Self-Ownership as an absolute for freedom
Stuart Dunn
> But those nations which are accused of having tried out
> pure socialism did not try out authentic socialism, which
> humanistic, pluralistic, democratic, voluntaristic,
> pacifistic, and libertarian.
>
What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
definition, involves government ownership. Government and pacifism can never
coexist, since pacifism is the abscence of coercian and government is based on
force. Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for
morality on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in practice).
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> > production,
More accurately, they become shareholders by buying pieces of theoretical
ownership from people who bought pieces of theoretical ownership and so on and
so on all the way back to the original founders of the company, who
contributed enormous amounts of capital resources to what later became the
corporation that the shareholders have stock in.
> and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an
> > input, as a factor of production.
>
> > Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
> At least workers have the right to paychecks for work they've already
> done. Shareholders have to rely on board members to use the company's
> profits on dividends instead of putting it in the corporate treasury or
> using it for business expansion.
> Alexander Russell wrote:
> > They are risking their capital, previously earned.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > That is an unwarranted assumption. Enormous wealth is never earned by
> > solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist can be honestly said to have
> arned his or her private wealth by his or her solo labor.
That's baloney.
>
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > Are you speaking of inheritance?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Inheritance is obviously included within my statement.
> But my assertion is that even the newly rich, even the
> first generation super-rich, did not earn their enormous
> wealth by their own labor. Bill Gates, for example, did
> not earn his immense wealth by his own labor.
>
Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
>
> Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced
> in favor of the capitalist class.
We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
> If, for example, I am
> holding on to land property, in order to sell it at a
> considerable profit in the future, then I am using the
> land even when it sits idle. This is because the primary
> purpose of capitalism is the production of profits, and
> so whatever action or inaction produces private profits
> is a uniquely capitalist use of land, and also a uniquely
> capitalist method of earning income.
There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning, environmental
impact statements, easements, and other legal loopholes that allow the
government to own land that a private citizen holds title to.
>
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > So if a factory is closed down, and no one buys it, after a year it
> > would revert to the 'public domain' and whoever was at the top of the
> > 'list' would get a go at using it.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> > commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> > of economy.
>
> > Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable
> > risks. The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also
> > the [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> > willing to risk their capital.
>
That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
> Ron Allen answers:
> There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists
> if the productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
>
> As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the
> capitalists take are created by capitalism. When you
> talk about such risks as are endemic to capitalism, you
> are talking about what is prevalent within capitalism,
> what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen to endorse
> capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are a
> characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the
> capitalists who have made it to the upper part of the
> socio-economic pyramid. Those who want to be members of
> the super-rich élite will also favor the capitalist model.
>
> The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a
> socialist model, where production will be for utility and
> not for profit.
>
That's a lie. In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit.
In socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in jail,
tortured, or killed.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > Just where do you think capital comes from?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Capital comes from labor. Capitalism does not come from
> proprietarians, but from producers.
Capitalism comes from liberty.
> Those who champion
> capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion that
> those who own capital are also those who make capital.
> A capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society,
> if the mode of economy were socialist rather than
> capitalist.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> > capital to get things going?
>
By the creation of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Mike
"Stuart Dunn" <dun...@erols.com> wrote in message
news:3BA50EDD...@erols.com...
> > Ron Allen answers:
> > But those nations which are accused of having tried out
> > pure socialism did not try out authentic socialism, which
> > humanistic, pluralistic, democratic, voluntaristic,
> > pacifistic, and libertarian.
> >
>
> What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
> definition, involves government ownership. Government and pacifism can
never
> coexist, since pacifism is the abscence of coercian and government is
based on
> force. Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for
> morality on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in
practice).
Socialism, by its very definition, involves social ownership (read: the
public). Whether or not the society has a government is variable. Most
people believe what you're saying about socialism due to its
misrepresentation as Marxism (even so, Marx himself stated that as classes
dissolved so would the necessity for a government).
Ron Allen
> Those nations which are accused of having tried out pure socialism
> did not try out authentic socialism, which is humanistic, pluralistic,
> democratic, voluntaristic, pacifistic, and libertarian.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
> definition, involves government ownership. Government and pacifism can
> never coexist, since pacifism is the abscence of coercian and government
> is based on force. Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total
> respect for morality on the part of everyone involved (which is
> unacheivable in practice).
Mike wrote:
> Socialism, by its very definition, involves social ownership (read: the
> public). Whether or not the society has a government is variable. Most
> people believe what you're saying about socialism due to its
> misrepresentation as Marxism (even so, Marx himself stated that as
> classes dissolved so would the necessity for a government).
Ron Allen answers:
Mark, thank you for promptly answering Mr. Dunn's post.
I have saved it for a future reply, when I can take some
sufficient time to give a worthwhile answer.
<><><><><><><>
"All life is meeting."
Martin Buber
Ron Allen
> Those nations which are accused of having tried out pure socialism
> did not try out authentic socialism, which is humanistic, pluralistic,
> democratic, voluntaristic, pacifistic, and libertarian.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
> definition, involves government ownership.
Ron Allen answers:
Socialism is a word that defines itself. Social-ism.
There is no "state" in the word social-ism. There is,
on the other hand, the word "state" in state-ism.
The Encarta World English Dictionary defines socialism
as a "political system of communal ownership". And, a
system of communal ownership simply cannot be taken to
imply state ownership. Community ownership is one thing;
and state ownership is another thing entirely. The state
is not the community; and the community is not the state.
The Encarta World English Dictionary goes on to define
socialism as "a political theory or system in which the
means of production and distribution are controlled by
the people and operated according to equity and fairness
rather than market principles". Again, the definition
says nothing whatsoever about state ownership/control of
the means of production.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Government and pacifism can never coexist, since pacifism is the
> abscence of coercian and government is based on force.
Ron Allen answers:
I fully agree with you on the points you make in the
pericope immediately above. What baffles me is that no
matter what I declare (e.g., my endorsement of anarcho-
libertarian democratic socialism), and no matter what I
deny (e.g., my disavowal of authoritarian and totalitarian
statism, and my denunciation of fascism and bolshevism),
you just keep on insisting that I am a statist.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for morality
> on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in practice).
Ron Allen answers:
Libertarianism requires a belief in human moral freedom
-- i.e., the capacity of human beings to achieve in their
everyday practice a truly moral life together. As a
libertarian humanist, I believe that a general respect
for morality on the part of every citizen is achievable
in practice, and I believe this fact is already evident
in that the vast majority of our species do live their
lives as morally civilized beings.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> production, . . .
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> More accurately, they become shareholders by buying pieces of
> theoretical ownership from people who bought pieces of theoretical
> ownership and so on and so on all the way back to the original
> founders of the company, who contributed enormous amounts of capital
> resources to what later became the corporation that the shareholders
> have stock in.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an input,
> as a factor of production.
> Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
and
> Enormous wealth is never earned by solitary labor. No wealthy
> capitalist can be honestly said to have arned his or her private
> wealth by his or her solo labor.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's baloney.
Ron Allen answers:
I disagree. I think that what I wrote above is faithful
to the facts.
Ron Allen wrote:
> My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
> super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
> Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> labor.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
Ron Allen answers:
By the expropriation of surplus value produced by the
surplus labor of other people.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced in favor of
> the capitalist class.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
Ron Allen answers:
There is a saying: "None are so blind as he who will not
see."
Ron Allen wrote:
> If, for example, I am holding on to land property, in order to sell
> it at a considerable profit in the future, then I am using the land
> even when it sits idle. This is because the primary purpose of
> capitalism is the production of profits, and so whatever action or
> inaction produces private profits is a uniquely capitalist use of
> land, and also a uniquely capitalist method of earning income.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning, environmental
> impact statements, easements, and other legal loopholes that allow the
> government to own land that a private citizen holds title to.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> of economy.
> Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable
> risks. The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also
> the [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> willing to risk their capital.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
Ron Allen answers:
What is "that" to which you refer?
Ron Allen wrote:
> There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists if the
> productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
> As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the capitalists
> take are created by capitalism. When you talk about such risks as
> are endemic to capitalism, you are talking about what is prevalent
> within capitalism, what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen
> to endorse capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are
> a characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the capitalists
> who have made it to the upper part of the socio-economic pyramid.
> Those who want to be members of the super-rich élite will also favor
> the capitalist model.
> The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a socialist model,
> where production will be for utility and not for profit.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's a lie.
Ron Allen answers:
I do make mistakes; but, I am not lying.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit. In
> socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in
> jail, tortured, or killed.
Ron Allen answers:
That may be what the word "socialism" means to you, but
that is not what the word "socialism" means to me. And
of course, I am the one advocating socialism. If you
wish to critique the socialism which I am advocating, then
I should think it incumbent upon you to take into some
consideration how I define, and do not define, what I am
advocating.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Capital comes from labor. Capitalism does not come from proprietarians,
> but from producers.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Capitalism comes from liberty.
Ron Allen answers:
Actually, the above statement I wrote is a typographical
error.
Correction:
Capital comes from labor. Capital does not come from
proprietarians, but from producers.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Those who champion capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion
> that those who own capital are also those who make capital. A
> capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society, if the mode
> of economy were socialist rather than capitalist.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> capital to get things going?
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> By the creation of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Ron Allen answers:
Zero-sum game theory does not assume or assert that wealth
is not created, Stuart. At most, the theory says that the
total wealth at one time is always finite/limited. But
the theory does not say wealth is not produced.
How is wealth created? By labor?
Who creates wealth? Producers?
<><><><><><><><><><>
"What is capitalist justice? It is a decision which
favors the capitalists."
-- Ron Allen
Michael Price
news:3BADDED1...@bellsouth.net...
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Those nations which are accused of having tried out pure socialism
> > did not try out authentic socialism, which is humanistic, pluralistic,
> > democratic, voluntaristic, pacifistic, and libertarian.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > What you just said doesn't make any sense. Socialism, by its very
> > definition, involves government ownership.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Socialism is a word that defines itself. Social-ism.
> There is no "state" in the word social-ism. There is,
> on the other hand, the word "state" in state-ism.
>
> The Encarta World English Dictionary defines socialism
> as a "political system of communal ownership". And, a
> system of communal ownership simply cannot be taken to
> imply state ownership. Community ownership is one thing;
> and state ownership is another thing entirely. The state
> is not the community; and the community is not the state.
>
> The Encarta World English Dictionary goes on to define
> socialism as "a political theory or system in which the
> means of production and distribution are controlled by
> the people and operated according to equity and fairness
> rather than market principles". Again, the definition
> says nothing whatsoever about state ownership/control of
> the means of production.
coercion is neccesary. Otherwise people will accumulate wealth and invest
and the system is no longer socialist.
>
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > Government and pacifism can never coexist, since pacifism is the
> > abscence of coercian and government is based on force.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I fully agree with you on the points you make in the
> pericope immediately above. What baffles me is that no
> matter what I declare (e.g., my endorsement of anarcho-
> libertarian democratic socialism), and no matter what I
> deny (e.g., my disavowal of authoritarian and totalitarian
> statism, and my denunciation of fascism and bolshevism),
> you just keep on insisting that I am a statist.
call it.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for morality
> > on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in practice).
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Libertarianism requires a belief in human moral freedom
> -- i.e., the capacity of human beings to achieve in their
> everyday practice a truly moral life together. As a
> libertarian humanist, I believe that a general respect
> for morality on the part of every citizen is achievable
> in practice, and I believe this fact is already evident
> in that the vast majority of our species do live their
> lives as morally civilized beings.
coercion be used. The first is impossible and you deny the second.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> > production, . . .
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > More accurately, they become shareholders by buying pieces of
> > theoretical ownership from people who bought pieces of theoretical
> > ownership and so on and so on all the way back to the original
> > founders of the company, who contributed enormous amounts of capital
> > resources to what later became the corporation that the shareholders
> > have stock in.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > . . . and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an input,
> > as a factor of production.
>
> > Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
shareholders do not.
>
> and
>
> > Enormous wealth is never earned by solitary labor. No wealthy
> > capitalist can be honestly said to have arned his or her private
> > wealth by his or her solo labor.
need to used "solitary labour" to earn their fortune.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > That's baloney.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I disagree. I think that what I wrote above is faithful
> to the facts.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
> > super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
>
> > Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> > labor.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> By the expropriation of surplus value produced by the
> surplus labor of other people.
heads and demand wealth? The fact is that this "surplus" value is the
result of BG's investment decisions not the work of the labourers. The
value of the labourer's labour to the labourer is less than the wage. The
value of the labourer's labour to the capitalist is (hopefully) larger than
this and depends largely on the capitalists decision. The "surplus" is
earned not stolen.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced in favor of
> > the capitalist class.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> There is a saying: "None are so blind as he who will not
> see."
change, unlike most societies in history.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > If, for example, I am holding on to land property, in order to sell
> > it at a considerable profit in the future, then I am using the land
> > even when it sits idle. This is because the primary purpose of
> > capitalism is the production of profits, and so whatever action or
> > inaction produces private profits is a uniquely capitalist use of
> > land, and also a uniquely capitalist method of earning income.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning,
environmental
> > impact statements, easements, and other legal loopholes that allow the
> > government to own land that a private citizen holds title to.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> > commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> > of economy.
the future is unknown. For instance building a bridge is an a risk since it
may be destroyed before significant use can be made of it. A foundry could
be superseded by better designs before the benefits of it's production
exceed the value of the resources used in it's production. In a non-profit
system the feedback mechanism would be different from capitalism's but it
would have to exist.
>
> > Besides, it is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable
> > risks. The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also
> > the [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> > willing to risk their capital.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> What is "that" to which you refer?
without capitalists to "expropriate" it. In fact they would not have jobs
at all and would earn no value.
Ron Allen wrote:
> > There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists if the
> > productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
>
> > As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the capitalists
> > take are created by capitalism. When you talk about such risks as
> > are endemic to capitalism, you are talking about what is prevalent
> > within capitalism, what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen
> > to endorse capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are
> > a characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the capitalists
> > who have made it to the upper part of the socio-economic pyramid.
> > Those who want to be members of the super-rich élite will also favor
> > the capitalist model.
>
> > The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a socialist model,
> > where production will be for utility and not for profit.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > That's a lie.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> I do make mistakes; but, I am not lying.
would have spotted the mistake easily. The fact is risk is a factor in
almost all production including all agriculture, horticultural and
vinicultural investment and I believe all other food-production techiques.
The risk is independent of the method of valuing inputs and outputs. The
fact is that sometimes, through no fault of the people who input factors of
production, the inputs are more valuable than the outputs.
>
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit. In
> > socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in
> > jail, tortured, or killed.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> That may be what the word "socialism" means to you, but
> that is not what the word "socialism" means to me. And
> of course, I am the one advocating socialism. If you
> wish to critique the socialism which I am advocating, then
> I should think it incumbent upon you to take into some
> consideration how I define, and do not define, what I am
> advocating.
for instance.
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Capital comes from labor. Capitalism does not come from proprietarians,
> > but from producers.
>
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > Capitalism comes from liberty.
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Actually, the above statement I wrote is a typographical
> error.
>
> Correction:
> Capital comes from labor. Capital does not come from
> proprietarians, but from producers.
convert some of their wealth to capital. This conversion may be accomplised
by the labour produce by the bodies and minds of others. This is irrevelent
because this labour was sold to the capitalist and is therefore "the
capitalists labour". After all since it was the labourer's labour and the
labourers sold it to the capitalist it must belong to the capitalist.
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > Those who champion capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion
> > that those who own capital are also those who make capital. A
> > capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society, if the mode
> > of economy were socialist rather than capitalist.
first place. It is not by producing it since anyone who produces capital
and doesn't sell it would have capital in the capitalists system and would
not gain by socialism.
>
> Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> > How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> > capital to get things going?
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > By the creation of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Zero-sum game theory does not assume or assert that wealth
> is not created, Stuart.
Since in economics this is wealth applying zero-sum game theory to economics
would assume this.
> At most, the theory says that the
> total wealth at one time is always finite/limited. But
> the theory does not say wealth is not produced.
>
> How is wealth created? By labor?
>
> Who creates wealth? Producers?
Yes, including capitalists.
>
>
> <><><><><><><><><><>
>
> "What is capitalist justice? It is a decision which
> favors the capitalists."
> -- Ron Allen
feudalist/facist regimes not capitalist ones.
