the complete lack of intelligence from theists and non theists alike in this thread is amazing. earth to socialists, lassiez faire capitalism breeds investment, innovation, technological break throughs, and cheaper goods and services which (gasp increases the standard of living for all people). Get this. People lives actually greatly improved due to the industrial revolution.
I think you need to go back and see exactly what the industrial revolution was. Maybe read some Upton Sinclair about the conditions of the industrial revolution. The workers during the industrial revolution were working for slave wages and were often children. In fact, it was the industrial evolution that made children more productive, their lack of strength of size was no longer a negative, since machines did much of the manual labor, and they could fit in areas to help fix machines because of their smaller size. Not to mention, with parents being payed slave wages the kids needed to work so that the family could survive.
What created the better living conditions coming out of the industrial revolution was actually three different things. One, the sole one that can possibly be attributed to laissez faire would be technological innovation, though there are good arguments to be made that those innovations were inevitable regardless of laissez faire.
Second, the government creating laws protecting workers is what caused the vast improvement in standard of living. Most of the worker protection laws today have their root in the industrial revolution and its many problems.
Third, it was the labor unions that created most of the changes, that stopped the many deaths at factories and promoted a safe working environment and livable wages. And, had the government not passed laws to protect unions, then laissez faire would have crushed them during the industrial revolution.
The increase in wealth and the longer lifespans of people during the period attest to this.
Actually, longer lifespans were not caused by the industrial revolution, rather the rapid increase in lifespan actually corresponds more with social security laws. I'm not claiming that social security is responsible, but it is interesting. The increase in wealth and standard of living in that time period is primarily caused by labor unions.
the very fact that you divide people by socioeconomic classes with Marxist rhetoric of maximizing profits at the expense of the so called pee ons is a clear display of the agenda driven leftists. individualism is morally superior to statist collectivism.
Sorry, noting that there are different socio-economic classes does not make one a Marxist. Marx developed his theory because he saw first hand how the industrial revolution was negatively effecting most people.
Marx though capitalism, not just laissez faire capitalism, was broken. He either did not believe or did not consider that other solutions could be found, such as labor unions and/or government regulation. Most people realize that Marx was wrong in that way and believe a regulated capitalism with some aspects of socialism ends up being the best for all people. Even Republican's tend to agree that we should not have completely unregulated businesses, but that we need child labor laws, business safety laws, etc.
anyone that knows jack about the depression knows that our slave making monetary policy (the federal reserve) that created artificially easy credit to buy stocks on margin was what contributed to the boom of the 20's and the bust of the 30's.
Which ends up being a different debate, that while related does not directly effect the arguments about capitalism (after all, the Federal Reserve is capitalist in nature).
