Re: Why Isn't Socialism Dead?
Greg Goss
> Shawn Wilson <ikono...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > > In fact, most of the poorest countries
>> > > have no socialist features (such as income redistributing social
>> > > programs funded via progressive taxation)
>> >
>> >
>> >
>> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
>> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
>John Stafford
>> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
>> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
>> changes.
>
>Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
try to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes
the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
See Rhodesia, or in another decade or so, South Africa.
(Well, both of those countries are examples of lack of capitalism
destroying an economy, but the South African move to socialism as
their economy collapses would have worked the same way even if they
didn't have all those resources.)
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
teresita
> Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to try
> to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes the
> rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
And this time the US won't be there to bail anyone out, because now we're
socialist.
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
Fred Weiss
> On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:49:29 -0700, Greg Goss wrote:
> > Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to try
> > to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes the
> > rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
>
> And this time the US won't be there to bail anyone out, because now we're
> socialist.
Margaret Thatcher once said that "The trouble with Socialism is that
eventually you run out of other people's money."
Fred Weiss
Robert Morpheal
Socialism is really no different from communism.
It relies on the principle of beating people, usually psychologically,
but sometimes beyond that boundary, out of their wants, into being
slaves to the system's determining what everyone ought to have and how
much they ought to have of what they are given. That, as in communism,
is largely run by a capitalist elite.
It never fails.
Robert Morpheal
Anarcissie
<df98c51d-23bf-47ef...@h9g2000yqa.google
groups.com>,
Robert Morpheal <morp...@yahoo.com> wrote:
I don't see how all that follows from the workers
owning and controlling their means of production.
The usual explanation I've gotten has been that the
workers are incapable of managing their work; when they
attempt to do so, bad people will take over. This
pretty much follows the Aristotelian line justifying
slavery:
> But is there any one thus intended by nature to be a
> slave, and for whom such a condition is expedient and
> right, or rather is not all slavery a violation of
> nature?
>
> There is no difficulty in answering this question, on
> grounds both of reason and of fact. For that some
> should rule and others be ruled is a thing not only
> necessary, but expedient; from the hour of their
> birth, some are marked out for subjection,
> others for rule.
-- Aristotle, _Politics_, I.5
Thus it seems inconsistent for fans of the economic
and political domination of traditional capitalism to
abjure literal, explicit slavery. However, they may
have some other theory than the one I'm reporting
here.
Fred Weiss
> I don't see how all that follows from the workers
> owning and controlling their means of production.
What's been stopping them? (And I'm not here talking about the workers
confiscating/looting the property of others, but actually starting
their own businesses which they can then "own and control".)
When you can answer that question you'll know why it hasn't happened
(with very few exceptions).
> The usual explanation I've gotten has been that the
> workers are incapable of managing their work;
Actually they don't want to which is evident in the fact that they
don't try to.
But it's not managing their own work which is primarily at issue. It
is managing the work of dozens, hundreds, and thousands of workers to
achieve a growing and profitable business. Even skilled businessman
often fail at it.
Most socialists clearly have no grasp as to what's involved in running
a successful business enterprise - which is perhaps why very few ever
try.
Fred Weiss
Shawn Wilson
> >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
> >> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
> >John Stafford
> >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
> >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
> >> changes.
>
> >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
>
> Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
> try to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes
> the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
Right, anything in the world BUT capitalism being a positive system.
James A. Donald
> I don't see how all that follows from the workers
> owning and controlling their means of production.
"The workers" cannot own and control their means of production. Only
particular workers can own and control particular means of production.
If "the workers" own the means of production, this in practice means
that someone supposedly representing the workers owns the means of
production, and that someone has so much power as to render the
democracy (all power to the Soviets) entirely worthless.
Anarcissie
<e1d7adc7-d58f-41bc...@m26g2000yqb.googl
egroups.com>,
Fred Weiss <fred...@papertig.com> wrote:
> On Dec 27, 2:58�pm, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't see how all that follows from the workers
> > owning and controlling their means of production.
>
> What's been stopping them? (And I'm not here talking about the workers
> confiscating/looting the property of others, but actually starting
> their own businesses which they can then "own and control".)
>
> When you can answer that question you'll know why it hasn't happened
> (with very few exceptions).
The short answer is (as you say below) "they don't want
to." This immediately raises the question of why they
don't want to. Given the resentments about inequality
of power and wealth, one would think people would want
to do something about it. I see two possibilities: one
is that, as Aristotle says, many people are genetically
configured for servitude, indeed, outright slavery.
This would also explain the attraction of totalitarian
state power. The other is that the propensity for
passivity and servitude are culturally conditioned. I
prefer the second explanation since the first suggests
that human life is hopeless and will soon come to a
collective end.
> > The usual explanation I've gotten has been that the
> > workers are incapable of managing their work;
>
> Actually they don't want to which is evident in the fact that they
> don't try to.
>
> But it's not managing their own work which is primarily at issue. It
> is managing the work of dozens, hundreds, and thousands of workers to
> achieve a growing and profitable business. Even skilled businessman
> often fail at it.
>
> Most socialists clearly have no grasp as to what's involved in running
> a successful business enterprise - which is perhaps why very few ever
> try.
Not having a grasp of how to do something doesn't
always dissuade people from trying to do it. However,
I don't know where you find enough old-school
socialists to make the survey your words imply.
Anarcissie
<guofj5tu0m3kg560t...@4ax.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
Your first two sentences are logically inconsistent.
Cases of particular workers owning and controlling
particular means of production are subsets of the
workers in general owning and controlling their means
of production.
Obviously, a single person, a family, a small group, or
a partnership can own and control their means of
production. For a larger group, representation would
be necessary, and representation does entail various
problems. However, I don't see why it would entail
more problems than representation of the stockholders
does in traditional capitalist businesses. Nor do I
see any necessary upper limit to the size of
self-organizing systems.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> Obviously, a single person, a family, a small group, or
> a partnership can own and control their means of
> production. For a larger group, representation would
> be necessary, and representation does entail various
> problems.
Problems so serious that they have led to mass murder every time.
*Anarcissie*
> On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 20:34:19 -0500,Anarcissie<anarcis...@gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
> > Obviously, a single person, a family, a small group, or
> > a partnership can own and control their means of
> > production. For a larger group, representation would
> > be necessary, and representation does entail various
> > more problems than representation of the stockholders
> Problems so serious that they have led to mass murder every time.
I knew things were though in corporate America, but I
didn't think they were that bad! My impression was
that the corps just laid people off, and full termination
was done by the ex-employees themselves as a matter
of private enterprise, in the old-school American spirit
of self-reliance.
alie...@gmail.com
Hence Socialism *is* dead, it just doesn't fall over for a while
after dying.
Zombie politics!
Mark L. Fergerson
*Anarcissie*
> On Dec 27, 5:49 am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
>
>
> > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> > > Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >> > > In fact, most of the poorest countries
> > >> > > have no socialist features (such as income redistributing social
> > >> > > programs funded via progressive taxation)
>
> > >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
> > >> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
> > >John Stafford
> > >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
> > >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
> > >> changes.
>
> > >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
Ireland, 1840s
India, around 1900 (latest I know about; there was
also a famine there in the 1940s, but it might be
attributable to war, partition, and other political
problems.)
Both of these countries were under British (capitalist)
control. The 1900 famine in India was specifically exacerbated
by free-market policies, which the British believed in at the
time.
I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
economy could not have famines.
> > Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
> > try to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes
> > the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
>
> > See Rhodesia, or in another decade or so, South Africa.
>
> > (Well, both of those countries are examples of lack of capitalism
> > destroying an economy, but the South African move to socialism as
> > their economy collapses would have worked the same way even if they
> > didn't have all those resources.)
>
> Hence Socialism *is* dead, it just doesn't fall over for a while
> after dying.
>
> Zombie politics!
Neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa is remotely
socialist.
tooly
>
> - Show quoted text -
There is a fundamental reality that socialism does not address...that
we exist in a predatory world where all species 'over produce' to
ensure survival. What I'm saying is that nature has in her 'plan' [if
you will] the mandatory 'failure' of some individuals as part of the
natural 'culling' of the herds, of how 'evolution' and natural
selection works.
I realize darwinism can lead to austere ideology [things like nazism
and such], but utopian socialism [which most social justice adocates
presently operate from...only the real communists really attack it
scientifically]...tries to 'ignore' this culling process entirely,
resting it's design upon...well, 'utopian' pie in the sky precepts. A
single imfirm individual from birth may cost more than a dozen normal
healthy people through their lifetimes to 'maintain' [and I'm being
conservative in the estimate here]. Multiply this across the entire
society when 'everyone' comes under the guise of 'equal' outcome, and
we perhaps understand why socialism is not sustainable as a pure
economic system [and there are the classic reasons too of
course...unsuccinct pricing and destruction of incentives etc].
