Gaming World Forums
General Category => General Talk => Topic started by: libtard on June 28, 2012, 10:29:09 pm
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People will be forced to buy health insurance and health insurance companies will be forced to sell their product to anyone who wants it.
I heard healthcare is pretty expensive in US compared to other developed countries, so, how does that help lower the costs? Won't that cause healthcare costs to rise because there will be an increase in demand but not an increase in the supply of medical services? Maybe everyone is entitled to their health thingies but all that does is change the order in which people have access to it.
Discuss.
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It's a minor, yet positive change to a healthcare system that's an abomination compared to the rest of the developed world. It'll be slightly better than before, but it'll still be pretty awful and absurdly expensive.
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How do you feel now that Obamacare was ruled constitutional?
same
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I mean the public has been in favor of a major reform of the healthcare system for a long time, and when you explain the different possible forms they tend to prefer single-payer. They have for a long time. Yet when it comes up, there's "no political capital" for it. What does that mean? It means the healthcare industry and the insurance companies and the financial companies are against it. It doesn't mean the people are against it. It's like that in every country generally, but it's just extreme in the US.
My dad tends to be a lot more nuanced about these things than me, but he told me that when he saw the free, makeshift clinics that get set up in the US to provide basic healthcare for poor people, it looked like the third world to him. And he's right. These people sometimes don't even have access to a GP.
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Yeah your healthcare is ridiculous. I don't know a lot about it, but I don't know anyone in New Zealand who pays for health insurance or hospital visits.
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It means the healthcare industry and the insurance companies and the financial companies are against it. It doesn't mean the people are against it. It's like that in every country generally, but it's just extreme in the US.
ie the immensely rich people who control all the big companies spend billions of dollars lobbying for or against this shit in their own self-interest, and then us peons get to sit here and discuss its merits as if it actually matters which I think u all will agree is a pretty sweet deal and will definitely keep me debating if I will vote democrat or republican in the upcoming election or maybe I'll go really crazy and vote for ron paul because his name is like LOVE spelled backwards or something
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it'll depend on how whatever state you're living in moves with it. the good and bad thing is that you'll likely see a bunch of cheap/subsidized bare-bones insurance plans popping up for low income people that don't really cover much beyond emergency care and annual checkups(it might even be only partial coverage as well lol sorry poors).
idk i got kicked off my folks' insurance so i kinda need something in case of an accident and even my school's insurance plans are not affordable at all. hopefully once it's mandated that we gotta get it i can get some kind of subsidized walmart health insurance and then i'll be good for an eye exam.
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i wonder if dental is gonna be covered in this(LOL NOPE)
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I torn about it honestly. The fact that the insurance companies are fighting it makes me think it'll be good. But from what I hear I'm not sure how it'll be enforceable. (You exist, thus must have health insurance, oh? can't afford it? uhhh... hmmm...) Also, I don't generally consider myself a constitutionalist, so this doesn't bother me that much, but I am a little confused at how it was ruled constitutional.
But really, I also don't quite understand why the insurance companies are fighting it. Wouldn't this drastically increase their profits? Or am I missing something?
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I torn about it honestly. The fact that the insurance companies are fighting it makes me think it'll be good. But from what I hear I'm not sure how it'll be enforceable. (You exist, thus must have health insurance, oh? can't afford it? uhhh... hmmm...) Also, I don't generally consider myself a constitutionalist, so this doesn't bother me that much, but I am a little confused at how it was ruled constitutional.
But really, I also don't quite understand why the insurance companies are fighting it. Wouldn't this drastically increase their profits? Or am I missing something?
Imagine you found out you had cancer but you never bothered to buy insurance. Now you can just buy it and receive expensive treatment without ever contributing to their profits. Before they could refuse your offer.
I think it would be a better idea to find out why healthcare is so expensive (taxes, regulations, whatever) when it isn't in other countries (actual costs, not post-subside/paid by taxes costs) and try to make it affordable by removing those barriers but it would be against people's feelings, so...... whatever
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The fact that the insurance companies are fighting it makes me think it'll be good.
What makes you think this?
The changes are rather small and it's 30 million new customers for them. People get a subsidy if they can't afford it, so I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be better off in the end, even if the healthcare system itself is also slightly improved.
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It's mighty grim that even this consolation prize legislation was only upheld by a majority of 1 vote on the supreme court, but I suppose a minor improvement isn't a bad thing. I've never looked very closely at the US health care system but I know enough to know how small an improvement to a very unfair system this is and how much resistance there has been to even this. I'll keep following the issue, perhaps more closely, and see if this results in either the entire topic being shelved for a while - which would be a shame, with all the political capital that has been used on it with disappointing results - or if there are improvements made from a place other than top-down like this was. My feeling on issues like this is that you can't really expect much from people like Obama, or any high up politician. This is all very obvious to the more political people around here, or around anywhere, but it's about as developed as I have gotten (so far).
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What makes you think this?
The changes are rather small and it's 30 million new customers for them. People get a subsidy if they can't afford it, so I wouldn't be surprised if they'll be better off in the end, even if the healthcare system itself is also slightly improved.
the thing about all this though is that the 90-something dollar fine a year for not having insurance under this bullshit will probably be cheaper for most people uninsured and the kind of insurance that'll be affordable(even with subsidies) will be the horrible shitty kind that make you pay for medicine and probably most of the cost for emergency room visits. Sure you can get your yearly physical, maybe an eye exam, but mostly it'll be like a buffer for people who have accidents that would otherwise ruin them financially and the only way to get insurance companies cool with that is to widen the 'pool' of people paying them each month for nothing.
it'll be like liability insurance with your car where it's like 50 bucks a month just to cover your ass, but if you get in a wreck you're kinda fucked in terms of getting money to repair your car.
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I think it would be a better idea to find out why healthcare is so expensive (taxes, regulations, whatever)
um this information is not really a secret...
PS it's not taxes and regulations you dumb idiot
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I'll keep following the issue, perhaps more closely, and see if this results in either the entire topic being shelved for a while - which would be a shame, with all the political capital that has been used on it with disappointing results - or if there are improvements made from a place other than top-down like this was.
tell me, what do you think about the term "political capital"?
supposedly it pertains to what the people/voters will let the president get away with doing. so if he's popular, he'll have a lot of political capital, and if he's impopular it's the opposite. but let's say he decided to further reform the healthcare system, or try for single-payer again (he's never gonna do this but let's say he tried it), would the people/voters would say "no, you've done enough"? I don't think they would.
it's mostly what diet said about how the only way he was able to do this was through widening the pool for the insurance companies: give some and take some. but that's done now, so there's no financial incentive for the corporations involved in healthcare to let him do more. "political capital" probably refers to that, rather than the voters.
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partly it's because we keep our 89 year old grandparents alive with tens of thousands of dollars in preventative treatment and also because we have no single payer system to provide competition to the market insurance companies which tend to act as a cartel in setting prices and also because of the fucked nature of our for-profit medical sector which also skews prices to being way too expensive
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I torn about it honestly. The fact that the insurance companies are fighting it makes me think it'll be good. But from what I hear I'm not sure how it'll be enforceable. (You exist, thus must have health insurance, oh? can't afford it? uhhh... hmmm...) Also, I don't generally consider myself a constitutionalist, so this doesn't bother me that much, but I am a little confused at how it was ruled constitutional.
But really, I also don't quite understand why the insurance companies are fighting it. Wouldn't this drastically increase their profits? Or am I missing something?
I'll take a crack at answering your questions:
The enforcement of the law comes through the IRS. When you do your taxes each year they're be a box on the form asking if you have health insurance, depending on the answer your tax return will be more or less. The penalty currently being $695 or 2.5% of your families income, whichever is higher.
The constitutionality comes into play because they made the case that Congress has the ability authorize new taxes, and that the mandate fell under that authority.
Finally, the reason that insurance companies are fighting this so much is that there is a new regulation that requires them to use 80% of the money coming in for health care costs. So they won't be seeing the mega profits that they had in the past. Hope that answers your questions.
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Oh. Thanks Grunthor! Welcome back! :)
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um this information is not really a secret...
PS it's not taxes and regulations you dumb idiot
DEM EVIL CORPORASHUNZ ONLY CARE ABOUT THEIR PROFITS!!
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My parents are in the healthcare field so I know from experience that this transitional period between the healthcare systems is pretty stressful. I think it might be a little bit worse for a bit as the healthcare people scramble to get things in line with the new regulations, but I support the change and think in time it will be an improvement.
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DEM EVIL CORPORASHUNZ ONLY CARE ABOUT THEIR PROFITS!!
It shows a certain amount of naivety to believe that profits aren't the number one priority for any business. So even though I'm sure you were attempting sarcasm, you were actually largely correct.
You also used the phrase obamacare in the OP and then went on to present cancer sufferers receiving treatment even though they haven't previouslt paid in as a negative.
Sounds like someone isn't a huge fan of equality!!!
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Yeah, anything that doesn't affect the shareholders is nothing to worry about. Those are just externalities that don't show up in the end-of-year report. It's actually a legal requirement for companies in many Western countries to pursue only the interests of the company and its shareholders. Whether they're an ethical company or not (sort of an oxymoron) doesn't really matter beyond marketing and public image purposes. And if any CEO of such a company decided to put profit aside in favor of actually helping people in an appropriate manner, he'd be thrown out and replaced with someone else immediately.
The inability of these corporations to voluntarily take steps towards improving the healthcare coverage they give to people, by favoring their interests over those of the shareholders, stems from the organizational structure to which they're bound.
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Which if you really think about it is both unethical and VERY shortsighted. (that is, focusing on profit, something that is only measurable in immediate results)
Sorry to throw in an less important industry: its why Activision is they way they are right now. Yeah, they raked in billions, but now they have like 2-3 Major IP's left. Once those grow stale in consumers eyes Activision going to have some nasty trouble. Also, everyone basically hates them, and Bobby Kotick (activisions CEO) has said some laughably evil-executive like things.
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The inability of these corporations to voluntarily take steps towards improving the healthcare coverage they give to people, by favoring their interests over those of the shareholders, stems from the organizational structure to which they're bound.
this is exactly why I get annoyed when people want to remove regulations on businesses like minimum wage. It completely ignores the reason these regulations exist.
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Which if you really think about it is both unethical and VERY shortsighted. (that is, focusing on profit, something that is only measurable in immediate results)
According to the capitalist notion, it's perfectly ethical to focus only on profit, because that's how the system is supposed to work: people "vote with their money". Of course, there are lots of reasons for why this doesn't "work". (I put that in quotation marks because capitalism isn't really meant to "work" in the way that people think it is.)
A corporation is basically a piece of society that's sectioned off from public view and accountability. Since our lives are virtually entirely controlled by them, what it comes down to in practice is that regular people end up having no say whatsoever in how most society is run. We have to accept it, and even the slightest protest is taken as an attack on capitalism itself and faced with rebuke from "both" parties (guess I'll pretend I'm an American since we're on the subject of Obamacare, but also because it's the most iconic capitalist state).
I don't think private corporations are even compatible with the notion of democracy to begin with, in any shape or form. At least, I don't see how reducing public accountability (which is basically what private corporations do, by definition and design) can be.
ps: I really feel like a lousy armchair anarchist/hipster when I write these posts.
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For those who miss Glenn Beck: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/06/29/glenn-beck-sells-t-shirts_n_1638229.html
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It shows a certain amount of naivety to believe that profits aren't the number one priority for any business. So even though I'm sure you were attempting sarcasm, you were actually largely correct.
You also used the phrase obamacare in the OP and then went on to present cancer sufferers receiving treatment even though they haven't previouslt paid in as a negative.
Sounds like someone isn't a huge fan of equality!!!
http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png (http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png)
Yeah, obviously the high costs are due to profits and profits only.
this is exactly why I get annoyed when people want to remove regulations on businesses like minimum wage. It completely ignores the reason these regulations exist.
It would be hard to find another way to please unions, but I guess the inflation is a small cost compared to being a president (eating expensive food and travelling everywhere for free)
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According to the capitalist notion, it's perfectly ethical to focus only on profit, because that's how the system is supposed to work: people "vote with their money". Of course, there are lots of reasons for why this doesn't "work". (I put that in quotation marks because capitalism isn't really meant to "work" in the way that people think it is.)
Money is just a medium of exchange, something to make trading things easier, so I think it would be more correct to say that it's a system where people vote with their value (or at least it should be). Money itself is pretty useless, even more so now that most of it is actually intangible. You could still use paper bills as toilet paper. You could still turn coins into a paper weight. What can you do with a bunch of zeroes and ones? People accumulate value by assembling useful artifacts out of natural resources or developing useful skills. Stuff in general doesn't work not because of evil profit seekers, but because people tend to fuck up/ignore perfectly fine ideas and somehow reward the bad ones if they sound good enough and feelings. Economic calculation problem, what is that lol? I want muh equality!
A corporation is basically a piece of society that's sectioned off from public view and accountability. Since our lives are virtually entirely controlled by them, what it comes down to in practice is that regular people end up having no say whatsoever in how most society is run. We have to accept it, and even the slightest protest is taken as an attack on capitalism itself and faced with rebuke from "both" parties (guess I'll pretend I'm an American since we're on the subject of Obamacare, but also because it's the most iconic capitalist state).
Attacks on capitalism are pretty lame because they usually consist of people complaining about a situation they helped create like it's everyone else's fault but their own / people being nonsensical in general because feelings. Just give me a minute to update my facebook status with my macbook pro and drink my coca-cola and then I'll fight those evil capitalists a bit more.
I don't think private corporations are even compatible with the notion of democracy to begin with, in any shape or form. At least, I don't see how reducing public accountability (which is basically what private corporations do, by definition and design) can be.
A corporation is a group of people who provides goods/services to people who feel such products have more value to them than their idle time or whatever good they possess. It's a win-win situation. If they fail to meet the consumer standards they stop operating (because of LOL NO PROFITZ) and someone takes their place. Unless... Unless they had some kind of institution that they could count on to leave people with no choice but consume their products, that could enforce a monopoly, that had access to unlimited firepower and the ability of cancel anyone's rights at will... OH WAIT! They already do! it's called a "state".
ps: I really feel like a lousy armchair anarchist/hipster when I write these posts.
It's ok because corporations can still profit from you
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Like, WHY DOES A BANDAGE COST 500 DOLLARS?
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ps: I really feel like a lousy armchair anarchist/hipster when I write these posts.
well you sound like a normal person who just isn't completely ignorant on the matter. like you need to be an anarchist or hipster to have any understanding of the systems that control our society
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ps: I really feel like a lousy armchair anarchist/hipster when I write these posts.
ideas about 'legitimacy' or 'authenticity' are difficult when you're surrounded by capitalism all the time
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http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png (http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png)
Congratulations, you've proved nothing, and you've disproved nothing I said. This is a random, decontextualized statistic, not an argument nor an analysis.
It would be hard to find another way to please unions, but I guess the inflation is a small cost compared to being a president (eating expensive food and travelling everywhere for free)
I literally don't even know what this means.
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Money is just a medium of exchange, something to make trading things easier, so I think it would be more correct to say that it's a system where people vote with their value (or at least it should be). Money itself is pretty useless, even more so now that most of it is actually intangible. You could still use paper bills as toilet paper. You could still turn coins into a paper weight. What can you do with a bunch of zeroes and ones? People accumulate value by assembling useful artifacts out of natural resources or developing useful skills. Stuff in general doesn't work not because of evil profit seekers, but because people tend to fuck up/ignore perfectly fine ideas and somehow reward the bad ones if they sound good enough and feelings. Economic calculation problem, what is that lol? I want muh equality!
Wealth is not the same thing as "value", at least according to my definition. Value means you've helped or improved society in some way. I'm not attacking money as a medium of exchange. The traditional capitalist notion is that money is basically society saying "thanks, here's a fair reward for your service", but that doesn't take into account the fact that some transactions in a capitalist system can be extremely systemically damaging, and the fact that there are externalities.
So if I sell you a car, for example, it might be a good deal for both of us, but the rest of Salt World had no say in the matter despite the fact they're affected too (another car on the road, more exhaust gases, increased greenhouse gas effect leading to global warming, higher chance of accidents, et cetera).
And then there's the immensely powerful financial corporations. They bounce around money like a game of ping-pong. So if a trader makes an automated investment in a company and sells the shares a few minutes later to make a million dollars, does that help society in any way? As we can see from the latest financial crisis, it's actually extremely dangerous to the system as a whole. Probably nothing positive about it whatsoever (the opacity makes it hard to tell). In a state-capitalist society, banks have a function: they invest your and my unused money into useful things, like the creation of a new company or someone's education. That's not what's being done anymore, and these practices are causing serious, mostly hidden damage to the economy.
Same with the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the planet is probably going to undergo significant if not catastrophic climate change doesn't show up on the end-of-year balance sheet, so it's irrelevant to the perpetrators. Just because you made some money doesn't mean you've actually done anything positive.
People can't "vote with their money", whether you want to call it value or not. These things are permitted to happen because we consider the "profit doesn't lie" model to be sacred. It's probably going to end up having very bad global consequences, and as we can see in the last major climate summit in Durban, there's still no real incentive for the US to start taking serious steps to avoid catastrophe despite the fact that our current understanding of the science very clearly calls for them.
Capitalism doesn't "not work" because of consumer failure (which is what I think you're suggesting, although you're being very vague), but because of the institutional structure. All of this is a deliberate framework that favors sharp inequality, which is why the business world is so class-conscious.
Attacks on capitalism are pretty lame because they usually consist of people complaining about a situation they helped create like it's everyone else's fault but their own / people being nonsensical in general because feelings. Just give me a minute to update my facebook status with my macbook pro and drink my coca-cola and then I'll fight those evil capitalists a bit more.
We're all tainted. There's not much you can do about that. Either you boycott everything and become an anarcho-primitivist, voiding your ability to enact change, or you accept that you're part of the system.
A corporation is a group of people who provides goods/services to people who feel such products have more value to them than their idle time or whatever good they possess. It's a win-win situation. If they fail to meet the consumer standards they stop operating (because of LOL NO PROFITZ) and someone takes their place. Unless... Unless they had some kind of institution that they could count on to leave people with no choice but consume their products, that could enforce a monopoly, that had access to unlimited firepower and the ability of cancel anyone's rights at will... OH WAIT! They already do! it's called a "state".
I think everybody here understands what a corporation is and what they do. The point, however, is that everything is done opaquely and without public accountability. Which leads to situations like the US healthcare system, which is a massive ripoff with some of the worst outcomes in the developed world (and, thus, very profitable). What the public needs is to have a say in what goes on in society, and the corporate system is structurally defined to prevent that.
Take something like hydraulic fracking, for example: it destroys the environment and significantly impacts the people living in the area. The result is an increase in inequality, because a small elite group reaps massive profits while the many get left behind with flammable and undrinkable tap water.
I don't think we even need to discuss why removing the state from the picture, like some right-libertarians would like, would be disastrous (both for the people as well as for the corporations). If you're interested I can explain, but this is such a fringe opinion that I'm not even sure you share it.
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Wealth is not the same thing as "value", at least according to my definition. Value means you've helped or improved society in some way. I'm not attacking money as a medium of exchange. The traditional capitalist notion is that money is basically society saying "thanks, here's a fair reward for your service", but that doesn't take into account the fact that some transactions in a capitalist system can be extremely systemically damaging, and the fact that there are externalities.
