Farmland conversion and landfill sites

[danbrotherston]

IMO expropriation is an extreme measure. The land expropriated should be required to be used DIRECTLY for the common good, and maintained in common ownership. The idea that the government can take my house---even at fair market value---and give it to a private corporation for nothing more than the "promise" of jobs...is frankly, abhorrent. If the government really thinks that maintaining industrial lands is in the common interest, they can be a landlord and manage them.

This happening in the past does not make it right now...

As for alternatives...the alternative of lower GDP growth isn't exactly the horrific outcome that neocons would like you to think. Europe has had much lower GDP growth than the US and yet Europe is a far better place to live.

And that's before you even get into anything as radical as questioning capitalism...Europe is strongly capitalist.

Europe is also strongly protectionist and physically not connected to the US. We are in a rough spot and can’t be as independent as you would think, or else things get a lot worse. It’s already a significant productivity and growth gap between us and the US. We can’t cover that up by being physically distant from the US like Europe can. People will get mad if the quality of life gap gets bigger over time. Europe also gives a metric fuckton of subsidies to their own industry for better or worse…

Handouts to industry is annoying and yet here we are..

If there is one thing nobody in Canada is worried about, it's us having a lower quality of life than the US. Like I said, the only people worried about the growing productivity gap are Chicago school economists and the politicians they have enthralled. The rest of us are looking at the reality of living in the two countries and feeling pretty fucking smug about Canada's choices.

I do agree that Europe is in a better place compared with Canada in terms of ability to resist US influence.

Also, what Bytor says is absolutely true, the problem is not the subsidies for industry, which as you correctly point out occurs in Europe as well, but the use of government power to seize private land with no consultation and transfer that land to wealthy private (likely foreign) corporations for private enrichment. When framed that way, I cannot believe that anyone supports it.