>
Ron Allen
> Pacifism requires complete libertarianism and total respect for morality
> on the part of everyone involved (which is unacheivable in practice).
Ron Allen wrote:
> Libertarianism requires a belief in human moral freedom -- i.e., the
> capacity of human beings to achieve in their everyday practice a truly
> moral life together. As a libertarian humanist, I believe that a
> general respect for morality on the part of every citizen is achievable
> in practice, and I believe this fact is already evident in that the
> vast majority of our species do live their lives as morally civilized
> beings.
Michael Price wrote:
> Your system would require that nobody was immoral . . .
Ron Allen answers:
I do not think so. An anarcho-libertarian democracy can
survive and succeed as long as only a minimal number of
human beings cannot behave themselves as reasonable and
responsible citizens.
Michael Price wrote:
> . . . or that government coercion be used.
Ron Allen answers:
I can see no valid reason to assume that government
coercion must be used, or even to assume that government
itself is necessary. Self-government is necessary; but
state-government is extrinsic to social life and nonvital
to community happiness and prosperity.
Michael Price wrote:
> The first is impossible . . .
Ron Allen answers:
I do not believe it is possible or necessary for any
person, or every person, to always be morally perfect.
Michael Price wrote:
> . . . and you deny the second.
Ron Allen answers:
That's correct. I deny the necessity of a police state
enforcing proper and good laws, authentic laws.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Shareholders directly contribute capital as an input, as a factor of
> production, . . .
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> More accurately, they become shareholders by buying pieces of theoretical
> ownership from people who bought pieces of theoretical ownership and so
> on and so on all the way back to the original founders of the company,
> who contributed enormous amounts of capital resources to what later
> became the corporation that the shareholders have stock in.
Ron Allen wrote:
> . . . and the wage employees directly contribute labor as an input, as a
> factor of production.
> Why are the shareholders privileged over the workers?
Michael Price wrote:
> They are not.
Ron Allen answers:
The proprietors are privileged over the producers in a
capitalist arrangement.
Michael Price wrote:
> The workers get paid regardless of profits, the shareholders do not.
Ron Allen answers:
That is because the workers actually do productive work,
and even bourgeois justice cannot deny the minimal just
deserts of the direct producers.
But, there are some occasions when an employer will
declare bankruptcy, and walk off with some diverted
profits, even while not paying the earned wages of their
discharged employees.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Enormous wealth is never earned by solitary labor. No wealthy capitalist
> can be honestly said to have earned his or her private wealth by his or
> her solo labor.
Michael Price wrote:
> But the capitalists pay for other peoples labour.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, they do. They pay exploitative wages, and they also
profit from the value-producing labor of other people.
Michael Price wrote:
> Therefore they do not need to use "solitary labour" to earn their
> fortune.
Ron Allen answers:
Granted. But if labor alone justifies personal property
ownership, then what can justify personal ownership of
wealth that is produced by other people's value-creating
labor?
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's baloney.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I disagree. I think that what I wrote above is faithful to the facts.
<><><><><><><><>
"Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument an
exchange of ignorance."
-- Robert Quillen
Ron Allen
> My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
> super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
> Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> labor.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
Ron Allen wrote:
> By the [legal] expropriation of surplus value produced by the surplus
> labor of other people.
Michael Price wrote:
> How is this value "expropriated"?
Ron Allen answers:
Surplus value is expropriated by means of the wage system.
What is produced by the direct producers is the direct
property of the employer/proprietor. And yet, what is
produced by the direct producers ought to be the direct
property of the producers. That what is produced by the
direct producers is not their immediate property is the
first step/stage in the expropriation of value from the
direct producers of value.
Michael Price wrote:
> When did Bill Gates put a gun to his worker's heads and demand wealth?
Ron Allen answers:
The exploitation of labor is more ingenious than that,
more subtle and artful than direct and visible violence.
Legal exploitation is systematic and methodical, very
tidy and very businesslike, both well-regulated and well-
organized.
Bill Gates does not need to put a gun to his employees;
he has the monopoly power of the police state to do that
for him. His hands can stay clean, while the capitalist
state gets all the accusations from both the political
left and the political right.
Michael Price wrote:
> The fact is that this "surplus" value is the result of BG's investment
> decisions not the work of the labourers.
Ron Allen answers:
Profitable investments do not come from hocus-pocus magic.
Labor produces the profits which an investor nets.
Michael Price wrote:
> The value of the labourer's labour to the labourer is less than the
> wage. The value of the labourer's labour to the capitalist is
> (hopefully) larger than this and depends largely on the capitalists
> decision. The "surplus" is earned not stolen.
Ron Allen answers:
Utterly ludicrous premise resulting in an absolutely
ridiculous inference.
<><><><><><><>
"My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human
race goes through life without having a single original
thought."
-- Henry Louis Mencken
Ron Allen
> It is the direct producers who turn investments into profitable risks.
> The wage workers not only produce the commodities, they are also the
> [majority] consumers of those commodities they produce.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> There would bo no jobs at all for the labourer without the capitalist
> willing to risk their capital.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's one of the central flaws in class warfare rhetoric.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What is "that" to which you refer?
Michael Price wrote:
> The idea that labourers would earn the whole "value" of their labour
> without capitalists to "expropriate" it. In fact they would not have
> jobs at all and would earn no value.
Ron Allen answers:
Without employers, people would be self-employed. The
fact that we have large-scale production facilities/
factories is mostly why we have an employer/proprietor
class and an employee/producer class.
People would have productive work to be engaged/employed
in if there were no private ownership of the means of
production, and if there were public ownership of the
means of production.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There would be no profits for the proprietary capitalists if the
> productive workers did not take those wage jobs.
> As far as capitalists taking risks, the very risks the capitalists
> take are created by capitalism. When you talk about such risks as
> are endemic to capitalism, you are talking about what is prevalent
> within capitalism, what is peculiar to capitalism. If you happen
> to endorse capitalism, then you also must back the risks which are
> a characteristic of capitalism. And those risks favor the capitalists
> who have made it to the upper part of the socio-economic pyramid.
> Those who want to be members of the super-rich élite will also favor
> the capitalist model.
> The risks involved in capitalism will not exist in a socialist model,
> where production will be for utility and not for profit.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> That's a lie.
Ron Allen wrote:
> I do make mistakes; but, I am not lying.
Michael Price wrote:
> I have corrected you on this mistake myself. If you are not a moron
> you would have spotted the mistake easily.
Ron Allen answers:
If you believe, for whatever reasons, that I have made a
mistake in my beliefs, judgments, or opinions, but you do
not succeed in convincing me that I have made a mistake,
why does that make me a moron? Perhaps it is you that is
mistaken, rather than me. But, making a mistake does not
make one a moron, in my personal opinion.
Michael Price wrote:
> The fact is risk is a factor in almost all production including all
> agriculture, horticultural and vinicultural investment and I believe
> all other food-production techiques.
Ron Allen answers:
There is risk in every kind of productive labor, but the
risks that are wholly unique to a for-profit mode of
economy are going to be, as a whole, different from the
risks which are very typical of a not-for-profit model of
economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> The risk is independent of the method of valuing inputs and outputs.
> The fact is that sometimes, through no fault of the people who input
> factors of production, the inputs are more valuable than the outputs.
Ron Allen answers:
And we are always being told the very same mantra, that it
is the free market that determines input/output value.
In my opinion, human beings are free, not markets. And
human beings determine value, not markets. There are the
price leaders, and there are the price followers, and
price is consciously decided upon by the price leader who
commands a price for what is marketed, and whose price
decision is settled, sustained, and secured by the price
chasers. There is price fixing, just as there is some
collusion in price setting.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> In socialism, production is for neither utility nor profit. In
> socialism, production occurs in order to avoid being thrown in
> jail, tortured, or killed.
Ron Allen wrote:
> That may be what the word "socialism" means to you, but that is not
> what the word "socialism" means to me. And, of course, I am the one
> advocating socialism. If you wish to critique the socialism which
> I am advocating, then I should think it incumbent upon you to take
> into some consideration how I define, and do not define, what I am
> advocating.
Michael Price wrote:
> If you did define it.
Ron Allen answers:
Michael, I do define socialism. That you do not know this
fact is your problem. And I do not assume that every
newsgroup reader/participant has your problem when it
comes to being able to read with mental competence and
with studious comprehension.
Michael Price wrote:
> How are people motivated to produce in your system for instance.
Ron Allen answers:
When the amount of work is reduced to socially necessary
production, then people will work less and will enjoy work
more -- especially when everyone is free to be engaged in
enjoyable work, according to personal ability, as well as
everyone being responsible for doing the unpleasant work.
No work will be attached/correlated to a socio-economic
class. There will be no division of labor according to
class, race, gender, etc. There will be some division of
labor according to ability and qualification, but all will
have a duty to do their part in keeping their community
clean and in keeping public places washed and sanitary.
If you can help make it dirty, then you can also help to
make it clean.
When people have productive and creative abilities, they
enjoy employing/engaging their abilities. People take
pride in doing good work. People are self-motivated to do
the best work they can do, to be the best they can be at
what they like to do.
Human need motivates human beings to do the minimal work
necessary to produce/provide what they need. Need has
always motivated us to produce. There is an existential
need to be fully and freely engaged in purposeful labor.
and there is an economic need to be fully and freely
employed in productive labor.
<><><><><><><><>
"I would like to see a fair division of profits between
capital and labor, so that the toiler could save enough
to mingle a little June with the December of his life."
-- Robert Green Ingersoll
Ron Allen
> Just like the word "earn", the word "use" is prejudiced in favor of
> the capitalist class.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> We don't have a "capitalist" class. This is a classless society.
Ron Allen wrote:
> There is a saying: "None are so blind as he who will not see."
Michael Price wrote:
> Which class were you born into then Ron?
Ron Allen answers:
I was born in the southern state of Georgia, to a family
of dirt-poor sharecroppers. But, when I was born, my
mother died 2 hours later, and all 8 of us were taken
away from our bootlegging father, with his Pentecostal
beliefs, and raised in a Presbyterian orphanage in the
state of South Carolina. I was born into a very poor
family, but I was raised by very strict middle-class
Calvinists.
Michael Price wrote:
> Capitalists or worker?
Ron Allen answers:
My father was not so much proletarian, but rather, he was
more lumpen-proletarian.
Michael Price wrote:
> You can change, unlike most societies in history.
Ron Allen answers:
Yes, some few individuals do manage to change from their
original class.
But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
persistent poverty? Why do we tolerate poverty? When
will we get rid of poverty, once and for all? How can we
better the human condition?
Ron Allen wrote:
> If, for example, I am holding on to land property, in order to sell
> it at a considerable profit in the future, then I am using the land
> even when it sits idle. This is because the primary purpose of
> capitalism is the production of profits, and so whatever action or
> inaction produces private profits is a uniquely capitalist use of
> land, and also a uniquely capitalist method of earning income.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> There'd be a lot less unused land if it weren't for zoning,
> environmental impact statements, easements, and other legal
> loopholes that allow the government to own land that a private
> citizen holds title to.
Ron Allen answers:
The government you berate is a creation of the very same
people who created capitalism, and is a capitalist state.
Ron Allen wrote:
> The investor does risk his or her capital, but it is precisely the
> commodity market which makes the risk intrinsic to a for-profit mode
> of economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit, that risk is inherent to any investment that requires time
> since the future is unknown.
Ron Allen answers:
What I said does not disagree with what you said. The
future is unknown in a very special sense when you're
talking about investment decisions. Supply and demand
can fluctuate more than the capacity for production and
human needs. Commodity supply can be artificially reduced
so as to increase consumer demand, and thereby increase
the market price, and so enlarge the profitability of a
commodity. Pecuniary demand can be reduced by massive
reductions in the employment of labor. Unemployment can
be artificial, as a means of decreasing wages, and as a
means of increasing job demand. All of these factors are
artificial considerations that have everything to do with
a for-profit capitalist mode of economy.
Socialism and communism simplify economy by getting rid
of the supply-and-demand equation, and replacing it with
a for-utility non-profit model of doing economy. Supplies
will be produces and provided according to the predictable
needs of people, according to actual and anticipated need,
rather than according to mercurial commodity markets and
job markets, and uncertain consumer demand and competitive
conditions.
Michael Price wrote:
> For instance building a bridge is an a risk since it may be destroyed
> before significant use can be made of it.
Ron Allen answers:
The risks involved in building a bridge are nothing like
the special and unique risks which are characteristic of
a for-profit commercial economy. The risks involved in
building a bridge will exist in both a capitalist and
communist economy, but the peculiar and distinguishing
risks endemic to capitalism will not exist in a production
for use model of doing economy, namely a communist model
of economy.
Michael Price wrote:
> A foundry could be superseded by better designs before the benefits
> of it's production exceed the value of the resources used in it's
> production. In a non-profit system the feedback mechanism would be
> different from capitalism's but it would have to exist.
Ron Allen answers:
Not only is the feedback mechanism different, but the
feedback message is also different. The mechanism and
the message are different when the purpose of production
and distribution are different, and the purpose is
different when one economy is all about private profit
and the other economy is all about public utility.
<><><><><><><><>
"It is my conviction that God ordained segregation."
-- Reverend Billy James Hargis
jubal
wrote:
>Ron Allen wrote:
>> My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
>> super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
>
>> Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
>> labor.
>Michael Price wrote:
>> When did Bill Gates put a gun to his worker's heads and demand wealth?
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>The exploitation of labor is more ingenious than that,
>more subtle and artful than direct and visible violence.
>Legal exploitation is systematic and methodical, very
>tidy and very businesslike, both well-regulated and well-
>organized.
>
>Bill Gates does not need to put a gun to his employees;
>he has the monopoly power of the police state to do that
>for him. His hands can stay clean, while the capitalist
>state gets all the accusations from both the political
>left and the political right.
Actually Bill Gates "Gun" is very high wages, plus excellent
benefits. He pays top dollar.
>Michael Price wrote:
>> The fact is that this "surplus" value is the result of BG's investment
>> decisions not the work of the labourers.
>
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Profitable investments do not come from hocus-pocus magic.
>Labor produces the profits which an investor nets.
Labor in and of it`s self is of little value. Odd thing, the more
strenuous the labor the less it`s value. If neither Bill Gates or
anyone else had of created a operating system, then the jobs would not
have existed. Most common laborers add little to the value of the
product. For instance the laborer that stuffs the contents of the box
into the box, adds little if any value to the product. Ditto for the
person who packs 2 dozen small boxes into one large box.
How about the person who loads blank CDs into the machines that make
multiple copies. I contend that his/her easy job adds little to the
value of the CD. And that wages only add to the cost of the finished
product.
>Michael Price wrote:
>> The value of the labourer's labour to the labourer is less than the
>> wage. The value of the labourer's labour to the capitalist is
>> (hopefully) larger than this and depends largely on the capitalists
>> decision. The "surplus" is earned not stolen.
>
>Ron Allen answers:
>Utterly ludicrous premise resulting in an absolutely
>ridiculous inference.
You, go into the country, find a apple orchard, the farmer that
planted the trees, has harvested the fruit. You purchase a truck load
of apples. Then you hire a fellow to load the apples, drive many miles
to a town and resell the apples. According to your apparent reasoning
the laborer has added to the value of the apples and is entitled to
all of the profit (increase in value).
Because that is what profit actually is, a increase in value.
Now to toss in a common problem for a business man, you in this case.
When you left town searching for apples, there were no apples to be
had in town. However after you left on your quest another business man
arrived in town with a big truck load of apples. Now you have had the
expenses of transportation, hired labor, and the price paid to the
farmer. Your total cost is higher than the value of the apples. Which
no one wants because they have all they need. So the laborer did not
add anything to the value of the apple, do you go back and demand he
return the wages to you, after all he did not add to the value, rather
he "stole" the money from you.
>"My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human
>race goes through life without having a single original
>thought."
> -- Henry Louis Mencken
Has a higher opinion of man than I, 95% of human are incapable of
original thought. Less than 1% have actually ever had a original
thought and most of them were wrong.
Ron Allen
> Capital comes from labor. Capital does not come from proprietarians,
> but from producers.
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> Capitalism comes from liberty.
Ron Allen answers:
Are you implying that liberty preceded capitalism, that
there was liberty before there was capitalism?
If so, then perhaps liberty is not limited to capitalism,
and maybe liberty can come into its own after capitalism.