Wealth isn't my definition of value either. Wealth is an abundance of material resources. The value of something is a product of how rare it is by how much someone wants it, and is completely subjective. If you're in the desert with all your gold bullions I'm pretty sure they won't be as valuable as water (which is free). Your vision of value is a collectivist utilitarian one, where it is defined more or less by how much happiness an action adds to a society, but would you bother working your ass off in a coal mine if it did more to improve the living conditions of CHRIS-CHAN than your own? I don't think so, people would have to force you to do that at gunpoint. By the way you could also force people to protect the environment and adopt sustainable consumer practices at gunpoint if you wanted but I think it's better to let them learn with their own failures, like europe learned with the black plague that being filthy is bad for several reasons.
So if I sell you a car, for example, it might be a good deal for both of us, but the rest of Salt World had no say in the matter despite the fact they're affected too (another car on the road, more exhaust gases, increased greenhouse gas effect leading to global warming, higher chance of accidents, et cetera).
Think about it. People only care about the environmental effects of cars now because for a brief moment owing one was a good idea and they were allowed to find out why it really isn't in the end. I, personally, wouldn't, because I live in a city and the cost of purchasing and maintaining one is much greater than walking/bus riding and I'm poor. It adds me no marginal utility. Why would I even need to hear from the rest of saltworld when being a bad deal is reason enough for me to not conduct the exchange? If everyone made better choices themselves the result would be a collective improvement, but, noooo!!! I have a better idea, let's have a popularity contest and give him a massive amount of power over everything (which no one else should have) to the winner. We'll hold him accountable, so that we'll be able to punish him after he does something that affects millions negatively. Nothing can go wrong with that plan, right??
And then there's the immensely powerful financial corporations. They bounce around money like a game of ping-pong. So if a trader makes an automated investment in a company and sells the shares a few minutes later to make a million dollars, does that help society in any way? As we can see from the latest financial crisis, it's actually extremely dangerous to the system as a whole. Probably nothing positive about it whatsoever (the opacity makes it hard to tell).
So fucking what? They're earning residual monopoly money which is essentially worthless. It's not like they're force feeding crack cocaine to small children.
In a state-capitalist society, banks have a function: they invest your and my unused money into useful things, like the creation of a new company or someone's education. That's not what's being done anymore, and these practices are causing serious, mostly hidden damage to the economy.
No, in a state-capitalist society the government will try to maintain a trade balance surplus by coercive methods, which is what happened when monarchies were all cool in Europe and no one else (except China and other backwards countries) does that anymore because that's a retarded ass idea that benefits a few people in detriment to everyone who actually produces stuff. The function of a bank in any society is to hoard valuable stuff and lend it for a fee (interests). Lending is a form of investment, and I agree that it should be used to fund useful stuff (activities that are most likely going to be profitable, decreasing the risk of a default). What happens now is that banks are forced to make risky investments (i.e: allowing someone to buy a house that he normally wouldn't because he wouldn't be able to afford it, or even worse, allowing someone to buy a house because he thinks someone in the future will pay big bucks for it) and they're not allowed to fail (all at the detriment of everyone else), which in turn encourages them to take more risks. It's like how having seat belts/airbags/other safety features on cars encourages people to drive more dangerously.
Same with the extraction and burning of fossil fuels. The fact that the planet is probably going to undergo significant if not catastrophic climate change doesn't show up on the end-of-year balance sheet, so it's irrelevant to the perpetrators. Just because you made some money doesn't mean you've actually done anything positive.
People can't "vote with their money", whether you want to call it value or not. These things are permitted to happen because we consider the "profit doesn't lie" model to be sacred. It's probably going to end up having very bad global consequences, and as we can see in the last major climate summit in Durban, there's still no real incentive for the US to start taking serious steps to avoid catastrophe despite the fact that our current understanding of the science very clearly calls for them.
Again, "It's not my fault, it's US and they have to take measures!". The "profit doesn't lie" is adopted because it's stupid to make too much effort for stuff that is not worth it. Maybe if everyone cared only about everyone else everything would be free and there would be no evil profit seeking, but that's just not the way people work. We're not ants. Things are permitted to happen because there's nothing physical that prohibits them. Maybe those conditions will be met someday, maybe someday it will be possible to build underwater cities. Good intentions will be of no consequence in the long term.
Capitalism doesn't "not work" because of consumer failure (which is what I think you're suggesting, although you're being very vague), but because of the institutional structure. All of this is a deliberate framework that favors sharp inequality, which is why the business world is so class-conscious.
What institutional structure? Capitalism is just about having a low time preference. What you're talking about is a system that benefits a few individuals, imposes itself on everyone else through the use of force and is dominated by con artists (what does that remind me of, hmmm?). That comes for free with a state. And why is inequality even a bad thing? You're not an injection molded android equal to everyone you know. Tesla was not your equal.
We're all tainted. There's not much you can do about that. Either you boycott everything and become an anarcho-primitivist, voiding your ability to enact change, or you accept that you're part of the system.
Now you sound like an armchair anarchist. You could also also stop working and live off welfare, which guarantees you a poverty-line type living standard. You could encourage other people to do it, in the end you'd have a massive external debt and your government wouldn't be able to feed you anymore and it would decide to cut off your handouts. You'd burn everything you saw up like in the greeks did (also, where is fatty?) and that would be the perfect catalyst for change.
I think everybody here understands what a corporation is and what they do. The point, however, is that everything is done opaquely and without public accountability. Which leads to situations like the US healthcare system, which is a massive ripoff with some of the worst outcomes in the developed world (and, thus, very profitable). What the public needs is to have a say in what goes on in society, and the corporate system is structurally defined to prevent that.
They already do, it's just that they're too vulnerable to people who know how to use their feelings to manipulate them, so they'll eat all that like it's delicious cake as long as whoever is doing it promises them equality, change, freedom from oppression, whatever. That's how people work.
Take something like hydraulic fracking, for example: it destroys the environment and significantly impacts the people living in the area. The result is an increase in inequality, because a small elite group reaps massive profits while the many get left behind with flammable and undrinkable tap water.
You don't poop in your own bedroom because it stinks and you know it's a bad idea. But before that, other people had to spend their entire lives shitting in their own bedrooms before they figured out why it was dumb. We need a major global collapse. We need a major global catastrophe. It will be the only thing that will make people realize that whatever it is they're doing is bad for themselves.
I don't think we even need to discuss why removing the state from the picture, like some right-libertarians would like, would be disastrous (both for the people as well as for the corporations). If you're interested I can explain, but this is such a fringe opinion that I'm not even sure you share it.
I do believe we'll have to get rid of states in order to progress, but they will have to fail completely before anything can take it's place. People will sooner or later realize it's an archaic structure of power, that it is a bad idea. What if we were born just to see that happen? That would be so cool.
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Oh no, watch out for those union fat cats!!!!
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Your vision of value is a collectivist utilitarian one, where it is defined more or less by how much happiness an action adds to a society, but would you bother working your ass off in a coal mine if it did more to improve the living conditions of CHRIS-CHAN than your own? I don't think so, people would have to force you to do that at gunpoint.
That's a good example of a false dilemma (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma). The factories ran just fine during the 1930s Spanish anarchist experiment. In fact, the whole society ran quite well, despite the fact they were doing something extremely novel and on a very large scale. It only ended when it got crushed by force.
By the way you could also force people to protect the environment and adopt sustainable consumer practices at gunpoint if you wanted but I think it's better to let them learn with their own failures, like europe learned with the black plague that being filthy is bad for several reasons.
The black plague killed about two thirds of the population of Europe. Yeah, we could have another scenario just like that, with the Earth becoming so polluted that entire continents get plagued by food crises which leads to a massive increase in global inequality as well as instability. It has a very real chance of happening, and one good way of ensuring it is taking the laissez-faire route and letting corporations do whatever they want. As I mentioned before, their organizational structures prohibit any kind of real action on their part.
Think about it. People only care about the environmental effects of cars now because for a brief moment owing one was a good idea and they were allowed to find out why it really isn't in the end. I, personally, wouldn't, because I live in a city and the cost of purchasing and maintaining one is much greater than walking/bus riding and I'm poor. It adds me no marginal utility. Why would I even need to hear from the rest of saltworld when being a bad deal is reason enough for me to not conduct the exchange? If everyone made better choices themselves the result would be a collective improvement, but, noooo!!! I have a better idea, let's have a popularity contest and give him a massive amount of power over everything (which no one else should have) to the winner. We'll hold him accountable, so that we'll be able to punish him after he does something that affects millions negatively. Nothing can go wrong with that plan, right??
I honestly don't get what this entire paragraph means. "Popularity contest"? "Give him massive power over everything"? Who's "him"? Why are you acting like I'm giving you an advice on whether to buy a car or not? The point of the part that you quoted is to show you there are tertiary effects to a business transaction. Those effects are called externalities.
Do you think I'm pro-totalitarianism? If you do, you shouldn't make assumptions.
So fucking what? They're earning residual monopoly money which is essentially worthless. It's not like they're force feeding crack cocaine to small children.
It puzzles me that you agree with me they're essentially getting free money (which eventually, society will have to pay for, as happened during the bailout; either a bailout occurs, or the following systemic failure is so massive that the consequences are immediate and terrifying), yet you just don't seem to care or think it's such a big problem.
No, in a state-capitalist society the government will try to maintain a trade balance surplus by coercive methods, which is what happened when monarchies were all cool in Europe and no one else (except China and other backwards countries) does that anymore because that's a retarded ass idea that benefits a few people in detriment to everyone who actually produces stuff. The function of a bank in any society is to hoard valuable stuff and lend it for a fee (interests). Lending is a form of investment, and I agree that it should be used to fund useful stuff (activities that are most likely going to be profitable, decreasing the risk of a default). What happens now is that banks are forced to make risky investments (i.e: allowing someone to buy a house that he normally wouldn't because he wouldn't be able to afford it, or even worse, allowing someone to buy a house because he thinks someone in the future will pay big bucks for it) and they're not allowed to fail (all at the detriment of everyone else), which in turn encourages them to take more risks. It's like how having seat belts/airbags/other safety features on cars encourages people to drive more dangerously.
State-instituted protectionism is still one of the prime reasons for why the rich countries are rich and the poor countries are exploited. That's not over, and never going to be. That's why you don't see the business elites pouring money into Ron Paul's campaign.
Exactly as I said, banks have a role in a state-capitalist society: to take unused money and use it to fund useful things that better society. But the reason why banks take such massive risks is foremost because they can, and it took a very long time and a lot of lobbying and money to get to this point, and also because they can expect to receive a taxpayer bailout when things turn sour, which they ultimately always will. It's really a new stage in capitalist excess: the point where self-destruction is more profitable than a sustainable path.
Again, "It's not my fault, it's US and they have to take measures!".
Europe is bad as well, but we can't ignore the fact that the US is the one taking steps backwards. They used to say they'd be on board with serious action on climate change as long as the BRIC countries are on board. Well, they are now. The US responded by saying "well, let's just wait a bit longer." The only major change the US lobby managed to accomplish in the field of climate change legislation in the run-up to Durban is a larger role for the free market in any action that takes place. That shows you who's in charge of the situation.
The US is important in this regard because that's where power lies, and that's where the major propaganda efforts are focused on.
The "profit doesn't lie" is adopted because it's stupid to make too much effort for stuff that is not worth it. Maybe if everyone cared only about everyone else everything would be free and there would be no evil profit seeking, but that's just not the way people work. We're not ants. Things are permitted to happen because there's nothing physical that prohibits them. Maybe those conditions will be met someday, maybe someday it will be possible to build underwater cities. Good intentions will be of no consequence in the long term.
That's baseless cynicism. Most popular movements since the 18th century have been progressive and left-libertarian in nature. If you look at the laborers, the "99%", and investigate their political inclinations and the popular movements that have sprung from it, you'll find the same thing. There's an extremely big drive towards a more social society. Maybe I'm naive, that's very possible, but I don't agree with the notion that people are serial backstabbers by nature. I think they're social creatures who help each other not because their cognitive faculties tell them there's something in it for them, but because it feels right to do so.
Yes, there's a massive group of people that favor sharp inequality and a society based on the slave/master principle, but they're in the minority. They're the so-called 1% and their foot soldiers. That's what we have to fight.
What institutional structure? Capitalism is just about having a low time preference. What you're talking about is a system that benefits a few individuals, imposes itself on everyone else through the use of force and is dominated by con artists (what does that remind me of, hmmm?). That comes for free with a state. And why is inequality even a bad thing? You're not an injection molded android equal to everyone you know. Tesla was not your equal.
I just explained the institutional structure. A capitalist society works according to certain rules that guarantee inequality.
And yes, inequality is a bad thing. For one thing because the inequality is astonishingly large, so large there are no valid adjectives to describe it. It's slaves and masters. And yeah, some people are smarter than me, and some people work harder than me. But you're not going to convince me a single mother working overtime with no benefits and poor health-safety regulations is literally millions of times less useful to society than a financial company's CEO. The poorest people are so absurdly poor despite working so hard that I have a hard time seeing how you could miss this.
Now you sound like an armchair anarchist. You could also also stop working and live off welfare, which guarantees you a poverty-line type living standard. You could encourage other people to do it, in the end you'd have a massive external debt and your government wouldn't be able to feed you anymore and it would decide to cut off your handouts. You'd burn everything you saw up like in the greeks did (also, where is fatty?) and that would be the perfect catalyst for change.
Ironically, what you just wrote is exactly what armchair revolutionaries are all about: coming up with insane, unworkable plans for quickly overthrowing the state.
They already do, it's just that they're too vulnerable to people who know how to use their feelings to manipulate them, so they'll eat all that like it's delicious cake as long as whoever is doing it promises them equality, change, freedom from oppression, whatever. That's how people work.
The US is structurally an extremely undemocratic place. You've got "two" parties, and a vote for either of them doesn't get you what you want. Compare the US public's opinions on individual policy points with party platforms sometime, it's very illuminating. Then there's the massive propaganda machine built specifically to sustain this system.
It should be obvious that the people don't have the structural tools to enact what they want. Healthcare reform is a great example. Look at the specifics of what people want out of their healthcare system and compare it with Obamacare: it falls pathetically short. And it's been like that for decades. It's one of the best examples of the failure of US democracy I can think of. Recently it was pointed out that while half of US citizens support the legalization of marijuana, it's only 0-1% among elected officials. That's a failed democracy if I ever saw one.
People really just don't have a say in how society is organized in any significant sense.
You don't poop in your own bedroom because it stinks and you know it's a bad idea. But before that, other people had to spend their entire lives shitting in their own bedrooms before they figured out why it was dumb. We need a major global collapse. We need a major global catastrophe. It will be the only thing that will make people realize that whatever it is they're doing is bad for themselves.
A global catastrophe may well be on its way, and it will be game over when it happens. Saying we need it is pessimism and lazyism. It's the equivalent of shrugging your shoulders.
I can think of very few justifications for letting a major catastrophe or disaster occur as a way of teaching a state (or its people) a lesson. In some cases it's justified, such as the major military defeats Germany suffered near the end of the WWII. They needed to suffer a major defeat to be shocked back into being a just nation. What we're talking about here is different, though. The consequences of global warming aren't going to be restricted to just a few extra degrees centigrade. When the major food-producing sectors in the world dry up, we're not going to be protected just because we live in the rich West.
I do believe we'll have to get rid of states in order to progress, but they will have to fail completely before anything can take it's place. People will sooner or later realize it's an archaic structure of power, that it is a bad idea. What if we were born just to see that happen? That would be so cool.
If you remove the state, ceteris paribus, the result is a power vacuum. If you don't have anything to fill that vacuum, the corporate world will. The results of that would be catastrophic. It would essentially mean the end of democracy, and a new era of fascism and complete opacity of power.
The state doesn't need to fail before something can take its place. That would do nothing but create massive poverty and give the corporate sector a chance to properly abuse its powers. What exactly can take its place, I don't know, but it will probably have to be in the form of a massively organized, rich, powerful network of cooperatives and community organizations and worker-controlled industries. When you have that framework in place, then maybe you can talk about eliminating the state, but that's like looking a thousand miles away. It's something that will require a lot of work.
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the state... holding all those benevolent JOBCREATORS at gunpoint.
pointing all their guns!
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*namedrops tesla in a pro-capitalism forumpost*
heh~
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When you have that framework in place, then maybe you can talk about eliminating the state, but that's like looking a thousand miles away.
why do they have to be mutually exclusive processes? Seems like one would require the other and vice versa, don't be such a debbie downer it's more within our reach than it ever has been in history. Seize The Time™ comrade! Lets communize everything while getting rid of the state!
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http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png (http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/8/13/saupload_profits.png)
did you happen to miss that drug delivery and drug manufacture were really really high on that sourceless jpeg of a list from 2009 and that pharmaceuticals are kind of a big reason why healthcare costs so much in the US? jesus bruh, part of the answer is sitting right in front of your face but you still want to keep harping on this "it's the regulations!" narrative like some 'analyst' in a cheap suit brought on some shitty news program to chime in.
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That's a good example of a false dilemma. The factories ran just fine during the 1930s Spanish anarchist experiment. In fact, the whole society ran quite well, despite the fact they were doing something extremely novel and on a very large scale. It only ended when it got crushed by force.
No it is not, and that doesn't have anything to do with what I said, at all
The black plague killed about two thirds of the population of Europe. Yeah, we could have another scenario just like that, with the Earth becoming so polluted that entire continents get plagued by food crises which leads to a massive increase in global inequality as well as instability. It has a very real chance of happening, and one good way of ensuring it is taking the laissez-faire route and letting corporations do whatever they want. As I mentioned before, their organizational structures prohibit any kind of real action on their part.
They'll take real action when it becomes profitable, like China is doing by investing on "green" energy. We survived an ice age with nothing but primitive tools. We can handle global warming.
I honestly don't get what this entire paragraph means. "Popularity contest"? "Give him massive power over everything"? Who's "him"? Why are you acting like I'm giving you an advice on whether to buy a car or not? The point of the part that you quoted is to show you there are tertiary effects to a business transaction. Those effects are called externalities.
Do you think I'm pro-totalitarianism? If you do, you shouldn't make assumptions.
Representative democracy is a popularity contest where if you don't like the results you can hold a sign up chanting slogans and hope everyone else agrees with you or something happens by magic. There are tertiary effects to everything, even actions that are founded on seemingly good intentions. I'm showing you that you don't need to consult everyone else in order to do something. If it causes damage to others they'll be pissed off and rectify you, unless they've become completely passive due to trusting the state to take care of their problems. If not they won't really bother.
It puzzles me that you agree with me they're essentially getting free money (which eventually, society will have to pay for, as happened during the bailout; either a bailout occurs, or the following systemic failure is so massive that the consequences are immediate and terrifying), yet you just don't seem to care or think it's such a big problem.
They're getting free money from each other, from their dividends, from short selling, whatever. None of that affects you at all.
State-instituted protectionism is still one of the prime reasons for why the rich countries are rich and the poor countries are exploited. That's not over, and never going to be. That's why you don't see the business elites pouring money into Ron Paul's campaign.