Socialism is spread across the entire population, thereby covering
such infirmity as well as the healthy. [note: infirmity meant here in
broadest terms]/
Ok, this sounds pretty cold I realize, but consider that under
capitalism, 'welfare' [ie that output redirected toward inefficient
care of what nature otherwise may have marked for culling]...is
alloted more or less to the degree that those of normal output 'can
afford'.
It is a harsh world we live in. No one likes this...and wouldn't it
be nice if we could all live in a ShangRaLa paradise of no want or
need, and all suffering and misery eliminated.
The best we can do is ensure equal opportunty and let free competition
do the rest.
With some allocation of resource to those miseries that humanity finds
unpalatable...the catastrophic outcomes for example.
Consider also, that under socialism, since we all share the costs of
life, neighbors and friends come under ever increasing 'scrutiny' by
the community at large for 'infringement' to increase those costs.
Thusly, things like smoking and obesity [already a cost to society,
but not necessarily openly shared] become targets for ridicule and
intolerance.
Why should my tax dollar be used to provide medical care to someone
who practices behaviors that will most likely keep them sick [while I
might practice wellness behavior etc].
See...equal opportunity only...but not equal outcomes; can't do it,
not prudent.
Fred Weiss
> I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
> economy could not have famines.
Not likely In a high tech capitalist economy with high yields per
acre, producing a vast abundance of food at ever lower prices and
percent of income. Note that the two examples you cited were in more
feudal/colonial systems than true free markets and the most recent was
over 100 years ago.
> Neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa is remotely
> socialist.
Nor were they previously capitalist. Apartheid is antithetical to a
free market. In a free market people can live where they choose and
work where they please.
Fred Weiss
*Anarcissie*
You're mixing up socialism and communism. Socialism is the
ownership and control of the means of production by the workers.
Communism is the absence of private property. A socialist
polity could be entirely propertarian.
I don't see the point of an argument from eugenics. I do not
give a rat about natural selection and Evolution, just as they
do not give a rat about me (or anyone else).
Finally, as to equal opportunity: Equal opportunity would
require a totalitarian system of unimaginable, even godlike
severity and power -- it would have to make sure that every
individual had exactly the same relatives and neighbors,
went to the same schools, even possessed the same
genetic makeup, I suppose. Forget "equal opportunity" --
it is liberal hogwash devised to insulate the minds of
well-off people from the actual harshness of capitalism.
The best anyone can do in any system is make sure
people have an adequate opportunity to survive and
live a decent life. That ought to be Welfaristic and
expensive enough for anyone, and it might actually be
possible to achieve it, if anyone were interested
(probably not).
Shawn Wilson
> >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
> >> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
> >John Stafford
> >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
> >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
> >> changes.
>
> >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
>
> Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
> try to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes
> the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
Nice theory, with no support whatsoever. The countries that have
experienced famine in the last 100 years were in no way capitalist. I
especially like the way colonial India is considered 'capitalist'
merely because Britain was.
>
> See Rhodesia, or in another decade or so, South Africa.
>
> (Well, both of those countries are examples of lack of capitalism
> destroying an economy, but the South African move to socialism as
> their economy collapses would have worked the same way even if they
> didn't have all those resources.)
> --
> Tomorrow is today already.
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 27, 6:49�am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
>
>> >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. �Lots of countries
>> >> > are poor. �Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>>
>> >John Stafford
>> >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
>> >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
>> >> changes.
>>
>> >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
>>
>> Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
>> try to spread the pain around more evenly. �So by the time it crashes
>> the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
>
>Nice theory, with no support whatsoever. The countries that have
>experienced famine in the last 100 years were in no way capitalist.
Since you define as "not capitalist" any country that has had a famine
then your claims are just the usual irrational crap.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Shrikeback
> On Dec 28, 3:59 pm, "n...@bid.nes" <alien8...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Dec 27, 5:49 am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
> > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> > > In fact, most of the poorest countries
> > > >> > > have no socialist features (such as income redistributing social
> > > >> > > programs funded via progressive taxation)
>
> > > >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
> > > >> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
> > > >John Stafford
> > > >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
> > > >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
> > > >> changes.
>
> > > >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
>
> Ireland, 1840s
> India, around 1900 (latest I know about; there was
> also a famine there in the 1940s, but it might be
> attributable to war, partition, and other political
> problems.)
>
> Both of these countries were under British (capitalist)
> control. The 1900 famine in India was specifically exacerbated
> by free-market policies, which the British believed in at the
> time.
They believed in it for themselves, but the Raj ran
India's economy with a monopolist's fist.
James A. Donald
> > > group, or a partnership can own and control their
> > > means of production. For a larger group,
> > > representation would be necessary, and
> > > representation does entail various problems.
> > > However, I don't see why it would entail more
> > > problems than representation of the stockholders
> > > does in traditional capitalist businesses. ...
> > Problems so serious that they have led to mass
> > murder every time.
> I knew things were though in corporate America,
The representation of shareholders frequently fails.
When it fails, the shareholders can sell their shares to
a small number of big shareholders, who appoint
*themselves* to the board, thereby cutting out the
middleman and solving the problem.
The equivalent failure in socialism leads to the
liquidation of proles, instead of the selling out of
small shareholders.
*Anarcissie*
Ghosts in the dust of Gujarat
India is still trying to dig itself free from the legacy of the
British Raj
Special report: natural disasters
Mike Davis
Sunday February 11, 2001
The Observer
In India, as in El Salvador, Turkey and Armenia previously,
grief turns to anger as survivors confront the 'unnatural'
dimensions of earthquake disaster. Thousands have perished
less as a result of plate tectonics than of poorly, even
criminally constructed homes, schools and factories. Hundreds
of people who might have been saved have died in the rubble
for want of rescue equipment. The core issue is not seismicity
but vulnerability to extreme but inevitable natural events.
The facile explanations are 'poverty' and 'underdevelopment',
yet there is another, more ghostly, culprit: the enduring
disaster of the Raj.
A hundred years ago, the residents of Ahmedabad were also
burning their dead on huge, makeshift funeral pyres. The death
toll in 1901, however, was a full order of magnitude greater
than today's. Drought, famine and cholera in tandem scythed
down one in six of Gandhi's fellow Gujaratis. Among outcast
or tribal people, the mortality was closer to 30 per cent.
As in the latest tragedy, the proximate cause was environmental:
an epic monsoon failure, probably arising from the global El
Niño event of 1899-1900 that turned Gujarat's 'once green as
a park' countryside (according to an American missionary) into
'a blasted waste of barren stumps and burned fields'. A
correspondent of the Times of India was unnerved by the vast
dome of blue, cloudless sky over a slowly dying landscape: 'I
do do not think I ever hated blue before, but I do now.'
The drought, which afflicted most of north-central India, was
counterbalanced by bumper harvests in Bengal and Burma. As
the official famine report would later emphasise: 'Owing to
the excellent system of communications which now brings every
portion of the [Bombay] presidency into close connection with
the great market, the supplies of food were at all times
sufficient.'
Traditional Indian polities like the Moguls and the Marathas
had zealously policed the grain trade in the public interest,
distributing free food, fixing prices and embargoing exports.
As one horrified British writer discovered, these 'oriental
despots' sometimes punished traders who short-changed peasants
during famines by amputating equivalent weights of merchant
flesh.
The British worshipped a savage god known as the 'Invisible
Hand' that forbade state interference in the grain trade. Like
previous viceroys (Lytton in 1877 and Elgin in 1897), Lord
Curzon allowed food surpluses to be exported to England or
hoarded by speculators in heavily guarded depots. Curzon,
whose appetite for viceregal pomp and circumstance was legendary,
lectured starving villagers that 'any government which imperilled
the financial position of India in the interests of prodigal
philanthropy would be open to serious criticism; but any
government which by indiscriminate alms-giving weakened the
fibre and demoralised the self-reliance of the population,
would be guilty of a public crime'.
Vaughan Nash of the Manchester Guardian and Louis Klopsch of
the New York Christian Herald were appalled by Curzon's 'penal
minimum' ration (15 ounces of rice for a day's hard labour)
as well as the shocking conditions tolerated in the squalid
relief camps, where tens of thousands perished from cholera.
'Millions of flies,' wrote Klopsch, 'were permitted undisturbed
to pester the unhappy victims. One young woman who had lost
every one dear to her, and had turned stark mad, sat at the
door vacantly staring at the awful scenes around her.'
Despite Kiplingesque myths of heroic benevolence, official
attitudes were nonchalant. British officials rated Indian
ethnicities like cattle, and vented contempt against them even
when they were dying in their multitudes. Asked to explain
why mortality in Gujarat was so high, a district officer told
the famine commission: 'The Gujarati is a soft man... accustomed
to earn his good food easily. In the hot weather, he seldom
worked at all and at no time did he form the habit of continuous
labour. Very many even among the poorest had never taken a
tool in hand in their lives. They lived by watching cattle
and crops, by sitting in the fields to weed, by picking cotton,
grain and fruit, and by... pilfering.'