Michael Price wrote:
> Capital comes from the decisions of capitalists. It is their decision
> to convert some of their wealth to capital. This conversion may be
> accomplised by the labour produce by the bodies and minds of others.
> This is irrevelent because this labour was sold to the capitalist and
> is therefore "the capitalists labour". After all since it was the
> labourer's labour and the labourers sold it to the capitalist it must
> belong to the capitalist.
Ron Allen answers:
Well-written. I simply couldn't have said it better than
you have.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Those who champion capitalism have a very confused and obscure notion
> that those who own capital are also those who make capital. A
> capitalist organizes capital; but then so can a society, if the mode
> of economy were socialist rather than capitalist.
Michael Price wrote:
> The question is who is "society" and how do they get the capital in
> the first place.
Ron Allen answers:
To the question -- "Who is society?" -- what is your
answer?
To the question -- "How does society get capital?" --
I have given a possible answer: By means of democratic
and pacifist methods of procurement. The proletarian
workers can unite, and in egalitarian unity they can
offer to the proprietarian class a painless, auspicious,
voluntary, and agreeable method of agricultural and
industrial property transfer. Those who refuse can then
be subjected to a peaceful and democratic action from the
workers -- a combination of the worker strike and the
consumer boycott. This will bankrupt those proprietarians
who try to hold out against the proletarians. There need
be no use of violence, and no violation of bourgeois
private property rights. The transfer can be a voluntary
and amicable affair. The workers can make preparations
for this revolutionary and democratic even, and they can
solicit the support of their allies, and they can petition
the non-interference of politicians, and they can even
entreat the non-intervention of the police/military.
Such preparations can be made ahead of time, so as to
minimize reactionary resistance, and so as to maximize a
reasonable reorganization of the political economy.
This may not seem possible to conservative ideological
capitalists, but the political and democratic events
in the former Communist nations shows us that the people
can accomplish much when they are united with and for a
purpose. The death of Communism in recent history clearly
shows us the dynamism and the vitality of democratic and
libertarian desires.
Michael Price wrote:
> It is not by producing it since anyone who produces capital and
> doesn't sell it would have capital in the capitalists system and
> would not gain by socialism.
Ron Allen answers:
In both capitalism and communism, you must produce the
capital first, before you can possess it either privately
or collectively.
Someone (attribution lost) wrote:
> How is everyone to be paid when starting a new venture if there is no
> capital to get things going?
Stuart Dunn wrote:
> By the creation of wealth. The economy is not a zero-sum game.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Zero-sum game theory does not assume or assert that wealth is not
> created, Stuart.
Michael Price wrote:
> Zero-sum games assume that the thing aimed for is not created in the
> game. Since in economics this is wealth applying zero-sum game theory
> to economics would assume this.
Ron Allen answers:
I do not understand.
Ron Allen wrote:
> At most, the theory says that the total wealth at one time is always
> finite/limited. But the theory does not say wealth is not produced.
Ron Allen wrote:
> How is wealth created? By labor?
Michael Price wrote:
> By the combining various factors of productions in intelligent ways.
Ron Allen answers:
How are the various factors of production created? By
labor.
Ron Allen wrote:
> Who creates wealth? Producers?
Michael Price wrote:
> Yes, including capitalists.
Ron Allen answers:
A person can be both a capitalist and a producer, but to
be a capitalist is not to be a producer per se. Joan
Robinson, an English economist, made this point very
succinctly when she wrote in 1947: "Owning capital is
not a productive activity."
A person can be a capitalist and a producer, but as a
capitalist a person is not a producer, in the rôle of
proprietarian, one is not in the persona of a producer.
Ron Allen wrote:
> What is capitalist justice? It is a decision which favors the
> capitalists.
Michael Price wrote:
> Bullshit. Rich people (which capitalists generally are) are
> benefitted by feudalist/facist regimes not capitalist ones.
<><><><><><><><><>
"Law, in a democracy, means the protection of the rights
and liberties of the minority."
-- Alfred E. Smith
Michael Price
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > My assertion is that even the newly rich, even the first generation
> > super-rich, did not earn their enormous wealth by their own labor.
>
> > Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> > labor.
>
> Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
>
>
> Ron Allen wrote:
> > By the [legal] expropriation of surplus value produced by the surplus
> > labor of other people.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > How is this value "expropriated"?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Surplus value is expropriated by means of the wage system.
> What is produced by the direct producers is the direct
> property of the employer/proprietor.
> And yet, what is
> produced by the direct producers ought to be the direct
> property of the producers.
> That what is produced by the
> direct producers is not their immediate property is the
> first step/stage in the expropriation of value from the
> direct producers of value.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > When did Bill Gates put a gun to his worker's heads and demand wealth?
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> The exploitation of labor is more ingenious than that,
> more subtle and artful than direct and visible violence.
> Legal exploitation is systematic and methodical, very
> tidy and very businesslike, both well-regulated and well-
> organized.
>
> Bill Gates does not need to put a gun to his employees;
> he has the monopoly power of the police state to do that
> for him.
> His hands can stay clean, while the capitalist
> state gets all the accusations from both the political
> left and the political right.
>
>
> Michael Price wrote:
> > The fact is that this "surplus" value is the result of BG's investment
> > decisions not the work of the labourers.
>
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Profitable investments do not come from hocus-pocus magic.
> Labor produces the profits which an investor nets.
bullshit and you know it.
> Michael Price wrote:
> > The value of the labourer's labour to the labourer is less than the
> > wage. The value of the labourer's labour to the capitalist is
> > (hopefully) larger than this and depends largely on the capitalists
>
> Ron Allen answers:
> Utterly ludicrous premise resulting in an absolutely
> ridiculous inference.
There were 3 premises in the above paragraph. If the value of the workers
labour to the employer was worth less than the wage there would be no
"surplus value" for you to complain about. If the value of the workers
labour to the labourer was less than the wage why did he sell the labour?
The decisions made by the employer result in the economic activity involving
the employee to occur. Any value produced surplus to value of labour and
other resources used by the employer is due to their decision to pay for
those resources and combine them.
>
>
> <><><><><><><>
>
> "My guess is that well over 80 percent of the human
> race goes through life without having a single original
> thought."
> -- Henry Louis Mencken
>
Tomm Carr
> > > Bill Gates, for example, did not earn his immense wealth by his own
> > > labor.
> >
> > Stuart Dunn wrote:
> > > Sure he did. How else do you think a person becomes a billionaire?
> >
> > Ron Allen wrote:
> > > By the [legal] expropriation of surplus value produced by the surplus
> > > labor of other people.
> >
> > Michael Price wrote:
> > > How is this value "expropriated"?
> >
> > Ron Allen answers:
> > Surplus value is expropriated by means of the wage system.
> > What is produced by the direct producers is the direct
> > property of the employer/proprietor.
> Only if the direct producers agree to sell their labour.
And only if there is indeed surplus value. If a worker sells his labor for
$10/hr and the company realizes a benefit of $12/hr, is that $2 each hour an
"expropriation of surplus value"?
Let's stipulate that it is.
So if the worker sells his labor for $10/hr and the company realizes a benefit
of only $8, then this is an example of the worker expropriating surplus value
from the company. As these two acts of expropriation are morally equivalent,
one would think the Socialists would be just as upset over the one as the
other.
Yeah. Right.
It does no good to claim that such a thing never happens. Many companies,
especially early in their existence, can go years before realizing a profit.
Many profitable companies have unprofitable departments. Few companies (if
any) can resell the labor of janitors. So janitors must be the chronic
expropriators of the labor force.
The truth is that we workers would expect our employer to gain a little extra
over the cost of our labor. This is the basis of all trade. If the person we
want to trade with expects a benefit to the trade (that is, he expects to be
better off after the trade than before) then the trade takes place. If the
other person expects to be worse off after the deal, the trade does not take
place. So if I want to trade an hour of labor for a set wage, I would work to
ensure the company realizes a benefit that exceeds that wage. As with any
other product, the larger the extra benefit of an hour of my labor, the more I
can get in trade for that hour.
This is not expropriation. This is the unique characteristic of all free
trade: both sides are richer after the trade.
> > And yet, what is
> > produced by the direct producers ought to be the direct
> > property of the producers.
Absolutely not. The company supplied the tools, the raw material, the space,
and everything else that had to go into making the product. All the laborer
supplied was the labor. The labor he owns and traded it for a wage, not for a
stake in the product.
Tomm
--
Kickbacks must always exceed bribes. - John Peers
James A. Donald
On Sun, 28 Oct 2001 10:58:22 -0500, Margaret <marg...@example.com>
wrote:
> You'll have to explain how simply distributing profit
> more widely instead of allowing it to go into one
> person's pocket will cause all those ills.
Easy. Someone, presumably someone as wise and good and benevolent, as
yourself, will have to do the distributing.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
D76eY+wuy4+z3XqlPVt6GFcn7rcNZlok9v7bjlN4
43Q3Jzugw7+u4AL0aTfZfDXiU+A1IfZOV6pjPZmTR
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
Tony Veca
wrote:
>But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
>and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
>persistent poverty?
I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
population is lazy and stupid.
In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
of the difference.
>Why do we tolerate poverty?
We don't tolerate it, if we did, there wouldn't be any charitable
organization to help the poor. But by the same token, you can't force help
on the poor, nor should you force other to help if they don't want to.
The poor end up resenting you for forcing the help on them, and those who
are forced to help resent it because they weren't given a choice.
>When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
We won't as long as there options that allow the poor to stay poor.
Work or starve, may sound harsh, but the advantage is that it gets results
and forces a person to change their situation.
>How can we better the human condition?
By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is the
only way that people learn.
--
==============================================================
__ __ Tony Veca jav...@earthlink.net
/'( _ )'\ =============================================
/ . \/^\/ . \ "After a shooting spree, they always want
/ _)_'-'_(_ \ to take the guns away from the people who
/.-' ).( '-.\ DIDN'T do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want
/' /\_/\ '\ to live in a society where the only people
"-V-" allowed guns are the police and the
military". -- William Burroughs
===============================================================
jubal
<jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
Tony, welcome it is so refreshing to have a intelligent poster.
>On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:02:17 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
>wrote:
>
>>But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
>>and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
>>persistent poverty?
>
>I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
>
>The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
>population is lazy and stupid.
Demonstrated by the fact that so many wealthy were born in
poverty, and many poor were born to wealth.
>In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
>then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
>of the difference.
>
>
>
>>Why do we tolerate poverty?
>
>We don't tolerate it, if we did, there wouldn't be any charitable
>organization to help the poor. But by the same token, you can't force help
>on the poor, nor should you force other to help if they don't want to.
>
>The poor end up resenting you for forcing the help on them, and those who
>are forced to help resent it because they weren't given a choice.
>
>>When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
>
>We won't as long as there options that allow the poor to stay poor.
Poor is a relative term. The poorest of welfare recipients in
the U.S. today lives in luxury undreamed of only a couple of
centuries ago. George Washington did not have a indoor toilet,
radio, telephone, TV, computer, or antibiotics to treat the
pneumonia that killed him. A trip that today take a hour or so in
comfort was a two week trip, sleeping in a tent at night and
shitting on the ground along side the road. A trip from New York
to washington was a major trek.
>Work or starve, may sound harsh, but the advantage is that it gets results
>and forces a person to change their situation.
>
>>How can we better the human condition?
>
>By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is the
>only way that people learn.
A very fervent AMEN.
jubal
<marg...@example.com> wrote:
>Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
>> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
>> of the difference.
>
>And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
>thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
>be said.
Pot/ kettle. He is of course correct, in the United States a
persons "station" is a reflection of his ability rather than
birth.
The United States is the first nation to have an "Aristocracy
of Ability". A "station" open too anyone of any race, religion.
or sex. The single qualification is ABILITY. And mental attitude
is necessary for a person to develop his/her ability.
>Some folk are impoverished by prejudice, accident,
>disease, the decisions of the wealthy, or simple error.
Member of all races have become very wealthy, people who
survived horrible accidents and illnesses have still prospered.
Know a fellow who lost both legs, one arm. one eye in Korea.
He began a phone answering service, now employees several
operators. The new phone voice mail is hurting him. But many
customers still are willing to pay for the better service a
person can provide. Tape recorders just can`t handle odd
situations. Biggest problem hiring good people.
>If they're not extraordinarily lucky in other ways,
>they'll remain poor all their lives, because the US has
>a 'hump' above which it's made hard to fail (Smirk
>being the poster boy for that) and below which it's
>made hard to succeed. That's the US class system.
>The fact you can't see that is not to your credit.
The fact that you believe that nonsense is proof of your
prejudice. In the U.S every generation sees people of ability
and drive come from very poor backgrounds, and the heirs of great
wealth slide into poverty.
>Margaret
Lewis Cosper
"jubal" <har...@utopia.com> wrote in message
news:F045DDBAE3DEF913.095F74FE...@lp.airnews.net...
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 06:46:08 GMT, Tony Veca
> <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Tony, welcome it is so refreshing to have a intelligent poster.
>
Jubal did a pretty good job also.
> Poor is a relative term. The poorest of welfare recipients in
> the U.S. today lives in luxury undreamed of only a couple of
> centuries ago. George Washington did not have a indoor toilet,
> radio, telephone, TV, computer, or antibiotics to treat the
> pneumonia that killed him.
Heck my grandfolks didn't have most of that.
> A trip that today take a hour or so in
> comfort was a two week trip, sleeping in a tent at night and
> shitting on the ground along side the road. A trip from New York
> to washington was a major trek.
I am 63, and I remember going to town with my grandfather in a wagon drawn
by two horses. Took most of the day to do the round trip to town.
> >By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is
the
> >only way that people learn.
>
> A very fervent AMEN.
Bout the only way it works.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 04:55:00 -0500, Margaret
> <marg...@example.com> wrote:
>
> >Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> >> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
> >> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes
all
> >> of the difference.
> >
> >And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
> >thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
> >be said.
>
> Pot/ kettle. He is of course correct, in the United States a
> persons "station" is a reflection of his ability rather than
> birth.
> The United States is the first nation to have an "Aristocracy
> of Ability". A "station" open too anyone of any race, religion.
> or sex. The single qualification is ABILITY. And mental attitude
> is necessary for a person to develop his/her ability.
Hey I like that. I may have to plagiarize it.
> >Some folk are impoverished by prejudice, accident,
> >disease, the decisions of the wealthy, or simple error.
>
> Member of all races have become very wealthy, people who
> survived horrible accidents and illnesses have still prospered.
> Know a fellow who lost both legs, one arm. one eye in Korea.
> He began a phone answering service, now employees several
> operators. The new phone voice mail is hurting him. But many
> customers still are willing to pay for the better service a
> person can provide. Tape recorders just can`t handle odd
> situations. Biggest problem hiring good people.
>
> >If they're not extraordinarily lucky in other ways,
> >they'll remain poor all their lives, because the US has
> >a 'hump' above which it's made hard to fail (Smirk
> >being the poster boy for that) and below which it's
> >made hard to succeed. That's the US class system.
> >The fact you can't see that is not to your credit.
>
> The fact that you believe that nonsense is proof of your
> prejudice. In the U.S every generation sees people of ability
> and drive come from very poor backgrounds, and the heirs of great
> wealth slide into poverty.
Yuppers. And every generation gets to see the whining of those without
drive complain how they are helt back.
Lewis
G*rd*n
| ...
| by two horses. Took most of the day to do the round trip to town.
Through the dern snowdrifts in the middle o' July, too, and
with Indians shootin' at us from behind every rock....
Life was tough in Uzbekistan in '49. We envied the
Americans who had cars and television sets. Little did we
know.
--
(<><>) /*/
}"{ G*rd*n }"{ g...@panix.com }"{
{ http://www.etaoin.com | latest new material 8/30/01 <-adv't
Timothy Wesson
> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:02:17 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
> wrote:
>
> >But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
> >and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
> >persistent poverty?
>
> I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
>
> The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
> population is lazy and stupid.
If they are lazy largely because of their upbringing, then the
problem of poor children's future poverty is potentially
addressable. It seems to me that you're saying that because
blame can be attributed, nothing needs to be done, when in
fact people that you can blame and people who can act to
change a situation are often different sets of people.
Stupidity is not the fault of the stupid.
> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
> of the difference.
Peoples' attitudes do not appear "by magic". Finding who to
blame is not a mentality that solves problems. It may solve
future problems through identifying a link in the chain of
cause and effect.
> >Why do we tolerate poverty?