Exactly as I said, banks have a role in a state-capitalist society: to take unused money and use it to fund useful things that better society. But the reason why banks take such massive risks is foremost because they can, and it took a very long time and a lot of lobbying and money to get to this point, and also because they can expect to receive a taxpayer bailout when things turn sour, which they ultimately always will. It's really a new stage in capitalist excess: the point where self-destruction is more profitable than a sustainable path.
And how is that capitalism? That's being a nanny state for banks. That's manipulating a bunch of numbers to give the impression of economic growth. That's expanding credit to "help" poor people consume (buy things they shouldn't with money they can't produce). That's just mal-allocating capital to stupid purposes, which is completely anti-capitalistic.
Europe is bad as well, but we can't ignore the fact that the US is the one taking steps backwards. They used to say they'd be on board with serious action on climate change as long as the BRIC countries are on board. Well, they are now. The US responded by saying "well, let's just wait a bit longer." The only major change the US lobby managed to accomplish in the field of climate change legislation in the run-up to Durban is a larger role for the free market in any action that takes place. That shows you who's in charge of the situation.
The US is important in this regard because that's where power lies, and that's where the major propaganda efforts are focused on.
You're talking about US, Europe, BRIC like they're persons. "Hey, US isn't behaving, we must punish him!" except that you can't do that. I bet you'll never see any real action take place, instead you'll see green washing everywhere, companies doing stuff like "Hey I'll just lower my emissions by 1%, that is ok by the rules, laws and treaties!", while the developing world doesn't care about it at all, and instead of a global catastrophe that will decimate all life you'll just witness the establishment of a new equilibrum. Legislation will serve no purpose other than make people feel less guilty.
That's baseless cynicism. Most popular movements since the 18th century have been progressive and left-libertarian in nature. If you look at the laborers, the "99%", and investigate their political inclinations and the popular movements that have sprung from it, you'll find the same thing. There's an extremely big drive towards a more social society. Maybe I'm naive, that's very possible, but I don't agree with the notion that people are serial backstabbers by nature. I think they're social creatures who help each other not because their cognitive faculties tell them there's something in it for them, but because it feels right to do so.
Because the "left" ideologies are good at exploiting their feelings, their envy, their anger. There's always a discourse involving a victim, a oppressor, and the notion that putting the leftist leaders in power will make their troubles go away and free the victim from oppression. This is what all of them promise. But the part where the victim is freed from oppression never happens. Instead you see the concession of privileges to some interest groups (a measure that takes no effort at all on the part of their leaders) in order to retain popularity. People might not be serial backstabbers by nature, but they're incredibly vulnerable to them, and this is why "true socialism never happened, lol".
Yes, there's a massive group of people that favor sharp inequality and a society based on the slave/master principle, but they're in the minority. They're the so-called 1% and their foot soldiers. That's what we have to fight.
Guess who else favors sharp inequalities? People who promise to make it go away.
I just explained the institutional structure. A capitalist society works according to certain rules that guarantee inequality.
And yes, inequality is a bad thing. For one thing because the inequality is astonishingly large, so large there are no valid adjectives to describe it. It's slaves and masters. And yeah, some people are smarter than me, and some people work harder than me. But you're not going to convince me a single mother working overtime with no benefits and poor health-safety regulations is literally millions of times less useful to society than a financial company's CEO. The poorest people are so absurdly poor despite working so hard that I have a hard time seeing how you could miss this.
You're romanticizing a factory worker. You're applying the noble savage rationale to them, you're trying to make an appeal to emotion. "Look at this inequality. Look at her, she's such a pathetic creature, why don't you feel pity for her? Why don't you free her from oppression? I'll make it all go away if you put me in charge of your life!". That's a discourse that preceeded countless totalitarian regimes that ended the lives of millions. Poverty is the natural state of human being. All you have to do to be poor is nothing. Refuse to learn any skill but basic repetitive actions. That's a sure way to remain a factory worker forever.
Also, do you think a leftist leader has more or less social value than Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, who accumulated wealth by "doing nothing" and now are redistributing it voluntarily?
Ironically, what you just wrote is exactly what armchair revolutionaries are all about: coming up with insane, unworkable plans for quickly overthrowing the state.
It works and takes zero effort to accomplish. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_strike#History
Alternatively you could have a system that is so poorly thought that it will collapse by itself, like what happened in Greece and is likely going to happen next in Portugal, Spain and Italy.
The US is structurally an extremely undemocratic place. You've got "two" parties, and a vote for either of them doesn't get you what you want. Compare the US public's opinions on individual policy points with party platforms sometime, it's very illuminating. Then there's the massive propaganda machine built specifically to sustain this system.
It should be obvious that the people don't have the structural tools to enact what they want. Healthcare reform is a great example. Look at the specifics of what people want out of their healthcare system and compare it with Obamacare: it falls pathetically short. And it's been like that for decades. It's one of the best examples of the failure of US democracy I can think of. Recently it was pointed out that while half of US citizens support the legalization of marijuana, it's only 0-1% among elected officials. That's a failed democracy if I ever saw one.
People really just don't have a say in how society is organized in any significant sense.
Well, they have easy access to guns. If lefties dislike the system so much, why don't they buy high powered sniper rifles and change it by force? Are they too afraid of the power vacuum? Do they value their own personal comfort over "change"? That is the case. They'll never have a say in what goes on, what will happen instead is that they'll ask for privileges which maybe will be provided by their leaders in order to remain popular. "I'm fine with going to war with Iran as long as I get free health care! Everything should be free and social!"
A global catastrophe may well be on its way, and it will be game over when it happens. Saying we need it is pessimism and lazyism. It's the equivalent of shrugging your shoulders.
I can think of very few justifications for letting a major catastrophe or disaster occur as a way of teaching a state (or its people) a lesson. In some cases it's justified, such as the major military defeats Germany suffered near the end of the WWII. They needed to suffer a major defeat to be shocked back into being a just nation. What we're talking about here is different, though. The consequences of global warming aren't going to be restricted to just a few extra degrees centigrade. When the major food-producing sectors in the world dry up, we're not going to be protected just because we live in the rich West.
Guess what?
(http://i49.tinypic.com/50nlh4.jpg)
There is no way back.
If you remove the state, ceteris paribus, the result is a power vacuum. If you don't have anything to fill that vacuum, the corporate world will. The results of that would be catastrophic. It would essentially mean the end of democracy, and a new era of fascism and complete opacity of power.
Or it could actually make things better because now you don't have an entity that can force you to shoot other people overseas, because now you don't have an entity that can redirect the products of your labor to useless pursuits like bank bailouts, because now you don't have an entity that you can just point your finger at and say it's not your fault, because now there will be no corporate safety net. The responsibility will be removed from a failed instutition and placed on your own hands. Whatever reasons there were in the past for the existence of a state aren't there anymore. We have internet now, that takes care of any problem caused by a lack of access to information which could be a reason for centralized governments in the past. Only with the absence of state will we have true democracy instead of cute little popularity contests.
The state doesn't need to fail before something can take its place. That would do nothing but create massive poverty and give the corporate sector a chance to properly abuse its powers. What exactly can take its place, I don't know, but it will probably have to be in the form of a massively organized, rich, powerful network of cooperatives and community organizations and worker-controlled industries. When you have that framework in place, then maybe you can talk about eliminating the state, but that's like looking a thousand miles away. It's something that will require a lot of work.
Yes it does, there is no other way.
Also, if cooperatives are so good, why do most workers prefer to work for the EVIL CORPORASHUNZ instead when they are free not to? Think about it.
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did you happen to miss that drug delivery and drug manufacture were really really high on that sourceless jpeg of a list from 2009 and that pharmaceuticals are kind of a big reason why healthcare costs so much in the US? jesus bruh, part of the answer is sitting right in front of your face but you still want to keep harping on this "it's the regulations!" narrative like some 'analyst' in a cheap suit brought on some shitty news program to chime in.
I know drugs have very large profit margins. AND WHY IS THAT? Because there are intellectual property laws (which are not regulations. at all. they're good and "social").
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why do they have to be mutually exclusive processes? Seems like one would require the other and vice versa, don't be such a debbie downer it's more within our reach than it ever has been in history. Seize The Time™ comrade! Lets communize everything while getting rid of the state!
I don't know if they have to be mutually exclusive. Probably not, but as long as you chop off the right limbs at the right time. This is just a really difficult question to me, something I can't really answer very easily. But I don't think it would be a good thing if the entire state was abolished ceteris paribus tomorrow, from social security to funding of military contractors. There has to be something to fall back on for people. If you do it in the form of a coup or revolution, there'd better be a people-based collective at the end of it that doesn't sell out at the first opportunity. If those systems were in place to begin with it would seem like a much safer bet, as well as easier.
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I know drugs have very large profit margins. AND WHY IS THAT? Because there are intellectual property laws (which are not regulations. at all. they're good and "social").
y are those laws in existence? who lobbies for these laws? why would they do that? could it be.... capitalists chasing profits???????????
:-O
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I don't know if they have to be mutually exclusive. Probably not, but as long as you chop off the right limbs at the right time. This is just a really difficult question to me, something I can't really answer very easily. But I don't think it would be a good thing if the entire state was abolished ceteris paribus tomorrow, from social security to funding of military contractors. There has to be something to fall back on for people. If you do it in the form of a coup or revolution, there'd better be a people-based collective at the end of it that doesn't sell out at the first opportunity. If those systems were in place to begin with it would seem like a much safer bet, as well as easier.
just go with the flow, we'll figure it out along the way
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y are those laws in existence? who lobbies for these laws? why would they do that? could it be.... capitalists chasing profits? ??? ??? ??? ?
:-O
They only go into effect because......... SOMEONE PROMISED CHANGE? And everyone fell for it?
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They only go into effect because......... SOMEONE PROMISED CHANGE? And everyone fell for it?
that's a very naive and dumb way to understand that shit dude.
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Yeah, everything was going along perfectly until those evil capitalists started oppressin' us! I demand privileges! I demand a permanent state of revolution!
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naw things were pretty shitty before capitalism too. but yea i do want a permanent state of revolution
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i want to destroy privilege too
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& mow down every m'fucka who gets in the way
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No it is not, and that doesn't have anything to do with what I said, at all
You literally questioned whether someone would still consent to work in the mines if he's mostly helping other people rather than himself with it, and proposed that as "the collectivist utilitarian" viewpoint, which you say would only work if people are forced to do it at gunpoint. Well, that's just silly to anyone who's done even the most rudimentary research on these things.
As I mentioned in my example, people were perfectly happy working in the factories during the '30s Spanish collectivist-anarchistic society, which has everything to do with your assertion that it wouldn't work unless you force people at gunpoint.
They'll take real action when it becomes profitable, like China is doing by investing on "green" energy. We survived an ice age with nothing but primitive tools. We can handle global warming.
China is mostly an assembly line for Western green projects.
See, this is why I don't like talking to you. You don't use arguments that make sense. We'll survive global warming "because we survived an ice age with primitive tools"? None of this makes any sense at all. There's no thought process behind any of it.
Your assertion that we'll survive because it'll eventually become profitable to do something about global warming doesn't take into account the fact that it already is extremely profitable to do something about it right now, but only if you look into the distant future. Every year we wait, we're getting closer to irreversible, self-sustaining, catastrophic warming. Some climate scientists say we're already in it. The damages future generations will inherit, if they can even be expressed in a number, will be unfathomably higher the longer we wait. Yet absolutely nothing is happening, because the corporate system doesn't care about the damages future generations will incur. They're externalities. Your grandchildren's interests have no bearing whatsoever on the corporate goal of maximizing profit.
They're getting free money from each other, from their dividends, from short selling, whatever. None of that affects you at all.
The global financial crises that occurred all over the world and are occurring even right now as we speak beg to disagree with you. So would all the people in the US who lost their homes. They were purposely pushed by the banking industry to take out those loans despite the risks, because they knew they'd be able to make profit off of them even if the house of cards came down. It takes a genius not to see how this kind of grand-scale financial malpractice affects me and you.
And how is that capitalism? That's being a nanny state for banks. That's manipulating a bunch of numbers to give the impression of economic growth. That's expanding credit to "help" poor people consume (buy things they shouldn't with money they can't produce). That's just mal-allocating capital to stupid purposes, which is completely anti-capitalistic.
I agree, it has nothing to do with capitalism. Under a capitalist system, all of those banks would die. But theory is not practice. With capitalism comes inequality, and with inequality comes concentration of resources and power, and with power, one calls the shots. To put it simple, the banks call the shots.
You're talking about US, Europe, BRIC like they're persons. "Hey, US isn't behaving, we must punish him!" except that you can't do that. I bet you'll never see any real action take place, instead you'll see green washing everywhere, companies doing stuff like "Hey I'll just lower my emissions by 1%, that is ok by the rules, laws and treaties!", while the developing world doesn't care about it at all, and instead of a global catastrophe that will decimate all life you'll just witness the establishment of a new equilibrum. Legislation will serve no purpose other than make people feel less guilty.
It's not about "punishing" the US. It's just as simple as I told you: the US is stalling global efforts to do something about this, but you refuse to even say it. The scenario you describe can be avoided, and the first step is to stop being apathetic.
Because the "left" ideologies are good at exploiting their feelings, their envy, their anger. There's always a discourse involving a victim, a oppressor, and the notion that putting the leftist leaders in power will make their troubles go away and free the victim from oppression.
I'm simplifying here, but it's because the further you go towards the left side of the spectrum, the smaller inequality becomes. The left movements are the only true people's movements. No popular movement is ever going to exist on the notion of giving away the fruits of one's hard labor to a wealthy upper class, except if you indoctrinate people into believing magic like "trickle-down". But keep in mind here that I only used the word "left-libertarian" to set it apart from what people tend to call "libertarian" these days, which is complete and total fascism. The fact that these movements have popular support stems from the fact that they are direct responses to the oppression of the people. That has nothing to do with the charisma of a few leaders. Popular movements grow through popular support, because the values they espouse are already latently supported by huge swaths of the population.
Guess who else favors sharp inequalities? People who promise to make it go away.
There are plenty of liars around. Doesn't mean everybody is a liar, or that you should never trust anyone.
You're romanticizing a factory worker. You're applying the noble savage rationale to them, you're trying to make an appeal to emotion. "Look at this inequality. Look at her, she's such a pathetic creature, why don't you feel pity for her? Why don't you free her from oppression? I'll make it all go away if you put me in charge of your life!". That's a discourse that preceeded countless totalitarian regimes that ended the lives of millions.
I knew this would happen.
Sooner or later, when you're in a discussion about socialism with someone as disingenuous as yourself, the equation of socialism with totalitarianism will be made. Forget the fact I even explicitly told you I'm against that, and so is every serious socialist or anarchist. I'm not asking to be put in charge of anyone's life.
It's ironic that, again, you're ascribing irrationality to me whilst perpetrating it yourself. You say I'm just trying to appeal to emotion. Your response to that is to equate what I'm saying with totalitarianism, without rational basis. It's literally "what you say sounds like socialism, and the Soviet Union was socialist and became totalitarian, so therefore you support totalitarianism". Again, I wouldn't have to make this point if you did rudimentary research. The Soviet Union, particularly later on in its development, had very little to do with socialism. The foundational principle behind socialism is worker control over the means of production.
Also, do you think a leftist leader has more or less social value than Warren Buffett or Bill Gates, who accumulated wealth by "doing nothing" and now are redistributing it voluntarily?
Rich people who give money to charity are nice, and I'm sure Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are nice people who like to do good things for others, but I don't see what that has to do with anything or why I'm forced to pick sides between them and a nameless, faceless, undescribed "leftist leader". There also aren't many people like Bill Gates and Warren Buffett around, and even after they finish redistributing the amount of money they can do without, they'll still be absurdly, disproportionately rich.
Guess what?
[stupid ron paul pic]
There is no way back.
Fine, if you'd rather curl up into fetal position and wait for it all to end, be my guest. Just make sure to roll out of the way of other people who aren't that apathetic.
Or it could actually make things better because now you don't have an entity that can force you to shoot other people overseas, because now you don't have an entity that can redirect the products of your labor to useless pursuits like bank bailouts, because now you don't have an entity that you can just point your finger at and say it's not your fault, because now there will be no corporate safety net. The responsibility will be removed from a failed instutition and placed on your own hands.
I don't think it would lead to anything except putting my fate in the hands of now unconstrained corporate tyranny. Along with the complete destruction of public health, education, the social safety net and a ton of other things. Remember that I said ceteris paribus, meaning all other things left unchanged. There has to be at least a serious progress towards a socialized society before you can just wipe out everything.
Also, if cooperatives are so good, why do most workers prefer to work for the EVIL CORPORASHUNZ instead when they are free not to? Think about it.
This is why I think you're disingenuous. This is similar to the "vote with your money" argument, or letting the planet get destroyed to teach stupid people a lesson. The reason why people prefer to work in the current corporate system is because that's literally the only way to provide yourself and your family with a decent living. That doesn't mean people wouldn't prefer cooperatives. I'm a firm believer in people's right to happiness. Saying that people should just massively quit their jobs, and if they don't, that must mean they support the corporate system, completely ignores the obvious barriers that exist. I'm not saying that a revolt should come without a price tag (that's impossible), but you shouldn't see people as a herd of animals.
Ask yourself if you'd carry out your own tactic of quitting your job as a way of ending the state, which you say you're in favor of. When you're forced to say no, does that mean you prefer having a state? Of course not. It's a disingenuous, juvenile thing to say.
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Dada and Barrack are basically crushing your arguments with rationality. (well, most of the work is being done by Dada, but still)
I see issues in your arguments that even an moron could see.
Namely that you've listed Tesla, Gates, and Buffet as examples of the idea that unregulated capitalism is a positive thing, when Tesla was largely screwed over by people utilizing the lack of control that capitalism allows (bad) but has contributed vastly useful things for humanity/society as a whole (extremely good), Gates largely became rich using other peoples ideas (not good) and once he became rich decided to redistribute his wealth (very good). etc. (I don't know much about buffet other than he is a rich person that likes to redistribute his own wealth to help the world, and wants other rich people to do the same)
But then you fail to mention the VERY numerous rich assholes that constantly overpower these few fringe friendly rich (intellectually or financially) guys effects on society as a whole.
And you fail to mention that a global catastrophe would hardly teach us anything at all considering we'd all be (eventually) dead. And that negative effects on the world in its entirety do not happen immediately. Its like shoveling thousands of tons of snow onto an avalanche-prone mountain on a constant basis and because its not immediately killing everyone at the bottom saying that we might as well continue shoveling because their is no direct proof that it'll do anything harmful, because it hasn't happened yet.
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Namely that you've listed Tesla, Gates, and Buffet as examples of the idea that unregulated capitalism is a positive thing, when Tesla was largely screwed over by people utilizing the lack of control that capitalism allows (bad) but has contributed vastly useful things for humanity/society as a whole (extremely good), Gates largely became rich using other peoples ideas (not good) and once he became rich decided to redistribute his wealth (very good). etc. (I don't know much about buffet other than he is a rich person that likes to redistribute his own wealth to help the world, and wants other rich people to do the same)
But then you fail to mention the VERY numerous rich assholes that constantly overpower these few fringe friendly rich (intellectually or financially) guys effects on society as a whole.
