An amish village is a laughable anachronism that only exist in the context of a much larger whole that is antithetical to the very values and way of life it practices because no larger scale society so constructed could exist or compete with other societies practicing opposing values.
It's not a healthier better way to build a city its a tiny park on a corner lot surrounded by pollution and traffic.
First: yes, it is healthier for those living inside the park, compared to the alternative.
Second: the point is not to build "a larger scale" version of those societies, but actually to replicate the idea of localism in many different places. Less EU and one-world government and more independent nation-states, if you will.
Third: you can oppose the lifestyle and philosophy all you want, but it still is not slavery.
Can it survive against a larger-scale opponent that wants to take its resources, though? Without a friendly superpower enforcing peace with an extraordinarily powerful military, that is.
Thats a primitive way to look at things, and incorrect on so many levels it would take few pages to list them all. To sum it up - their wealth is based on precise high quality manufacturing, and secondly on tourism. Banking is not even up there in top revenues for state.
Or, to put it in similar fashion - the wealth of US is based on plunder. The wealth of all western Europe is based on centuries of plunder.
See, the way you frame your posts leads down the conflict immediately. I've checked some of your posts, and kudos to consistency - you are not interested in rational discussion, just consistent trolling and largely baseless conflict.
Well, good thing that I am not using them as example of "how to get rich", but only on "how to keep yourself small and still avoid being invaded by a stronger power".
But even if you want to talk about wealth of the countries, I'd be extremely eager to hear any example of any wealthy nation with a comparatively better moral ground than the Swiss.
It's a modern nation that had very mighty expansionist empires on their borders. It's also the only country in Western Europe that never intended or desired to join the EU.
Yes but lest we entirely lose track of the thread its not an isolationist nation that foregoes the fruits of globalism or corporatism its merely been willing to do business with everyone including letting nazis bank the gold literally yanked from the mouths of murdered jews.
It's neutrality even in the face of abject evil has nothing whatsoever to do with any topic being discussed.
And this is how you arrive at needing walls and guns to keep people in - because we tend to vote with our feet and leave such sick authoritarian "utopias" at the price of risking our life - freedom is worth it.
Pretty much how all similar communist experiments had to change their country into a prison so that a "dreamer" such as yourself can have his "perfect" society.
You are still arguing the extreme version of a position of the argument, when I was arguing for the less radical side.
I am arguing for localism. Democratic governments that give more power to its people and their representatives in the lower spheres of power. People can (and should) vote with their feet, and communities can (and should) collaborate with each other.
Then nobody prevents you having what to want even today. This is the beauty of capitalism: it’s perfectly fine to have other forms of organizations inside it. There are communes and kibbutz you can join right now.
Anyway, that is besides the point. No one is arguing against "capitalism". The argument is against Globalism and Corporativism. Capitalism, by itself, is amoral. The problem is, e.g, Disney and the NBA kow-towing to the Chinese because of the "Chinese market".
There are many secular intentional communities you can join, right now. I used to live on one; it was great!
But you can’t actually achieve what you call localism for the majority of the population without severely constraining the options for that majority.
And it’s exactly those constraints, which you seem to repeatedly ignore in this and other threads, that people are objecting to. It gives people actually working towards a satisfying localism a bad name, being associated with involuntary ideological constraints.
As it happens, I would be happy to argue against capitalism. I agree no one should argue against markets, but capitalism isn’t markets, it’s entrenched power assigned to those who have accumulated capital for themselves, often justified by “it’s just markets!” when in reality the laws are helping the big capital holders more than is required by just “markets”.
But I won’t argue for localism as a power structure. More local control, OK, maybe, but you seem to think that would lead to more local self reliance. I doubt it.