Gujaratis are famously industrious and probably enjoyed a
higher average level of nutrition and well-being than their
English contemporaries before the arrival of the East India
Company.
In 1901, before the famine had run its course, the Lancet
suggested that a conservative estimate of 'excess mortality'
in India from starvation and hunger-related disease during
the previous decade was 19 million.
As the great Indian political economist Romesh Chunder Dutt
pointed out in one of his Open Letters to Lord Curzon , British
Progress was India's Ruin. The railroads, ports and canals
which enthused Karl Marx in the 1850s were for resource
extraction, not indigenous development. The taxes that financed
the railroads and the Indian army pauperised the peasantry.
Even in the macabre denouement of the Gujarat famine, the
Government announced that 'the revenue must at all costs be
gathered in', an act which Vaughan Nash denounced as 'picking
the bones of the people'. When patidar farmers, ruined by the
drought, combined to refuse a 24 per cent increase in their
taxes, the collectors simply confiscated their land.
On the expenditure side, a colonial budget largely financed
by taxes on farm and land returned less than 2 per cent to
agriculture and education. While a progressive and independent
Asian nation like Siam was annually investing two shillings
per capita on education and public health, the Raj expended
barely one penny per person as 'human capital'.
Not surprisingly, there was no increase in India's per capita
income during the whole period of British overlordship from
1757 to 1947. Celebrated cash-crop booms went hand in hand
with declining agrarian productivity and food security.
Moreover, two decades of demographic growth (in the 1870s and
1890s) were entirely wiped out in avoidable famines, while
throughout that 'glorious imperial half century' from 1871 to
1921 immortalised by Kipling, the life expectancy of ordinary
Indians fell by a staggering 20 per cent.
This is the catastrophic past from which Indians are still
trying to dig themselves free.
• Mike Davis's latest book, Late Victorian Holocausts,
is reviewed on page 16 of the Review section.
Ray Fischer
>> > > group, or a partnership can own and control their
>> > > means of production. For a larger group,
>> > > representation would be necessary, and
>> > > representation does entail various problems.
>> > > However, I don't see why it would entail more
>> > > problems than representation of the stockholders
>> > > does in traditional capitalist businesses. ...
>
>> > Problems so serious that they have led to mass
>> > murder every time.
>
>> I knew things were though in corporate America,
>
>The representation of shareholders frequently fails.
Smirk. Capitalism "fails".
>When it fails, the shareholders can sell their shares to
>a small number of big shareholders, who appoint
>*themselves* to the board, thereby cutting out the
>middleman and solving the problem.
The "problem" being the interference of shareholders.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
alie...@gmail.com
>
> > On Dec 27, 5:49 am, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
>
> > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> > > > Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >> > > In fact, most of the poorest countries
> > > >> > > have no socialist features (such as income redistributing social
> > > >> > > programs funded via progressive taxation)
>
> > > >> > But famine in the modern world requires socialism. Lots of countries
> > > >> > are poor. Socialist ones manage to starve to death...
>
> > > >John Stafford
> > > >> Do not attribute to politics that which is easily explained by the
> > > >> farming technology of the time and the uncontrollable climate/weather
> > > >> changes.
>
> > > >Why then no major capitalist famines in the last couple of centuries?
>
> Ireland, 1840s
The potato blight was not, AFAICT, due to any political polarization
of the organism responsible.
> India, around 1900 (latest I know about; there was
> also a famine there in the 1940s, but it might be
> attributable to war, partition, and other political
> problems.)
>
> Both of these countries were under British (capitalist)
> control. The 1900 famine in India was specifically exacerbated
> by free-market policies, which the British believed in at the
> time.
Not capitalist on the local level but feudal. The "free market"
didn't exist for those that couldn't earn enough to buy food; there
was no market for their labor. It also didn't exist for those who grew
the food; they had no choice who got what they grew nor what they were
"paid" for it.
The British "colonial" system was organized that way; conquer a
country, then consume its resources.
> I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
> economy could not have famines.
Any political system can have famines.
Capitalism works best when coupled with mass production. That makes
famine much less likely to be due to production problems, and more
likely to be due to distribution failures.
> > > Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to
> > > try to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes
> > > the rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
>
> > > See Rhodesia, or in another decade or so, South Africa.
>
> > > (Well, both of those countries are examples of lack of capitalism
> > > destroying an economy, but the South African move to socialism as
> > > their economy collapses would have worked the same way even if they
> > > didn't have all those resources.)
>
> > Hence Socialism *is* dead, it just doesn't fall over for a while
> > after dying.
>
> > Zombie politics!
>
> Neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa is remotely
> socialist.
They may be capitalist in name, but AFAICT they're more feudal than
anything else.
Mark L. Fergerson
James A. Donald
Ray Fischer
> The "problem" being the interference of shareholders.
The problem being a board that fails to represent the interests of
shareholders.
Ray Fischer
>James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> >When it fails, the shareholders can sell their shares to
>> >a small number of big shareholders, who appoint
>> >*themselves* to the board, thereby cutting out the
>> >middleman and solving the problem.
>
>
>The problem being a board that fails to represent the interests of
>shareholders.
The big shareholders.
Of course, they're not supposed to represent just the insterests of
the big shareholders. The board is supposed to represent the
interests of all shareholders.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
James Burns
This distinction you've raised between capitalists and
monopolists is an interesting one.
Since a true capitalist is in it for the money and
views any other motive as immoral to some degree,
wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
necessarily rather be a monopolist?
Could please you explain how capitalists doing what
capitalists want to do is somehow not a consequence
of capitalism?
Jim Burns
*Anarcissie*
> On Dec 28, 4:58 pm, "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
> > economy could not have famines.
>
> Not likely In a high tech capitalist economy with high yields per
> acre, producing a vast abundance of food at ever lower prices and
> percent of income. Note that the two examples you cited were in more
> feudal/colonial systems than true free markets and the most recent was
> over 100 years ago.
I am afraid this is a No True Scotsman defense. One says
there has never been a famine in a capitalist country; the
other points some out; the first says they weren't capitalist
because no true capitalist country could have a famine.
The definition of "capitalist" gets modified constantly
in order to avoid association with one or another
bad thing. Of course, socialists or "socialists" could
play the same game. Or adherents of any other
faith.
It looks to me like it's industrialization that wards off
famine. You could associate industrialization with
capitalism, but note that the "socialist" Soviet Union
avoided famine, or at least shortages, due to poor
grain harvests some decades ago by simply trading
stuff for grain. They, too, had industrialized to some
degree. This is why for some time industrialization
was seen as a panacea for Third-World countries;
but now we have global warming / climate change
threatening us, or so some say. (That is already
another branch of this discussion so wee need not
pursue it here.)
> > Neither Zimbabwe nor South Africa is remotely
> > socialist.
>
> Nor were they previously capitalist. Apartheid is antithetical to a
> free market. In a free market people can live where they choose and
> work where they please.
Someone said they were socialist and I felt
compelled to pursue my hopeless and endless
task.
Wexford
> <df98c51d-23bf-47ef-b2b4-77851954c...@h9g2000yqa.google
> groups.com>,
>
> - Show quoted text -
I'm sorry, but I don't follow. In what version of Socialism do the
workers own the means of production. Socialism is defined as an
economic system in which the State owns the means of production. There
are many companies in the United States, by the way, that are owned by
their workers. My wife worked for one that was very profitable, Walman
Optical. It was not a particularly great place to work, however.
Wexford
> On Dec 27, 9:43 am, Fred Weiss <fredwe...@papertig.com> wrote:
>
> > On Dec 27, 9:33 am, teresita <ruby...@newsguy.com> wrote:
>
> > > On Sun, 27 Dec 2009 06:49:29 -0700, Greg Goss wrote:
> > > > Because as things start falling apart, people switch to socialism to try
> > > > to spread the pain around more evenly. So by the time it crashes the
> > > > rest of the way, you can blame it on socialism.
>
> > > And this time the US won't be there to bail anyone out, because now we're
> > > socialist.
>
> > Margaret Thatcher once said that "The trouble with Socialism is that
> > eventually you run out of other people's money."
>
> > Fred Weiss
This is interesting ...
> Socialism is really no different from communism.
>
> It relies on the principle of beating people, usually psychologically,
> but sometimes beyond that boundary, out of their wants, into being
> slaves to the system's determining what everyone ought to have and how
> much they ought to have of what they are given. That, as in communism,
> is largely run by a capitalist elite.
>
> It never fails.
So, the Great Britain of the 1970s was the same as the Soviet Union?
As Red China?