Yeah, the thing about mentioning all of these "beneficial rich guys", like Buffett or Gates, is: what's the point? Is it to suggest that rich people are a force for good in the world? If that's the case, make a real argument that involves looking at rich people in general instead of just a few that happen to be giving away all of their money. And if you do that, you'll fall flat on your face because then you'd have to argue that the current situation is better than under a more equal system, in which money is much more evenly distributed. Remember that that same rich business class is responsible for driving hundreds of millions of farmers out of the farmlands and into the cities where they work for subsistence wages (if that) with no benefits, rights or health-safety standards through the invention of globalism, as well as a bitter class war domestically.
And you fail to mention that a global catastrophe would hardly teach us anything at all considering we'd all be (eventually) dead.
Yeah, he's pretty alone on this. Even the entire global warming denier industry (of which Ron Paul is a proud member, by the way) is focused on proving that it's untrue (to be more precise, they're focused on putting as much conflicting information out there to give people the idea that the science is inconclusive, because that has the same effect and is much easier). Absolutely nobody is saying that it is happening but that we might as well do nothing, because maybe then people will "learn something". Except maybe fans of Ron Paul who understand more about the science than he does.
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libtard thanks for helping me continue to shake out of a year long emotional and political slumber by holding up the mirror
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instead of worrying ourselves with the distribution of money lets just destroy money as the universal equivalent all together, then recreate our lives outside of the realm of monetary mediation
we can do it!
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Dada and Barrack are basically crushing your arguments with rationality. (well, most of the work is being done by Dada, but still)
No they're not, all Dada is doing is spouting inane leftist slogans like "inequality, inequality, the workers should decide" which I will address later
I see issues in your arguments that even an moron could see.
Namely that you've listed Tesla
I listed Tesla as an example of someone NOT BEING AN EQUAL TO YOU, read it again. Also: are racists your equals? You've experienced cognitive dissonance just by reading that phrase.
, Gates, and Buffet as examples of the idea that unregulated capitalism is a positive thing
Nope, I merely questioned whether Gates and Buffet, typical EVIL CAPITALIST PIGZ, who "contribute to society" through voluntary actions are more or less valuable to the society than a leftist leader, who produces nothing basically and uses other people's time and effort to (supposedly) accomplish goals (poorly) through coercion but has a heart touching discourse.
, when Tesla was largely screwed over by people utilizing the lack of control that capitalism allows (bad) but has contributed vastly useful things for humanity/society as a whole (extremely good), Gates largely became rich using other peoples ideas (not good) and once he became rich decided to redistribute his wealth (very good). etc. (I don't know much about buffet other than he is a rich person that likes to redistribute his own wealth to help the world, and wants other rich people to do the same)
You know what would be even funnier? If someone tried to make Tesla and every other outlier more equal, i.e: putting them in a factory with other equals, putting him through egualitarian education that made him more equal to his peers. We'd still be living in caves so I'm not sure if factories would even exist.
But then you fail to mention the VERY numerous rich assholes that constantly overpower these few fringe friendly rich (intellectually or financially) guys effects on society as a whole.
No, I didn't, actually I pointed out that leftist leaders enjoy carefree lifestyles compatible with being rich without earning any of it so I guess being evil is not exclusive to those evil capitalists
And you fail to mention that a global catastrophe would hardly teach us anything at all considering we'd all be (eventually) dead. And that negative effects on the world in its entirety do not happen immediately. Its like shoveling thousands of tons of snow onto an avalanche-prone mountain on a constant basis and because its not immediately killing everyone at the bottom saying that we might as well continue shoveling because their is no direct proof that it'll do anything harmful, because it hasn't happened yet.
Why would I mention that when it wasn't even part of my point to begin with?
Also it's dumb as hell to write this kind of "OH I DIDN'T SAY THAT I ACTUALLY MEANT THIS" post, so don't make me
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instead of worrying ourselves with the distribution of money lets just destroy money as the universal equivalent all together, then recreate our lives outside of the realm of monetary mediation
we can do it!
WOULD YOU TRADE TWENTY KILO TONS OF SAND FOR A HIPPO?
Yes/No/mayb????
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No they're not, all Dada is doing is spouting inane leftist slogans like "inequality, inequality, the workers should decide" which I will address later
"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Actually, they're not slogans. It's much worse than that. They're actual, literal viewpoints. And that one happens to be pretty popular with people when they don't know the source.
I listed Tesla as an example of someone NOT BEING AN EQUAL TO YOU, read it again. Also: are racists your equals? You've experienced cognitive dissonance just by reading that phrase.
This is just another illogical argument. Of course not everybody is "equal". There are lots of ways you can measure differences between people, and you could even ascribe value to them. But that doesn't matter. You mentioned Tesla and Buffett and Gates, supposedly, as examples of why society should not give the same rewards to everybody. And now you mention racists: as another example? Do you believe racists should be paid less for the same work? Because that's what it comes down to for Gates: he gets paid more, far more, supposedly because he's not equal to the rest, he's far better. The amount of effort he puts in is disproportionate to the rewards he reaps.
What I'm proposing is simple. Get rid of inequality on the basis of capital. Remember the juxtaposition of the single mother working three jobs to support her family and the financial corporation CEO? It should be obvious who's the hardest worker and who gets paid the most. That's unjust. It's a very simple position.
Nope, I merely questioned whether Gates and Buffet, typical EVIL CAPITALIST PIGZ, who "contribute to society" through voluntary actions are more or less valuable to the society than a leftist leader, who produces nothing basically and uses other people's time and effort to (supposedly) accomplish goals (poorly) through coercion but has a heart touching discourse.
Based on this explanation, I guess you asked me to compare them to your caricature of a leftist leader. Did you expect me to have the exact same image and description of the undefined term "leftist leader" as you?
You know what would be even funnier? If someone tried to make Tesla and every other outlier more equal, i.e: putting them in a factory with other equals, putting him through egualitarian education that made him more equal to his peers. We'd still be living in caves so I'm not sure if factories would even exist.
Go back to the quote at the top and make note of the "from each according to his ability" part.
Another thing to take note of is the fact that the prime characteristic of socialism is worker control over the means of production. If that's the case, there's nobody to "put Tesla in a factory". That has absolutely nothing to do with socialism.
No, I didn't, actually I pointed out that leftist leaders enjoy carefree lifestyles compatible with being rich without earning any of it so I guess being evil is not exclusive to those evil capitalists
What you attempted to do is exactly what you tried with Buffett and Gates: paint a self-serving picture by failing to make an honest analysis. Yes, there are left-wing world leaders who enjoy cushy lifestyles. There are also right-wing world leaders who enjoy cushy lifestyles. In fact, although I haven't made a head count, I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of world leaders actually have nothing whatsoever to do with socialism, or anarchism, or the communist creed at the top of my post, and are actually extremely beholden to the extreme right-wing state-capitalist system.
Also it's dumb as hell to write this kind of "OH I DIDN'T SAY THAT I ACTUALLY MEANT THIS" post, so don't make me
You have to be more precise and tone down the rhetoric because I'm having a hard time following you too for most part.
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WOULD YOU TRADE TWENTY KILO TONS OF SAND FOR A HIPPO?
Yes/No/mayb? ???
In the anarchist society in Spain in the '30s, people traded vouchers counting for one hour of labor.
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No they're not, all Dada is doing is spouting inane leftist slogans like "inequality, inequality, the workers should decide" which I will address later
Hardly. Perhaps I was being reductive in calling you a moron, but what you are saying here is flabbergasting.
I listed Tesla as an example of someone NOT BEING AN EQUAL TO YOU, read it again. Also: are racists your equals? You've experienced cognitive dissonance just by reading that phrase.
Nope, I merely questioned whether Gates and Buffet, typical EVIL CAPITALIST PIGZ, who "contribute to society" through voluntary actions are more or less valuable to the society than a leftist leader, who produces nothing basically and uses other people's time and effort to (supposedly) accomplish goals (poorly) through coercion but has a heart touching discourse.
With the end goal of...? Oh yeah, using them as examples to push the idea that unregulated capitalism is a positive thing for humanity and society.
Also, I think you are mixing up the different definitions of inequality in different contexts. Dada is clearly talking about inequality when it comes to financial freedom. Not ability, intellect, ethics, or understanding or pretty much anything else. We aren't talking in blanket definitions of inequality either.
I'm a determinist, so I don't really believe in evil. More on the point, I don't think Dada is suggesting we need some absolute leftist leader to implement financial security for all. Merely that we should strive to accomplish such in the most ethical manner. If you are talking about any and all leftist leaders in general, I think you might be too paranoid to function.
You know what would be even funnier? If someone tried to make Tesla and every other outlier more equal, i.e: putting them in a factory with other equals, putting him through egualitarian education that made him more equal to his peers. We'd still be living in caves so I'm not sure if factories would even exist.
Again, different definitions of inequality due to context. This is irrelevant and not want anyone here wants. (I hope...)
No, I didn't, actually I pointed out that leftist leaders enjoy carefree lifestyles compatible with being rich without earning any of it so I guess being evil is not exclusive to those evil capitalists
Being evil an asshole or psychopath certainly isn't exclusive to capitalists. Again, I really don't think anyone here thinks that, nor thinks that all capitalists are evil. (except perhaps Barrack/DietCoke)
Why would I mention that when it wasn't even part of my point to begin with?
Also it's dumb as hell to write this kind of "OH I DIDN'T SAY THAT I ACTUALLY MEANT THIS" post, so don't make me
All your points are either paranoid, crazy, dumb, or misanthropic.
The only reasonable thing I've seen you post is "People aren't ants" and that hardly says much at all.
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this dude seems like that guy who got banned like a month ago
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this dude seems like that guy who got banned like a month ago
I did an IP check and nothing came up. If Inri (had to actually ask WHAT WAS HIS NAME AGAIN on IRC because I had thankfully already forgotten) wants to ban evade and rejoin under a new name, then congratulations, he's officially so pathetic he'll go through a nonzero amount of trouble to ban evade a forum with like 10 active posters.
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Yeah, I don't think he is Inri. But he has acted as if he's been here before. Libby-tardo What is your true
form name?
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I'm a determinist, so I don't really believe in evil. More on the point, I don't think Dada is suggesting we need some absolute leftist leader to implement financial security for all. Merely that we should strive to accomplish such in the most ethical manner. If you are talking about any and all leftist leaders in general, I think you might be too paranoid to function.
This is unfortunately a common trope when capitalists discuss socialism. Namely, they see the concepts of socialism and totalitarianism as inseparably linked (possibly unintentionally, because most of them probably don't understand a thing about this) because when they think of socialism, they think of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Of course, once you start doing some basic research, you immediately throw away that concept because it's nonsensical.
Being evil an asshole or psychopath certainly isn't exclusive to capitalists. Again, I really don't think anyone here thinks that, nor thinks that all capitalists are evil. (except perhaps Barrack/DietCoke)All your points are either paranoid, crazy, dumb, or misanthropic.
It's not about people in the first place, but about the system. Capitalism is a guaranteed route to sharp inequality. By extension, it's also responsible for a lot of other evils, such as colonialism and imperialism. Racism is strongly exacerbated through class warfare and politics.
Anyone who consciously and, fully knowing these things, would argue that it's not just an ugly truth, but an ideal to uphold, is pretty close to any definition of evil I can come up with. Just like someone who would claim that Naziism is an ideal to uphold. Most people really just don't know a thing about any of this and certainly don't consciously agree with it, of course. Personally I prefer to think that not people, but their actions, are evil, and that people's values can be simply described by whether or not they support things like freedom of choice, equality, inherent rights, et cetera. Some people are undoubtedly evil, but if that's where the analysis ends, it's not good enough.
But ultimately, the people are dispensable. If an apologist for elite policy decisions, like US foreign interventionism, dies in a car accident, you can get another guy to take his place no problem. There will always be stooges willing to sell out humanity. Those will never be in short supply, so I don't worry about that too much. It's about the system.
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Some people are undoubtedly evil, but if that's where the analysis ends, it's not good enough.
At the risk of derailing the topic for a moment: Determinism asks "Who's fault is it that these evil people exist? Are they at fault for their own 'evil' selves?". My mental dictionary asks what the real difference between "Evil" and "assholes and psychopaths" exactly is.
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At the risk of derailing the topic for a moment: Determinism asks "Who's fault is it that these evil people exist? Are they at fault for their own 'evil' selves?". My mental dictionary asks what the real difference between "Evil" and "assholes and psychopaths" exactly is.
Who cares. The fact is they're there, they're not going away, and we have to deal with them.
edit: one thing. They're certainly not evil out of necessity.
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Well, I hate no one. I only pity, and hate their actions and results. I'd kill an 'evil' person if I thought that I'd help the world in some major way and that it was the only way to deal with them. But I wouldn't 'punish' or hate them. Punishment for 'justice' is purposeless (other than ill-deserved self satisfaction) and cruel and is in fact nothing more than revenge, not justice at all.
My point that I'm trying to illustrate: Evil is often tossed around as a justification of killing someone even when they are effectively 'de-fanged' and no longer a threat to society. I don't like the term for this reason. (AKA, clearly not a fan of capital punishment)
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i think we ought to abandon the left. just attack power everywhere.
hit the gym and the shooting range y'all, get yr swoll arms nice and steady
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the left is just as much of an enemy, they just don't have power right now
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gtl (gym tan liberalism)
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BGI - BICEPS AND GUNS INSURRECTION
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Are you a bad enough dude to attack everyone with power?
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libtard is dom
edit that hardcore orange dial still holding up for you??
edit
Personally I prefer to think that not people, but their actions, are evil, and that people's values can be simply described by whether or not they support things like freedom of choice, equality, inherent rights, et cetera. Some people are undoubtedly evil, but if that's where the analysis ends, it's not good enough.
the 'democrat' of understanding people...don't stop here. relativism comes next.
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the left is just as much of an enemy, they just don't have power right now
What do you mean by left though, "the left" or the left?
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libtard is dom
edit that hardcore orange dial still holding up for you??
Really? I thought dom was on IRC calling for revolution during the British riots last year?
the 'democrat' of understanding people...don't stop here. relativism comes next.
It's more of a "don't just say evil, explain why" thing.
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People will be forced to buy health insurance and health insurance companies will be forced to sell their product to anyone who wants it.
I heard healthcare is pretty expensive in US compared to other developed countries, so, how does that help lower the costs? Won't that cause healthcare costs to rise because there will be an increase in demand but not an increase in the supply of medical services? Maybe everyone is entitled to their health thingies but all that does is change the order in which people have access to it.
You sound like someone fresh out of Economics 101 and brimming with rage at the government and all those union fatcats for tampering with the free market and wages.
The Sraffians dismantled the whole concept of demand and supply forces determining relative prices in the long run in the capital debates of the 60s, but for some reason the right-wing marginalist economists basically ignored all that inconvenient stuff and pushed their theory which is why when you open up an economics textbook the first thing you will see is demand and supply curves drawn up as if they are scientific laws of gravity.
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The Sraffians dismantled the whole concept of demand and supply forces determining relative prices in the long run in the capital debates of the 60s, but for some reason the right-wing marginalist economists basically ignored all that inconvenient stuff and pushed their theory which is why when you open up an economics textbook the first thing you will see is demand and supply curves drawn up as if they are scientific laws of gravity.
I've read very little about economics, can you recommend me a good book to get started? I'm particularly interested in something that will help me understand the type of transactions that carry a systemic risk, and that can explain why there was such an absurdly large housing market bubble and why nobody appeared to have noticed it (I guess some people did, and maybe the rest of the market decided to just brace for the deluge?)
Actually I also have Marx's Capital around here somewhere, maybe I should read that one first.
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I've read very little about economics, can you recommend me a good book to get started? I'm particularly interested in something that will help me understand the type of transactions that carry a systemic risk, and that can explain why there was such an absurdly large housing market bubble and why nobody appeared to have noticed it (I guess some people did, and maybe the rest of the market decided to just brace for the deluge?)
I'd recommend Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz it covers quite a bit of what got us into our current mess and is a pretty interesting read. His latest book The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future is also a decent look at some of what we (Americans anyways) are going to be facing in the future.
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libtard is dom
that explains a lot, he's always been an enormous fucking moron.
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What do you mean by left though, "the left" or the left?
the left: champions of the welfare state, social democracy, populist national liberation movements, state-socialism, the unions, etc... all those who swoop in times of crisis and revolution offering solutions, leadership, and stasis amid the "chaos". They're a pillar of capital whose function historically is to make whatever structural adjustments necessary to get people back to work. They need to be opposed by those who see the need for immediate revolution when the time comes(and it's coming, given the rising popularity of the parliamentary left in the collapsing Eurozone)
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I'd recommend Freefall: America, Free Markets, and the Sinking of the World Economy by Joseph Stiglitz it covers quite a bit of what got us into our current mess and is a pretty interesting read. His latest book The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future is also a decent look at some of what we (Americans anyways) are going to be facing in the future.
Thanks, I've added them to my ebay wishlist, which means I'll probably get around to reading them in not very soon :(
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In the anarchist society in Spain in the '30s, people traded vouchers counting for one hour of labor.
Yeah, well, there are problems with that. It's only ok as long as only type of labor is performed. Also 1 hour doing brain surgery is hardly equivalent to 1 hour making shit pies. I'll come back later to address other issues as I'm kinda busy right now.
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I'll trade you 10 hours digging a hole and filling it back for 10 hours performing sexual favors
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that explains a lot, he's always been an enormous fucking moron.
dom is literally the dutch word for dumb
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lol, if libtard is dom it is not dom being serious. dom is One Of Us (by us i mean shady cabal of twitter leftists)
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lol, if libtard is dom it is not dom being serious. dom is One Of Us (by us i mean shady cabal of twitter leftists)
dorks
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idk I figured it'd either be right on the money or an insult so I clicked the post button
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I prefer 'TEAR IT ALL DOWN' dom to 'WORKINS FOR THE MAN' dom :(
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I've read very little about economics, can you recommend me a good book to get started? I'm particularly interested in something that will help me understand the type of transactions that carry a systemic risk, and that can explain why there was such an absurdly large housing market bubble and why nobody appeared to have noticed it (I guess some people did, and maybe the rest of the market decided to just brace for the deluge?)
Actually I also have Marx's Capital around here somewhere, maybe I should read that one first.
There's Sraffa's book Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities of course, but a lot of the interesting stuff is found in articles/papers in the literature. In particular I like Garegnani's 'Heterogeneous Capital, the Production Function and the Theory of Distribution' for a criticism of economic concepts like the production function and demand/supply. For a treatment of the financial crisis specifically you can read A Critical Approach to the Analysis of the Evolution of Financial Regulation Before and After the Crisis (http://www.depfe.unam.mx/70aniversario-ie/panico_pinto_puchet.pdf), which looks at how changes in regulation lead to increasing systemic risk.
I should point out though that I learned mainstream economics in university before getting interested in alternative economic thought, and without the background knowledge anything you read will be a hard slog.
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I should point out though that I learned mainstream economics in university before getting interested in alternative economic thought, and without the background knowledge anything you read will be a hard slog.
Thanks for the suggestions, I'll see if I can wrestle my way through them.
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Andrew Kliman's latest book on the crisis, The Failure of Capitalist Production, is a pretty good one that pretty much makes convincing argument supporting that The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall holds using pretty legit empirical data. I'm not the biggest fan of Marxist-Humanists, but he does the best job demolishing Keynesianism since Mattick Sr.
