The standard of living has increased seven-fold in the past century. As a result, the definition of "poverty" is no longer homeless people starving to death, but a family living in a small house who own a car, TV set, and other "luxuries." Yeah, I think capitalism has done a lot to "take care" of people.
And actually, the incentives to "subsidize" the disadvantage have always been there (why do middle-class atheists give to charity?), but that gets into sociobiology.
That's the definition of poverty in the U.S. For the poor in Asia and Africa poverty still means not getting two square meals a day and sometimes starving to death.
Yes, of course.
Uncoincidentally, most of Asia and Africa are not very capitalistic
Re:Bill Gates Goes Back to School
by mynameishere on Friday November 23, 2007 @05:05PM
(#83062)
I am defining "take care" as "subsidize". No, capitalism doesn't "take care" of anybody, and if it did, it wouldn't work.
I'd be very surprised if Bill was using the same definition.
It's usually not a good idea to mix different definitions of a word.
Re:Bill Gates Goes Back to School
by mynameishere on Friday November 23, 2007 @07:09PM
(#83092)
I know. To quote myself:
Maybe something was lost in the translation from reportee [ie Bill] to reporter
Maybe something was lost in the translation from reportee to reporter, but capitalism doesn't "take care" of anybody. And the incentives to "take care" [ie subsidize] the disadvantaged are never going to be there. This is a point of mathematical certainty.
The incentives are of a strictly different type--for instance, the incentive of an evil old billionaire trying to buy his way into heaven.