Certainly Socialism -- in theory, state ownership of the means of
production -- doesn't work very well, but your characterization of it
is a bit shallow. Every system has its downfalls. Liassez Faire
capitalism creates its own mess if left without regulation. Typically,
the dominant market company comes to control its industry and begins
to muck with government, getting laws passed that favor it and protect
it. It's particularly bad when a company controls a basic commodity,
like oil, and so dominates the market that the country is virtually in
thrall to it. Banking is another area that regularly causes problems
if not tightly controlled.
Even in a regulated environment, as we have in the United States, the
ravages of greed are obvious. We've seen several examples of this over
the years, the most recent being the meltdown of the mortgage markets,
but before them, Enron fell, and before Enron, there was the collapse
of the Savings and Loan industry. You talk of people being separated
from their wealth by psychological coercion or taxation. Hell, people
are being robbed -- stripped -- by the greed of business bureaucrats
on a massive scale. At least I can refuse to vote for a politician I
don't like, but I can't do damn thing about an AIG, or Enron or Lehman
Brothers fiasco.
*Anarcissie*
The original idea or proposition of socialism was "the
ownership or control of the means of production by the
workers, or by the people generally." I would recommend
Michael Harrington's book _Socialism_ which is a fairly
complete compendium of this set of ideas, but it is of
course out of print. You might be able to get a second-
hand copy. Many of the early socialist thinkers were
anarchistic.
The idea of the state owning and controlling the means
of production supposedly for the benefit of the workers
was one branch of socialist thought. It does not seem
to have worked out very well: as Milovan Djilas, a
Communist writer, pointed out, a "new class" forms
which takes on the role formerly played by the
bourgeoisie, and we are back where we started, if not
worse off. (Djilas, a Yugoslav, went to jail for his
efforts.)
The ownership and control of the means of production
by the state is also part of the fascist proposition, where
it is in line with the ideal of totalitarianism (see Mussolini,
Carl Schmitt, and other fascist authors). So I think the
proper designation for centralized state control of the
economy would be "fascist", not "socialist".
Wexford
> > > > Obviously, a single person, a family, a small
> > > > group, or a partnership can own and control their
> > > > means of production. For a larger group,
> > > > representation would be necessary, and
> > > > representation does entail various problems.
> > > > However, I don't see why it would entail more
> > > > problems than representation of the stockholders
> > > > does in traditional capitalist businesses. ...
> > > Problems so serious that they have led to mass
> > > murder every time.
> > I knew things were though in corporate America,
> The representation of shareholders frequently fails.
> When it fails, the shareholders can sell their shares to
> a small number of big shareholders, who appoint
> *themselves* to the board, thereby cutting out the
> middleman and solving the problem.
>
> The equivalent failure in socialism leads to the
> liquidation of proles, instead of the selling out of
> small shareholders.
No, Sport, what happens is the management of the company, in collusion
with the Board, sells off their shares, while blocking others from the
sale of shares. That's what happened before Enron folded. Rampant
greed is ultimately destructive. There's no redeeming virtue to it.
Socialism fails because under a true socialist state, where the state
owns the means of production and all production is centrally planned,
it is doomed to inefficiency, stupidity and corruption.
Capitalism works because under it, the capitalist risks his wealth to
create, make and sell products that satisfy consumer needs. Many
businesses fail, but enough survive to make the risk worth the return.
The problem with capitalism is that it "carries the seeds of its own
destruction" but not in a way Marx envisoned. Companies seek market
dominance and once they get there, begin to muck with government in
order to get favors and subsidies, and to protect their position.
Capitalism works best under a regulated enviornment where unfair
competition is prohibited, cartels are not permitted, and selective
subsidies are allowed.
One of the things that propelled America forward in the 19th century
were gross subsidies allowed railroads (the Government literally gave
away the people's land, so that railroads could be built).
Immigration, which allowed a huge influx of motivated, poor, hard-
working people, other land give-aways, the enforcement of patent laws,
and controls (mostly by states) placed on banks. Education subsidies
at all levels were also a potent force for deveopment. Capitalism
works best in an enviorment not run by ideologues but by practical
people who work together in business and industry to do what seems to
be the right things.
Wexford
????????????????????
> The original idea or proposition of socialism was "the
> ownership or control of the means of production by the
> workers, or by the people generally." I would recommend
> Michael Harrington's book _Socialism_ which is a fairly
> complete compendium of this set of ideas, but it is of
> course out of print. You might be able to get a second-
> hand copy. Many of the early socialist thinkers were
> anarchistic.
Michael Harrington is a latter-day American social theorist who hadn't
a clue as to how the world really works. The classic economic
definition of Socialism is a system in which the state owns the means
of production. Under Socialist systems, small businesses were allowed
-- shopkeers, hairdressers, etc., but major production and major
agriculture are state enterprizes. Harrington day-dreamed about
workers owning the businesses in which they worked. It happens, and it
happens in a big way in the United States with company stock plans,
401Ks, profit sharing, etc. There are even companies that have been
bought by their unions. There is still a Board and still managers, and
common workers are still left out of the planning process, except,
perhaps, through Union reps.
>
> The idea of the state owning and controlling the means
> of production supposedly for the benefit of the workers
> was one branch of socialist thought.
It was the main branch of Socialist thought. Until 1990, about 1/3 of
the world's population lived in countries where the means of
production was owned by the state.
> It does not seem
> to have worked out very well: as Milovan Djilas, a
> Communist writer, pointed out, a "new class" forms
> which takes on the role formerly played by the
> bourgeoisie, and we are back where we started, if not
> worse off. (Djilas, a Yugoslav, went to jail for his
> efforts.)
Yawn. And what class runs the economy of the Free World? Do you think
the apparatchiks of the old Soviet System were superior in morality,
selflessness, or even competence to the denizens that work in our
banking bureaucracies, for AIG, for Lehman Bros, or for Enron? The
main advantage to America is that we do have laws to control these
people, even if there are not enough laws and they are well enforced,
and, of course, these people don't directly control the government,
although they try their damndest to do so. At the economic Summit the
Republicans held in Dallas in 2000 -- an invitation only event to map
their philosophy of economic engagement -- Ken Lay of Enron was the
keynote speaker. When Cheney wanted to develop an energy policy, who
do he call upon? The oil executives. The talks were so secretive he
refused to even release the names of the people who attended the
meetings. Is it any wonder the Bush administration left office with an
economic catastrophie in the process?
>
> The ownership and control of the means of production
> by the state is also part of the fascist proposition, where
> it is in line with the ideal of totalitarianism (see Mussolini,
> Carl Schmitt, and other fascist authors). So I think the
> proper designation for centralized state control of the
> economy would be "fascist", not "socialist".- Hide quoted text -
Wexford
> Shrikeback wrote:
> > On Dec 28, 1:58 pm, "*Anarcissie*"
> > <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>Both of these countries were under British
> >>(capitalist) control. The 1900 famine in India was
> >>specifically exacerbated by free-market policies,
> >>which the British believed in at the time.
?????????????????
> > They believed in it for themselves, but the Raj ran
> > India's economy with a monopolist's fist.
>
> This distinction you've raised between capitalists and
> monopolists is an interesting one.
>
> Since a true capitalist is in it for the money and
> views any other motive as immoral to some degree,
> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
>
> Could please you explain how capitalists doing what
> capitalists want to do is somehow not a consequence
> of capitalism?
>
> Jim Burns
You've hit on the main problem with capitalism. In any industrial
market, eventulally one company, or a small group of them, achieve
market dominance. Without regulation and free to compete in any way
they can, they soon create an environment in which no competition is
possible. They also muck with government and get laws passed that give
them subsidies, restrain competition and allow them access to
government assets.
Shawn Wilson
> >Nice theory, with no support whatsoever. The countries that have
> >experienced famine in the last 100 years were in no way capitalist.
>
> Since you define as "not capitalist" any country that has had a famine
> then your claims are just the usual irrational crap.
I do? Where? Oh, right... I don't. Tinfoil hat a little tight
dear?
Shawn Wilson
> > The "problem" being the interference of shareholders.
>
> The problem being a board that fails to represent the interests of
> shareholders.
So people who are unhappy with the board sell their shares and the
problem is solved.
It is amazing how many of the socialist 'criticisms' of capitalism
disappear with a little sense....
Shawn Wilson
> Since a true capitalist is in it for the money and
> views any other motive as immoral to some degree,
Uh, what???
> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
Of course not. A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
profits. Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
Shawn Wilson
> > > I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
> > > economy could not have famines.
The intrinsic reason is that famine is unprofitable. Or, rather,
alleviating the effects of poor production is extremely profitable.
The price elasticity of sustenance is *extremely* low. Damn near zero
in fact. People will pay anything they have not to starve.
Agricultural disaster of whatever sort (disease, and drought being the
most common) reduces output for a given level of investment. This
raises prices for sustenance hugely, which makes it profitable to
increase investment enough to compensate for the external factors. In
addition to that, the increased willingness to pay makes it profitable
to import food, and to engage in additional activities to earn foreign
currency so it can be imported.