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Andrew Kliman's latest book on the crisis, The Failure of Capitalist Production, is a pretty good one that pretty much makes convincing argument supporting that The Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall holds using pretty legit empirical data. I'm not the biggest fan of Marxist-Humanists, but he does the best job demolishing Keynesianism since Mattick Sr.
Doesn't really take that much of an effort to demolish keynes, lol
Anyway, I'm back. I'll now address some issues our forum comrades have raised in a lengthy but informative post.
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"From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
Actually, they're not slogans. It's much worse than that. They're actual, literal viewpoints. And that one happens to be pretty popular with people when they don't know the source.
That is a marxist slogan and they're slogans.
This is just another illogical argument. Of course not everybody is "equal". There are lots of ways you can measure differences between people, and you could even ascribe value to them. But that doesn't matter. You mentioned Tesla and Buffett and Gates, supposedly, as examples of why society should not give the same rewards to everybody. And now you mention racists: as another example? Do you believe racists should be paid less for the same work? Because that's what it comes down to for Gates: he gets paid more, far more, supposedly because he's not equal to the rest, he's far better. The amount of effort he puts in is disproportionate to the rewards he reaps.
Are you equal to a racist? If someone kidnapped you, and the police called your mom and said "Hey, we couldn't locate Dada but here's an equal that will serve the same purpose" and they come in with a morbidly obese woman of colour (you're equals, remember that), what do you think would be your mom's reaction? Would she be OK, since you're all equals?
The amount of effort he puts in is disproportionate to the rewards he reaps, but think about it. He has a skill that is so rare and that has the potential to alter permanently the lives that it makes no sense that it should have the same value as that of someone who knows nothing but how to tighten screws. He also takes much bigger risks. A bad decision by Mr. Gates could cost the comfortable lives of thousands and it did sometimes. So he earned all of his billions, and it's up to him alone to decide how to spend them (on charity), not you, not Obama, not anyone else.
What I'm proposing is simple. Get rid of inequality on the basis of capital. Remember the juxtaposition of the single mother working three jobs to support her family and the financial corporation CEO? It should be obvious who's the hardest worker and who gets paid the most. That's unjust. It's a very simple position.
Again. Who has the rarer skill set? Who has to make the riskier decisions?
Based on this explanation, I guess you asked me to compare them to your caricature of a leftist leader. Did you expect me to have the exact same image and description of the undefined term "leftist leader" as you?
Go back to the quote at the top and make note of the "from each according to his ability" part.
That's not a caricature, IT'S WHAT ALL OF THEM ARE, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Equality is and always has been nothing but a ruse. Behind every nice-sounding cry for equality there is the intention of putting in power one or another elite.
Another thing to take note of is the fact that the prime characteristic of socialism is worker control over the means of production. If that's the case, there's nobody to "put Tesla in a factory". That has absolutely nothing to do with socialism.
That's would be like having cooperatives everywhere and people already are free to do that but they mostly don't. It actually works but it's much easier to have someone have all the good ideas and everyone else tighten the screws. Don't idealize "the worker".
What you attempted to do is exactly what you tried with Buffett and Gates: paint a self-serving picture by failing to make an honest analysis. Yes, there are left-wing world leaders who enjoy cushy lifestyles. There are also right-wing world leaders who enjoy cushy lifestyles. In fact, although I haven't made a head count, I'm pretty sure the overwhelming majority of world leaders actually have nothing whatsoever to do with socialism, or anarchism, or the communist creed at the top of my post, and are actually extremely beholden to the extreme right-wing state-capitalist system.
Yeah, do you know why none of them has anything to do with socialism? Because all it is good at is filling mass graves, that's why. Some people will ignore that, so they'll promise equality, freedom from oppression and whatever to gain approval from the masses, but promises are just promises. Right-wing leaders will make entirely different appeals, but they're all after the same thing. The most successful nations are those that employed a market economy, that didn't try to impose barriers on entrepreneurship, that didn't have states that tried to control economy. Compare Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea to China, North Korea, Cuba and other communist shitholes. By the way Hong Kong is probably a thousand times more capitalistic than US and has high quality free health care (and also high quality private healthcare). And it works. They have so much cash lying around from not trying to have a huge government that attempts to control and regulate everything they can just make it work if they want to.
You have to be more precise and tone down the rhetoric because I'm having a hard time following you too for most part.
Well you too will have to stop babbling communist propaganda material because I'm having a hard time trying to take you seriously
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You sound like someone fresh out of Economics 101 and brimming with rage at the government and all those union fatcats for tampering with the free market and wages.
The Sraffians dismantled the whole concept of demand and supply forces determining relative prices in the long run in the capital debates of the 60s, but for some reason the right-wing marginalist economists basically ignored all that inconvenient stuff and pushed their theory which is why when you open up an economics textbook the first thing you will see is demand and supply curves drawn up as if they are scientific laws of gravity.
This one will take some reading but Sraffa's pricing theory is flawed as well (ignores the subjective aspect of value determination)
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I thought William F. Buckley was dead.
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I've read very little about economics, can you recommend me a good book to get started? I'm particularly interested in something that will help me understand the type of transactions that carry a systemic risk, and that can explain why there was such an absurdly large housing market bubble and why nobody appeared to have noticed it (I guess some people did, and maybe the rest of the market decided to just brace for the deluge?)
Actually I also have Marx's Capital around here somewhere, maybe I should read that one first.
That's complete junk, by the way
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This is unfortunately a common trope when capitalists discuss socialism. Namely, they see the concepts of socialism and totalitarianism as inseparably linked (possibly unintentionally, because most of them probably don't understand a thing about this) because when they think of socialism, they think of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Of course, once you start doing some basic research, you immediately throw away that concept because it's nonsensical.
Because they ARE inseparably linked. In a socialist utopia, what happens if someone decides to produce more than is necessary to maintain a stable population level? What happens if someone decides to maintain private property? Do they have to git out? Because people will want things. People will try to improve their lives. Unless you're talking about a completely idealized human being that is more akin to a drone bee than to a person who has a personality, who has desires and so on. In a capitalist society you're free to be socialist, but that's with your own time and effort. Unless there is a STATE that has a monopoly over legitimate violence that can come in your little socialist village and say "Hey, that's wrong, do not be a collectivist cripple or we'll have to open fire". That happens to dissenters in 'socialist' societies (blah blah blah, intermediate stage where the state decides everything, this is totally a good idea guys, I promise we'll evolve to true communism someday! no, I'm not lying!). They're sent to gulags, are shot for being reactionaries or have to sail to Miami.
It's not about people in the first place, but about the system. Capitalism is a guaranteed route to sharp inequality. By extension, it's also responsible for a lot of other evils, such as colonialism and imperialism. Racism is strongly exacerbated through class warfare and politics.
Colonialism and imperialism both happened because there were states deciding they were good ideas. Also... WAS THERE CAPITALISM DURING THE ROMAN ERA? Did holodomor happen because of CAPITALISM? (btw: no, it happened because a few people were against forced collectivism/failed to meet production quotas [to ][/to], so mr. stalin or some other commie decided they didn't deserve their food rations). The greatest leaps in quality of life in human history were due to people accumulating capital and investing it on new methods of productions, not due to someone's good intentions, not due to someone claiming equality, not due to people maintaining paleolithic-compatible lifestyles. Don't be naive. Even if there is "inequality" like you say, it is only because of capitalism that now you have people you can steal money from and give it to people who are unable to contribute anything to your marvelous society under the ruse of equality.
Anyone who consciously and, fully knowing these things, would argue that it's not just an ugly truth, but an ideal to uphold, is pretty close to any definition of evil I can come up with. Just like someone who would claim that Naziism is an ideal to uphold. Most people really just don't know a thing about any of this and certainly don't consciously agree with it, of course. Personally I prefer to think that not people, but their actions, are evil, and that people's values can be simply described by whether or not they support things like freedom of choice, equality, inherent rights, et cetera. Some people are undoubtedly evil, but if that's where the analysis ends, it's not good enough.
Anyone who thinks he knows better than I what to do of my efforts and actually doesn't is just a thief, a charlatan or probably a communist (which is both a thief and a charlatan). Unless he actually does, then I'd voluntarily accept his advice.
But ultimately, the people are dispensable. If an apologist for elite policy decisions, like US foreign interventionism, dies in a car accident, you can get another guy to take his place no problem. There will always be stooges willing to sell out humanity. Those will never be in short supply, so I don't worry about that too much. It's about the system.
If people kept killing them (which they realistically can but chose not to), eventually only the ones who actually were good at managing a society would survive, but that's not going to happen soon. The welfare states, the redistribution policies, the state-mandated wars, the economic interventions will have to bring about the complete catastrophes they're bound to in order for anything to change.
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That is a marxist slogan and they're slogans.
That is no excuse for not replying with a substantive argument.
Are you equal to a racist? If someone kidnapped you, and the police called your mom and said "Hey, we couldn't locate Dada but here's an equal that will serve the same purpose" and they come in with a morbidly obese woman of colour (you're equals, remember that), what do you think would be your mom's reaction? Would she be OK, since you're all equals?
To be equal to someone doesn't mean to be identical. You're also the only one who doesn't seem to get what I mean by equality—maybe because you'd rather not be forced to make a substantive reply.
The amount of effort he puts in is disproportionate to the rewards he reaps, but think about it. He has a skill that is so rare and that has the potential to alter permanently the lives that it makes no sense that it should have the same value as that of someone who knows nothing but how to tighten screws. He also takes much bigger risks. A bad decision by Mr. Gates could cost the comfortable lives of thousands and it did sometimes. So he earned all of his billions, and it's up to him alone to decide how to spend them (on charity), not you, not Obama, not anyone else.
Again. Who has the rarer skill set? Who has to make the riskier decisions?
I don't contest the fact that people like Bill Gates have amazing and rare abilities. What I contest is the idea that this gives him the right to have absolutely outrageous amounts of money.
Let us put aside the idea of Marx's "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need" for one minute. Let's go back to the juxtaposition that I put forth before, between the single mom working three jobs and the financial company CEO. According to the capitalist society, he is literally millions of times more useful than she is. She's struggling just to survive. He has more money than he even knows what to do with. Do you think that's just? What about a mine worker who has to work himself to a sweat every day and will probably die at 60 due to health complications, do you think that's a proportionate comparison? What about the poor Indian worker whose daily calorie intake has tanked since the capitalist market reforms 25 years ago?
Here's what all of this comes down to: even if you believe that the CEO has a right to a greater degree of luxury, is millions of times justified? Is it justified for one person to have a fully staffed personal jet while other people are malnourished?
Still, what's also going on here is a rather incredible romanticization of rich people. It's a common trope that people employ in defense of the rich elite: assert that they deserve it because they're such incredible superhumans. Well, when you commit yourself to a serious examination of reality instead of telling fairy tales, you'll find that things are a lot more nuanced. The financial industry is a good example. It's very daring to try and paint these people as deserving of their ungodly wealth when you consider the fact they brought the complete world economy to its knees recently thanks to conduct that they knew was systemically damaging. They did it because it benefited them.
There are many other reasons for why it's savage and inhumane to permit such a degree of elitism to exist. It's not so much different from the court of Versailles, the only real difference being that, thanks to propaganda, completely regular people like yourself are finding themselves making excuses for this continuous theft to go on.
That's not a caricature, IT'S WHAT ALL OF THEM ARE, WITHOUT EXCEPTION. Equality is and always has been nothing but a ruse. Behind every nice-sounding cry for equality there is the intention of putting in power one or another elite.
I have to say, you're not serious. Does Jill Stein (http://www.jillstein.org/) conform to your caricature of "the leftist leader"? What about Noam Chomsky or Peter Kropotkin or Anton Pannekoek or Rosa Luxemburg? What about the fact Chomsky even explicitly said he doesn't like the word "leader" because that implies there is one person who sets the agenda for others to follow, and that conflicts with the most basic tenets of both socialism and anarchism. You're still equating left-wing philosophy with totalitarianism—that's not the attitude of someone who's interested in a serious, fact-based discussion.
That's would be like having cooperatives everywhere and people already are free to do that but they mostly don't.
As I said before, people don't really have much of a choice. They're stuck in the system. Besides that, the initiatives that do get started end up being crushed. A good example is Vietnam, which was completely destroyed by the US (they're still dying from chemical warfare) because it tried to break away from the pack. There are many others.
This is inherently also similar to the "vote with your money" argument. It's simply not a workable solution, which is why it's proposed by people who don't want people to have a solution.
Yeah, do you know why none of them has anything to do with socialism? Because all it is good at is filling mass graves, that's why.
This is an incredibly myopic thing to say, considering that the US is responsible for literally millions of deaths (http://www.chomsky.info/talks/1990----.htm) throughout the entire world. As I argued before, capitalism is a process that leads to massive concentrations of private, unaccountable power. Tyranny is a natural end result. The anarchist philosophy specifically dismantles concentrations of power. As I said before, what happened in the Soviet Union had very little to do with socialism because its primary tenet—worker control over the means of production—was dismantled right at the start, and the country ultimately went on to become a totalitarian state. Equating that with socialism simply means you don't know what socialism is.
Well you too will have to stop babbling communist propaganda material because I'm having a hard time trying to take you seriously
Again, these are all just poor excuses to not have to make substantive arguments.
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Compare Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea to China, North Korea, Cuba and other communist shitholes. By the way Hong Kong is probably a thousand times more capitalistic than US and has high quality free health care (and also high quality private healthcare). And it works. They have so much cash lying around from not trying to have a huge government that attempts to control and regulate everything they can just make it work if they want to.
Have you ever considered moving to Ethiopia? I hear they employ 100% laissez-faire capitalism and have no regulations, so it must be a true utopia.
ps: none of the countries you mentioned are communist.
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You're not even arguing anymore, you're basically just stomping your feet and screaming NO!!
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My favourite part about this whole thing has been:
*Criticism of a negative aspect of capitalism*
"YOU ARE A COMMUNIST!!!!!"
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This whole discussion has been a long string of pseudo-profundity and logical fallacies. "We survived an ice age with primitive tools, so don't worry about global warming." "The gambling that goes on at Wall Street doesn't affect anyone except the traders themselves." "Rich people are a force for good, just look at Bill Gates's charity work." "People don't want socialism because they don't spontaneously begin collectives inside of a capitalist system." "You're just sloganeering, so I don't have to reply to you." "Socialism is about putting Tesla to work in a factory."
You wouldn't say any of these things if you had done even the most rudimentary research, assuming you're serious about learning things.
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Have you ever considered moving to Ethiopia? I hear they employ 100% laissez-faire capitalism and have no regulations, so it must be a true utopia.
ps: none of the countries you mentioned are communist.
First: It's somalia you're thinking of, which is the typical example people use to say that anarchy doesn't work lol and even so, they're doing better than ethiopia (which has a government, and GUESS FUCKING WHAT? was also supported by communist russia in the 70's) and they're doing better than when they had a government. They're still a shitty country but improving.
Second: Yeah, no one is ever a communist! After all, Karl Marx had GOOD INTENTIONS! Having a good intention totally makes up for having a totally failed concept of economics and spawing countless mass murdering totalitarian regimes each and every single fucking time it's tried.
"But it's not communism!"
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This whole discussion has been a long string of pseudo-profundity and logical fallacies. "We survived an ice age with primitive tools, so don't worry about global warming." "The gambling that goes on at Wall Street doesn't affect anyone except the traders themselves." "Rich people are a force for good, just look at Bill Gates's charity work." "People don't want socialism because they don't spontaneously begin collectives inside of a capitalist system." "You're just sloganeering, so I don't have to reply to you." "Socialism is about putting Tesla to work in a factory."
You wouldn't say any of these things if you had done even the most rudimentary research, assuming you're serious about learning things.
You wouldn't support the notion of "workers deciding stuff" (because they're mostly people who haven't attained the intellectual sophistication to decide anything, which is why they find it much easier to work for other people instead) if you actually bothered to research what happens when that is the case (cooperatives are actually a positive example). You wouldn't support socialism if you had bothered to research why it's a retarded idea (also same reason why no one takes it seriously anymore). You wouldn't keep making appeals to emotion (a logical fallacy) if you had an argument. I'll address your longer post at a later time.
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"But it's not communism!"
You're using the exact same excuse!
Remember when we were talking about the banks bailouts? That "wasn't capitalism." And actually, I agree! Under capitalism, all those banks would die. We both know that has nothing to do with capitalism.
Yet when people misuse the name of communism to carry out killings or totalitarianism or propagandistic catechisms, we're not allowed to make the case that it has nothing to do with communism. Then it's suddenly a "no true Scotsman".
You're being completely hypocritical. And again, you're refraining from actually analyzing things properly. If you were serious, you'd look at what Karl Marx actually said and compare it to what actually happened. You can't do that because you probably haven't read a single word of it.
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You wouldn't support the notion of "workers deciding stuff" (because they're mostly people who haven't attained the intellectual sophistication to decide anything
BINGO!
See, those workers are stupid and need leadership from smart people who know what's best for them. They're much better off working in the factories under our orders. Sound a lot like something you happened to be railing against before?
The thing is, those workers really aren't that stupid if you bother to look at what they actually think. It's just that if they had a say in what happens in government, they'd be making serious moves for their own benefit. Looking at labor history is illuminating in this regard. Child labor laws were not repealed because the factory owners suddenly decided to have morals. Health-safety standards were not instated because the wealthy elites decided it would be nice if people stopped dying while working. The same goes for social security and affordable healthcare. The rich did not need those things and did not do a thing to see them put into existence. It was solely thanks to the work of those same, stupid workers that we're allowed to live if we get into an accident.
So when you look at polls of what one particularly reviled group of workers think, you'll find that even the Tea Party members support welfare (as long as it's not called welfare, as that word's been tainted). The US public itself has been in favor of a Canadian-styled single-payer healthcare system for a long time, with a solid majority. They would prefer it if the government provided them with equal health coverage regardless of wealth and income. Well, that has absolutely no benefits whatsoever for the rich elites, so obviously those stupid workers lack the intellectual sophistication to make smart decisions.
Aside from the juvenile rhetoric and illogical nonsense, I think you ought to be applauded for at least being honest about the fact you think of poor people as stupid automatons who should just obey the masters. Galt would be proud.
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Are you equal to a racist? If someone kidnapped you, and the police called your mom and said "Hey, we couldn't locate Dada but here's an equal that will serve the same purpose" and they come in with a morbidly obese woman of colour (you're equals, remember that), what do you think would be your mom's reaction? Would she be OK, since you're all equals?
please explain to me what is wrong with a morbidly obese woman of color
like, is that really what you think the worst kind of person is?
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Vell there's just NO WAY I'm equal to an obese woman of color. You see I'm svelte, white and male, and that's obviously superior in all aspects.
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advocating equal access to material means of subsistence, education, and production means that you think everyone is identical and have no appreciation for individuality. people can only realize their individuality through exploitation of others!
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Did holodomor happen because of CAPITALISM? (btw: no, it happened because a few people were against forced collectivism/failed to meet production quotas [to comply with a planned economy], so mr. stalin or some other commie decided they didn't deserve their food rations).
yeah actually, it was because of capitalism. The USSR was essentially a state-capitalist enterprise shortly after the Bolsheviks consolidated power. Instead of competing firms exploiting labor, it was a militarized police state(though during the NEP period the large feudal estates were broken up into small independent farms selling agricultural goods in a semi-controlled market). Its not like state-planning and forced rural collectivization preclude accumulation of capital. If anything it sets the stage for rapid industrialization of the economy and proletarianzation of the population.
