breaking the law selling my games. I'm stuck writing articles.

Leftist governments have to tax everything, including startup companies to keep their system going, but this kills companies and their tax revenues. They are creating poverty by making the economy difficult for people of average intelligence and low starting income.

Both political sides, the right and the left, are correct, and we cannot achieve a workable status quo without taking into account different view points. But the current leftist dogma puts certain values too high on their value hierarchy, which motivates them to sacrifice other important values, ie. freedom of speech, rule of law, the non-aggression principle, which were integral in making western societies the economic power houses of the world.