Let the market work and God declaring that 'no food at all shall be
grown in your countryever again ' STILL won't lead to famine.
Remember, cities feed themselves with almost no food production
whatsoever.
> It looks to me like it's industrialization that wards off
> famine.
Nope.
You could associate industrialization with
> capitalism, but note that the "socialist" Soviet Union
> avoided famine, or at least shortages, due to poor
> grain harvests some decades ago by simply trading
> stuff for grain.
Ukraine... And what the USSR did, was engage in capitalism, at least
with foreigners.
Shawn Wilson
> Certainly Socialism -- in theory, state ownership of the means of
> production -- doesn't work very well, but your characterization of it
> is a bit shallow. Every system has its downfalls. Liassez Faire
> capitalism creates its own mess if left without regulation. Typically,
> the dominant market company comes to control its industry and begins
> to muck with government, getting laws passed that favor it and protect
> it.
Sigh... Monopoly is the big *socialist* myth about capitalsim. Look
around you today. Look at Hong Kong before the Chinese takeover. You
do NOT see monopolies. They aren't profitable except under limited
circumstances.
> It's particularly bad when a company controls a basic commodity,
> like oil, and so dominates the market that the country is virtually in
> thrall to it. Banking is another area that regularly causes problems
> if not tightly controlled.
Or, in the real world, not...
> Even in a regulated environment, as we have in the United States, the
> ravages of greed are obvious.
The ravages of socialist intervention in the economy are infinitely
worse...
> We've seen several examples of this over
> the years, the most recent being the meltdown of the mortgage markets,
Yes, foolish rich people lost their money. What's it to you?
> but before them, Enron fell
Enron should have survived???
>, and before Enron, there was the collapse
> of the Savings and Loan industry.
Bad S&Ls should have stayed in business???
Do you think this through at all?
You talk of people being separated
> from their wealth by psychological coercion or taxation. Hell, people
> are being robbed -- stripped -- by the greed of business bureaucrats
> on a massive scale.
The combined might of Microsoft, and Wal-Mart can't take one penney
from me against my will.
Shawn Wilson
> One of the things that propelled America forward in the 19th century
> were gross subsidies allowed railroads (the Government literally gave
> away the people's land, so that railroads could be built).
Government gives away the people's land so that roads can be built...
Shawn Wilson
> You've hit on the main problem with capitalism. In any industrial
> market, eventulally one company, or a small group of them, achieve
> market dominance.
Do you even live on this planet? Real world- name three examples, if
you can. Not even Microsoft is a monopoly, and they have more reason
to be than anyone.
Alan Ford
>> Since a true capitalist is in it for the money and
>> views any other motive as immoral to some degree,
>
>
> Uh, what???
>
>
>
>
>> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
>> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
>
>
> Of course not. A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
> profits. Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
>
????????? WTF?
I've read your shit for weeks now and just when I think you can't
possibly top the stupid, you always pleasantly surprise me.
So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
It's amazing, it's like you have a choice between normal and stupid and
you always without exception consciously and purposely pick the stupid.
--
If you don't beat your meat
You can't have any pudding
How can you have any pudding
If you don't beat your meat?
Shawn Wilson
> >> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
> >> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
>
> > Of course not. A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
> > profits. Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
>
> ????????? WTF?
>
> I've read your shit for weeks now and just when I think you can't
> possibly top the stupid, you always pleasantly surprise me.
>
> So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
> believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
> never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
No, that isn't what I said. In every industry one seeks to maximize
economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
> It's amazing, it's like you have a choice between normal and stupid and
> you always without exception consciously and purposely pick the stupid.
Difference between me and you is that I have an education and you have
ignorant prejudice...
Alan Ford
>>>> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
>>>> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
>>> Of course not. A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
>>> profits. Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
>> ????????? WTF?
>>
>> I've read your shit for weeks now and just when I think you can't
>> possibly top the stupid, you always pleasantly surprise me.
>>
>> So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
>> believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
>> never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
>
>
>
> No, that isn't what I said.
Yes, I am aware you built in the escape clause "true capitalist" into
your bullshit, thus allowing you to wiggle out of anything contradicting
your fantasy by playing the True Scotsman fallacy.
> In every industry one seeks to maximize
> economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
> decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
> outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
> efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>
> Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
> nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
bankruptcy, and so on.
There is a reason for anti-thrust laws in capitalism and it's not just
for the sake of government meddling.
There is also a reason these laws are routinely broken and circumvented
and a handful of companies are de facto allowed the market monopoly. I
don't remember seeing any new oil companies lately, for example. Yet,
all five of the big'uns are raking in record profits. Healthcare cost in
the US keeps rising partially due to the monopoly big insurers and big
healthcare equipment manufacturers who keep buying out small ones time
and time again. This last example I know something about because I work
for one of the three large remaining healthcare equipment/service
providers, while just 10-15 years ago there were dozens. As a result,
while the annual service contract cost used to be in the range of
$10-15k, today it is routinely $35-45k. Little competition - more markup
for the supplier, cost passed on to the end consumer.
>> It's amazing, it's like you have a choice between normal and stupid and
>> you always without exception consciously and purposely pick the stupid.
>
>
> Difference between me and you is that I have an education and you have
> ignorant prejudice...
There's a difference between having education and being able to apply it.
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 29, 12:38�am, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
>> > The "problem" being the interference of shareholders.
>>
>> The problem being a board that fails to represent the interests of
>> shareholders.
>
>So people who are unhappy with the board sell their shares and the
>problem is solved.
Sell their shares for less than they could have gotten for them.
Stealing is okay when needed to defend extremist ideology.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>> Certainly Socialism -- in theory, state ownership of the means of
>> production -- doesn't work very well, but your characterization of it
>> is a bit shallow. Every system has its downfalls. Liassez Faire
>> capitalism creates its own mess if left without regulation. Typically,
>> the dominant market company comes to control its industry and begins
>> to muck with government, getting laws passed that favor it and protect
>> it.
>
>Sigh... Monopoly is the big *socialist* myth about capitalsim.
LOL! Kook!
> Look
>around you today. Look at Hong Kong before the Chinese takeover. You
>do NOT see monopolies.
In a worldwide economy it's really hard for someplace as small as Hong
Kong to control world markets.
> They aren't profitable except under limited
>circumstances.
Like the railroads of the 19th century? Very, very profitable.
Once again you show no understanding of economics or business.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 29, 8:48�am, "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > > I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
>> > > economy could not have famines.
>
>The intrinsic reason is that famine is unprofitable. Or, rather,
>alleviating the effects of poor production is extremely profitable.
Crackpot.
>The price elasticity of sustenance is *extremely* low. Damn near zero
>in fact.
People with no money cannot afford even cheap food. If your income is
$1/day (as is the case with about 1,000,000,000 of the world's people)
then there is no significant profit to be made no matter how efficient
your production is.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 29, 1:18�pm, Wexford <wrya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>> You've hit on the main problem with capitalism. In any industrial
>> market, eventulally one company, or a small group of them, achieve
>> market dominance.
>
>Do you even live on this planet?
You're the crackpot who claims that it's possible to make a profit
selling food to people with no money.
> Real world- name three examples, if
>you can.
Here's a dozen, and they don't even mention 19th century US railroads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly#Historical_monopolies
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 29, 2:14�pm, Alan Ford <zzz....@qqq.net> wrote:
>
>> >> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
>> >> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
>>
>> > Of course not. � A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
>> > profits. �Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
>>
>> ????????? WTF?
>>
>> I've read your shit for weeks now and just when I think you can't
>> possibly top the stupid, you always pleasantly surprise me.
>>
>> So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
>> believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
>> never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
>
>No, that isn't what I said. In every industry one seeks to maximize
>economies of scale.
Earlier you claimed that economies of scale didn't exist.
> Those economies increase to some point, and then
>decrease.
Why?
> A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
>outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm.
So now you're saying that economies of scale do NOT exist.
> The more
>efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
You've never even heard of cost of entry, have you?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>> >Nice theory, with no support whatsoever. �The countries that have
>> >experienced famine in the last 100 years were in no way capitalist.
>>
>> Since you define as "not capitalist" any country that has had a famine
>> then your claims are just the usual irrational crap.
>
>I do? Where?
Just above, crackpot. "countries that have experienced famine in the
last 100 years were in no way capitalist".
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
ZnU
<1a284330-6d28-48fb...@n16g2000yqm.googlegroups.com>,
Wexford <wry...@gmail.com> wrote:
And let's not forget the corporate liability shield, effectively a
massive subsidy to business.
> Capitalism works best in an enviorment not run by ideologues but by
> practical people who work together in business and industry to do
> what seems to be the right things.
