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Tips to grow your North Korean Startup

(mrsteinberg.com)
207 points jimhi | 3 comments | 06 Jan 22 18:24 UTC | HN request time: 1.359s | source
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germandiago ◴[06 Jan 22 20:17 UTC] No.29829418[source]▶
This is the sad truth of places like Cuba or North Korea. Everything is forbidden to the point that eating is difficult. So people get corrupted and the guards, etc. just want their part.

None of those things should be illegal. It is really annoying to see how a leader class kills people of hunger and make everything illegal so that now everyone is a criminal for trying to survive.

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FredPret ◴[06 Jan 22 20:24 UTC] No.29829520[source]▶
Communism is taxes and government regulation gone mad
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thechao ◴[06 Jan 22 20:38 UTC] No.29829740[source]▶
Communism is the ownership of the means of production by the workers. You're talking about about an out-of-control regulatory state; maybe one with an authoritarian bent?
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germandiago ◴[06 Jan 22 20:42 UTC] No.29829800[source]▶
He is talking about the history of communism or socialism towards a communism system anywhere it has been applied.

That system you define there just exists in your head. It is not possible. It is like pretending the existence of unicorns. The real one every time ends up in an authoritarian regime.

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beepbooptheory ◴[06 Jan 22 21:07 UTC] No.29830165[source]▶
I mean... if you can't believe in something that hasn't yet existed, how does anything come to be at all? Or do you deny that there is any theoretical thought behind communism at all? Is it just something people suddenly found themselves doing, and it failed and that was that?

How does someone dream of things that are better? How can you have faith in anything at all? Is not the love you feel towards your friends and family kind of like the unicorn you are describing? Do you even really feel love, if its just in your "head"?

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germandiago[dead post] ◴[06 Jan 22 21:16 UTC] No.29830306[source]▶
the_af ◴[06 Jan 22 21:50 UTC] No.29830761[source]▶
> A list of socialist or communist governments now:

> [...] Argentina [...]

No.

Source: I live in Argentina and it's neither socialist nor communist. It's currently center-left capitalist. Our immediately preceding government was center-right capitalist. In the 70s we had far-right capitalist military dictatorship (Chicago boys influenced economy wise, School of the Americas trained).

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germandiago ◴[07 Jan 22 00:51 UTC] No.29833120[source]▶
Argentina is almost socialist in taxing terms. And 21 million of people are subsidized. I do not see a capitalist system subsidizing 21 million people. That is not capitalism. Call it something else.
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malermeister ◴[07 Jan 22 01:14 UTC] No.29833327[source]▶
Isn't it interesting how you're saying a capitalist system you don't like "isn't capitalism", but you complain when others do the same with socialist systems?
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germandiago ◴[07 Jan 22 01:48 UTC] No.29833673[source]▶
You know what a capitalist is in Argentina? Javier Milei (basically a libertarian). The rest goes strictly towards socialism in the sense that is more to the left from that in economic terms.

Capitalism is basically free market, no price controls, prviate property respect and low regulation. Argentina is number 148 in the index of economic freedom. Would you call that capitalist? Not me: https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

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the_af ◴[07 Jan 22 02:42 UTC] No.29834116[source]▶
If the only capitalist in Argentina you know is Milei (far right, self-proclaimed "libertarian", worked under a known criminal of our military dictatorship) then you're out of touch.

Really, consider how you're shifting the goalposts: you only consider far right libertarians as capitalists. The rest of the world disagrees with you.

Anyway, I live in Argentina and you don't. You are wrong.

> That is not capitalism. Call it something else.

No. You must use definitions of capitalism compatible with the current consensus. Otherwise you're playing the same game you keep accusing leftists of, "that's not true capitalism, I mean something else!".

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1. germandiago ◴[07 Jan 22 03:29 UTC] No.29834474[source]▶
Far right is the label you put to degrade Milei. Milei is a libertarian. If that looks to you like "far right" it is your call. For me those are very different things. Apart from this comment: capitalism is free market and low regulations.

By that measure, how capitalist is Argentina? As much as this in the economic freedom index, which could be considered an index of "how capitalist" a country is (position 148): https://www.heritage.org/index/ranking

If this is capitalism...

I do not know what consensus you talk about. Capitalism is low or no regulation and free market. Also, should favor low taxing. Otherwise you have social democracy.

> Anyway, I live in Argentina and you don't. You are wrong.

This is a fallacy of authority, as you can see by the economic freedom index I shared with you. Position 148 next to countries like Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Ecuador... even the communist Laos has a better score in economic freedom!!! I live in Vietnam, Laos is next to where I used to live in Hanoi. If that has more economic freedom than Argentina, Argentina cannot in any way be considered capitalist as such.

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2. int_19h ◴[07 Jan 22 04:25 UTC] No.29834821[source]▶
Social democracy is capitalist. Capitalism is private ownership of the means of production. It has nothing to do with free markets and economic freedom in general, or with high taxes. The only prerequisite for a capitalist system is the ability to buy and sell capital without any limits - that's why it's called capitalism, not free-market-ism or whatever. Free markets predate capitalism.
3. the_af ◴[07 Jan 22 11:03 UTC] No.29837689[source]▶
> Far right is the label you put to degrade Milei. Milei is a libertarian. If that looks to you like "far right" it is your call.

Well, he did work with a criminal from our past military dictatorship...

> . Apart from this comment: capitalism is free market and low regulations. By that measure, how capitalist is Argentina?

By that token there are no capitalist countries at all!

A capitalist country with more regulations than you'd like is exactly that: a capitalist country.

Argentina is not communist. You're embarrassing yourself.

> I live in Vietnam

I've seen you claim you live in all sorts of countries, but whatever.

You are wrong. The only people who agree with your strict definition of "capitalism" are libertarians, a tiny minority. I guess all countries in the world -- the US included -- are communist to you.

Good luck with that.