>
> We don't tolerate it, if we did, there wouldn't be any charitable
> organization to help the poor. But by the same token, you can't force help
> on the poor, nor should you force other to help if they don't want to.
>
> The poor end up resenting you for forcing the help on them, and those who
> are forced to help resent it because they weren't given a choice.
This is a reasonable point, but the issue is more complex.
What if the individual has dependants? I am encouraging
thought here, not prescribing intervention, BTW.
> >When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
>
> We won't as long as there options that allow the poor to stay poor.
>
> Work or starve, may sound harsh, but the advantage is that it gets results
> and forces a person to change their situation.
A better argument would be that the costs of intervention
are too great in terms of freedom (which I doubt, since
poverty is a trap which denies freedom).
> >How can we better the human condition?
>
> By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is the
> only way that people learn.
They also learn though observing others, and through practice.
The hardest thing is getting people to do something that they
haven't done before. A new skill is far more productive than a bigger stick!
> --
> ==============================================================
> __ __ Tony Veca jav...@earthlink.net
> /'( _ )'\ =============================================
> / . \/^\/ . \ "After a shooting spree, they always want
> / _)_'-'_(_ \ to take the guns away from the people who
> /.-' ).( '-.\ DIDN'T do it. I sure as hell wouldn't want
> /' /\_/\ '\ to live in a society where the only people
> "-V-" allowed guns are the police and the
> military". -- William Burroughs
> ===============================================================
You allow the military to have guns? ;-)
--
Tim Wesson
Philosophers and economists are the most powerful people,
for they shape those that we credit with power.
jubal
<cos...@centurytel.net> wrote:
>
>"jubal" <har...@utopia.com> wrote in message
>news:F045DDBAE3DEF913.095F74FE...@lp.airnews.net...
>> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 06:46:08 GMT, Tony Veca
>> <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> Tony, welcome it is so refreshing to have a intelligent poster.
>>
>
>Jubal did a pretty good job also.
>
Thankee.
>
>> Poor is a relative term. The poorest of welfare recipients in
>> the U.S. today lives in luxury undreamed of only a couple of
>> centuries ago. George Washington did not have a indoor toilet,
>> radio, telephone, TV, computer, or antibiotics to treat the
>> pneumonia that killed him.
>
>Heck my grandfolks didn't have most of that.
>
Nor mine, my folks were better than average at making a living,
on a small farm with some leased land. So we weren`t poor. But we
didn`t have any of that along with no running water or
electricity. We used wood for heating and cooking, and a piece of
cardboard glued to a stick for a fan.
>> A trip that today take a hour or so in
>> comfort was a two week trip, sleeping in a tent at night and
>> shitting on the ground along side the road. A trip from New York
>> to washington was a major trek.
>
>I am 63, and I remember going to town with my grandfather in a wagon drawn by two horses. Took most of the day to do the round trip to town.
>
My self, but town was over thirty miles so it was a two day
trip. Camped by the wagon in town returned home next day.
I am 72. Once in a great while I was treated to a movie show,
what a experience.
jubal
<cos...@centurytel.net> wrote:
>
>"jubal" <har...@utopia.com> wrote in message
>news:8EE1E5E2A4CE6790.D298225E...@lp.airnews.net...
>> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 04:55:00 -0500, Margaret
>> <marg...@example.com> wrote:
>>
>> >Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>> >
>> >> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
>> >> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes
>all
>> >> of the difference.
>> >
>> >And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
>> >thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
>> >be said.
>>
>> Pot/ kettle. He is of course correct, in the United States a
>> persons "station" is a reflection of his ability rather than
>> birth.
>> The United States is the first nation to have an "Aristocracy
>> of Ability". A "station" open too anyone of any race, religion.
>> or sex. The single qualification is ABILITY. And mental attitude
>> is necessary for a person to develop his/her ability.
>
>Hey I like that. I may have to plagiarize it.
Go ahead but it`s borrowed from John Galt in Atlas Shrugged.
Kinda butchered it so it`s not a exact quote. there fore I didn`t
use it as a quote.
>> >Some folk are impoverished by prejudice, accident,
>> >disease, the decisions of the wealthy, or simple error.
>>
>> Member of all races have become very wealthy, people who
>> survived horrible accidents and illnesses have still prospered.
>> Know a fellow who lost both legs, one arm. one eye in Korea.
>> He began a phone answering service, now employees several
>> operators. The new phone voice mail is hurting him. But many
>> customers still are willing to pay for the better service a
>> person can provide. Tape recorders just can`t handle odd
>> situations. Biggest problem hiring good people.
>>
>> >If they're not extraordinarily lucky in other ways,
>> >they'll remain poor all their lives, because the US has
>> >a 'hump' above which it's made hard to fail (Smirk
>> >being the poster boy for that) and below which it's
>> >made hard to succeed. That's the US class system.
>> >The fact you can't see that is not to your credit.
>>
>> The fact that you believe that nonsense is proof of your
>> prejudice. In the U.S every generation sees people of ability
>> and drive come from very poor backgrounds, and the heirs of great
>> wealth slide into poverty.
>
>Yuppers. And every generation gets to see the whining of those without
>drive complain how they are helt back.
>
>Lewis
>
And those whining bastards make me want to kick their worthless
asses.
Kyle, just plain Kyle
>On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 06:46:08 GMT, Tony Veca
><jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> Tony, welcome it is so refreshing to have a intelligent poster.
>
>
>>On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:02:17 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
>>wrote:
>>
>>>But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
>>>and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
>>>persistent poverty?
>>
>>I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
>>
>>The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
>>population is lazy and stupid.
>
> Demonstrated by the fact that so many wealthy were born in
>poverty, and many poor were born to wealth.
Let's see some stats on that assertion.
Kyle, just plain Kyle
>(...)In the U.S every generation sees people of ability
>and drive come from very poor backgrounds, and the heirs of great
>wealth slide into poverty.
Can you name an 'heir of great wealth' that slid into poverty?
Kyle, just plain Kyle
> And those whining bastards make me want to kick their worthless
>asses.
Careful, don't break a hip.
Tomm Carr
> Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
> > then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
> > of the difference.
>
> And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
> thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
> be said.
I agree. In the US, there is no limit to opportunity. But opportunity does
not guarantee success. Nothing does. There is no getting around the fact that
circumstances have an affect on our lives, sometimes helping, sometimes not.
"The poor" can be divided somewhat into three groups:
1) Believe it or not, there *are* people who choose to be poor. I have met
them. Most of us have met them. I will leave it to psychologists to give the
definitive reasons, but the ones I met seem to have a morbid fear or just
massive intolerance to any responsibility whatsoever.
2) There are poor who did not use to be poor and do not wish to be poor. They
have "fallen on hard times." These people do not generally stay poor for long.
3) There are those that have been poor all their lives and do not wish to be
poor. However, they could be operating at distinct disadvantages to the second
group. Many will see the opportunities that are all around them and work their
way out of their "situation." Some, unfortunately, will not see the
opportunities, or will be convinced that the opportunities are forbidden to
them. They will be told that they are being "held down," as if their poverty
meant riches for someone else. They will be told they are the wrong race, or
sex, or nationality, or religion, or whatever. While such people may not
desire to be poor, their misconceptions work to hold them back. They don't
deliberately choose to be poor, but they choose the way of life (antagonism
toward education and social norms) that work to make poverty a self-fulfilling
condition in their life. I think this is the group Tony was referring to.
Fortunately, this is a small group but, unfortunately, it seems to be growing.
> Some folk are impoverished by prejudice, accident,
> disease, the decisions of the wealthy, or simple error.
Except for "prejudice," this describes group 2.
> If they're not extraordinarily lucky in other ways,
> they'll remain poor all their lives, because the US has
> a 'hump' above which it's made hard to fail (Smirk
> being the poster boy for that) and below which it's
> made hard to succeed.
What holds back most people is believing nonsense such as this. Census data
shows that most of the people in the upper 20% and the lower 20% will not be
there when the next census is taken. There is lots of movement up and down.
> That's the US class system.
> The fact you can't see that is not to your credit.
The statement of someone who has a habit of looking at herself and everyone
else as members of one class or another. Do you even know what an actual class
system looks like, even one in a relatively free society such as England? Are
you perhaps just projecting your desire for a class system onto society and
then assuaging your guilt (because why dream of a class system if one does not
desire to be in the upper crust?) by appearing to condemn such a dreadful
system?
If anyone is holding back the poor, preventing them from enjoying the success
they could have, it is people like you who tell them they cannot succeed, that
the system is rigged against them. What you get out of helping the poor
remain poor while pretending to advocate for their "cause" is beyond me. I
just hope whatever you *do* get out of it is worth it to you.
Tomm
--
Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision
for the limits of the world. - Arthur Schopenhauer
Keep away from those who try to belittle your ambitions.
Small people always do that, but the really great make you
believe that you too can become great. -Mark Twain
digger
>
> "Lewis Cosper" <cos...@centurytel.net>:
> | ...
> | I am 63, and I remember going to town with my grandfather in a wagon drawn
> | by two horses. Took most of the day to do the round trip to town.
> | ...
>
> Through the dern snowdrifts in the middle o' July, too, and
> with Indians shootin' at us from behind every rock....
>
> Life was tough in Uzbekistan in '49. We envied the
> Americans who had cars and television sets. Little did we
> know.
The sarcasm is pretty poor there. Is that because you don't have any
real factually grounded comebacks?
But, if you don't 'believe' Lewis Cosper's story, maybe you better learn
more about the real world, outside of the little electron box that you
choose to inhabit.
FYI, his story sounds very real to me. My Uncle told about the days in
the early 20's when it was a three day one-way trip for my Grandfather
to the State capital by wagon, to transact certain official business.
My Mother tells about how her older brother's and my Grandfather would
take all day to go to town and back, 10 miles away, to bring in a wagon
load of coal for the winter.
I myself remember the late 50's and early 60's, staying in the same farm
house where my Mother grew up, and having no running water, no indoor
plumbing, and no central heat. And being perfectly comfortable.
And it is ironic that one of the neighbor kids, 5 miles away, was my
exact age, and his stories of his early life are the same as mine.
And it is even more ironic that my Grandmother lived from having to use
hand flails on twine to thresh out wheat kernels, to seeing self
propelled, cab enclosed, air-conditioned, radio equipped harvesting
equipment that could do the work of 20 women for twenty days in one day
alone, with a single operator.
So, yeah, the 'poor' in the US live like kings compared to what many
people in the world still have, and compared to what MOST of the world
had just a few short decades ago.
And it was capitalism, not socialism, that brought that wealth to those
'poor'.
Many of my grandparent's relatives still lived in southern Russia when
Stalin brought about his 'workers paradise'. And many of them starved to
death under the "socialistic leap forward" that he instituted.
So forgive me for NOT simply accepting your 'view' that life is horrible
under capitalism. I guess that's just because FACTS always seem to get
in the way of your THEORY.
jubal
Nelson Bunker Hunt, father left him Ten billion dollars, all
that's left is a trust fund he could not spend.
Several others that you would not know.
Also several entertainment and sports millionaires that are now
broke.
jubal
wrote:
>Margaret wrote:
>
>> Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>> > In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
>> > then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
>> > of the difference.
>>
>> And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
>> thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
>> be said.
>
>I agree. In the US, there is no limit to opportunity. But opportunity does
>not guarantee success. Nothing does. There is no getting around the fact that
>circumstances have an affect on our lives, sometimes helping, sometimes not.
>
>"The poor" can be divided somewhat into three groups:
>
>1) Believe it or not, there *are* people who choose to be poor. I have met
>them. Most of us have met them. I will leave it to psychologists to give the
>definitive reasons, but the ones I met seem to have a morbid fear or just
>massive intolerance to any responsibility whatsoever.
Know several of them, works just enough to earn a simple
living. Usually about 3 days a week. or one week a month.
Those I know have decided to work to live rather than live to
work.
>2) There are poor who did not use to be poor and do not wish to be poor. They have "fallen on hard times." These people do not generally stay poor for long.
These are the ones that can be and should be helped, but they
aren`t going to the welfare office for help.
>3) There are those that have been poor all their lives and do not wish to be
>poor. However, they could be operating at distinct disadvantages to the second
>group. Many will see the opportunities that are all around them and work their
>way out of their "situation." Some, unfortunately, will not see the
>opportunities, or will be convinced that the opportunities are forbidden to
>them. They will be told that they are being "held down," as if their poverty
>meant riches for someone else. They will be told they are the wrong race, or
>sex, or nationality, or religion, or whatever. While such people may not
>desire to be poor, their misconceptions work to hold them back. They don't
>deliberately choose to be poor, but they choose the way of life (antagonism
>toward education and social norms) that work to make poverty a self-fulfilling
>condition in their life. I think this is the group Tony was referring to.
>Fortunately, this is a small group but, unfortunately, it seems to be growing.
This is the professional welfare recipient class. They have
more kids than most other groups. Good news many will reject the
life style and become wealthy. They will not support the system
they were raised in.
>> Some folk are impoverished by prejudice, accident,
>> disease, the decisions of the wealthy, or simple error.
>
>Except for "prejudice," this describes group 2.
Prejudice is simply a excuse, many black have become wealthy
providing products or services to other blacks.
>> If they're not extraordinarily lucky in other ways,
>> they'll remain poor all their lives, because the US has
>> a 'hump' above which it's made hard to fail (Smirk
>> being the poster boy for that) and below which it's
>> made hard to succeed.
>
>What holds back most people is believing nonsense such as this. Census data
>shows that most of the people in the upper 20% and the lower 20% will not be
>there when the next census is taken. There is lots of movement up and down.
>
>> That's the US class system.
>> The fact you can't see that is not to your credit.
>
>The statement of someone who has a habit of looking at herself and everyone
>else as members of one class or another. Do you even know what an actual class
>system looks like, even one in a relatively free society such as England?
Margaret is every bit as racist as any Klu Klucker any where in
the southern U.S.
G*rd*n
| > FYI, his story sounds very real to me. My Uncle told about the days in
| > the early 20's when it was a three day one-way trip for my Grandfather
| > to the State capital by wagon, to transact certain official business.
Margaret <marg...@example.com>:
| The early '20s were at least 20 years before Lewis's
| story.
|
| If Lewis is actually 63, then he's only 2 years older
| than I, and I can tell you that there were damn' few
| folk even in Britain using horse-drawn waggons for
| transportation in the '40s.
I'm 61; I grew up in a town in semi-rural New Jersey. Almost
everyone had some kind of car, except Mr. Vivaldi, the Italian
guy that sold vegetables off a big wagon. It was the 1940s,
after all. Some of the cars got pretty old during the war,
but outside of that you could hardly run in the street without
being hit by one.
| Of course, perhaps Lewis is Amish.
It's pretty mysterious. But of course we're wandering from
the subject. The subject is the past, present and future
perfection of capitalism; how, if people will only submit
themselves to their betters, they'll be happy and prosperous
and free. And they'll have lots and lots of cars and so on.
You can never get enough capitalism, even if it's running out
of your ears. Right, guys?
ShrikeBack
Well, the process is still ongoing, but the Kennedys
are working on it.
jubal
<marg...@example.com> wrote:
>digger <nei...@stellarnet.com> wrote:
>
>> FYI, his story sounds very real to me. My Uncle told about the days in
>> the early 20's when it was a three day one-way trip for my Grandfather
>> to the State capital by wagon, to transact certain official business.
>
>The early '20s were at least 20 years before Lewis's
>story.
>
>If Lewis is actually 63, then he's only 2 years older
>than I, and I can tell you that there were damn' few
>folk even in Britain using horse-drawn waggons for
>transportation in the '40s.
>
>Of course, perhaps Lewis is Amish.
>
>Margaret
I have a feeling from his word usage he is southern U.S. and
bad roads often forced the use of horses and wagons and many poor
farmer could not afford a car or light truck.
At 63 he was born in 38 I was born in 29 Dad bought a ford in 36
but we still used horses and wagons a lot until after the
war.Gasoline was rationed and horses and wagons were in common
use on farms until after the war. I carried many wagon loads of
sugar cane to the syrup and sugar mill. Left before daylight
returned after dark a 22 mile round trip with unloading and lunch
break.
Seldom saw any cars on the road.
Hewpiedawg
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:9rl598$4m1$1...@panix2.panix.com...
It isn't quite running out of my ears yet, and so
I am going to go to my local marketplace of
ideas and buy me some more. In case I get
tired of that I'm going to buy me some socialism
to hang on the wall next to it.