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
*Anarcissie*
> On Dec 29, 11:17 am, "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > On Dec 29, 10:55 am, Wexford <wrya...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
You're free to use language as you please, of
course. You can define socialism as "the care
and feeding of calico cats." If you go through 19th
century socialist literature, however, you will find
a lot of concern with the workers owning and
controlling the means of production, and not a lot
of concern with the state.
Michael Harrington may not have had a satisfactory
grasp of "how the world really works", whatever
that means, but he was probably an adequate
historian of socialism as an idea.
> > The idea of the state owning and controlling the means
> > of production supposedly for the benefit of the workers
> > was one branch of socialist thought.
>
> It was the main branch of Socialist thought. Until 1990, about 1/3 of
> the world's population lived in countries where the means of
> production was owned by the state.
"Main" is a subjective judgement as to thought. In
fact there was not a lot of thinking going on, as it
was strongly discouraged. As I said before, the
behavior of the "socialist" states claiming ideological
descent from Marx most fit the specifications
proposed by fascist theoreticians, although the
rhetoric was different.
> > It does not seem
> > to have worked out very well: as Milovan Djilas, a
> > Communist writer, pointed out, a "new class" forms
> > which takes on the role formerly played by the
> > bourgeoisie, and we are back where we started, if not
> > worse off. (Djilas, a Yugoslav, went to jail for his
> > efforts.)
>
> Yawn. And what class runs the economy of the Free World? Do you think
> the apparatchiks of the old Soviet System were superior in morality,
> selflessness, or even competence to the denizens that work in our
> banking bureaucracies, for AIG, for Lehman Bros, or for Enron? The
> main advantage to America is that we do have laws to control these
> people, even if there are not enough laws and they are well enforced,
> and, of course, these people don't directly control the government,
> although they try their damndest to do so. At the economic Summit the
> Republicans held in Dallas in 2000 -- an invitation only event to map
> their philosophy of economic engagement -- Ken Lay of Enron was the
> keynote speaker. When Cheney wanted to develop an energy policy, who
> do he call upon? The oil executives. The talks were so secretive he
> refused to even release the names of the people who attended the
> meetings. Is it any wonder the Bush administration left office with an
> economic catastrophie in the process?
I don't know of a good treatment of the current
class structure of the United States. It is pretty
obvious that all the major institutions of the
country are run by the same class of people, if
not the same identical people, and maps of the
connections between them that I have seen are
generally rather thickly woven nets. But this
view falls a bit short of a detailed treatment of
the situation.
Shawn Wilson
> > In every industry one seeks to maximize
> > economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
> > decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
> > outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
> > efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>
> > Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
> > nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
>
> This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
> of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
> monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
> to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
> bankruptcy, and so on.
Nope. NONE of them work in the real world. I will merely cite your
utter inability to come up with a real world example of your supposed
mechanism at work. Government can say "thou shalt not enter this
market" but market forces won't.
Start up costs are faced by everyone (the monopolist had to pay them
too) and are a one time fixed expense, more or less irrelevant to an
ongoing business plan.
As to price undercutting, apparently you think the monopoly has
infinite funds (it would have to underprice everyone all the time,
once it stops the wolves come back and eat it) and isn't interested in
profits.
Then you have your supposed greedy capitalists thinking that once they
have their firm of efficient sze. In the real world, once they get
their firm of efficient size, they don't try for monopoly, they go for
diversification.
> There is a reason for anti-thrust laws in capitalism and it's not just
> for the sake of government meddling.
Actually it is. Government doesn't know any more about economics, and
can't merely look around them any more than you can. So they 'solve'
imaginary problems.
> There is also a reason these laws are routinely broken and circumvented
> and a handful of companies are de facto allowed the market monopoly.
Name them.
> I
> don't remember seeing any new oil companies lately, for example.
Did you LOOK???
Which oil company are you claiming is the monopoly?
Assam Oil Company Ltd. (ACL), India
Arabian Gulf Oil Company (AGOCO), Libya
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), United Arab Emirates
AinMine Petroleum
Alon USA, United States
Amerada Hess Corporation, United States
Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, United States
Apache Corporation, United States
Arbusto Energy, United States
Atlantic Petroleum, Faroe Islands
BG Group, United Kingdom
Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited, India
BHP Billiton, Australia
Buzachi Petroleum Operating, Kazakhstan
BP, United Kingdom
Cairn Energy, United Kingdom
Canadian Natural Resources, Canada
Chevron Corporation, United States
Chem-Energy Corporation,United States
Chief Oil and Gas, United States
Citgo, Venezuela
CNOOC Ltd., China
ConocoPhillips, United States
Cooper Energy, Australia
Cosmo Oil Company, Japan
Crown Central Petroleum, United States
Cupet, Cuba
Devon Energy, United States
Ecopetrol, Colombia
Edoardo Raffinerie Garrone, Italy
Enbridge, Canada
EnCana, Canada
Energopetrol, Bosnia
ENSCO International, United States
Eni, Italy
ENX, Switzerland
ENXRU, Russia
Essar oil ltd., India
Entreprise Tunisienne d'Activites Petroliere (ETAP), Tunisia
Eser Corporation, United States
ExxonMobil, United States
First Texas Energy Corporation, United States
Galp Energia, Portugal
Petronet LNG Limited, India
Gujarat Gas Co. Ltd., India
Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, India
Gulf Oil, Luxembourg
Greka Energy, United States
Grupa LOTOS, Poland
HryJax Petroleum
Hellenic Petroleum, Greece
Hess Corporation, United States
Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd, India
HH Venture Capital LLC, United States
Husky Energy, Canada
IB Daiwa, Japan
Imperial Oil, Canada
INA – Industrija Nafte, Croatia
Indian Oil Corporation, India
Inpex, Japan
Irving Oil, Canada
IQ Petroleum, USA
Japan Energy, Japan
Japan Petroleum Exploration Company Limited (JAPEX), Japan
Kaz-Munay Gaz, Kazakhstan
Karazhanbas Munay, Kazakhstan
Kerr-McGee, United States
Koch Industries, United States
Kuwait German Petroleum Company, Canada
Kuwait Gulf Oil Company, Kuwait
Kuwait National Petroleum Company Kuwait.
Kuwait Oil Company, Kuwait
Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, Kuwait
LUKoil, Russia
M3nergy Gamma SDN. BHD., Malaysia
Marathon Oil Corporation, United States
Maurel & Prom, France
mari Gas Company Limited, pakistan
Maxol Group, Republic of Ireland
MedcoEnergi, Indonesia
Mol Group, Hungary
Naftna Industrija Srbije, Serbia
Naftogas of Ukraine, Ukraine
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), Iran
National Oil Corporation, Libya
Neste Oil, Finland
Nexen, Canada
Nippon Oil, Japan
NNPC, Nigeria
Oil Planet International Corp [www.oilplanetinternationalcorp.com],
United States
Northern Resources[1], Canada
Northern Oil and Gas[2], United States
Oil and Gas Development Company Limited[3], Pakistan
Occidental Petroleum, United States
Oil India Limited, India
Oman Oil Company (OOC), Oman
OMV, Austria
ONGC, India
PKN Orlen S.A., Poland
PSO, Pakistan
Petróleos de Venezuela, Venezuela
Petroleos Mexicanos, Mexico
PetroAlam, Egypt
Petroleum Development Oman,(PDO)
Perenco, France, United Kingdom
Petro-Canada, Canada
Petrobras, Brazil
PetroChina, China
PetroKazakhstan, Kazakhstan
Petrom, Romania
Petron Corporation, Philippines
PETRONAS, Malaysia
PETROTRIN, Trinidad and Tobago
PetroVietnam, Vietnam
Pertamina, Indonesia
Polish Oil and Gas Company, Poland
Plains Exploration & Production Company (PXP), United States
PTT Public Company Limited, Thailand
Qatar Petroleum, Qatar
Reliance Industries Limited, India
Repsol YPF, Spain
Rompetrol Group N.V., Romania
Royal Dutch Shell, Netherlands
Sagiz Petroleum, Kazakhstan
San-Ai Oil, Japan
Santos Limited, Australia
Sasol, South Africa
Saudi Aramco, Saudi Arabia (the largest in the world)
Shell Canada, Canada (subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell)
Shell Oil Company, United States (subsidiary of Royal Dutch Shell)
Sinclair Oil, United States
Sinopec, China
Snpc, Congo-Brazzaville
Sonangol, Angola
Sonatrach, Algeria
Singapore Petroleum Company, Singapore
StatoilHydro, Norway
State Oil Company of Azerbaijan, SOCAR Azerbaijan
Somerset Refinery, United States.
State Oil Company of Suriname, Suriname
Sunoco, United States
Suncor Energy, Canada
Surgutneftegaz, Russia
Syncrude, Canada
Talisman Energy, Canada
Tesoro, United States
Todd Energy, New Zealand
Total, France
Tullow Oil, United Kingdom
United Refining Company, United States
Vaalco Energy Inc., United States
Valero Energy Corporation, United States
Wintershall, Germany
Woodside Petroleum, Australia
XTO Energy, United States
YPF, Argentina
YPFB, Bolivia
Honestly, do you even have the slightest idea what a monopoly IS???