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You wouldn't support the notion of "workers deciding stuff" (because they're mostly people who haven't attained the intellectual sophistication to decide anything, which is why they find it much easier to work for other people instead)
Let's say for a moment that I agree with you that people working for others work for others because they lack the education to either work for themselves or pull themselves higher in some systemic framework of management. From here we can take a few paths of argument and rationale.
Argument 1: So is the Group, as is the Individual
The first path of argument is that the "stuff" that workers would decide is stuff that pertains to basic human life. I say this because that is what a government decides in a system where a state exists, unlike communism, which has no state. So in a system where there is no state and there are "workers deciding stuff", the collective fills the void of power. Let's then say all of the workers are uneducated - which is unlikely because even if humans are inherently selfish, as you believe, a collective would then be a group of people with the desire to improve themselves, which means education provided for group members - then it still doesn't matter.
Regardless of education, each person knows what he or she needs to survive and pursue happiness. A person also knows who or what can provide those items. In a situation where a person is a member of a group that must provide those things, a person supports the group at the expense of his or her own extensions of what we might call freedom. This is a Hobbesian argument which has nothing to do with Marxism and is, in fact, usually a good argument for the existence of a state, but which I am using it to argue against - I am sure, being a libertarian, that you have read Leviathan and if you have not, then I would consider you to be a person who hasn't attained the intellectual sophistication to argue for libertarianism. So in a situation where there is a group made up of people who will support the group in defiance of their own personal selfishness for freedom, you have compulsion to work without a gun, without a blatant work-or-starve system - because you know the group will help you if you can't work and if that is the case you will reciprocate when you can based on the same values you hold that makes you support the group in the first place. Each member helps the group because it is "the right thing to do" and that has nothing to do with some objective moral good, it is simply a desire to help the group out because at the end of the day, everyone is better off and because each individual knows the value of the things they receive by supporting the group. This allows a collective to function by the same mentality as an individual seeks wealth in capitalism except with less inequality. It is the difference between "work hard and you will succeed" and "work hard and we will all succeed", but because we tell ourselves that only we will succeed for hard work, we, by deduction, are oblivious when others need help. Because we discard the concept of a group being good, we can never have the benefits it provides because it requires the buy in of all of its members to provide them and each person's resolve to buy in is reinforced by others' resolve to buy in. Collectivist mentality works because it is a self sustaining system of motivation that begins as collective selfishness and ends as collective advancement (something better) as opposed to capitalism that begins as individual selfishness and ends at individual vindictiveness (something worse). But they both begin with the same motivation: desire to live and prosper (selfishness). The difference is in the social conditioning, not in natural instinct.
Argument 2: Scarcity of the Rights to Progression
So you've blown past my first argument and don't buy into my selfishness = collectivism argument. That's alright, I still have some flaws to point out. In the way that you made your statement, you said not that workers are inherently stupid, but that they have yet to attain intelligence. That is a good statement, one that you have to make for the basic tenants of capitalism to apply: that people can become better than what they are. I agree with you on that. So let's discuss the question of access. For this argument (and thus the proper functioning of capitalism, then objectivism, your school of thought) each person can be unequal (your Tesla argument) to others, but they must be provided with equal opportunity. If this is the case, under capitalism each person will rise to their own level of ability or motivation and those with higher ability or better work ethic will rise higher than those without based on taking advantage of the same opportunity. Okay, I accept that too. The problem with your argument is that, when you accept those things, you see that there is not equal access in capitalism ever. It necessitates that there not be simply because the entire point of rising in capitalism to provide yourself with better things, including better access to things for your close social partners such as friends and family. Along the way you are socialized to do this by the act of doing it without social forces at work to counteract that socialization.
Let's begin a simple thought experiment on capitalism without a government and even without any social forces at work here. Capitalism down to its most basic mathematical essence. In a system beginning with equality, where opportunity value is 10 = 10 = 10 = 10 and on down the line for each person beginning in the system, the act of rising in the system means that you wish to improve yourself. Given the choice to invest in yourself (or your friends and family) or someone you don't know, you will pick the former because your disposable capital is fixed (you do not have infinite). 10 is comfortable opportunity and each person, in the new capitalist-objectivist society, is comfortable beginning. The represents what is required to overcome the barriers to success, which are things like the level of intellectual awareness you stated. In a capitalist-only society, education (and thus intellectual advancement) will obviously cost money because there are no public facilities to provide it, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that idea providing everyone has the equal opportunity to pay, which right now they do in this experiment.
So let's say that we avoid the argument that you can only advantage yourself by disadvantaging others (because I don't know if I really buy that argument even in a capitalist system) and you invest in yourself and therefore your children. Lets say you invest 1. So now society looks like this: 11 = 10 = 10 = 10. The next person in line is even more successful than you and invests 2. so society looks like this: 11 = 12 = 10 = 10 and the last two are just average people who get by enough on the equal opportunity they were presented with, they didn't lose anything or get in debt, they lived responsible lives. So now the next generation rolls around and everyone's children start trying to survive in society. So your children and the second person's children now have a better opportunity for success because you invested in your children's future. Now a natural occurrence happens in capitalism: inflation. This happens because of business cycles, something that happens because some people are more successful than others due to their natural ability or hard work, something Adam Smith described as inherent in capitalism. So now 11 is the new 10. So lets do some simple math:
(10 + 1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10 + 2) / 11 * 10 = 10.9
(10 + 0) / 11 * 10 = 9.1
(10 + 0) /11 * 10 = 9.1
So there we go, if we assume 10 is comfortable opportunity, now suddenly half of the members of our theoretical capitalist society no longer have comfortable opportunity through no fault of their own. They were not unsuccessful, they remained comfortable all their lives, but now their children are less comfortable because their parents did not have enough above average success to sustain themselves as average after inflation. Now say one of them is as successful as you were in the first generation, they gain 1. and your children, of course, gain 1 or 2. So we have this in the end: 11 = 12.9 = 10.1 = 10.1. And then inflation:
(10+1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10.9+2) / 11 * 10 = 11.7
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
What's this? Even though their parents were moderately successful in their life (as successful as your kids) still half of the third generation's kids still do not go forward with a comfortable level of opportunity, yet yours do. So now to leave their kids with a comfortable level of opportunity, they must make double the effort of your grandchildren (they need at least 2 for inflation to reset them to over 10 for the next generation). The thing is, this is with everything else fixed, there are no other external forces that impact opportunity except inflation (in real life there are many more thanks to the existence of a state and the mentalities of society). This is just a thought experiment on capitalism in a stateless society, and yet even in the absolute best conditions, capitalism still destroys its own inequality immediately after its inception without an external body (state) to ensure that opportunity stays fixed by subsidizing the opportunity of anyone who is unsuccessful. This leads to problems at the top end (banks unable to fail) and at the bottom end (no motivation to work). The current US government (and, for the most part, any other failing capitalist state) has evolved out of what its economic backbone necessitates because it is an imperfect system to begin with.
Wrap-up
Now then, I haven't used any of what you might call left-wing constructions. I have argued against capitalism with the same framework you use to argue for it. In this we are playing by your rules on the assumption that we both have the same materials and assumptions to construct our arguments. I haven't cited Marx or Mao. I used the ideas provided by Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Thomas Hobbes. People whose ideas are at the core of libertarian thought. It is obvious that you won't ever see eye to eye with people like Dada and in the end it is because they don't play on the same field as you, for good or for bad. But here I am, playing with the same ball, on the same field, with the same rules, and I hope you will at least recognize my argument without the ability to dismiss it out of hand because I say things like "to each according to their ability to each according to their need" or whatever other leftist slogans you like to attribute to others.
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tbh I mostly said that to ruffle his feathers.
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You're using the exact same excuse!
Remember when we were talking about the banks bailouts? That "wasn't capitalism." And actually, I agree! Under capitalism, all those banks would die. We both know that has nothing to do with capitalism.
Yet when people misuse the name of communism to carry out killings or totalitarianism or propagandistic catechisms, we're not allowed to make the case that it has nothing to do with communism. Then it's suddenly a "no true Scotsman".
Nope, even if you want to interpret that as me making the same excuse as you, that's still not a capitalistic measure, that's just nepotism, corruption, government favoring their butt buddies or whatever else you want to call it. This is inherent to any system involving people, including your fabulous socialism, which is why it will NEVER work. Capitalism means not consuming 100% of what you produce and instead investing some of it in order to improve your production. Does that sound like a bad idea to you? No, in fact I'm pretty sure you'd need to do that in your marvelous socialist society. If you let people do what they want it's pretty obvious there will be "inequality", but that's just a reflection of what they are (i.e. not equals. Also, go read up on the definition of 'equality'. It means equivalence, it means two things are the same. You want everyone to have access to water and tasty food? I'm sorry, you'll have to be a bit of an evil kapitalist svine in order to produce clean water and tasty food inexpensively enough, to the point they aren't scarce resources anymore!). Well, I guess it was because people were allowed to do what they wanted that mass murdering warmongering sociopaths now rule the world, so I'll give that to you. Fuck freedom.
You're being completely hypocritical. And again, you're refraining from actually analyzing things properly. If you were serious, you'd look at what Karl Marx actually said and compare it to what actually happened. You can't do that because you probably haven't read a single word of it.
Karl Marx said the revolution would begin in England. Never happened.
Karl Marx bases his entire work on a false premise (labor theory of value).
Economic calculation problem (google it).
I remember reading engels for uni but that was for a history class on the industrial era cities like manchester/paris under haussman. He did something along the lines of pitying the industrial worker for working 19 hours a day, living in expensive, cramped and terrible apartments. But guess what? If it wasn't for capitalism, the poor proletariat would probably become food for saber tooth tigers. If it wasn't for capitalism, you wouldn't have laws against child labor. You wouldn't enjoy the comfortable life you have today. Nor engels, nor marx would have enough free time to write their nonsense if it wasn't for the rugged industrialists of the past.
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Ok, here we go!
Let's say for a moment that I agree with you that people working for others work for others because they lack the education to either work for themselves or pull themselves higher in some systemic framework of management. From here we can take a few paths of argument and rationale.
Argument 1: So is the Group, as is the Individual
The first path of argument is that the "stuff" that workers would decide is stuff that pertains to basic human life. I say this because that is what a government decides in a system where a state exists, unlike communism, which has no state. So in a system where there is no state and there are "workers deciding stuff", the collective fills the void of power. Let's then say all of the workers are uneducated - which is unlikely because even if humans are inherently selfish, as you believe, a collective would then be a group of people with the desire to improve themselves, which means education provided for group members - then it still doesn't matter.
Regardless of education, each person knows what he or she needs to survive and pursue happiness. A person also knows who or what can provide those items. In a situation where a person is a member of a group that must provide those things, a person supports the group at the expense of his or her own extensions of what we might call freedom. This is a Hobbesian argument which has nothing to do with Marxism and is, in fact, usually a good argument for the existence of a state, but which I am using it to argue against - I am sure, being a libertarian, that you have read Leviathan and if you have not, then I would consider you to be a person who hasn't attained the intellectual sophistication to argue for libertarianism. So in a situation where there is a group made up of people who will support the group in defiance of their own personal selfishness for freedom, you have compulsion to work without a gun, without a blatant work-or-starve system - because you know the group will help you if you can't work and if that is the case you will reciprocate when you can based on the same values you hold that makes you support the group in the first place. Each member helps the group because it is "the right thing to do" and that has nothing to do with some objective moral good, it is simply a desire to help the group out because at the end of the day, everyone is better off and because each individual knows the value of the things they receive by supporting the group. This allows a collective to function by the same mentality as an individual seeks wealth in capitalism except with less inequality. It is the difference between "work hard and you will succeed" and "work hard and we will all succeed", but because we tell ourselves that only we will succeed for hard work, we, by deduction, are oblivious when others need help. Because we discard the concept of a group being good, we can never have the benefits it provides because it requires the buy in of all of its members to provide them and each person's resolve to buy in is reinforced by others' resolve to buy in. Collectivist mentality works because it is a self sustaining system of motivation that begins as collective selfishness and ends as collective advancement (something better) as opposed to capitalism that begins as individual selfishness and ends at individual vindictiveness (something worse). But they both begin with the same motivation: desire to live and prosper (selfishness). The difference is in the social conditioning, not in natural instinct.
That's kind of a half assed argument. David Ricardo's comparative advantage is a better explanation as to why humans act in groups. I.e: if everyone does what they do best, everyone wins. For example, if you're good at growing wheat and your neighbor is really good at making bread, and you're a complete disaster at making bread, isn't it better to do your thing (running a wheat farm) and let the neighbor do his thing? Yes it is, but that is something people will do out of their own selfish desire to improve their conditions, no need to think about "Hey I'm helping the group!", no need to think about "sacrificing personal freedom", or it being the "right thing to do". If an individual dedicates his time and effort to improving his productivity (defined by amount of goods produced divided by work performed), he'll be able to enjoy a longer period of leisure (which will then become an opportunity for other individuals to meet the excess demand, if there is one), but it's up to him to decide which situation is more valuable to him, though we can agree that working is an undesirable activity (it has 'disutility' attached to it). If an individual decides to help someone who can't work, without expecting a return on his investment, just because it makes him feel good, it's also up to him. Unless... there is something to force him, and it is precisely at this point that you'd try to rationalize/justify the existence of a state, with a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and with the authority to overcome personal freedom.
The group is nothing but an emergent pattern. And I didn't even get into interpersonal exchanges, but I believe you can imagine how people would employ barter to acquire the goods they need without knowing how to produce them, and how the mere existence of people, and people trying to satisfy their desires already is a system where the workers decide what is produced, no need for any 'intermediate' bullshit mass murdering totalitarian regime. All that can happen without pressure from the authorities. Now imagine if someone tried to actively interfere with every little thing every individual did. "Hey, you can't grow more wheat than the group decided! Don't hoard wheat, you greedy pig!" "Hey you can't marry that dude!". Do you realize where they're going? The idea of communism is a cute one, that works pretty well FOR ANTS. We're a little bit more complex than ants. Also, I think that's sadly also why we can't have TRUE FREE MARKET LAISSEZ FAIRE CAPITALISM. People bend over to pressure too readily.
Also i'm not a lolbertarian (would still vote for ron paul/ gary johnson if I could). I'm just a hypocrite living in a nanny state that will remain a slave forever.
Argument 2: Scarcity of the Rights to Progression
So you've blown past my first argument and don't buy into my selfishness = collectivism argument. That's alright, I still have some flaws to point out. In the way that you made your statement, you said not that workers are inherently stupid, but that they have yet to attain intelligence. That is a good statement, one that you have to make for the basic tenants of capitalism to apply: that people can become better than what they are. I agree with you on that. So let's discuss the question of access. For this argument (and thus the proper functioning of capitalism, then objectivism, your school of thought) each person can be unequal (your Tesla argument) to others, but they must be provided with equal opportunity. If this is the case, under capitalism each person will rise to their own level of ability or motivation and those with higher ability or better work ethic will rise higher than those without based on taking advantage of the same opportunity. Okay, I accept that too. The problem with your argument is that, when you accept those things, you see that there is not equal access in capitalism ever. It necessitates that there not be simply because the entire point of rising in capitalism to provide yourself with better things, including better access to things for your close social partners such as friends and family. Along the way you are socialized to do this by the act of doing it without social forces at work to counteract that socialization.
Let's begin a simple thought experiment on capitalism without a government and even without any social forces at work here. Capitalism down to its most basic mathematical essence. In a system beginning with equality, where opportunity value is 10 = 10 = 10 = 10
That's never the case, as you could have been born in SOMALIA (which is basically life on a difficulty setting way past the hardest mode) and that's hardly an "equal starting condition" to being born in the Netherlands (with all the privileges that come with it) but I'll play along.
and on down the line for each person beginning in the system, the act of rising in the system means that you wish to improve yourself. Given the choice to invest in yourself (or your friends and family) or someone you don't know, you will pick the former because your disposable capital is fixed (you do not have infinite). 10 is comfortable opportunity and each person, in the new capitalist-objectivist society, is comfortable beginning. The represents what is required to overcome the barriers to success, which are things like the level of intellectual awareness you stated. In a capitalist-only society, education (and thus intellectual advancement) will obviously cost money because there are no public facilities to provide it, and there is nothing inherently wrong with that idea providing everyone has the equal opportunity to pay, which right now they do in this experiment.
Why does it have to cost money? Why can't it be voluntary? There's no reason to assume paying for it will be the ONLY way to obtain the knowledge. Given that you haven't established a set of rules as to how people act I'm guessing it's safe to assume the people you put in your test tubes act like we do. Also, what is the currency in your test-tube?
So let's say that we avoid the argument that you can only advantage yourself by disadvantaging others (because I don't know if I really buy that argument even in a capitalist system) and you invest in yourself and therefore your children. Lets say you invest 1. So now society looks like this: 11 = 10 = 10 = 10. The next person in line is even more successful than you and invests 2. so society looks like this: 11 = 12 = 10 = 10 and the last two are just average people who get by enough on the equal opportunity they were presented with, they didn't lose anything or get in debt, they lived responsible lives. So now the next generation rolls around and everyone's children start trying to survive in society. So your children and the second person's children now have a better opportunity for success because you invested in your children's future. Now a natural occurrence happens in capitalism: inflation. This happens because of business cycles, something that happens because some people are more successful than others due to their natural ability or hard work, something Adam Smith described as inherent in capitalism. So now 11 is the new 10. So lets do some simple math:
Actually inflation happens either because a) there is an increase in the supply of money (i.e: due to government increasing spending as part of feel-good anti-cyclic measures) or b) because a good becomes scarce (we'll see the cost of oil increase sharply in the next few years). Those two things are hardly exclusive to a capitalist system. Cause number a) can have in any system where there is a fiat currency, cause number b) can happen anywhere in the world.
(10 + 1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10 + 2) / 11 * 10 = 10.9
(10 + 0) / 11 * 10 = 9.1
(10 + 0) /11 * 10 = 9.1
So there we go, if we assume 10 is comfortable opportunity, now suddenly half of the members of our theoretical capitalist society no longer have comfortable opportunity through no fault of their own. They were not unsuccessful, they remained comfortable all their lives, but now their children are less comfortable because their parents did not have enough above average success to sustain themselves as average after inflation. Now say one of them is as successful as you were in the first generation, they gain 1. and your children, of course, gain 1 or 2. So we have this in the end: 11 = 12.9 = 10.1 = 10.1. And then inflation:
(10+1) / 11 * 10 = 10
(10.9+2) / 11 * 10 = 11.7
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
(9.1+1) / 11 = 9.2
What's this? Even though their parents were moderately successful in their life (as successful as your kids) still half of the third generation's kids still do not go forward with a comfortable level of opportunity, yet yours do. So now to leave their kids with a comfortable level of opportunity, they must make double the effort of your grandchildren (they need at least 2 for inflation to reset them to over 10 for the next generation). The thing is, this is with everything else fixed, there are no other external forces that impact opportunity except inflation (in real life there are many more thanks to the existence of a state and the mentalities of society). This is just a thought experiment on capitalism in a stateless society,
In a stateless society there is no official government-printed money (actually, that could still happen if people used fiat money and no one made sure it actually represented an useful physical commodity), so inflation can only happen due to a scarcity of goods. That could happen anywhere. You could live in a stateless, classless communist utopia where everyone had access to clean water, but you know what would be the first thing to happen if that water supply got decreased by, say, a half due to a meteor destroying an aqueduct or some other event? Well, the first thing is there wouldn't be enough water for everyone, unless they anticipated that and constructed the system with a wide enough safety margin, but let's assume that, even if they did take all the precautions , they don't have enough water for anyone anymore. What happens next is that you'll have to ration water while people try to repair the damage. How do you decide who gets their share and who doesn't? How do you decide between letting children die of dehydration and watering the crops, preventing everyone from dying of starvation? Ok, so you've managed to find answers to all those problems, but water is still a scarce resource. What will happen next is that human nature will overcome the communist-human-drone-indoctrination, and you'll see a black market for water. Some people might hoard their water rations in order to trade them for some other valuable good or service.
