The Peace Boat representative I blogged about here is dead. Kumar Lewis was killed in Nairobi, Kenya last month, in what a friend tells me was "the senseless result of a botched robbery attempt."Yes, we had our differences when it came to politics, but Kumar was a good person who radiated optimism and cheer to all those around him — even Bush voters. His commitment to peace was deep and sincere, and makes the news of his death all the more appalling.
A memorial website for Kumar has been set up here.
(1) Capitalism is unsustainable because natural resources are limited.
No - capitalism is a machine for using resources, but this is only a problem when the resources used are not effectively owned (privately or by a group). As a result, it is not uncommnon for capitalist, market economies to lead to environmentally destructive practices because either no one owns the resources being used (fisheries, air, water) or private groups are able to plunder unprotected "public" resources.
(2) Wealth cannot be created, because it derives from possession of limited natural resources.
Wrong, of course. Wealth is created as people specialize and trade for products that they desire that others produce. Of course natural resources can be destructively used, if the user does not own the resource or can pass any negative aspects onto others. Look at how markets have created wealth in the computing and information markets!
(3) To make poor people less poor, we must make rich people less rich.
Not true in an absolute sense, but in a psychological sense he may have a point - our perceptions of wealth are essentially relative.
(4) America is not really a land of opportunity, and immigrants who go there thinking it is are mistaken.
Largely wrong, but there is a partial truth here - more and more, the economic and political game in the US is rent-seeking from the government. While there is still remarkable freedom and opportunity, there is an accelerating disparity of income in the US that far exceeds that of other developed countries, though we see the trend elsewhere as well. Elites are starting to run the US for their own benefit rather than the common weal.
Where to start?
GB: With the concept of free-market capitalism being the most efficient system for rationing limited resources?
Yes, and more - our system is the best system for creating wealth, and for allowing collective decision-making on a wide variety of matters without oppressive government involvement.
With the idea that advances in technology increase productivity and create wealth?
Yep.
With the fact that poor people benefit when rich people give them jobs?
Yep.
I'd say the biggest problems we face are inadequate/incomplete property rights relating to important resources,and a growing government-corporate interaction that corrupts both, at the cost of free markets and tax dollars.
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