> Yet,
> all five of the big'uns are raking in record profits.
The mind boggles at how far up your ass your head is...
I mean...
Damn.
Healthcare cost in
> the US keeps rising partially due to the monopoly big insurers and big
> healthcare equipment manufacturers who keep buying out small ones time
> and time again.
Uh, no. If that were the case new companies would undercut them. The
reason is different.
> > Difference between me and you is that I have an education and you have
> > ignorant prejudice...
>
> There's a difference between having education and being able to apply it.
Yes, I can do both, and you blythely and incomprehensibly segue from
'oil company monopoly' to 'the five biggest'.
James A. Donald
<anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> If you go through 19th century
> socialist literature, however, you will find a lot of
> concern with the workers owning and controlling the
> means of production, and not a lot of concern with the
> state.
This is sort of true, and sort of untrue. In the early
nineteenth century, people believed that the way to
socialism was through revolutionary unionism, that
unions would take over, and this would be socialism.
They did not think of unions as the state, though "one
big union" sounds very like a state.
It rapidly became apparent that revolutionary unions
were unpopular, that the workers wanted a deal, not a
fight. In any free vote, the workers would always vote
for bread and butter unionism - would always vote for
union leaders who wanted a deal with the boss, and
therefore necessarily recognized and accepted the
property rights of the boss. In voting for such
leaders, union members came to accept those values,
thus, as Marx and his successors correctly predicted,
unionism led to the proletariat accepting bourgeois
values. Thus revolutionary unionists increasingly came
to rely on murdering and torturing workers to stay in
power, and blowing up factories to persuade bosses to
negotiate. Revolutionary unionism turned out to be a
dead end, as Marx predicted. Revolutionary union
leaders had to temporize on their revolutionary beliefs
to stay in power, and often lost power during crises in
ways that greatly embarrassed the socialist movement.
With the expiry of revolutionary unionism, socialism
necessarily meant state socialism - though in practice,
revolutionary unionism was never different from state
socialism - observe what happened in Catalonia.
Ray Fischer
>> This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
>> of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
>> monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
>> � to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
>> bankruptcy, and so on.
>
>Nope. NONE of them work in the real world.
The crackpot denies fundamental economic theories.
> I will merely cite your
>utter inability to come up with a real world example of your supposed
>mechanism at work.
We note that your only argument is to declare victory and ignore all
evidence which proves you to be stupid. You pretend that cost of
entry isn't an issue so that you can cling to your cult idiocy.
> Government can say "thou shalt not enter this
>market" but market forces won't.
"Cost of entry"
Look it up.
>Start up costs are faced by everyone
WRONG, moron. If you're already in the market then you don't have to
spend money to enter the market.
Sheesh, just how stupid can you be?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Alan Ford
>
>>> In every industry one seeks to maximize
>>> economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
>>> decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
>>> outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
>>> efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>>> Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
>>> nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
>> This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
>> of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
>> monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
>> to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
>> bankruptcy, and so on.
>
>
> Nope. NONE of them work in the real world. I will merely cite your
> utter inability to come up with a real world example of your supposed
> mechanism at work.
I did, but you snipped it w/o comment.
Government can say "thou shalt not enter this
> market" but market forces won't.
>
> Start up costs are faced by everyone (the monopolist had to pay them
> too) and are a one time fixed expense, more or less irrelevant to an
> ongoing business plan.
Once a monopoly is established and it cornered the market, any startup
costs for a new company are magnitudes larger than it used to be for the
monopoly co.
>
> As to price undercutting, apparently you think the monopoly has
> infinite funds (it would have to underprice everyone all the time,
> once it stops the wolves come back and eat it) and isn't interested in
> profits.
Yeah, you live in a real world... first class naivety. Tell me, then:
where is the competition to Microsoft? And don't give me examples of
Apple or Linux because those two do not compete for the same market.
Where is another windows based OS that can be installed on any PC that
will successfully compete with Microsoft? Nowhere? Strange, since all
one has to do, according to you, is simply start a company and money
just starts rolling in, while Microsoft will idly sit watching their
market lose a share.
[snip a shitload of oil companies that are either subsidiaries of the
big ones or state run monopolies, plus more idiocy]
>
> Healthcare cost in
>> the US keeps rising partially due to the monopoly big insurers and big
>> healthcare equipment manufacturers who keep buying out small ones time
>> and time again.
>
>
>
> Uh, no. If that were the case new companies would undercut them. The
> reason is different.
Yeah, so the reason there have been absolutely no successful new
companies in the healthcare imaging industry in the last ten years is:
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
Enjoy your free market religion delusions. There is nothing that the
free market won't fix, huh? From unemployment to diarrhea.
Shawn Wilson
> >> This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
> >> of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
> >> monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
> >> to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
> >> bankruptcy, and so on.
>
> >Nope. NONE of them work in the real world.
>
> The crackpot denies fundamental economic theories.
Uh, it's that education thing. I know what those theories are. You
don't.
> > I will merely cite your
> >utter inability to come up with a real world example of your supposed
> >mechanism at work.
>
> We note that your only argument is to declare victory and ignore all
> evidence which proves you to be stupid. You pretend that cost of
> entry isn't an issue so that you can cling to your cult idiocy.
Where are your examples?
> > Government can say "thou shalt not enter this
> >market" but market forces won't.
>
> "Cost of entry"
So where are you monopolies then? You claim the forces are
universal. Name a dozen... Explain why cost of entry didn't stop any
other company.
> >Start up costs are faced by everyone
>
> WRONG, moron. If you're already in the market then you don't have to
> spend money to enter the market.
How does that work? Do you think Microsoft magically didn't have
start up costs? If start up costs are so criticial, how is Wal-Mart
such a huge player? Can you even name the companies that dominated
that industry then?
> Sheesh, just how stupid can you be?
Hmmm... it seems your facade is breaking. Can't keep that
irrationality looking plausible, can you?
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 30, 4:26�pm, rfisc...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>
>> >> This is so childish that it hardly requires a rebuttal. There are dozens
>> >> of reasons "new firms" cannot enter the market that is cornered by a
>> >> monopoly, from the initial start-up cost to years of operating with loss
>> >> � to the big monopoly being able to underprice the startups into
>> >> bankruptcy, and so on.
>>
>> >Nope. �NONE of them work in the real world.
>>
>> The crackpot denies fundamental economic theories.
>
>Uh, it's that education thing.
Which you clearly do not have.
>> > �I will merely cite your
>> >utter inability to come up with a real world example of your supposed
>> >mechanism at work.
>>
>> We note that your only argument is to declare victory and ignore all
>> evidence which proves you to be stupid. �You pretend that cost of
>> entry isn't an issue so that you can cling to your cult idiocy.
>
>Where are your examples?
Why aren't there more competitors to Microsoft? Or Intel?
>> > �Government can say "thou shalt not enter this
>> >market" but market forces won't.
>>
>> "Cost of entry"
>
>So where are you monopolies then?
And the moron runs away again.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Anarcissie
<ihhnj5pm2lpopr8t4...@4ax.com>,
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> On Wed, 30 Dec 2009 06:50:27 -0800 (PST), "*Anarcissie*"
> <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > If you go through 19th century
> > socialist literature, however, you will find a lot of
> > concern with the workers owning and controlling the
> > means of production, and not a lot of concern with the
> > state.
>
> This is sort of true, and sort of untrue. In the early
> nineteenth century, people believed that the way to
> socialism was through revolutionary unionism, that
> unions would take over, and this would be socialism.
> They did not think of unions as the state, though "one
> big union" sounds very like a state. ...
It was a bit more complicated than that. There were
many different proposals for what socialism would look
like, and many different proposals as to how to get
there. The central idea, however, was the ownership
and control of the means of production by the workers,
a synthesis of the two or three classes into which
people had been divided by liberalism, capitalism and
the industrial revolution.
In the 20th century, the idea of having a totalitarian
state in which every activity is directed by central
authorities with government powers became popular
enough to come to power in several European countries.
This idea was given its clearest expression by Mussolini
and other fascist theorists, so I think the proper term
for it is _fascism_. Lenin, who seems to have believed
in about the same thing, was less clear, since he
conflated socialism and capitalism (as in "state
capitalism") with it.
The idea is still quite popular, especially among
ruling-class types, but one doesn't call it "fascism"
any more -- the word is too hot.
Socialism, meanwhile, is (as far as I know) nowhere a
government policy. It seems to be quite unpopular
among almost all classes and categories. If people
won't even join unions they can hardly be expected to
take over the companies they work at. The minority who
do desire to own and control their means of production
go do it privately without talking about it too much,
as if they were practicing an unfashionable form of sex
or drug use. No doubt the idea of socialism will
continue to appeal to some intellectuals, eccentrics
and dissidents, but the majority don't seem to have
any idea of the basic concept.