This is precisely what happens in the real world when the government tries to fix inflation by freezing prices, what happens in the real world when the government prohibits a product (alcohol, drugs, firearms). Even if it's not an argument against the existence of a state, it is an argument against economic interventions by the government. It's an argument for laissez-faire free-market capitalism, hohoho (also how Jose Mujica [someone ][/someone] is trying to fix marijuana-related crimes in Uruguay. instead of decriminalizing use and maintaining commerce illegal, he legalized both and is expecting the 'free-market to fix it').
and yet even in the absolute best conditions, capitalism still destroys its own inequality immediately after its inception without an external body (state) to ensure that opportunity stays fixed by subsidizing the opportunity of anyone who is unsuccessful. This leads to problems at the top end (banks unable to fail) and at the bottom end (no motivation to work). The current US government (and, for the most part, any other failing capitalist state) has evolved out of what its economic backbone necessitates because it is an imperfect system to begin with.
They're not failing because of capitalism, however. They're failing because of interventionist governments.
Wrap-up
Now then, I haven't used any of what you might call left-wing constructions. I have argued against capitalism with the same framework you use to argue for it. In this we are playing by your rules on the assumption that we both have the same materials and assumptions to construct our arguments. I haven't cited Marx or Mao. I used the ideas provided by Adam Smith, Ayn Rand, Thomas Hobbes. People whose ideas are at the core of libertarian thought. It is obvious that you won't ever see eye to eye with people like Dada and in the end it is because they don't play on the same field as you, for good or for bad. But here I am, playing with the same ball, on the same field, with the same rules, and I hope you will at least recognize my argument without the ability to dismiss it out of hand because I say things like "to each according to their ability to each according to their need" or whatever other leftist slogans you like to attribute to others.
You're forgetting Carl Menger, Mises, Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk, Rothbard and [other ][/other]. I recognize your argument, but it's flawed, it's based on a few false premises and lacks some initial definitions.
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Also I took that long to respond because I was too busy accumulating capital
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BINGO!
See, those workers are stupid and need leadership from smart people who know what's best for them. They're much better off working in the factories under our orders. Sound a lot like something you happened to be railing against before?
Yeah, actually sounds quite like communism. You! Work in factory for betterment of Mother Rossiya! Except that instead of GOSPLAN there are... brace yourself... REAL PEOPLE!!!! deciding what they want to be produced. The free market already achieves the same goal as your communist fantasy
The thing is, those workers really aren't that stupid if you bother to look at what they actually think. It's just that if they had a say in what happens in government, they'd be making serious moves for their own benefit. Looking at labor history is illuminating in this regard. Child labor laws were not repealed because the factory owners suddenly decided to have morals. Health-safety standards were not instated because the wealthy elites decided it would be nice if people stopped dying while working. The same goes for social security and affordable healthcare. The rich did not need those things and did not do a thing to see them put into existence. It was solely thanks to the work of those same, stupid workers that we're allowed to live if we get into an accident.
HERP DERP MUH GUBMINT!!!!!!! The workers are free to decide what their labor is worth. If they don't agree that being exposed to radioactive polonium is a good thing, they organize a strike and demand NBC suits. If their employers don't think handing them NBC suits is worth the trouble they fire them and hire other people. If you are an industrialist and absolutely no one in the country is willing to be exposed to ionizing radiation, and utilizing NBC suits will cost less than the losses associated with not producing a fucking thing, and your competitors are probably going to do it to, do you chose to adopt that safety measure or to lose millions? Nah, I'll just call the queen and tell her to make the army forcibly break the strike. It's a nice thing to have a gubmint to count on, right? It's a nice thing knowing that, because you're buddies with the queen/despot/comissar/prime minister/president, you'll never have to worry about providing any safety measures at all.
So when you look at polls of what one particularly reviled group of workers think, you'll find that even the Tea Party members support welfare (as long as it's not called welfare, as that word's been tainted). The US public itself has been in favor of a Canadian-styled single-payer healthcare system for a long time, with a solid majority. They would prefer it if the government provided them with equal health coverage regardless of wealth and income. Well, that has absolutely no benefits whatsoever for the rich elites, so obviously those stupid workers lack the intellectual sophistication to make smart decisions.
I'm not even against the idea of paying a few taxes in order to be able to have "free" healthcare (even though if I was a dictator I'd rather let people slowly die off in order to revert the modern-era population boom), what I'm against is this whole retarded attempt to fix inefficiencies and 'inequalities' caused by legislation by putting more legislation on top of them, rather than finding out exactly why healthcare is so expensive and doing away with the inefficiencies that cause it to be expensive before handing it out to everyone, which I think would be a more cost-effective measure. I guess it's just the good and old 'ratchet effect' in action.
Aside from the juvenile rhetoric and illogical nonsense, I think you ought to be applauded for at least being honest about the fact you think of poor people as stupid automatons who should just obey the masters. Galt would be proud.
Poor people aren't stupid automatons. I'm pretty poor myself. But do you think actual stupid automatons have any choice other than remaining poor, tightening screws and taste-testing paint for the rest of their lives? Because for them it's either that or be supported by other people.
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Nope, even if you want to interpret that as me making the same excuse as you, that's still not a capitalistic measure, that's just nepotism, corruption, government favoring their butt buddies or whatever else you want to call it. This is inherent to any system involving people, including your fabulous socialism, which is why it will NEVER work.
Cynicism. If it's properly implemented, socialism can work. Capitalism requires a shit ton of regulations and programs, many of which are socialistic, to keep corruption from happening, and no purely capitalist society is healthy, it's always a few people manipulating the system to get way more money than they could ever possibly use and then hoarding it, directly keeping money out of circulation and making the everybody else poorer. This is happening right now, and it's fueled by capitalism.
The only reason I can guess why you would support this kind of thing is that you have grand hopes of gaming the system yourself and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" (on the backs of other people). Every single person I know in real life who if ultra pro-capitalism anti-socialism talks about it in between talking about their latest get scheme to get rich.
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The workers are free to decide what their labor is worth.
yeah i guess if you were a completely naive autist this may seem apparent, but when you look throughout history this has really never been the case and the working class has been subject to pretty brutal repression(by none other than the rugged industrialists or state bureaucrats) when they've organized. the state is the governing apparatus of the ruling class, when they break strikes it's because they're serving a class interest, and not acting as some autonomous entity disconnected from the economy.
Economic calculation problem (google it).
Economists are notoriously awful at math and complete philistines in the discipline. Mises and Heyek are no exception.
http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/publications/ccm.IJUC07.pdf
... so much for that argument!
& the LTV is more or less valid. ~*deal with it*~
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yeah i guess if you were a completely naive autist this may seem apparent, but when you look throughout history this has really never been the case and the working class has been subject to pretty brutal repression(by none other than the rugged industrialists or state bureaucrats) when they've organized. the state is the governing apparatus of the ruling class, when they break strikes it's because they're serving a class interest, and not acting as some autonomous entity disconnected from the economy.
Read beyond that line.
Economists are notoriously awful at math and complete philistines in the discipline. Mises and Heyek are no exception.
The entire austrian school is based on the premise that you can't reliably perform math on people, that it makes no sense to apply mathematical formula on models made of mathematical formulas made of mathematical models made of formulas.
http://www.macs.hw.ac.uk/~greg/publications/ccm.IJUC07.pdf
... so much for that argument!
I'll read that later but it sounds like something straight out of the zeitgeist movement (which is just another form of utopian post-soviet communism) with computers instead of gosplan
& the LTV is more or less valid. ~*deal with it*~
Not it isn't ~*deal with it*~
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Read beyond that line.
i did. you seem to have it in your head that capitalism would be just great if it weren't for the big bad warlords in charge of the states. never was the case and never will be, capitalism creates a class society and within a class society the state is leveraged in the interest of the ruling class. seems like what's causing that mess is glaringly obvious(it's the capitalism)
The entire austrian school is based on the premise that you can't reliably perform math on people, that it makes no sense to apply mathematical formula on models made of mathematical formulas made of mathematical models made of formulas.
ya fuck empirical quantitative analysis... there's a reason why nobody except annoying 'spergers take austrians seriously y'know. the rest of the world has passed em by while they're sitting there fingering their buttholes rambling about gold coins.
What I was getting at was that the 'computability problem' is a 'problem' invoked by people who know dick about computation.
I'll read that later but it sounds like something straight out of the zeitgeist movement (which is just another form of utopian post-soviet communism) with computers instead of gosplan
maybe if you're a dumb baby and things like "diagonalization" sound like science fiction to you...
Not it isn't ~*deal with it*~
according to you, who's admittedly never read marx and the austrians who've never understood marx(they're incapable of distinguishing ricardian and marxist theories of value).
ya sure i'll take your word for it... NOT! B-)
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Well, there's a reason no one takes marxian economics seriously either, except some nutty people who like to elaborate good-sounding fantasies about perfect classless communist utopias consisting exclusively of humandrones just before committing genocide. The reason is: it makes no sense to sane people. I'm not good at teh maths so I wouldn't know what diagonalisation means, but you're free to explain how you'd apply that to a person inside a test tube, how you empirically test your marxian theories on a perfectly controllable environment, how you genetically engineer a humandrone and so on. I'm pretty sure the end result will sound like science fiction.
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yeah nobody takes marxist critiques of political economy seriously... 'cept for just about every field of social science outside of economics(though you have folks like Brenner who're taken seriously in academia).
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then there was Roubini from NYU coming out in the WSJ saying that "Marx was right"...
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also the reason mainstream economists don't take Marx seriously is that they are taught things like "Marx's theory of value didn't take demand into account" in undergrad. (people literally tell me this.) and they they tell it to undergrads once they're professors.
ok back to hiatus bye sw. :]
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and it wasn't that long ago that Das Kapital was hitting the bestseller lists in Germany
but yah, nobody takes it seriously.... OR just like math, libtard doesn't know anything about marx.
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Guess what else was a best seller not too long ago?
Twilight.
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WELL YOU KNOW WHO ELSE WAS A BEST SELLER IN GERMANY
THAT'S RIGHT, HIT-
that's literally the level of your critical thinking
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That's probably the only thing you people will pay attention to
there's a reason why nobody except annoying 'spergers take austrians seriously y'know. the rest of the world has passed em by while they're sitting there fingering their buttholes rambling about gold coins
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[/size]Grade A+++ argument, high quality debate material
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can you just tell me what your old user name was that's the only reason I check this thread
yeah nobody takes marxist critiques of political economy seriously... 'cept for just about every field of social science outside of economics(though you have folks like Brenner who're taken seriously in academia).
yeah, really. the fact libtard could argue that is pretty telling
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That's probably the only thing you people will pay attention to
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[/size]Grade A+++ argument, high quality debate material
srry, not gonna give some guy going by "libtard" spouting austrian economics(complete with gleefully ignorant caricatures of marx) in a thread about healthcare reform a serious response.
instead i'm going to just drop the pretensions and call you a fucking idiot :-)
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H8rs gonna h8
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If you're older than 12 and take marx seriously... well, I've got bad news for you
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yeah that may have worked in the 80's and 90's bro, not anymore
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Tried to buy a copy of das kapital one day but the store didn't have a section for comedy books. The owner promptly went out of business and died of HIV and mental retardation due to the free market fixing stuff.
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Look at what you caused. This is all you fault.
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the family guy humor appears. who could have ever predicted a guy regurgitating the most standard ignorant american undergrad economy arguments that he admits to having learned on 4chan would resort to that. gotta go Louie and Wilfred are coming on
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the family guy humor appears. who could have ever predicted a guy regurgitating the most standard ignorant american undergrad economy arguments that he admits to having learned on 4chan would resort to that.
NOT ME NO SIR
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Well, there's a reason no one takes marxian economics seriously either, except some nutty people who like to elaborate good-sounding fantasies about perfect classless communist utopias consisting exclusively of humandrones just before committing genocide.
Yes, because there are people like you who keep equating economic equality with genocide.
MARX?? HE WAS THAT RUSSIAN WHO INVENTED GULAGS, RIGHT??
The reason is: it makes no sense to sane people.
Yep we shouldn't judge things based on a serious and proper analysis, but whether they "make sense". If people don' get it, it's not real. Time dilation in general relativity also don' exist. Now if you will excuse me I have to go make the last democratic vote I'll ever cast GO RON PAUL
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wow libtard you say retarded a lot.
you;re really gross you know that.
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i know that's got nothin to do with the argument at hand but i'm not even about to get involved in this trainwreck here
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Dada, I swear to god if you post "equality" one more time I'll enter netherlands as a refugee and make you pay for my food and housing all while contributing nothing. I'll claim I'm fleeing homophobia. It will work and you'll have to work for me for free for the rest of your life.
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I regret ever putting in an ounce of effort because you don't care one bit about being reasonable and listening and intelligently responding to things I have to say. All you care about is turning other people's arguments into caricatures. You've been doing that since the very beginning. You're not serious at all.
And aside from that you're a pretty awful individual. First you're denouncing the horrors of me being replaced by "an obese woman of color", now you're claiming political immigrants who fled due to domestic persecution are just lazy bastards who only want to mooch off of the native population. I'm not too surprised that a fan of the ol' racist grandpa Ron Paul has some serious bigotry problems of his own.
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Coincidentally I just read this article (http://www.spectrezine.org/global/chomsky.htm) by Chomsky which I'd recommend to you if I thought you were capable of committing an honest effort towards trying to understand things. Instead I'm going to recommend it to everybody else. It's about the inherent myopia and hypocrisy in mainstream discussions of communism, exactly of the sort that you have demonstrated.
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No Dada, I go into lenghty and detailed rants exposing your insanity and why it is insane with simple examples. You're the one who would rather nitpick, ignore entire paragraphs all while trying to make me feel sorry for the proletariat and, through some inane and convoluted logic, interpret a clear personal threat as this
you're claiming political immigrants who fled due to domestic persecution are just lazy bastards who only want to mooch off of the native population.
I haven't done that! I made a direct and clear personal threat to your person. Say 'equality' one more time and I'll drag your entire country to the gutter. I have nothing to lose. In fact, moving to the netherlands and living off welfare would greatly improve my condition because then I wouldn't have to struggle to get out of "wage slavery". I'll make you my slave instead. How would you like that? How would you like to work in order feed someone who is a fan of racist granddad ron paul? I'll make sure to bring my family too.
I dare you Dada. I double dare you. Say 'equality' ONE MORE GODDAMNED TIME.
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I WILL DESTROY YOUR CONTINENT.
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wow libtard you say retarded a lot.
you;re really gross you know that.
I did something I regret doing, nevermind
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DIE ABLEIST SCUM
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Dada will see his entire country turn into a fetid pile of debris and ruins and he won't be able to do anything because he'll be too busy waiting for the state to fix it, but it won't.
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Cynicism. If it's properly implemented, socialism can work. Capitalism requires a shit ton of regulations and programs, many of which are socialistic, to keep corruption from happening,
Well, yeah, no, in fact state programs are a surefire way to lose a lot of money to corruption and in fact a true capitalistic society can only work in the absence of corruption, which is impossible (as is socialism). The most successful quasi-capitalistic societies in the real world are necessarily those where corruption (or at least perceived corruption) is kept at a minimum.
and no purely capitalist society is healthy, it's always a few people manipulating the system to get way more money than they could ever possibly use and then hoarding it,
No, capitalism is about accumulating useful material resources (heavy machinery, minerals, skilled people). Money itself isn't worth anything.
directly keeping money out of circulation and making the everybody else poorer.
That doesn't even make any fucking sense. Zimbabwe has a shitload of money in circulation. Are they any richer because of that?
This is happening right now, and it's fueled by capitalism.
It's fueled by stupidity and blind faith in empty promises of equality and change.
The only reason I can guess why you would support this kind of thing is that you have grand hopes of gaming the system yourself and "pulling yourself up by your bootstraps" (on the backs of other people). Every single person I know in real life who if ultra pro-capitalism anti-socialism talks about it in between talking about their latest get scheme to get rich.
I'm actually hoping to do that. I don't want to be a drone my entire life. I don't want to work my ass off so a bunch of useless leftist politicians who never exerted any amount of effort in their entire lives get to eat and drink for free stuff I'll probably never have access to.
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I'm starting to regret registering here and making this thread, but it was kinda fun
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No Dada, I go into lenghty and detailed rants exposing your insanity and why it is insane with simple examples. You're the one who would rather nitpick, ignore entire paragraphs all while trying to make me feel sorry for the proletariat and, through some inane and convoluted logic, interpret a clear personal threat as this
Hey remember when you equated socialism with totalitarianism with zero evidence, and then proceeded to do it again and again despite ample evidence to the contrary?
Remember when you kept misinterpreting the word "equality" to mean something completely different than its general meaning (which everybody else understood), and then proceeded to attack your own mischaracterization?
Remember when you said climate change should happen and destroy the world to "teach people a lesson"?
Remember when you said the gambling at Wall Street didn't affect anyone except those traders, completely ignoring the fact the global economy just completely exploded a few years ago?
Remember when you tried to paint rich capitalists as a force for good because "BILL GATES!!!" and "leftist leaders" as evil because STALIN/MAO!!!!!
Remember when you tried to "prove" that socialism is unwanted because people don't spontaneously start collectives inside of the capitalist system?
Remember when you said you didn't even have to reply to me because "I'm just sloganeering"?
You're not arguing, you're just writing words that mean nothing. It's typical right-libertarian pseudo-profundity from someone who admits he doesn't know a thing about economy but still adores the Austrian school and enjoys spouting stupid caricatures of Marx and actually blaming HIM for arbitrary mass murders that occurred long after he died. You're not seriously interested in solving problems or figuring things out. Everything you write is intellectually vacuous, and I'm sure the only reason you went away for a little while was to visit Reddit to harvest some new arguments to use, because you obviously don't like to do any of that hard thinking stuff by yourself.
I'm glad you regret registering, but at the very least you managed to accomplish one thing: you've reconfirmed my observation that right-libertarians are a bunch of charlatans who use discussions like this one as an opportunity to echo their favorite lines without thinking too much about them.
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See, it's stuff like this:
Dada will see his entire country turn into a fetid pile of debris and ruins and he won't be able to do anything because he'll be too busy waiting for the state to fix it, but it won't.
Is this a serious argument? Is there an actual thought going on here? Is there a shred of intellectual prowess on display here? Is it in any way relevant to anything I've ever said?