Lewis Cosper
> Nor mine, my folks were better than average at making a living,
> on a small farm with some leased land. So we weren`t poor. But we
> didn`t have any of that along with no running water or
> electricity. We used wood for heating and cooking, and a piece of
> cardboard glued to a stick for a fan.
My dad grew up on a place very simular to what you describe. I spent a lot
of time on that old farm.
I still heat with wood. Of course I have a chainsaw now rather the old
double bit axe I used as a kid to cut firewood for my grandfolks.
> My self, but town was over thirty miles so it was a two day
> trip. Camped by the wagon in town returned home next day.
> I am 72. Once in a great while I was treated to a movie show,
> what a experience.
If the river was low enough to ford it was about 10 miles to town. If the
river was up it was about 20 miles to town. I have made the short trip with
my granddad via horse, and wagon. Dad told me stories about when he was
younger, and they would make the trip to town, and camp over night. No
movie house though <<Grin>> It was another 30 miles to there.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"Margaret" <marg...@example.com> wrote in message
news:nlurttcekvnn2ga6c...@4ax.com...
> The early '20s were at least 20 years before Lewis's
> story.
>
> If Lewis is actually 63, then he's only 2 years older
> than I, and I can tell you that there were damn' few
> folk even in Britain using horse-drawn waggons for
> transportation in the '40s.
>
> Of course, perhaps Lewis is Amish.
Naw he ain't Amish. Bred & born a Texan.
As a young man I got to taste a little of the old along with the new. I
spent a lot of time visiting my Grandfolk who lived way out in the boonies
there in Texas. There was no electricity. No indoor plumbing. No heat
source other than the wood cook stove, and the fireplace. The Grandfolk
raised 5 kids out there, and a multitude of grandkids. About half the10
miles to town was out across pasture, and the other half was county farm to
market road. I remember very well when the county finally GRAVELED the FM
road. Had LOADS of fun out there.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"Tomm Carr" <Tomm...@Sun.com> wrote in message
news:3BDDE212...@Sun.com...
> Margaret wrote:
>
> > Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
> >
> > > In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are
poor,
> > > then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes
all
> > > of the difference.
> >
> > And your mental attitude, dear, is one of shallow
> > thought. I'm really sorry to say that, but it needs to
> > be said.
>
> I agree. In the US, there is no limit to opportunity. But opportunity
does
> not guarantee success. Nothing does. There is no getting around the fact
that
> circumstances have an affect on our lives, sometimes helping, sometimes
not.
>
> "The poor" can be divided somewhat into three groups:
Well you missed another group. By most standards we are considered poor.
By USA standards we live in poverty. We live the way we live by design. I
am educated. Worked as an Engineer in Micro Electronics. Even ran a large
construction business for a while.
We decided many years ago to work to live, and to quit living to work. We
have supported our life style with 3 to 4 hours labor per day. Did pretty
good on that 3 to 4 hours. Raised two kids. We own our own home on 40
acres. No mortgage. Don't owe any credit card bills. Got a freezer full of
meat. Pantry full of other food stuff. Actually I am retired now at 63.
Don't have much money, but then we don't need much.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
> Go ahead but it`s borrowed from John Galt in Atlas Shrugged.
> Kinda butchered it so it`s not a exact quote. there fore I didn`t
> use it as a quote.
No wonder I liked it.
Lewis
jubal
(ShrikeBack) wrote:
Old man Kennedy the creator of the fortune, put it all, in
trust funds. The heirs can get income but cannot use the fortune.
Henry Ford ditto.
George Bush 1 amassed a huge fortune, the boys are in public
service, their kids most likely will be jet setters and
gadabouts.
jubal
<cos...@centurytel.net> wrote:
>
>"Margaret" <marg...@example.com> wrote in message
>news:nlurttcekvnn2ga6c...@4ax.com...
>
>> The early '20s were at least 20 years before Lewis's
>> story.
>>
>> If Lewis is actually 63, then he's only 2 years older
>> than I, and I can tell you that there were damn' few
>> folk even in Britain using horse-drawn waggons for
>> transportation in the '40s.
>>
>> Of course, perhaps Lewis is Amish.
>
>Naw he ain't Amish. Bred & born a Texan.
I knowed it, from east Texas my self, northwest of Kilgore.
We still have some dirt roads in the county. What part of Texas
are you from?
Kyle, just plain Kyle
Jubal would say you're lazy and stupid.
Kyle, just plain Kyle
>On 29 Oct 2001 19:17:56 -0800, hewpi...@hotmail.com
>(ShrikeBack) wrote:
>
>>"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote in message news:<ojkrttcscqk73pnlr...@4ax.com>...
>>> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 16:44:06 GMT, har...@utopia.com (jubal) wrote:
>>> >(...)In the U.S every generation sees people of ability
>>> >and drive come from very poor backgrounds, and the heirs of great
>>> >wealth slide into poverty.
>>>
>>> Can you name an 'heir of great wealth' that slid into poverty?
>>
>>Well, the process is still ongoing, but the Kennedys
>>are working on it.
>
> Old man Kennedy the creator of the fortune, put it all, in
>trust funds. The heirs can get income but cannot use the fortune.
>Henry Ford ditto.
Hardly poverty.
> George Bush 1 amassed a huge fortune, the boys are in public
>service, their kids most likely will be jet setters and
>gadabouts.
Again, hardly poverty.
James A. Donald
On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 21:57:10 GMT, "Kyle, just plain Kyle"
<Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote:
> Can you name an 'heir of great wealth' that slid into poverty?
Not poverty, but where are the heirs of the great fortunes of the
1890s? Vanished into ordinary lifestyles most of them, and some of
them doubtless into poverty.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
3LgS5WJ5SalTXEvh4s9K3BdMWuVGrzEEA/h6/1A7
4nGgolnlqbZyppTi2YX7Nrjm9v68gKi+mLAf+Q32F
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
Constantinople
No, I'm open to real alternatives to the market as an economic system.
However, as it happens, there don't appear to be any. I mean, aside
from various versions of hell on Earth, like the USSR, and aside from
economic arrangements that don't support the luxury to which I'm
accustomed, as for example voluntary communes.
The problem here is not that I'm religiously tied to the market, but
that you don't have alternatives. Similarly, I'm not religiously tied
to water. If you can find substitutes, great. But fact is, there are
no substitutes.
You claim to have alternatives, but of all of you the best is the
fellow who wants to tell us about Parecon, and his alternative also
doesn't seem to really be there.
G*rd*n
| ...
| that you don't have alternatives. Similarly, I'm not religiously tied
| to water. If you can find substitutes, great. But fact is, there are
| no substitutes.
Heh. In your case, saying that your attachment to the
establshed capitalist order of things was "religious"
would be an understatement. Like water, eh? The
breath of life? The light of the world?
Ah, well; Usenet is no venue for satire. It's almost
as impossible to satirize as national politics.
digger
And I notice that you ignored the part of my post where I explained
about the differences between what happened to my Grandmother, here in
the capitalist US, and what happened to her relatives who made the
mistake of living in Russia, when the socialists came to power.
BTW, perhaps YOU are worried about the "perfection" of capitalism. But
from where I sit, most capitalists realise that NO system can ever be
perfect, and the best that we can hope for is to find one that BEST
satisfies the individual wants of the biggest number of people, without
infringing on the basic liberty that all humans deserve.
And I have yet to see a "better" system.
digger
Similar story myself, except that the location was North Dakota, and I'm
about ten years younger than you.
The problem here seems to be that too many of the 'socialists' types
that hate capitalism so much, never actually LIVED in a situation where
they were able to experience first-hand the huge advances that American
society has made in the last few decades.
As a result, they seem to think that only having a 10 year old car, only
one color TV, no Nike(tm) clothing, or not having the latest model
computer, or a vacation home at the lake, means that one has been
'victimised' by capitalism.
They see only one small slice of "poor" people, and assume that MOST of
America must be like that. And they FAIL to see the massive numbers of
people that have enriched their lives through using capitalism to their
advantage.
I have occasionally challenged some of these 'collectivists' to go into
a community of recent immigrants, and ask THEM if they feel 'oppressed'
by capitalism, but so far, no one has accepted my challenge, or has
reported back with the results, if the did.
G*rd*n
| Similar story myself, except that the location was North Dakota, and I'm
| about ten years younger than you.
|
| The problem here seems to be that too many of the 'socialists' types
| that hate capitalism so much, never actually LIVED in a situation where
| they were able to experience first-hand the huge advances that American
| society has made in the last few decades.
|
| As a result, they seem to think that only having a 10 year old car, only
| one color TV, no Nike(tm) clothing, or not having the latest model
| computer, or a vacation home at the lake, means that one has been
| 'victimised' by capitalism.
|
| They see only one small slice of "poor" people, and assume that MOST of
| America must be like that. And they FAIL to see the massive numbers of
| people that have enriched their lives through using capitalism to their
| advantage.
|
| I have occasionally challenged some of these 'collectivists' to go into
| a community of recent immigrants, and ask THEM if they feel 'oppressed'
| by capitalism, but so far, no one has accepted my challenge, or has
| reported back with the results, if the did.
Nothing you're saying has much of anything to do with
radical criticism of capitalism, which is what you're
supposed to be getting from socialists or anarchists.
Not that it matters a whole lot, but you might want
to be aware of that.
Constantinople
> constan...@my-deja.com (Constantinople):
> | ...
> | The problem here is not that I'm religiously tied to the market, but
> | that you don't have alternatives. Similarly, I'm not religiously tied
> | to water. If you can find substitutes, great. But fact is, there are
> | no substitutes.
> | ...
>
> Heh. In your case, saying that your attachment to the
> establshed capitalist order of things was "religious"
> would be an understatement. Like water, eh? The
> breath of life? The light of the world?
Nonsense.
Water is like water in that there are no substitutes.
If it follows from my words that I have a religious attachment
to the market, then it also follows from my words that I have
a religious attachment to water. However, I am simply stating
a fact about water. So it does not follow that I have a
religious attachment to water, and so we see that it also
does not follow that I have a religious attachment to the
market.
All that paragraph is a lengthy demonstration of something as
simple as 2+2=4. Normally such a thing goes without saying,
but when you (G) are taking part in the discussion one must
either ignore you the way one ignores the fellow at the
next table mumbling to himself, or else spend a surprising
amount of time establishing things as basic as 2+2=4.
Lewis Cosper
> I knowed it, from east Texas my self, northwest of Kilgore.
> We still have some dirt roads in the county. What part of Texas
> are you from?
Born in Luling. Lived all over Texas from the Gulf coast to the Panhandle.
Graduated from Alvin High.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote in message
news:t2jtttsqlm5lqec2m...@4ax.com...
Don't think you have that correct. Think you got the wrong name.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"digger" <nei...@stellarnet.com> wrote in message
news:3BDF22...@stellarnet.com...
>
> I have occasionally challenged some of these 'collectivists' to go into
> a community of recent immigrants, and ask THEM if they feel 'oppressed'
> by capitalism, but so far, no one has accepted my challenge, or has
> reported back with the results, if the did.
I ain't even an immigrant, and by most measures of prosperity I am a poor
man. What was nice is we could choose what, and how we wanted to live.
Capitalism, and freedom has allowed us to do what we like, and what we
wanted. We have been self employed since I was 35, and could make as much
as we wanted, or as little as we wanted. We decided to work enough to live,
and not live to work. We got to know our kids because we had the time. We
built a couple houses of our own because we had the time. Sure haven't paid
bankers much in the way of interest for a LONG time.
Lewis
Constantinople
My guess is that you're wrong about what Jubal would say. Maybe we'll
see whether I'm right or you're right.
digger
In a way you have a point, but then again, since most socialists have NO
real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
logically with their feelings.
And I find NO pure anarchists that care one way or another WHAT type of
economic system that others favor, as they tend to ignore anyone else's
concerns anyway, out of principle.
On the other hand, I find that those few radicals of any stripe that
disagree with capitalism on its merits, often fail to give capitalism
any credit for the success that it has created in the US, somehow
assuming that such success came DESPITE capitalism.
Tony Veca
<tr...@nospam-render.com> wrote:
>Tony Veca wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:02:17 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> >But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
>> >and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
>> >persistent poverty?
>>
>> I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
>>
>> The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
>> population is lazy and stupid.
>
>If they are lazy largely because of their upbringing, then the
>problem of poor children's future poverty is potentially
>addressable.
It always has been addressable, but it doesn't get addressed because to
many so called experts think the answer is to simple to be effective. The
key to success is understanding it is a journey, not a destination and that
attitude is everything. If you believe you can do it, you will eventually
succeed as long as you don't quit. This can best be summed up by a poster
that is on my wall "Quitters never win. Winners never quit."
>It seems to me that you're saying that because
>blame can be attributed, nothing needs to be done, when in
>fact people that you can blame and people who can act to
>change a situation are often different sets of people.
I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
co-dependency. The people that run these government controlled programs
need people on those programs to justify their their jobs and thusly their
paychecks.
>
>Stupidity is not the fault of the stupid.
True enough, but we should not be encouraging it either.
>> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
>> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
>> of the difference.
>
>Peoples' attitudes do not appear "by magic". Finding who to
>blame is not a mentality that solves problems. It may solve
>future problems through identifying a link in the chain of
>cause and effect.
Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
financially independent.
Many years back my attitude was like many Americans, I blamed everyone but
myself for the situation I was in. I will freely admit that I used just
about every excuse in the book to explain why I kept failing. Then one day
I got asked a question that seriously forced me to re-evaluate my life.
That question was "If not you, then who?"
That single question got me angry, so angry I went out of my way to try to
prove the joker who asked me that question wrong, instead I proved him
right (he is now one of my best friends). By taking the time to read
certain books (in particular "7 Habits of Highly Successful People" by
Steven R. Covey) and APPLY what was in those books in my life. My attitude
changed or more aptly put, I changed my attitude.
>> >Why do we tolerate poverty?
>>
>> We don't tolerate it, if we did, there wouldn't be any charitable
>> organization to help the poor. But by the same token, you can't force help
>> on the poor, nor should you force other to help if they don't want to.
>>
>> The poor end up resenting you for forcing the help on them, and those who
>> are forced to help resent it because they weren't given a choice.
>
>This is a reasonable point, but the issue is more complex.
>What if the individual has dependants? I am encouraging
>thought here, not prescribing intervention, BTW.
It isn't complex at all. That is first step, is understanding that the
solution to the issue isn't anywhere near as complex as the so called
experts would have you think (keep in mind they are doing their best to
justify their jobs, as long as they can keep the rest of ignorant of how
simple the solution is, they still have a job).
The only part of this that is truly hard is something no one can help you
with, and that is stepping out of the mental rut you have yourself in. The
rest is easy.
>> >When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
>>
>> We won't as long as there options that allow the poor to stay poor.
>>
>> Work or starve, may sound harsh, but the advantage is that it gets results
>> and forces a person to change their situation.
>
>A better argument would be that the costs of intervention
>are too great in terms of freedom (which I doubt, since
>poverty is a trap which denies freedom).
Poverty is temporary situation and a matter of choice.
>
>> >How can we better the human condition?
>>
>> By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is the
>> only way that people learn.
>
>They also learn though observing others, and through practice.
My question is how do you make them apply the lessons? You could read every
self-help book in the world, but until you apply the lessons in them, you
might as well not have read them at all, they wont do you any good unless
you are willing to apply the lessons within them.
>The hardest thing is getting people to do something that they
>haven't done before. A new skill is far more productive than a bigger stick!
--
==============================================================
__ __ Tony Veca jav...@earthlink.net
/'( _ )'\ =============================================
/ . \/^\/ . \ "America is at that awkward stage. It's too
/ _)_'-'_(_ \ late to work within the system, but too
/.-' ).( '-.\ early to shoot the bastards. On the road
/' /\_/\ '\ to tyranny, we've gone so far that
"-V-" polite political action is about as
useless as a miniskirt in a convent."
-- Claire Wolfe
"101 Things To Do 'til The Revolution"
===============================================================
Tony Veca
<Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote:
>Jubal would say you're lazy and stupid.
I don't think so. It is pretty smart and it proves my point.
From my POV Lewis is successful, he reached his goal of working to live,
not living to work. That is what success is, achieving ones goals.
Some like it big, some like it small. success is relative.
Each of us have our own wants, needs and desires.
G*rd*n
| ...
| real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
| feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
| logically with their feelings.
