no it isn’t. the market is not the jungle. business come and go, quite right; but the market ameliorates the operation of biological ‘weedings’ out, it does not exacerbate it. (unlike socialism)
Personally, I find a quick knee in the groin usually has the desired effect[6]
Mises and Rothbard.
This happened to me recently.
What I ended up trying to explain to her recently, and it was in relation to the health care debate, is that things can change not coercively. So, she said she would be willing to pay, lets say, X amount of money per month out of her paycheck. I explained to her she didn’t have the choice, would not know where the money was going, when it increase because it is inclusive, and where it why it increased, because of this or because we were bailing out a corporation. Then I tried to explain that if the gov’t didn’t take her money to help people, she would have more and more productive money to help other people. She seemed to understand this but it didn’t make her change her mind. Then I explain that for some people on the lower end of the economic spectrum, maybe we don’t want to steal other peoples money or else be charged a $3,000+ fine, that we cannot afford that but neither can we afford the assault to our principles.
The other thing I usually go with, and I think it was mentioned in this thread is, so what? Something like “Darwinism is why we get to exist. Was it mean of humans to come into existence at the expense of all of those other animals, who never had a chance because we ended up with thumbs and a frontal lobe? Oh, no! Evolution allowed us to develop into a creature so able to manipulate the world to satisfy their needs, ones who are able to store data about animals million years ago. It is all so terrible, right?”
They are making a utilitarian argument. You are a free market advocate. You automatically win! Come on man!
The free market has developed mass production through division of labor and technology. As such, basic goods and services have gotten drastically cheaper and easier to afford. In this way, the free market is constantly expanding to provide near universal wealth to all.
In the middle ages, 1 man could barely feed 10. There were food shortages every decade and it sucked. Now 1 man can feed 1000. So food has gotten 100x easier to produce because of the free market. In the future, this ratio will continue to increase.
So which society has an easier time feeding its poor?
Your critics assume that social darwinism means that the “weakest” will regularly be dieing. The opposite is true. As the market expands and becomes more efficient, the level of fitness needed to survive decreases.
The fallacy your friends are falling into is that they are middle class and think that if everyone else isn’t middle class there is something wrong with the world. This is a very subjective and narrow viewpoint. Even if you have to concede to them that they are right, make them realize that the free market will eventually make middle-class goods cheap enough for the poor.
Coercive charity will only slow down this progress. The best a socialist can possibly do is make everyone equal for about 15 seconds before producers realizes their incentives have been cut.
I bet in 1000 years, people will be complaining that warp speed space travel isn’t a human right.