I'm sure you regret registering because this isn't /r/libertarian and you can't get away with stuff like this in here. You have to actually give a valid explanation whenever you make a point, and you don't. You didn't do it here, and you didn't do it in any of your lengthy rants. You're a charlatan who likes to hear himself talk, and you've gotten frustrated because that sort of thing doesn't work here.
This thing I quoted actually literally goes against something I myself have argued against. You're arguing against a caricature. I've told you this again and again, but you keep doing it. That's not the attitude of someone who's seriously interested in a reasoned discourse.
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I'm starting to regret registering here and making this thread, but it was kinda fun
oh well as long as you had fun all your bigoted nonsense is totally worthwhile
oh wait !!!
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Hey remember when you equated socialism with totalitarianism with zero evidence, and then proceeded to do it again and again despite ample evidence to the contrary?
Are 100 million dead people not enough evidence for you?
Remember when you kept misinterpreting the word "equality" to mean something completely different than its general meaning (which everybody else understood), and then proceeded to attack your own mischaracterization?
Yeah, equality doesn't mean equivalence at all it actually means [something ][/something]. Who is making up definitions now?
Remember when you said climate change should happen and destroy the world to "teach people a lesson"?
No, I said it already is happening. Don't worry. You'll do absolutely fucking nothing about it. This doesn't concern you. It concerns us, rugged industrialists. We will have to find out a way to rectify the mess you created by desiring inexpensive consumer products. You caused this by wanting macbook pros.
Remember when you said the gambling at Wall Street didn't affect anyone except those traders, completely ignoring the fact the global economy just completely exploded a few years ago?
The global economy exploded a few years ago due to governments creating easy credit to "help poor people buy houses and consume and boost the economy" you belligerent stupid fuck, go do your fucking research rather than sit on your chair blaming everything on capitalism when that is clearly not the case to anyone who would bother doing something besides fantasizing about human-anthills
Remember when you tried to paint rich capitalists as a force for good because "BILL GATES!!!" and "leftist leaders" as evil because STALIN/MAO!!!!!
Wrong again motherfucker, the point of that was proving that capitalists aren't necessarily evil, but leftist leaders necessarily are. Remember how Obama said he'd bring back the troops in Iraq? How he takes credit for killing binladen, all while not giving credit to business owners? Does that sound GOOD to you?
Remember when you tried to "prove" that socialism is unwanted because people don't spontaneously start collectives inside of the capitalist system?
Except they do, you stupid communist piece of shit. You're free to do that in a capitalist system. You're not free to start your own personal enterprise in a communist system because muh equality.
Remember when you said you didn't even have to reply to me because "I'm just sloganeering"?
Despite actually replying it, it was only when you started repeating yourself that I decided not to do that
You're not arguing, you're just writing words that mean nothing.
HERP DERP THINK ABOUT THE SINGLE MOTHERS SUPPORTING A FAMILY OF 9 DON'T YOU WANT TO GIVE THEM EQUALITIES? What is that, if not a cheap appeal to emotion that means nothing?
It's typical right-libertarian pseudo-profundity from someone who admits he doesn't know a thing about economy but still adores the Austrian school and enjoys spouting stupid caricatures of Marx and actually blaming HIM for arbitrary mass murders that occurred long after he died.
It's typical of little communist shits such as yourself to have even stronger opinions on economy and to claim to know how everything should be and how everything would be better in your imaginary society, all while having no fucking clue about anything in general. You're a complete lunatic. You're criminally insane. The only thing stopping you from being a mass murderer and a thief is the strength of your own cowardice (as is the case with most reds). Also, wasn't it you who wanted to learn economic concepts from FUCKING DAS KAPITAL?
You're not seriously interested in solving problems or figuring things out.
Who was it that said something along the lines of "Huh I don't know how things would work in a socialist society but it would be better. I have no clue at all"? Yeah, that was actually you. What I propose is that people be left alone to do what they do best, because that fucking works. I also posted something like "wouldn't it be better to make medicine cheaper [by ][/by] before handing it out to everyone else.". Is this concept so difficult to understand? I'm sure even in your imaginary communist society there wouldn't be intellectual property laws. Oh yeah, I forgot reds had no common sense at all, nevermind.
Everything you write is intellectually vacuous, and I'm sure the only reason you went away for a little while was to visit Reddit to harvest some new arguments to use, because you obviously don't like to do any of that hard thinking stuff by yourself.
I'll admit I took a little time to ponder my arguments, but if you actually bothered to read reddit you'd find out it's a communist infested shithole. You'd feel right at home in there.
I'm glad you regret registering, but at the very least you managed to accomplish one thing: you've reconfirmed my observation that right-libertarians are a bunch of charlatans who use discussions like this one as an opportunity to echo their favorite lines without thinking too much about them.
I'm not. All I achieved by doing this was find out why I hate armchair communists. Hey buddy, here's a tip: go get a clue, because you have none. Also prepare to see your society crumble, because as was agreed, I'm moving to the netherlands as a political refugee due to you using the 'e'-word. I'll contact my netherlandish embassy as soon as possible.
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See, it's stuff like this:
Is this a serious argument? Is there an actual thought going on here? Is there a shred of intellectual prowess on display here? Is it in any way relevant to anything I've ever said?
I'm sure you regret registering because this isn't /r/libertarian and you can't get away with stuff like this in here. You have to actually give a valid explanation whenever you make a point, and you don't. You didn't do it here, and you didn't do it in any of your lengthy rants. You're a charlatan who likes to hear himself talk, and you've gotten frustrated because that sort of thing doesn't work here.
This thing I quoted actually literally goes against something I myself have argued against. You're arguing against a caricature. I've told you this again and again, but you keep doing it. That's not the attitude of someone who's seriously interested in a reasoned discourse.
You can't stop me now. I'll make you my slave and shit on your streets.
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^
This is what happens when you don't have arguments and still want everyone to acknowledge that you're right anyway.
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you belligerent stupid fuck
Wrong again motherfucker
you stupid communist piece of shit
HERP DERP
little communist shits such as yourself
You're a complete lunatic. You're criminally insane. The only thing stopping you from being a mass murderer and a thief is the strength of your own cowardice (as is the case with most reds).
reddit is a communist infested shithole
Yep, sounds like someone who's calmly making reasoned arguments and isn't angry because others keep refuting him at all.
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^
This is what happens when you don't have arguments and still want everyone to acknowledge that you're right anyway.
You're the one who never had any besides "Think of the single moms!"
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The funniest thing is that I'm a DIRTY RED COMMUNIST, yet he's accusing me of being a fan of Obama at the same time.
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Take a look at your posts from 2007-2008.
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You're the one who never had any besides "Think of the single moms!"
Okay, let's take that as an example. You're claiming that I don't have good arguments. Let's have a look at exactly what I said about single moms:
"And yes, inequality is a bad thing. For one thing because the inequality is astonishingly large, so large there are no valid adjectives to describe it. It's slaves and masters. And yeah, some people are smarter than me, and some people work harder than me. But you're not going to convince me a single mother working overtime with no benefits and poor health-safety regulations is literally millions of times less useful to society than a financial company's CEO. The poorest people are so absurdly poor despite working so hard that I have a hard time seeing how you could miss this."
This is actually very conservative compared to most of the other things I've said. And it's very simple, too. All I said here is that the inequality that exists is so absurdly great that it is completely and clearly unfair. I'll leave it to the other people reading this to decide whether they think this is a valid argument or not.
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Take a look at your posts from 2007-2008.
I preferred Obama over McCain in a system that permits only one of those two to win the election. That's evidence that I'm a fan of Obama???? Look at EVERYTHING I'VE POSTED SPECIFICALLY ABOUT OBAMA'S POLICIES. Look at everything I've posted here. Everybody who knows me knows that I think Obama is an extreme right-winger who doesn't care one bit about anything I hold dear.
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PS when are you going to reveal what your previous nickname was? Because you're kind of a coward for not doing so.
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I preferred Obama over McCain in a system that permits only one of those two to win the election. That's evidence that I'm a fan of Obama? ??? Look at EVERYTHING I'VE POSTED SPECIFICALLY ABOUT OBAMA'S POLICIES. Look at everything I've posted here. Everybody who knows me knows that I think Obama is an extreme right-winger who doesn't care one bit about anything I hold dear.
No, Anders Breivik is an extreme right-winger, Obama is just what all leftists are: a liar and a thief who thinks he knows better how everything should work.
Also I was just bluffing as I wasn't here in 2007-2008, but thanks for confirming my suspicions that you would favor obama!
Holy shit how can someone be so predictable
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lol you seriously think obama is left at all
how can one person be so damn wrong
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libtard, you're coming across like an aggressive troublemaker. The large post you made was full of such rhetoric and personal insults that you're putting people on the Daily Mail forum to shame. Like you'd be representative of the crazier style of poster there.
Like seriously, when did it become ok to actively use personal insults about people around here?
Besides, all of your arguments seem to come down to "LOL YOU ARE A COMMUNIST, FUCK THOSE WELFARE MOMS" or something. I assume you're a previous GW user, given your familiarity with finding this place, and that implies that you're in your twenties or later. If that is the case, then you really need to avoid the completely immature way you've been posting. I mean fair enough, I'm pretty immature in my posts, but I try not to be in SERIOUS DISCUSSIONS where people's feelings are clearly up.
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Also, what does "leftist" mean?
I've only really heard this specific twist on the word "left wing" coming from the mouths of extremists really.
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Also I was just bluffing as I wasn't here in 2007-2008, but thanks for confirming my suspicions that you would favor obama!
Of course, do you think I was gonna say Ron Paul?
I'd support Obama over Paul with no qualms, in spite of being an actual libertarian (you know, the type that Locke wrote about, the exact opposite of what they call libertarian these days). That doesn't mean my views are at all in line with the American liberal mainstream. Even Noam Chomsky has said he'd support Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul, and he's not exactly a liberal.
And I think the only reason you're not giving us your previous nickname is because you're ban evading.
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It is kind of hilarious how I'm literally a "communist piece of shit" yet he's seriously trying to convince people that I'm also, at the same time, a fan of Obama's policies.
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That's like being a Kurd who's a fan of Bill Clinton.
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Of course, do you think I was gonna say Ron Paul?
I'd support Obama over Paul with no qualms, in spite of being an actual libertarian (you know, the type that Locke wrote about, the exact opposite of what they call libertarian these days). That doesn't mean my views are at all in line with the American liberal mainstream. Even Noam Chomsky has said he'd support Hillary Clinton over Ron Paul, and he's not exactly a liberal.
And I think the only reason you're not giving us your previous nickname is because you're ban evading.
Chomsky should stick to being a linguist
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Also, no, you're not libertarian, you're just dellusional
Plus I'm missing a flamewar that's all
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Chomsky should stick to being a linguist
Yeah, because his message is starting to resonate more and more with the population, and that's making it very difficult for extreme apologists for capitalism such as yourself. People are beginning to see why this sort of ideology that you're espousing is aimed solely at creating an extremely sharp wealth divide in the population, with one rich upper class controlling the rest for their own benefit.
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Why does the word libertarian mean something DIFFERENT in the US?
In the US it seems to mean "EXTREME SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE", and "LET ME OPPRESS PEOPLE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION".
It's like if National Socialists suddenly decided to use the word "Conservative Jew" as a label for themselves XD!
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lol you seriously think obama is left at all
how can one person be so damn wrong
He's what the so intelligent liberals voted for.
It's actually pretty hilarious that people had to choose between him or McCain.
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seriously give us your old username
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Yeah, because his message is starting to resonate more and more with the population, and that's making it very difficult for extreme apologists for capitalism such as yourself. People are beginning to see why this sort of ideology that you're espousing is aimed solely at creating an extremely sharp wealth divide in the population, with one rich upper class controlling the rest for their own benefit.
Yeah, 'Things will be better and more equal if you put me in power' is a message that always resonates with the population. That usually ends up causing all the things you're against.
Also: people care as much about him as they care about 'right-wing' intellectuals (not at all)
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Also, no, you're not libertarian
You literally have no idea what the word means. You've probably never read John Locke or Adam Smith or any of the other Enlightenment figures. The word has been morphed into its exact opposite, and Ron Paul is an exemplification. Today it means being an advocate for complete tyranny, which favors completely handing over the reins to private power, which is even worse than state power because at least that's still somewhat accountable to the public. That has nothing to do with what the term originally meant, and still means everywhere else in the world except the US and a good part of the West.
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Why does the word libertarian mean something DIFFERENT in the US?
In the US it seems to mean "EXTREME SOCIAL CONSERVATIVE", and "LET ME OPPRESS PEOPLE WITHOUT GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION".
Most of them aren't even the evil billionaire oppressors you hate (but buy macbooks from).
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Yeah, 'Things will be better and more equal if you put me in power' is a message that always resonates with the population. That usually ends up causing all the things you're against.
You literally know nothing about Chomsky. He's never said "put me in power". He has said "don't put me in power". He advocates for public control rather than one figure at the top who decides things. He's specifically stated that he doesn't like the word "leader" and prefers "representative", because that more clearly describes the role someone should have in a system of representation. He's been asked to run for president and he's said "no, I don't believe in that kind of system of leadership".
You literally know nothing about the things you're talking about.
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Most of them aren't even the evil billionaire oppressors you hate (but buy macbooks from).
When have I ever said I don't like billionaires?
Or that I have a macbook?
That's some fine supposition!
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PS:
Believing that wealth should be more equally distributed does not make you a FULL BLOWN COMMUNIST!
It makes you a decent person.
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You literally have no idea what the word means. You've probably never read John Locke or Adam Smith or any of the other Enlightenment figures. The word has been morphed into its exact opposite, and Ron Paul is an exemplification. Today it means being an advocate for complete tyranny, which favors completely handing over the reins to private power,
Adam Smith is classical economics and an early proponent of free-markets. He disliked interventions by the state. You can't be into that and marxism at the same time, unless you're insane.
Ron paul is a minarchist. Not as good as an anarchist, but better than a warmonger.
which is even worse than state power because at least that's still somewhat accountable to the public. That has nothing to do with what the term originally meant, and still means everywhere else in the world except the US and a good part of the West.
Haha, well, no, that is never the case. Do you think China is in any better shape than Hong Kong because it's state has much more power?
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Adam Smith is classical economics and an early proponent of free-markets. He disliked interventions by the state. You can't be into that and marxism at the same time, unless you're insane.
Good to know you've never read Adam Smith, either, because you've missed the point of his famous Wealth of Nations completely.
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You literally know nothing about Chomsky. He's never said "put me in power". He has said "don't put me in power". He advocates for public control rather than one figure at the top who decides things. He's specifically stated that he doesn't like the word "leader" and prefers "representative", because that more clearly describes the role someone should have in a system of representation. He's been asked to run for president and he's said "no, I don't believe in that kind of system of leadership".
You literally know nothing about the things you're talking about.
Thanks for clarifying. I didn't even have to google him. See how "not knowing about the things you're talking about" was a good tactic on my part?
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Thanks for clarifying. I didn't even have to google him. See how "not knowing about the things you're talking about" was a good tactic on my part?
Yep, it sure is funny that you ADMIT to talking about things you know nothing about.
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Good to know you've never read Adam Smith, either, because you've missed the point of his famous Wealth of Nations completely.
"By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it"
Does that sound like something I have posted as a response to Jeff's post, at all?
ALso fix the bbcode, you statist scum
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PS:
Believing that wealth should be more equally distributed does not make you a FULL BLOWN COMMUNIST!
It makes you a decent person.
Got I a paycheck? Great, now, where is my share?
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you statist scum
That's like the 10th time you've launched an insult my way, you obviously have a hard time behaving on this forum so why don't you go visit some other sites for a week? Or until you send an apology my way. I'm not hard to find.
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What is your address in Rotterdam? I'll write you a letter.
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Got I a paycheck? Great, now, where is my share?
Well yes, I have regular pay checks and I pay taxes in order to support those who earn less. In turn I am subsidised for government services.
That's hardly communism. It's called "having a society" man.
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Libtard has been banned. I just confirmed that he's actually Inri, who we banned not too long ago. :)
WHY AM I NOT SURPRISED?
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Also:
What's with all the anti-federalism?
Are you from the WILD WEST? :D !
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Oh, done and done ;_;!!
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Apparently Inri really loves being on Salt World to spew his nonsense, so my guess is he's going to come back and register another account just to stir up trouble. If anyone sees him, let me know. I'm usually on IRC, and I check my forum PMs frequently.
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lol u got troll'd.
then again inri is a self-admittedly pathetic guy with a miserable life and bad at everything. I hope one day he really does just get horribly depressed again and kill himself because he's a grade-A pile of shit.
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That's actually a really horrible thing to post barack. Like it upset me to read it. Inri is probably going to take it harder heh.
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lol u got troll'd.
Well not really trolled in the "he was just joking" sense, he actually believes all of this stuff!
Mostly I'm just stupid for not doing a better IP check to begin with.
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how do you know it was inri? that's not how he writes at all, even if the opinions are a little similar. I'm not saying I think it's dom but that's exactly how dom wrote. if it was inri that's pretty weird
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how do you know it was inri? that's not how he writes at all, even if the opinions are a little similar. I'm not saying I think it's dom but that's exactly how dom wrote. if it was inri that's pretty weird
like he said above, IP check.
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how do you know it was inri? that's not how he writes at all, even if the opinions are a little similar. I'm not saying I think it's dom but that's exactly how dom wrote. if it was inri that's pretty weird
He used an IP that's almost identical to Inri's (only the last part was off by two), same hostname. Either it's him or it's his neighbor. And it's not Dom, during the London Riots he was on IRC calling on everybody to commence the proletariat uprising, and not ironically. Also I don't know Inri as well as you do, but it sounds like him to me, both politically and rhetorically. And I don't know of anyone else who'd come in here to post stuff like this while persistently avoiding the question "who are you".
I banned the entire hostname though so he isn't coming back until he gets a new ISP.
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no I don't think it's dom, but if it was inri he did a pretty good job at adopting that kind of writing. I don't "know" inry outside of his forum posts and some old PMs but yeah his thoughts would generally trail off/show up in unusual ways and he would use strange wording or phrasing. oh well I guess it's him, what a miserable person
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this is me
(https://legacy.gamingw.net/etc/25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m7ce5giFd21qbma86o1_400.gif)
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That's actually a really horrible thing to post barack. Like it upset me to read it. Inri is probably going to take it harder heh.
whatever i didn't really mean it(i did). but that guy has had nothing but awful shit to say to me on here for years so fuck him, i'd put a bayonet in him if the time came(REEEEVOOOLUUUUTION)
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whatever i didn't really mean it(i did). but that guy has had nothing but awful shit to say to me on here for years so fuck him, i'd put a bayonet in him if the time came(REEEEVOOOLUUUUTION)
It's kind of amazing how this guy wasn't banned before. Yesterday I was talking to Vellfire and she went through his post history and showed me that he's actually been harassing her for literally years, I think as far back as 2008, with a ton of random awful comments even in completely random topics.
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i was following the topic and it didn't sound like him, i thought this was dom or someone like him (know next to nothing about dom other than concept of very irritating ostensibly political guy) but inri always seems a bit more unhinged while this guy just seemed stupid but oddly focused, too.
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i can see why someone might think it's dom writing-style wise but politically i'm pretty sure dom is on the opposite end of the spectrum
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So...about the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act...
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Hi Jeff.
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i can't imagine spending years trolling a place that you claim to hate. what a pathetic person.