I don't think you've read much socialist literature. If
anything, it tends to contain too many facts. I recall Michael
Harrington debating William Buckley on television a long time
ago; Buckley would say something like "Everyone knows most of
the people on Welfare are lazy bums" and Harrington would
laboriously recite the facts: most people on Welfare are
elderly, children, disabled, or single mothers, blah blah
blah, and of course after he brought out this great pile of
facts Buckley just laughed at him. Because Buckley knew how
to play off the prejudices of his audience, and Harrington
didn't. The facts actually impeded him. Buckley was just
playing with him, like a man throwing a stick to a dog and
watching the dog run his butt off trying to retrieve it.
It occurs to me that you probably never heard of Michael
Harrington. So much for the facts. Not that I'm
recommending them to you, or anything like that; most
people seem to be happier without them.
Tony Veca
[...deletia...]
>And it was capitalism, not socialism, that brought that wealth to those
>'poor'.
>
>Many of my grandparent's relatives still lived in southern Russia when
>Stalin brought about his 'workers paradise'. And many of them starved to
>death under the "socialistic leap forward" that he instituted.
>
>So forgive me for NOT simply accepting your 'view' that life is horrible
>under capitalism. I guess that's just because FACTS always seem to get
>in the way of your THEORY.
digger, don't be so hard on them, they can't help it, they let their
emotions get in the way.
G*rd*n
| > | ...
| > | The problem here is not that I'm religiously tied to the market, but
| > | that you don't have alternatives. Similarly, I'm not religiously tied
| > | to water. If you can find substitutes, great. But fact is, there are
| > | no substitutes.
| > | ...
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote in message news:<9rmo8i$ev6$1...@panix3.panix.com>...
| > Heh. In your case, saying that your attachment to the
| > establshed capitalist order of things was "religious"
| > would be an understatement. Like water, eh? The
| > breath of life? The light of the world?
constan...@my-deja.com (Constantinople):
| Nonsense.
|
| Water is like water in that there are no substitutes.
| If it follows from my words that I have a religious attachment
| to the market, then it also follows from my words that I have
| a religious attachment to water. However, I am simply stating
| a fact about water. So it does not follow that I have a
| religious attachment to water, and so we see that it also
| does not follow that I have a religious attachment to the
| market.
| ...
That's what I said. For you, capitalism is Nature. The
planets must circle the sun in capitalist orbits.
You make yourself pretty hard to satirize, I'll say that.
Tony Veca
[...deletia...]
>Nothing you're saying has much of anything to do with
>radical criticism of capitalism, which is what you're
>supposed to be getting from socialists or anarchists.
>Not that it matters a whole lot, but you might want
>to be aware of that.
They are not criticisms, they are excuses. No ifs, ands or buts.
Free Market Capitalism, is the only system that allows the INDIVIDUAL to
decide what he or she wants, needs or desires.
Everyone has the right to life, liberty and the PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS. This
doesn't mean that you have these rights at the expense of another person,
nor do you have the right to be happy.
Lewis and I are at opposite ends of the spectrum of success. He chooses to
live simply, where I choose a much more expensive lifestyle. But we both
have one thing in common, we both achieved our goals though our own work
and attitude.
There is a secret to success, find out what the majority of people think is
successful and then do something entirely different.
I was brought up being told that if I got a good education, went to
college then got a good job and I would be financially successful. I was
told that by my parents, by my teachers, etc. And you know the funny thing,
they were wrong. It wasn't until I started my own business and took my
destiny in my own hands that I became financially successful.
Has it made me happy? You bet. Because I no longer have to worry about my
finances, I can concentrate on the important things in life, like my
family, spend time with my daughter and my wife.
And because I make enough money, I am able to give to charities in amounts
that are equal to what most people make in one to five years each year.
Most importantly, it was my choice to reach those goals, no one did it for
me, I didn't get 'lucky', I didn't win the lottery. I worked my ass off,
sacrificing some of my hear and now for the future. It has paid off in a
big way.
But the fact remains, is that most people won't do what I did. For no other
reasons than shear mental laziness and fear of taking a risk and possibly
failing.
I failed several times in my business, but I never quit and eventually I
got it right. Like I said in a previous post "Quitters never win. Winners
never quit."
--
Hewpiedawg
"G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:9roqp4$bob$1...@panix2.panix.com...
> nei...@stellarnet.com:
> | ...
> | In a way you have a point, but then again, since most socialists have NO
> | real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
> | feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
> | logically with their feelings.
> | ...
>
> I don't think you've read much socialist literature. If
> anything, it tends to contain too many facts. I recall Michael
> Harrington debating William Buckley on television a long time
> ago; Buckley would say something like "Everyone knows most of
> the people on Welfare are lazy bums" and Harrington would
> laboriously recite the facts: most people on Welfare are
> elderly, children, disabled, or single mothers, blah blah
> blah, and of course after he brought out this great pile of
> facts Buckley just laughed at him. Because Buckley knew how
> to play off the prejudices of his audience, and Harrington
> didn't. The facts actually impeded him. Buckley was just
> playing with him, like a man throwing a stick to a dog and
> watching the dog run his butt off trying to retrieve it.
Buckley said something like "everyone knows that
most of the people on Welfare are lazy bums"? I
really doubt that. That doesn't even sound like his
style, even in terms of meaning. Are you sure your
interpretation of what he said wasn't colored by your
expectations of what your image of Buckley would
say? I haven't had much luck finding the text of the
debate, through Google, so I cannot bring facts about
the debate to the newsgroup table. But it still seems
your characterization of what Buckley said is almost
certainly tainted.
Timothy Wesson
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:45:53 +0000, Timothy Wesson
> <tr...@nospam-render.com> wrote:
>
> >Tony Veca wrote:
> >
> >> On Sun, 21 Oct 2001 10:02:17 -0400, Ron Allen <ral...@bellsouth.net>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> >But, that some are born dirt-poor is utterly reprehensible
> >> >and wholly detrimental. What is the cause of so much
> >> >persistent poverty?
> >>
> >> I have an answer, but you are not going to like it.
> >>
> >> The answer as to why there is poverty, is because the majority of the poor
> >> population is lazy and stupid.
> >
> >If they are lazy largely because of their upbringing, then the
> >problem of poor children's future poverty is potentially
> >addressable.
>
> It always has been addressable, but it doesn't get addressed because to
> many so called experts think the answer is to simple to be effective. The
> key to success is understanding it is a journey, not a destination and that
> attitude is everything. If you believe you can do it, you will eventually
> succeed as long as you don't quit. This can best be summed up by a poster
> that is on my wall "Quitters never win. Winners never quit."
Okay, I didn't say that the left necessarily had the answers;
I just think that we, in addressing the problems of the poor
should adopt the same attitude.
> >It seems to me that you're saying that because
> >blame can be attributed, nothing needs to be done, when in
> >fact people that you can blame and people who can act to
> >change a situation are often different sets of people.
>
> I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
> be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
> government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
> people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
> co-dependency. The people that run these government controlled programs
> need people on those programs to justify their their jobs and thusly their
> paychecks.
Okay. I'm not sure I agree with you, but I don't think that
your argument is flawed. Certainly government workers
have some strange economic incentives.
> >
> >Stupidity is not the fault of the stupid.
>
> True enough, but we should not be encouraging it either.
That is true. With practice, your brain improves (this
has been shown, I believe, as well as being supported
by personal experience).
> >> In the United States, you choose your station in life. If you are poor,
> >> then you have chosen to be poor. It is your mental attitude that makes all
> >> of the difference.
> >
> >Peoples' attitudes do not appear "by magic". Finding who to
> >blame is not a mentality that solves problems. It may solve
> >future problems through identifying a link in the chain of
> >cause and effect.
>
> Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
> on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
> financially independent.
Cool. Clearly you came out on the better part of the
statistical distribution.
> Many years back my attitude was like many Americans, I blamed everyone but
> myself for the situation I was in. I will freely admit that I used just
> about every excuse in the book to explain why I kept failing. Then one day
> I got asked a question that seriously forced me to re-evaluate my life.
> That question was "If not you, then who?"
Clearly this is basic. This minimum needs to be
communicated, but then the rusty engine need
repeated kick-starts. This part (getting and
starting the job) is harder than anything that
follows.
> That single question got me angry, so angry I went out of my way to try to
> prove the joker who asked me that question wrong, instead I proved him
> right (he is now one of my best friends). By taking the time to read
> certain books (in particular "7 Habits of Highly Successful People" by
> Steven R. Covey) and APPLY what was in those books in my life. My attitude
> changed or more aptly put, I changed my attitude.
Good for you! Next question: what works for others
(maybe the same thing), and how do you get them to
work, or at least study. What do you do about the remainder?
> >> >Why do we tolerate poverty?
> >>
> >> We don't tolerate it, if we did, there wouldn't be any charitable
> >> organization to help the poor. But by the same token, you can't force help
> >> on the poor, nor should you force other to help if they don't want to.
> >>
> >> The poor end up resenting you for forcing the help on them, and those who
> >> are forced to help resent it because they weren't given a choice.
> >
> >This is a reasonable point, but the issue is more complex.
> >What if the individual has dependants? I am encouraging
> >thought here, not prescribing intervention, BTW.
>
> It isn't complex at all. That is first step, is understanding that the
> solution to the issue isn't anywhere near as complex as the so called
> experts would have you think (keep in mind they are doing their best to
> justify their jobs, as long as they can keep the rest of ignorant of how
> simple the solution is, they still have a job).
>
> The only part of this that is truly hard is something no one can help you
> with, and that is stepping out of the mental rut you have yourself in. The
> rest is easy.
True. But I think that it was the fact that the question had
penetrated that pulled you through, not the presence of
outside help. Perhaps outside help should be more structured
with some kind of workfare, training, or study required.
> >> >When will we get rid of poverty, once and for all?
> >>
> >> We won't as long as there options that allow the poor to stay poor.
> >>
> >> Work or starve, may sound harsh, but the advantage is that it gets results
> >> and forces a person to change their situation.
> >
> >A better argument would be that the costs of intervention
> >are too great in terms of freedom (which I doubt, since
> >poverty is a trap which denies freedom).
>
> Poverty is temporary situation and a matter of choice.
I plunged into depression at college, and my subsequent
period of unemployment until I got a job through a friend
of a friend was not a matter of choice. My decision to keep
studying (I read up on economics and electronics) and to
keep my mind active was a matter of choice. I would not
have been able to hold down a job until roughly the time that
I found it, as I was simply too 'down'.
> >
> >> >How can we better the human condition?
> >>
> >> By allowing people to suffer the consequences of their mistakes. It is the
> >> only way that people learn.
> >
> >They also learn though observing others, and through practice.
>
> My question is how do you make them apply the lessons? You could read every
> self-help book in the world, but until you apply the lessons in them, you
> might as well not have read them at all, they wont do you any good unless
> you are willing to apply the lessons within them.
Okay. I found that will power combined with a kind of 'faith'
(Similar to what religious people have, although I'm an atheist)
was just the ticket, but it took time.
> >The hardest thing is getting people to do something that they
> >haven't done before. A new skill is far more productive than a bigger stick!
>
> --
> ==============================================================
> __ __ Tony Veca jav...@earthlink.net
> /'( _ )'\ =============================================
> / . \/^\/ . \ "America is at that awkward stage. It's too
> / _)_'-'_(_ \ late to work within the system, but too
> /.-' ).( '-.\ early to shoot the bastards. On the road
> /' /\_/\ '\ to tyranny, we've gone so far that
> "-V-" polite political action is about as
> useless as a miniskirt in a convent."
> -- Claire Wolfe
> "101 Things To Do 'til The Revolution"
> ===============================================================
--
Tim Wesson
Philosophers and economists are the most powerful people,
for they shape those that we credit with power.
G*rd*n
|> | ...
|> | In a way you have a point, but then again, since most socialists have NO
|> | real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
|> | feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
|> | logically with their feelings.
|> | ...
G*rd*n" <g...@panix.com> wrote in message
|> I don't think you've read much socialist literature. If
|> anything, it tends to contain too many facts. I recall Michael
|> Harrington debating William Buckley on television a long time
|> ago; Buckley would say something like "Everyone knows most of
|> the people on Welfare are lazy bums" and Harrington would
|> laboriously recite the facts: most people on Welfare are
|> elderly, children, disabled, or single mothers, blah blah
|> blah, and of course after he brought out this great pile of
|> facts Buckley just laughed at him. Because Buckley knew how
|> to play off the prejudices of his audience, and Harrington
|> didn't. The facts actually impeded him. Buckley was just
|> playing with him, like a man throwing a stick to a dog and
|> watching the dog run his butt off trying to retrieve it.
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net>:
| Buckley said something like "everyone knows that
| most of the people on Welfare are lazy bums"? I
| really doubt that. That doesn't even sound like his
| style, even in terms of meaning. Are you sure your
| interpretation of what he said wasn't colored by your
| expectations of what your image of Buckley would
| say? I haven't had much luck finding the text of the
| debate, through Google, so I cannot bring facts about
| the debate to the newsgroup table. But it still seems
| your characterization of what Buckley said is almost
| certainly tainted.
He was baiting Harrington, of course. Buckley was perfectly
well aware of Harrington's facts. He could no doubt have gone
against him fact for fact, but it was much more fun to let
poor Harrington assemble a big, carefully structured pile,
and then shrug it off. The presumed audience, although a
cut above the Limbaugh level, could be assumed to mostly
despise Welfare and its beneficiaries already. Why burden
them with evidence and reason?
The debate took place many, many years ago. It's extremely
unlikely that you'll find a transcript of it anywhere. In
one of his books Buckley mentions debating Harrington on four
different occasions, but gives few details and claims total
victory, which from his point of view was no doubt the case.
G*rd*n
| [...deletia...]
| >Nothing you're saying has much of anything to do with
| >radical criticism of capitalism, which is what you're
| >supposed to be getting from socialists or anarchists.
| >Not that it matters a whole lot, but you might want
| >to be aware of that.
Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net>:
| They are not criticisms, they are excuses. No ifs, ands or buts.
What are you talking about? There are great libraries of
criticism of capitalism by socialists and anarchists. Some,
like Marx, admire its accomplishments, but very few of them
write "excuses" for it.
| Free Market Capitalism, is the only system that allows the INDIVIDUAL to
| decide what he or she wants, needs or desires.
|
| Everyone has the right to life....
Not in liberalism, which is the political system usually
advertised along with so-called "free market capitalism".
I've explained that several times already. They have a right
not be killed in certain ways, as by direct violence, but
there is no right (in liberalism) to a livelihood or to natural
resources. Therefore, there is (theoretically) no right to
life or anything else, except property if you already have
some. I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
passionate rant, try Stirner.
Of course, in practice these rigors are mitigated by
political considerations, and there is no "free market"
capitalism if capitalists can help it, anyway. I know,
you were just chanting the creed. Okay. As a game,
you might try analyzing its implications sometime.
| ...
Lewis Cosper
"Timothy Wesson" <tr...@nospam-render.com> wrote in message
news:3BE01C8F...@nospam-render.com...
> Okay, I didn't say that the left necessarily had the answers;
> I just think that we, in addressing the problems of the poor
> should adopt the same attitude.
Why do you feel "WE" need to address the problems of the poor.
> That is true. With practice, your brain improves (this
> has been shown, I believe, as well as being supported
> by personal experience).
Oh it doesn't improve it just better programed, and has more data to call on
than it had when you were a kid. Normal progression in humans.
> Cool. Clearly you came out on the better part of the
> statistical distribution.
I sure would get depressed if I thought my life depended on statistical
distributions.
> Clearly this is basic. This minimum needs to be
> communicated, but then the rusty engine need
> repeated kick-starts. This part (getting and
> starting the job) is harder than anything that
> follows.
Yuppers.
> True. But I think that it was the fact that the question had
> penetrated that pulled you through, not the presence of
> outside help. Perhaps outside help should be more structured
> with some kind of workfare, training, or study required.
You say one thing, and contradict that in the next sentence.
> I plunged into depression at college, and my subsequent
> period of unemployment until I got a job through a friend
> of a friend was not a matter of choice. My decision to keep
> studying (I read up on economics and electronics) and to
> keep my mind active was a matter of choice. I would not
> have been able to hold down a job until roughly the time that
> I found it, as I was simply too 'down'.
