This is all worth a read -- short version, disposable diapers are now a "human right" and someone who grew up in the old USSR has some insight on how this all works. A key quote:
"Socialism conserves the stage in which the society existed at the time it was overtaken. Cubans still drive American cars from the 1950s, North Koreans still dress in the fashions of the same bygone era, and in the USSR I grew up in a government-owned house that was taken from the rich and given to the needy in 1920s and remained without indoor plumbing or running water and with ancient electrical wiring until it was condemned and demolished in 1986."
This is how the ex-socialist utopia citizen viewed the process ... I lifted it from the article, but my usual quoting indent didn't work for some reason.
This is how the process happens today, time-wise.
- When capitalist entrepreneurs create a new product or service, it is usually expensive and is only available to the rich.
- Once rich customers have parted with enough money to buy the new product, the entrepreneurs have accumulated enough capital to send it to mass production, making it affordable to the middle class.
- Once the market is saturated, the government steps in, declares the product a "human right," and provides it to the needy for free. All the costs are covered by the taxes extracted from the entrepreneurs who invented the product and from the rich who already paid for its mass production.
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