Correct. I forget the figure, but the amount of "money" that's circulating in global markets is X times (10 or 20?) bigger than the amount of value produced by "real economy" (services and all sorts of commodities). Finance is a world of its own, disconnected from real life. I once read an excellent book by Nicholas Shaxton "The Finance Curse". It might be of interest to you because he deals especially with the situation in the UK, which is more extreme than in France.

You obviously completely misunderstood my post. It's all about people being embedded in a societal web of interconnectedness and interdependence. No vacuum.

@Thibaud70 I must have. You made it sound like you think taxing was unnatural and unjustified. Are you suggesting liberals think that?! That's even crazier.

@ChestRockfield There seems to be some big confusion going on. It's 9:30 p.m. in France and I'm too tired to sort it out.
BTW Taxes are unnatural, they are political, and the sphere of politics is not the continuation of nature.

@Thibaud70
First of all, the terms natural/unnatural need to be specifically defined here. Technically, anything we do is a result of evolution, so in a sense, it's all natural. But after you define those terms, you're going to have another issue to tackle.

Taxes are no more unnatural than societies themselves. Animals, even insects, that live in societies communicate and cooperate, taking on varying roles to perform vital functions for the good of the group. The jobs they do are their way of contributing to the society which is essentially no different than a tax system. We just use currency as a way of bartering goods and services more easily and making our contribution to the society that allows us to survive and earn that money to begin with.

Maybe read a little about animal societies and tell me how that's not the same natural process we've come to live with...
[bio.libretexts.org].

@ChestRockfield money makes it easier for parasitic class hierarchy to exist,as does the law ultimately,and if everyone knew the law,no one could get away with using money to control the law.

@laidback1 What law(s) specifically are you referring to?

@Thibaud70 Well, it's been a couple days. Any response?

@ChestRockfield the entirety of the law itself... Common law judges basically make shit up as they go a long

@laidback1 How could people knowing [all the] laws prevent rich people from using it to their advantage, exactly?

@ChestRockfield cause they couldn't get away with breaking the law.. watch introduction to the law on YouTube. Can't recall which video exactly, but she pretty much says most judges just make it up as they go a long... it's a separate class of people who just make shit up and force everyone outside Their club to follow.. that's not "Right" Justice is about being "right" injury is not right...

I know the difference, but both are on a spectrum, and both shared some basic assumptions. Just look at the WORDS: it's about liberty, freedom. Details may vary, but the core is identical in both cases

@Thibaud70 BS, they are diametrically opposed in philsophy, and every other outlook.
words have meaning and if you willfully drag in 2 completely opposing outlooks and then try to base your thesis upon it, you merely look foolish.
name one (major0 thing livberal and libertarians have in common...Liberals believe in the common good, like schools & paygrounds for kids and various forms of social help for those who need it. Libertarians are ''too bad for everybody else, and i'll build my own sidewalk if i need it and use my guns to keep others off of it'. See any (Glaring!) differences?

@AnneWimsey You are living in your American bubble, unable to see beyond its concepts and labels. ---- I'm off.

@Thibaud70 really...define each position from your Eurpoperspective, take all the time you need.
you have not offered one Fact yet, nor have you explained how or why you somehow connected these radically different ideas to throw in your Word Salad post....i suspect you did it because they have the same few letters beginning their names, what deeeeeeep "thinking".

I don't think it is very useful quibbling over words. The typical Conservative in the US is liberal with regards to the economy (its ancestry goes back to Classical Liberalism in the 18th century) and to guns, and to religion as well - but anti-liberal about drugs, abortion and other cultural issues.
I think it is more useful discussing about concepts than these labels.
I'm a socialist when it comes to the economy, but conservative on many cultural issues, and in my mind the two sides get along very well, they don't jar.

@Thibaud70
I agree, it’s more useful to talk about concepts than labels, but in a case where some of the labels are culturally reversed there’s going to be a lot of unnecessary confusion if the labeling issue isn’t addressed.

In today’s divided atmosphere in the U.S. one drop of conservatism of any kind makes you a thoroughgoing Conservative, and same with Liberalism. They are arch enemies in the common mind, and there appears to be no tolerance for, or understanding of any nuance or shades of gray.

An example from personal experience - even though I support Bernie Sanders’ economics, Roe v Wade, liberal immigration policies, gender equality, racial equality, gay rights, religious liberty including freedom “from” religion, climate action, assault weapon bans, egalitarianism, and so on… I am cursed on this site as a “goddamned conservative” (not to mention the enormously humorous “Christian apologist” ) just because I report the latest scientific findings on the evolutionary roots of religion.

We’re not strong on subtlety here in the United States of Divided Tribal Identity.