Sounds to me like you had somebody feeding you. Amazing what hunger will
get you to do. I bet your highly 'down' period would have gone away as your
belly got hungry unless you were clinically sick.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net> wrote in message
news:ZHVD7.23949$ck.2...@sjc-read.news.verio.net...
Sure hard to envision Buckley saying anything that crude.
Lewis
Lewis Cosper
"Tony Veca" <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:9fqvttoqo88nae0sl...@4ax.com...
> On Tue, 30 Oct 2001 15:42:52 GMT, "Kyle, just plain Kyle"
> <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote:
>
>
> >Jubal would say you're lazy and stupid.
>
>
> I don't think so. It is pretty smart and it proves my point.
>
> From my POV Lewis is successful, he reached his goal of working to live,
> not living to work. That is what success is, achieving ones goals.
>
> Some like it big, some like it small. success is relative.
>
> Each of us have our own wants, needs and desires.
Yuppers. I use to wear a tie, and suit to work. Really didn't care for it
much. Now I have my overalls, and plenty of time. I am happy.
Lewis
Constantinople
No, it's not what you said. You said I did not have a religious
attachment. You said I did.
>For you, capitalism is Nature.
I don't even know what you mean by "capitalism is Nature".
>The
>planets must circle the sun in capitalist orbits.
>
>You make yourself pretty hard to satirize, I'll say that.
You didn't answer my argument, you merely claimed that it is, somehow,
religious. My argument was that you don't have alternatives, and given
that there has been no shortage of energy over the past couple of
hundred years in attempting to come up with alternatives, there do not
appear to be any. Rather than come up with an alternative thus
demonstrating me wrong, you choose to claim that my argument is
somehow a religious belief.
You don't even make any sense.
Constantinople
Your argument proceeds by misinterpreting a phrase and then showing
that your own misinterpretation of the phrase is a mischaracterization
of the views expressed by the phrase. That's all you've shown - you've
shown that you are mistaken. Bizarre.
>I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
>individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
>passionate rant, try Stirner.
Ah yes, the absent argument.
>Of course, in practice these rigors are mitigated by
>political considerations, and there is no "free market"
>capitalism if capitalists can help it, anyway.
Now here we run up against a really strange kink in socialist
thinking. On the one hand, those who advocate capitalism are said to
be the lackeys of the capitalists. On the other hand, capitalists are
said to want the *end* of capitalism, so why their supposed lackeys
are pushing for capitalism goes unexplained. On the other hand, the
socialists never tire of assuming that condemnation of individual
capitalists is condemnation of capitalism, which reasserts the view
that capitalists want to sustain capitalism.
And then we get into a whole other thicket of socialist "thought"
which is composed of attempts to supplant the standard definition of
capitalism by offering their own (hence the peculiar phrase "'free
market' capitalism", which flies in the face of ordinary usage, which
is exemplified by the first words of the Britannica article:
"capitalism: also called free market economy [. . .]").
G*rd*n
Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net>:
| >| Everyone has the right to life....
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >Not in liberalism, which is the political system usually
| >advertised along with so-called "free market capitalism".
| >I've explained that several times already. They have a right
| >not be killed in certain ways, as by direct violence, but
| >there is no right (in liberalism) to a livelihood or to natural
| >resources. Therefore, there is (theoretically) no right to
| >life or anything else, except property if you already have
| >some.
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
| Your argument proceeds by misinterpreting a phrase and then showing
| that your own misinterpretation of the phrase is a mischaracterization
| of the views expressed by the phrase. That's all you've shown - you've
| shown that you are mistaken. Bizarre.
I compare two possible interpretations. One might think that
a right to life meant a right to obtain livelihood, but this
might interfere with a right to own property, and in liberalism,
at least of the fundamentalist sort, the latter prevails. So
the right to life, in fundamentalist liberalism, means only
the right not to be killed by direct violence. I don't see
why you say this is bizarre -- I believe you agree with it.
If not, tell us where you disagree.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| >I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
| >individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
| >passionate rant, try Stirner.
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
| Ah yes, the absent argument.
Stirner's not absent. Try http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/
for a start. I'll post the URLs of my relevant material
archived at Google if anyone really wants it, but it's been
repeated so many times I'd think you'd all know it by heart
by now.
G*rd*n
| ...
| 'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
| I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
| preservation for posterity.
Explanatory parsimony cautions us to never give malevolence as
the cause of what can be accounted for adequately by stupidity.
Kyle, just plain Kyle
wrote:
>Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
>> be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
>> government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
>> people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
>> co-dependency.
>> ....
>> Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
>> on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
>> financially independent.
>
>You wouldn't like my explanation, believe me.
>
>'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
>I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
>preservation for posterity.
>
>"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest
>exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior
>moral justification for selfishness."
>- J.K. Galbraith, US economist
Hey Margeret,
Like your galbraith quote. He's an interesting guy, isn't he? A little
more toward the center, I guess, than me, but definitely a guy with a
mind of his own.
Anyway, I'm drunk and shouldn't even be attempting to type. Have fun
arguing with these assholes.
Peace,
Kyle
Constantinople
wrote:
>Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
>> I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
>> be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
>> government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
>> people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
>> co-dependency.
>> ....
>> Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
>> on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
>> financially independent.
>
>You wouldn't like my explanation, believe me.
>
>'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
>I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
>preservation for posterity.
But he did not say it. Though I can see you tried to get his words to
say it by editing his post. Interesting that you're reduced to this.
Hewpiedawg
> | ...
>
> Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net>:
> | >| Everyone has the right to life....
>
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> | >Not in liberalism, which is the political system usually
> | >advertised along with so-called "free market capitalism".
> | >I've explained that several times already. They have a right
> | >not be killed in certain ways, as by direct violence, but
> | >there is no right (in liberalism) to a livelihood or to natural
> | >resources. Therefore, there is (theoretically) no right to
> | >life or anything else, except property if you already have
> | >some.
>
> Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
> | Your argument proceeds by misinterpreting a phrase and then showing
> | that your own misinterpretation of the phrase is a mischaracterization
> | of the views expressed by the phrase. That's all you've shown - you've
> | shown that you are mistaken. Bizarre.
>
> I compare two possible interpretations. One might think that
> a right to life meant a right to obtain livelihood, but this
> might interfere with a right to own property, and in liberalism,
> at least of the fundamentalist sort, the latter prevails.
It interferes with more than a right to own property.
If the right to obtain livelihood implies the right to be
supported, at whatever cost, it can also interfere with
the rights of workers to keep the fruits of their labor,
in other words, it is exploitation of the labor. That is,
if stockpiled capital is exhausted by the effort, one
must move on to the suck from the laborer what is
necessary to obtain livelihood. From each according
to his ability, to each according to his need: exploitation
of labor.
> So
> the right to life, in fundamentalist liberalism, means only
> the right not to be killed by direct violence. I don't see
> why you say this is bizarre -- I believe you agree with it.
> If not, tell us where you disagree.
Should it mean the right not to be killed by Fate, the right
never to die? Of course, you don't mean that, you mean
the right to be kept alive by others, as long as possible?
It seems to me that any possible meaning for the phrase
"right to life" aside from the one you ascribe to
"fundamentalist liberalism" is absurd.
> g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> | >I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
> | >individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
> | >passionate rant, try Stirner.
>
> Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
> | Ah yes, the absent argument.
>
> Stirner's not absent. Try http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/
> for a start. I'll post the URLs of my relevant material
> archived at Google if anyone really wants it, but it's been
> repeated so many times I'd think you'd all know it by heart
> by now.
Back when Tito was arguing these things, from a Stirnerite
perspective, it seems he was arguing against your "ghosts" as
well as capitalism's.
Constantinople
>nei...@stellarnet.com:
>| ...
>| In a way you have a point, but then again, since most socialists have NO
>| real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
>| feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
>| logically with their feelings.
>| ...
>
>I don't think you've read much socialist literature. If
>anything, it tends to contain too many facts. I recall Michael
>Harrington debating William Buckley on television a long time
>ago; Buckley would say something like "Everyone knows most of
>the people on Welfare are lazy bums" and Harrington would
>laboriously recite the facts: most people on Welfare are
>elderly, children, disabled, or single mothers, blah blah
>blah, and of course after he brought out this great pile of
>facts Buckley just laughed at him. Because Buckley knew how
>to play off the prejudices of his audience, and Harrington
>didn't. The facts actually impeded him. Buckley was just
>playing with him, like a man throwing a stick to a dog and
>watching the dog run his butt off trying to retrieve it.
Oh yeah, Gordon's hazy recollection of a debate between Buckley and
Harrington. Now *that's* something to set your watches by.
>It occurs to me that you probably never heard of Michael
>Harrington. So much for the facts. Not that I'm
>recommending them to you, or anything like that; most
>people seem to be happier without them.
You're not exactly a fountain of data yourself.
Matt
"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote:
> Anyway, I'm drunk and shouldn't even be attempting to type. Have fun
> arguing with these assholes.
You mean you're _sober_ the rest of the time?
Constantinople
>| ...
>
>Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net>:
>| >| Everyone has the right to life....
>
>g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>| >Not in liberalism, which is the political system usually
>| >advertised along with so-called "free market capitalism".
>| >I've explained that several times already. They have a right
>| >not be killed in certain ways, as by direct violence, but
>| >there is no right (in liberalism) to a livelihood or to natural
>| >resources. Therefore, there is (theoretically) no right to
>| >life or anything else, except property if you already have
>| >some.
>
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
>| Your argument proceeds by misinterpreting a phrase and then showing
>| that your own misinterpretation of the phrase is a mischaracterization
>| of the views expressed by the phrase. That's all you've shown - you've
>| shown that you are mistaken. Bizarre.
>
>I compare two possible interpretations. One might think that
>a right to life meant a right to obtain livelihood,
As you mean it, this is an obligation to provide others with a
livelihood. But who has this obligation? No particular person. So it
is far from clear (though one of course has obvious suspicions) how
such a "right" is to be implemented, who is to make the actual
provision. In contrast, the right not to be murdered can be
implemented by the person himself, in defending himself.
>but this
>might interfere with a right to own property, and in liberalism,
>at least of the fundamentalist sort, the latter prevails. So
>the right to life, in fundamentalist liberalism, means only
>the right not to be killed by direct violence. I don't see
>why you say this is bizarre -- I believe you agree with it.
>If not, tell us where you disagree.
That's right, it means the right not to be murdered.
>g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
>| >I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
>| >individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
>| >passionate rant, try Stirner.
>
>Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
>| Ah yes, the absent argument.
>
>Stirner's not absent.
He's absent from your post. I know where to find him if I want to read
something by him.
Hewpiedawg
"Margaret" <marg...@example.com> wrote in message
news:9n31ut4tpa615geic...@4ax.com...
> Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that
can
> > be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
> > government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
> > people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
> > co-dependency.
> > Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single
parent
> > on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I
am
> > financially independent.
>
>
> 'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
> I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
> preservation for posterity.
I think he is saying that he never needed it.
Hewpiedawg
"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote in message
news:hqe1ut80ipprbfj4e...@4ax.com...
And, more importantly, he's a statist.
Hewpiedawg
"Constantinople" <constan...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:vck1utkolciiq9e31...@4ax.com...
If I recall the version of this thread that was instantiated a
year or so ago, this boils down to Gordon's reductio ad
absurdum: since those with excess property have no
obligation to provide for the livelihood of those who,
for whatever reason, cannot fend for themselves, then
those with such property have the right to murder such
people with a sin of omission.
Hewpiedawg
> "Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net> wrote:
>
> > Buckley said something like "everyone knows that
> > most of the people on Welfare are lazy bums"? I
> > really doubt that. That doesn't even sound like his
> > style, even in terms of meaning.
>
> rich, thick wrapping-- and tied a big flowery bow on
> it, but anyone managing to stay with him through the
> turns (to badly mix a metaphor) would have got that
> message, yes.
>
> It wouldn't surprise me to learn that the first
> non-reactionary thing he ever said in his life was when
> he came out for ending the Drugs War.
I used to think he was reactionary too, but that
was a religious attachment.
digger
>
> Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>
> > I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
> > be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
> > government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
> > people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
> > co-dependency.
> > ....
> > Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
> > on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
> > financially independent.
>
> You wouldn't like my explanation, believe me.
>
> 'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
> I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
> preservation for posterity.
>
> "The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest
> exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior
> moral justification for selfishness."
> - J.K. Galbraith, US economist
Judging by the Galbraith quote, I can see why you are so so judgemental
towards other's values.
And that is the heart of the debate here, for it is ABSOLUTELY a
disagreement about WHAT values are important that causes all the
arguing!
Yet, it is the LIBERAL philosophy that states that ALL values have
equal relevance, and must be accepted as is.
So, I am consistently amazed to find that liberals don't even follow
their own tenets, while demanding that others follow the liberal ones.
Talk about internal contradictions.
Now if Galbraith were truly educated, he would understand that there are
NO external moral philosophies that can be applied to human value
systems, without RELYING on the existence of a supernatural being. There
exist human CREATED philosophies, but such CANNOT be universally
applied, without IMPOSING one's personal beliefs on another, and thereby
violating the presumption of freedom of belief.
And, according to the liberals, since the US government CANNOT rely on
ANY supernatural concepts in its workings, then the concept of a "moral"
system MUST be irrelevant.
I guess that this just proves that in order to be a liberal, one MUST
'switch off' certain section so your brain, in order to NOT notice the
internal contradictions of their philosophy.
Now, in light of that, can you produce a moral philosophy that
supercedes Tony Veca's values system, WITHOUT resorting to some
supernatural ideology or violating his right to freedom of belief?
If not, then you lose, or else you do NOT follow the ideology that you
seem to preach.
digger
>
> On Mon, 29 Oct 2001 17:45:42 -0600, digger <nei...@stellarnet.com> wrote:
>
> [...deletia...]
>
> >And it was capitalism, not socialism, that brought that wealth to those
> >'poor'.
> >
> >Many of my grandparent's relatives still lived in southern Russia when
> >Stalin brought about his 'workers paradise'. And many of them starved to
> >death under the "socialistic leap forward" that he instituted.
> >
> >So forgive me for NOT simply accepting your 'view' that life is horrible
> >under capitalism. I guess that's just because FACTS always seem to get
> >in the way of your THEORY.
>
> digger, don't be so hard on them, they can't help it, they let their
> emotions get in the way.
>
Yeah, I know. But I was taught from an early age that the use of one's
MIND is what separates humans from the rest of the animals.
And I hate having to think of so many other potential humans as being
mere 'animals'. I guess trying to educate that condition away is my part
of the "social action" that the modern-liberals always insist that we
must perform.
Timothy Wesson
> "Timothy Wesson" <tr...@nospam-render.com> wrote in message
> news:3BE01C8F...@nospam-render.com...
>
> > Okay, I didn't say that the left necessarily had the answers;
> > I just think that we, in addressing the problems of the poor
> > should adopt the same attitude.
>
> Why do you feel "WE" need to address the problems of the poor.
1. Some of us are poor.
2. We can, a lot of the time, so why not? Having poor
people around is unpleasent if they're particularly poor.
3. Something to do with morality. Maybe there's no
moral _imperitive_, but doing so is clearly a good thing.
> > That is true. With practice, your brain improves (this
> > has been shown, I believe, as well as being supported
> > by personal experience).
>
> Oh it doesn't improve it just better programed, and has more data to call on
> than it had when you were a kid. Normal progression in humans.
Certainly there is normal progression, but IQ improves with
education, and (if your do maths, say), new mental tools certainly
increase the scope of what you can do with your mind. I don't
think that intelligence can be put down wholly to nature or nurture.
> > Cool. Clearly you came out on the better part of the
> > statistical distribution.
>
> I sure would get depressed if I thought my life depended on statistical
> distributions.
Stats matters. If I run a company (to pick an example that
you're likely to be happy with), statistics of the composition
of the marketplace helps me to plan.
> > Clearly this is basic. This minimum needs to be
> > communicated, but then the rusty engine need
> > repeated kick-starts. This part (getting and
> > starting the job) is harder than anything that
> > follows.
>
> Yuppers.
>
> > True. But I think that it was the fact that the question had
> > penetrated that pulled you through, not the presence of
> > outside help. Perhaps outside help should be more structured
> > with some kind of workfare, training, or study required.
>
> You say one thing, and contradict that in the next sentence.
Not at all. I used the work "perhaps", and gave an example
of the type of approach that the capitalistically-inclined might
be happy with; I didn't especially mean to endorse it. Besides
it may be good policy in general, but bad in my specific case.
In any case, I did study (study was was of the options that I gave).
> > I plunged into depression at college, and my subsequent
> > period of unemployment until I got a job through a friend
> > of a friend was not a matter of choice. My decision to keep
> > studying (I read up on economics and electronics) and to
> > keep my mind active was a matter of choice. I would not
> > have been able to hold down a job until roughly the time that
> > I found it, as I was simply too 'down'.
>
> Sounds to me like you had somebody feeding you. Amazing what hunger will
> get you to do. I bet your highly 'down' period would have gone away as your
> belly got hungry unless you were clinically sick.
I was clinically sick.
> Lewis
Kyle, just plain Kyle
wrote:
So he's saying he'd have been better off if he'd starved to death as a
child?
Hewpiedawg
> "Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net> wrote:
>
> > It seems to me that any possible meaning for the phrase
> > "right to life" aside from the one you ascribe to
> > "fundamentalist liberalism" is absurd.
>
> take from the common wealth whenever needed.
(I will note here that according to
G*rd*n this is not socialism, which is the worker
ownership of the means of production, but
communism)
But this right has to be overseen, lest someone take
too much. Also, there are those who need a great
deal of labor to be kept alive. The rationers, and
let us grant that they are democratically chosen,
then will have the right to decide who will live and
who will die. Triage is a necessity from time to time.
> Balancing
> that with an equally strong obligation to build the
> common wealth whenever possible doesn't strike me as
> nearly so absurd as the notion that the 'right to life'
> is not a right to the actual means of life.
This obligation you may claim is a light yoke, but it
is still forced labor.
> The
> latter sounds like an unwholesome word-game created by
> psychopaths.
Well, it beats what came before it.
Hewpiedawg
"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote in message
Are you saying that the poor in America would starve without
the state sponsored charity?
Kyle, just plain Kyle
Kyle, just plain Kyle
wrote:
What about your precious Buckley?
Anyway, I'm open to reading things by people that don't agree with me
about everything.
Kyle, just plain Kyle
wrote:
I'm saying it's a common conservative tactic to take advantage of
liberal policies and benefits only to denounce them after _they_ are
done using them (i.e., Jubal's getting his education on the G.I. Bill,
Rush Limbaugh collecting unemployment benefits, and this chump
dribbling about getting rid of safety nets because he's the _one_ out
of _thousands_ and _thousands_ that made it out of poverty 'by
himself'. I'll bet he stepped on, and used, a lot of his fellow poor
people on his way to the top.
This kind of thing just betrays this guy's lack of _real_ character.
The people I consider real success stories are those that, finding
themselves in poverty, chose to help the people _around_ _them_, along
with themselves.
Even when you win the rat race, you're still a rat.
Hewpiedawg
"Kyle, just plain Kyle" <Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote in message
Well, yes, he is too. I didn't claim he was precious to me,
but one episode of Firing Line did please me. The author
of "Don't Step on the Grass" (I think) was a guest, along
with some libertarian (or libertarian-conservative) lawyer.
The lawyer made the proposition that a democracy could
not successfully enforce prohibition of drugs, and that no
democracy ever had. The prohibitionist kept going back
to examples of nations that had successful prohibition
policies, all of which were repressive dictatorships.
"Well, I am glad you like the policies of the repressive
states," said the lawyer, and suddenly the prohibitionist
lost his temper. He stood up and said "I am not going to
sit here and be called a fascist!" And he walked off. It
was a great moment in television history.
> Anyway, I'm open to reading things by people that don't agree with me
> about everything.
That is indeed commendable. But if we all weren't that way,
we wouldn't be participating in this newsgroup bickerfest.
Well, there may be some here who are write-only posters,
but for the most part, we are here to brush up against the
opposition.
G*rd*n
Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net>:
| > | >| Everyone has the right to life....
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
|>| >Not in liberalism, which is the political system usually
|>| >advertised along with so-called "free market capitalism".
|>| >I've explained that several times already. They have a right
|>| >not be killed in certain ways, as by direct violence, but
|>| >there is no right (in liberalism) to a livelihood or to natural
|>| >resources. Therefore, there is (theoretically) no right to
|>| >life or anything else, except property if you already have
|>| >some.
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
|> | Your argument proceeds by misinterpreting a phrase and then showing
|> | that your own misinterpretation of the phrase is a mischaracterization
|> | of the views expressed by the phrase. That's all you've shown - you've
|> | shown that you are mistaken. Bizarre.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
|> I compare two possible interpretations. One might think that
|> a right to life meant a right to obtain livelihood, but this
|> might interfere with a right to own property, and in liberalism,
|> at least of the fundamentalist sort, the latter prevails.
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net>:
| It interferes with more than a right to own property.
| If the right to obtain livelihood implies the right to be
| supported, at whatever cost, it can also interfere with
| the rights of workers to keep the fruits of their labor,
| in other words, it is exploitation of the labor. That is,
| if stockpiled capital is exhausted by the effort, one
| must move on to the suck from the laborer what is
| necessary to obtain livelihood. From each according
| to his ability, to each according to his need: exploitation
| of labor.
Well, not necessarily, but one thing at a time. If you
agree that the liberal right to property prevails against
any conflicting right to obtain a livelihood, as I say, then
you agree with me. I'm not sure, because in fact no liberal
state I know of is willing to support such a right on the
ground; instead, parents are compelled to feed their children,
and the indigent are fed, or are supposed to be fed, at public
expense (unless some charity gets to them first). However,
the theory is not empty, but is rather the mailed fist in the
velvet glove -- it justifies the domination of the supposedly
free community by a plutocratic ruling class.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > So
| > the right to life, in fundamentalist liberalism, means only
| > the right not to be killed by direct violence. I don't see
| > why you say this is bizarre -- I believe you agree with it.
| > If not, tell us where you disagree.
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net>:
| Should it mean the right not to be killed by Fate, the right
| never to die? Of course, you don't mean that, you mean
| the right to be kept alive by others, as long as possible?
In this discussion, I think I've referred only to the right
to obtain a livelihood, which is somewhat more modest than
being kept alive by others. In a traditional industrial
society, it would be something like a right to a job or at
least a right to beg and scavenge, since most people have to
have some kind of work to live.
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net>:
| It seems to me that any possible meaning for the phrase
| "right to life" aside from the one you ascribe to
| "fundamentalist liberalism" is absurd.
In many families, in many tribes or villages not yet
enlightened by liberalism, all eat as long as food is
available. I've read of troops of monkeys and packs of wild
dogs that support permanently disabled members as a matter
of course. Far from being absurd, it's the basis of life.
The liberal notion of absolute property, the right that prevails
against life itself, paradoxically grows out of the invention
of slavery, the notion that there exist classes of humans that
have no rights and deserve no freedom, who can be prevented
from living. This would be the condition of the propertiless
in the world of total private property which fundamentalist
liberals occasionally promote. As I said before, such a state
of affairs is politically impossible, but it's an ideal to
which they aspire as well as a _reductio_ for those who do
not subscribe to liberalism in its fundamentalist form.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > | >I've also explained why capitalism is strongly anti-
| > | >individualistic, but if you want a lengthier and more
| > | >passionate rant, try Stirner.
Constantinople <constan...@my-deja.com>:
| > | Ah yes, the absent argument.
g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
| > Stirner's not absent. Try http://www.nonserviam.com/stirner/
| > for a start. I'll post the URLs of my relevant material
| > archived at Google if anyone really wants it, but it's been
| > repeated so many times I'd think you'd all know it by heart
| > by now.
"Hewpiedawg" <hpen...@coho.net>:
| Back when Tito was arguing these things, from a Stirnerite
| perspective, it seems he was arguing against your "ghosts" as
| well as capitalism's.
Could be. There are no doubt some differences between his
views, mine, and Stirner's. But I think the arguments about
the anti-individualistic nature of capitalism are roughly the
same. I'm just trying to save time and lend a little
variety to the discussion.
Lewis Cosper
> 1. Some of us are poor.
> 2. We can, a lot of the time, so why not? Having poor
> people around is unpleasent if they're particularly poor.
> 3. Something to do with morality. Maybe there's no
> moral _imperitive_, but doing so is clearly a good thing.
Maybe what we should do is see if we can define poor.
Lewis
Timothy Wesson
Difficult one this. Perhaps I should instead discuss those
that we can efficiently help out (mostly "the poor") as
against those which it is inefficient to lend a hand
(mostly because they can sort out their own problems),
and we need to _teach_ self-sufficiency where
necessary, because it is not natural to everyone. Making
life unpleasant and casting blame isn't terribly effective
a lot of the time.
James A. Donald
nei...@stellarnet.com:
> | In a way you have a point, but then again, since most socialists have NO
> | real factual based criticisms of capitalism, save some "warm and fuzzy
> | feelings" that it fails to "make" all people equal, it is hard to deal
> | logically with their feelings.
On 31 Oct 2001 07:28:20 -0500, g...@panix.com (G*rd*n) wrote:
> I don't think you've read much socialist literature. If
> anything, it tends to contain too many facts.
Nebulous and invented facts: Exhibit A being Chomsky. Exhibit B
being Marx, whose few statistics and concrete facts that are presented
in those great fat volumes were entirely pulled out of his own ass.
> I recall Michael
> Harrington debating William Buckley on television a long time
> ago; Buckley would say something like "Everyone knows most of
> the people on Welfare are lazy bums" and Harrington would
> laboriously recite the facts: most people on Welfare are
> elderly, children, disabled, or single mothers, blah blah
Perhaps, I have never watched Buckley. But when I channel surf, and
see the pinkos talking, they sound more like "we must save the
children". Indeed, on the Simpsons, and on South Park which is in
many ways quite left wing, the emptiness of public left discourse is
routinely ridiculed. The Simpsons do not ridicule socialists, which
do not exist in the Simpson universe, but they certainly ridicule the
people you so favorable recall debating Buckley, as empty windbags.
The Simpson parody is funny because it reminds us of what we do see on
the debate shows. South Park of course whacks into socialists
unmercifully, most wonderfully in the rainforest episode, where they
are presented as utterly oblivious, seeing the world through fixed
preconceptions that nothing can disturb, invincibly unaware of
reality.
It is certainly true that socialist discourse often has the
superficial appearance of being weighted with load of facts, most
notoriously Chomsky's copious footnotes which do not in fact supply
any evidence for anything, but this appearance convinces only the
faithful. The purported facts are mere dressing, like putting an
actor in a white coat during a toothpaste commercial to make him look
vaguely like a dentist. If you watch the ad closely, there is no
actual claim that the actor really is a dentist, and if you read
Chomsky closely, there is no actual claim that these copious and
scholarly sounding citations actually support his claims.
There is a large debate going on as to whether Rush Limbaugh makes up
his facts, or whether the "lliberals" he ridicules are making it up,
and he is providing concrete detailed solid data. I have not bothered
to check out this debate, not being a fan of Rush, but it seems to me
that the criticisms of Rush are accurately summarized as "Rush
Limbaugh is a big fat idiot". Whatever the truth of the matter, the
criticism is primarily emotional, not factual. The supposed facts are
not there to support the argument, but merely to identify the speaker
as a scholar and intellectual.
The aftermath of the recent Tailwind debate is a good example of this,
with alleged facts being not evidence at all, but mere symbols of
class identity.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Bw3QnfodVEQ/uF7zeRJP3bUbA/WWs7hG7UsNga8L
4eAbDquRALeaVWYPda0SKf5Z7jCLmjApbK1lrJlUm
------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
Constantinople
Yes, that is what he is saying, it's an obvious presupposition of his
statement.
>I'm saying
Refusing to acknowledge your lie, you quickly change tack.
>it's a common conservative tactic to take advantage of
>liberal policies and benefits only to denounce them after _they_ are
>done using them (i.e., Jubal's getting his education on the G.I. Bill,
>Rush Limbaugh collecting unemployment benefits, and this chump
>dribbling about getting rid of safety nets because he's the _one_ out
>of _thousands_ and _thousands_ that made it out of poverty 'by
>himself'.
Except he didn't say that. You're maliciously paraphrasing something
which is itself a malicious paraphrase of...not of something he said,
but of something that Margaret attempted to get him to say by cutting
and pasting his post to try to make it look that way.
>I'll bet he stepped on, and used, a lot of his fellow poor
>people on his way to the top.
It appears that your comprehension of reality is made up mostly of "I
bets" rather than of truthful observations.
>This kind of thing just betrays this guy's lack of _real_ character.
Long since out of valid points to make concerning his actual arguments
(if you ever had any), you descend even further into your futile
attempt at character assassination.
Lewis Cosper
> Difficult one this. Perhaps I should instead discuss those
> that we can efficiently help out (mostly "the poor") as
> against those which it is inefficient to lend a hand
> (mostly because they can sort out their own problems),
> and we need to _teach_ self-sufficiency where
> necessary, because it is not natural to everyone. Making
> life unpleasant and casting blame isn't terribly effective
> a lot of the time.
Ok then if it isn't exactly the poor 'we' want to help. Then let's define
who 'we' think we should help. We do need to know who we are talking about.
Lewis
Constantinople
<Bizn...@theShiznitch.com> wrote:
>On Wed, 31 Oct 2001 19:09:12 -0500, Margaret <marg...@example.com>
>wrote:
>
>>Tony Veca <jav...@earthlink.net> wrote:
>>
>>> I am not saying that at all. From my point of view the best thing that can
>>> be done is get rid of the government controlled safety nets (i.e.
>>> government controlled welfare). Those safety nets make it too easy for
>>> people to give up when there is a set back and they foster a dangerous
>>> co-dependency.
>>> ....
>>> Then explain me then. I did grow up poor, I was raised by a single parent
>>> on public assistance. Yet today, I am financially well off, actually I am
>>> financially independent.
>>
>>You wouldn't like my explanation, believe me.
>>
>>'Turn off the public support, I don't need it anymore'.
>>I think something so self-centeredly ugly deserves
>>preservation for posterity.
>>
>>"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest
>>exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior
>>moral justification for selfishness."
>>- J.K. Galbraith, US economist
>
>Hey Margeret,
>
>Like your galbraith quote.
I'm sure it makes you feel real good to believe that your opponents
are moral cretins. I have long had a very low opinion of Galbraith,
but even I have just been taken aback by his above comment, which puts
him intellectually on a level with you.
>He's an interesting guy, isn't he? A little
>more toward the center, I guess, than me, but definitely a guy with a
>mind of his own.
>
>Anyway, I'm drunk and shouldn't even be attempting to type.
You're not noticeably different from your usual self.
James A. Donald
> exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior
> moral justification for selfishness."
> - J.K. Galbraith, US economist
That was the same John Kenneth Galbraith who visited Mao's China
during the famine of the great leap forward and confidently told us
that "If there was any famine in China it was not evident in the
kitchen". It did not seem to occur to him that famines are seldom
visible in communist luxury hotes.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
AdTvA+Zoth6vDiqLSyeV0PMNuSD8C1OnEFpsnE4c
4wSiJLMfFTRdGNjDb5wDkNg/8xv4QjQV1rwMRUmdX
James A. Donald
On Fri, 02 Nov 2001 01:47:30 GMT, Constantinople
<constan...@my-deja.com> wrote:
> I'm sure it makes you feel real good to believe that your
> opponents are moral cretins. I have long had a very low
> opinion of Galbraith, but even I have just been taken aback
> by his above comment, which puts him intellectually on a
> level with you.
Galbraith is a flatterer. He tells people what they want to hear.
One thing that they want to hear is that they are morally superior.
Galbraith has an almost Chomsky like record of publishing confident
predictions at what turns out in retrospect to be the worst possible
time. That is part of the appeal of his books. They help people
postpone the discomfort of changing their opinions to accommodate new
facts.
Thus his books tend to appear just as they become conspicuously and
spectacularly false. Thus he told us all about "conspicuous
consumption" ninety years after quietly inconspicuous consumption had
become fashionable among the rich, and just as conspicuous consumption
was becoming unfashionable mong the middle class, due the irritating
capacity of the poor and black to afford what was conspicuous.
Similarly he told us that corporations were immortal, immune from the
winds of competiton, just before several of his examples of corporate
immortality bit the dust.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ofSYAJ7nphC9W7cHcj50KXfjW68/bUUyCuH3ldPQ
4o5xIOeudvZwQwSmyTmyefHpdCAY44uAVZ1MdPy7O