@skado I see what you mean. And we have deep and toxic political divisions too here in France, being on the brink of a new revolution or even worse, just because of a pension reform. We just use different labels. The Left here loathes President Macron because he is a liberal ! (and he is indeed, especially when it's about the economy).
I think I'll write a post soon about the core difference between the two sides, as I see it (or rather as one of my favorite philosophers: Jean-Claude Michéa sees it)

@skado For the record, I never called you a conservative. I don't believe I've seen any of the people you argue with say that either. I have called you an apologist and still fully believe you to be one because of your tactics. I think you're misguided, and maybe a little harmful to society at large, but nothing compared to the harm done by "out" religious people and conservatives. You would be the happy medium I could tolerate if I could magically dial back the craziness of the religious right.

@ChestRockfield
Well, for the record I didn't mention you, and I have definitely been called a conservative on this site, and much worse.

But for the sake of discussion, since the word apologist can have different meanings based on context, what do you have in mind when you use that word? In the most generic sense it just means anyone who defends any idea. So in that sense, I'm no more or less an apologist than you or anyone else here. In the historical sense it's mostly Christians arguing against science. But when I go on Christian sites they call me an apologist for atheism because all I really ever argue for anywhere is sound reasoning based on history and a scientific view of human nature.

I don't feel any need to change your mind about me or about religion, but I am curious to understand what you think I am an apologist for. As far as I am aware, I am just an "apologist" for evolution theory.

@skado
We've debated this enough, and the same thing happens each time. You move the goal posts or agument your argument from the initial crazy thing you say to a more muted defensible position. I think it's disingenuous and intentionally takes advantage of people who don't have a keen eye for logical fallacies or don't give a tremendous amount of thought to things. You're the 'mud-slinging attack ad' of religious apologists, so to speak. Steal as much support as you can with as little work and substance as needed, and try to passify people like me and @Fernapple with long, drawn-out debates you fallacy your way out of to lessen our effect on your tactics.
And if that's what gets you off, great for you I guess. I think it's wrong, but it's really not that big a deal. Like I said, I still don't find this to be as awful or dangerous as Republicans. People who get swayed to tolerate religion are hardly the people I see attacking the Capitol and trying to overthrow the government. A real problem that we're actually facing in this country right now.

@ChestRockfield
Apparently we have not debated it enough, because there are clearly misunderstandings. Let's debate it again more carefully. If you insist on accusing me of something but then won't explain what you are accusing me of, it looks like you are the one moving the goalposts and doing the mudslinging.

Please have the patience to hold my feet to the fire. Let's state clearly at the outset what the goalposts are so we can refer back to them if the conversation strays. Let's give each other the benefit of the doubt until we have both been able to articulate our positions fully. If you have a keen eye for logical fallacies please point them out as they arise and give me an opportunity learn from my mistakes and correct them, or to explain why I think it's not a fallacy.

If you make an accusation but then are not willing to explain what you mean, it makes you look like just another hit-and-run artist, like so many others, who don't have any idea why they believe what they believe but are happy to project their ignorance onto others and then deflect and dodge when asked to back it up. But I don't think that's who you are. I suspect you have more integrity than that, and I bet you can even hold your own without Fern's help.

Tell me what you mean by "apologist". I might agree with you. Fern finally agreed that he and I are like identical twins. Who knows - maybe we are triplets.

@skado No fern still disagreees on a few fundamental issues, such as: the Bible was writen in a single literary genre and that genre is wholy disernable, that all myth is a good way to address problems and that none of it is or was made with bad intent, which can be superceeded by better modern myths, and that societies become happier as they move away from traditional religion.

@Fernapple
It’s true we don’t agree on all the facts of history and biology, but our values are nearly identical. We want a healthy, honest, fair and compassionate world. As far as the issues you list though, none of that sounds like anything I’ve ever said or believed. If you remove the all-or-none language, and speak in terms of degrees, you might be moving closer to things I’ve actually said, but maybe not a lot closer. Not much of it sounds familiar to me.

Yes! A concept like "intellectual property" is nonsense outside a certain type of society: where the autonomous individual is the beginning and end of society

@Thibaud70 This is a perfect example to highlight why taxes are paid, who they are paid to, and how they interact with society.
Intellectual property is a thing in smaller individual societies, but globally it's nonsense. Other countries to not abide by our IP laws where they don't need to. Part of people paying taxes to their government is that the government protects their IP so they can make money off of it. And this makes sense why companies don't pay "global taxes". The whole world isn't providing any benefits to you that you need to fund. So, if you don't want to pax taxes to the society you live in, you don't deserve the benefits that society provides.