The main recent interest in "socialism" seems to have
been provoked by the frequent assertion that Obama was
a socialist. Since Obama was very popular, many poorly
informed people thought, therefore, that socialism must
be a good thing, whatever it was. Now that Obama has
proved to be the extremely cautious small-c
conservative establishment politician less romantic
observers had observed before he was elected, the
interest in whatever-socialism seems to have declined.
Anarcissie
<6a8e7f99-723a-4758...@a32g2000yqm.googl
egroups.com>,
Shawn Wilson <ikono...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Dec 29, 2:14�pm, Alan Ford <zzz....@qqq.net> wrote:
>
> > >> wouldn't you agree that a true capitalist would
> > >> necessarily rather be a monopolist?
> >
> > > Of course not. � A 'true capitalist' will seek to maximize his
> > > profits. �Monopolies are almost never the way to do that.
> > . . .
> > I've read your shit for weeks now and just when I think you can't
> > possibly top the stupid, you always pleasantly surprise me.
> >
> > So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
> > believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
> > never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
>
> No, that isn't what I said. In every industry one seeks to maximize
> economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
> decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
> outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
> efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>
> Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
> nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
I think the career of Microsoft substantially
contradicts what you have written above. The company
has exercised an effective monopoly over PC operating
system software since the 1980s. Monopoly may not
be the most profitable policy in the long run, but
evidently the management of Microsoft thought it was
definitely the way to go in the short run.
In the matter of maximizing economies of scale, it may
be that when companies grow beyond a certain point they
become inefficient and are vulnerable to smaller
competitors, although I can't think of a good example
off-hand. One thing a monopolist can do, however, is
inhibit its own growth and the growth of the sector of
the economy it dominates. As an example of this, Bill
Gates at one point explicitly stated that Microsoft was
not in business to advance technology or do computer
science, but to make money. Hence, once Microsoft
neutralized Netscape, it stopped developing Internet
Explorer for years. The same is true of its operating
system, although this had already become pretty static
after NT/XP appeared because it had no serious
competitors whatever. The fact that Microsoft sat on
the personal computer market like a giant, poisonous
toad slaying all that came within its purview almost
certainly inhibited development of personal computer
software and hardware. It is only recently that that
domination has been compromised at its periphery.
Microsoft has also been able to edit state power with
respect to their sector to their advantage. On the one
hand, the absurd extensions of copyright law which have
been brought about by others in recent decades have
operated to their advantage, a crucial element in
inhibiting competitors, while on the other hand their
political influence has warded off the normal
government treatment of monopolies (break-up or
regulation).
Someday, something will destroy or eat Microsoft, but
this won't change the fact that they operated a
successful monopoly for at least 30 years.
Shawn Wilson
> In the 20th century, the idea of having a totalitarian
> state in which every activity is directed by central
> authorities with government powers became popular
> enough to come to power in several European countries.
> This idea was given its clearest expression by Mussolini
> and other fascist theorists, so I think the proper term
> for it is _fascism_. Lenin, who seems to have believed
> in about the same thing, was less clear, since he
> conflated socialism and capitalism (as in "state
> capitalism") with it.
Note that Nazi germnay and the Soviet Union had more in common with
each other than with any other country. Communism is merely a flavor
of Fascism.
> Socialism, meanwhile, is (as far as I know) nowhere a
> government policy.
Except for most of Europe, indeed most of the *world*... at least in
it's 'light' version. Socialism was manifested as government control
of industry 'for the common good'. BEcause power seeking politiciand
are somehow magically supposed to be more trustworthy that mere profit
seeking businessmen...
> It seems to be quite unpopular
> among almost all classes and categories. If people
> won't even join unions they can hardly be expected to
> take over the companies they work at.
Union membership is rare in the US, not so much in other countries.
And just because don't actually want socialism doesn't mean government
won't force it on them 'for their own good'.
> No doubt the idea of socialism will
> continue to appeal to some intellectuals, eccentrics
> and dissidents, but the majority don't seem to have
> any idea of the basic concept.
Government controil of the economy? FAR too many people think that's
a good idea. Look at recent history. The idea that government can
even attempt to intervene without incompetence is false. But they
intervene anyway and make thing worse.
The economic stimulus of Obama is based solely and entirely on the
economic theories of Keynes. Keynes+ was simply wrong. We know he
was wrong. Unfortunately he was not wrong in any obvious smoking gun
sort of way.
So Keynesians think they can stimulate the economy by raising spending
(and taxes) because government spending QUA government spending has,
under Keynes theory, a multiplier effect. A dollar from the
government counts as more than a dollar from anyone else. The
negative impact of taxation (and somehow people NEVER mention that
raising taxes has a DEstimulating economic effect...)(oh, and
'borrowing' is just the promise of future tax increases to pay it
back) is more than offset by the stimulus effect of the spending and
we lift ourselves by our own bootstraps. In theory...
More realistic economists use models derived from the Ramsey-Solow+-
Tobin+-Sidrauski school, which *isn't* broken by later research. (a
critical assumption in Keynes was broken by Walras+) Ramsey, et al
predict that government spending is no different than any other
spending, but unfortunately raising that money by taxation DOES have
an intrinsic and unavoidable multiplier on the downside called 'The
Excess Burden of Taxation'.
In the US 'today' that means that each additional dollar of taxes
raised means the government takes out of the economy at least $1.50.
No, that does NOT pay for the tax collectors and bureaucrats. They
are paid out of the dollar raised. The extra 50 cents simply
disappears from the economy.
So, we have two competing schools. One predicts that the stimulus
package will add about half a trillion dollars (government spending
multiplier) to the economy and make things better than otherwise
expected. The other predicts that it would SUBTRACT half a trillion
(excess burden of taxation) and makes things worse than expected.
Guess who won? Guess who ALWAYS wins? No, the New Deal didn't
alleviate the Great Depression either. But people who like big
government just keep coming back to Keynes...
Note, people marked with a + won the Nobel Prize for their work.
Ramsey would have also but he died decades before the Economics prize
was created.
When you hear talk about left versus right economists, or 'salt water'
versus 'fresh water' or [whatever] v 'University of Chicago' or
'Chicago School THIS is the dividing line.
> The main recent interest in "socialism" seems to have
> been provoked by the frequent assertion that Obama was
> a socialist.
Well, he obviously is. His policies are all socialist and have always
been socialist. He just doesn't call himself one.
Shawn Wilson
> > No, that isn't what I said. In every industry one seeks to maximize
> > economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
> > decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
> > outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
> > efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>
> > Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
> > nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
>
> I think the career of Microsoft substantially
> contradicts what you have written above.
Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS. One OS for App
developers to write for is more efficient than many. And one OS for
users to buy software for is more efficient than many. Monopoly is an
efficient market solution in this case.
And despite that Wondows is not a monopoly. It faces competition
(albeit weak) from Linux and Apple.
Monopolies are infinitely harder to obtain than people think. Unless
you have government help...
> In the matter of maximizing economies of scale, it may
> be that when companies grow beyond a certain point they
> become inefficient and are vulnerable to smaller
> competitors, although I can't think of a good example
> off-hand.
In this case the corporate inefficiencies of larger size are offset by
market efficiencies of everyone have one common OS. In other markets
there are no real market efficiences to be had by one choice.
One thing a monopolist can do, however, is
> inhibit its own growth and the growth of the sector of
> the economy it dominates.
And encourage people to switch to Apple/Linux?
As an example of this, Bill
> Gates at one point explicitly stated that Microsoft was
> not in business to advance technology or do computer
> science, but to make money.
This is a GOOD thing. Apple tried the monopoly control thing, and
LOST the monopoly they had had.
> Hence, once Microsoft
> neutralized Netscape, it stopped developing Internet
> Explorer for years.
Until, opps, they lost their monopoly to stronger competition... Then
they had to scramble to catch up.
The same is true of its operating
> system, although this had already become pretty static
> after NT/XP appeared because it had no serious
> competitors whatever. The fact that Microsoft sat on
> the personal computer market like a giant, poisonous
> toad slaying all that came within its purview almost
> certainly inhibited development of personal computer
> software and hardware. It is only recently that that
> domination has been compromised at its periphery.
Well, no. Once upon a time Apple acted that way. They used to be THE
major home computer maker. Now they are fringe...
*Anarcissie*
> On Dec 31, 9:57 am, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > > No, that isn't what I said. In every industry one seeks to maximize
> > > economies of scale. Those economies increase to some point, and then
> > > decrease. A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
> > > outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. The more
> > > efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>
> > > Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
> > > nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
>
> > I think the career of Microsoft substantially
> > contradicts what you have written above.
>
> Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
> NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS. One OS for App
> developers to write for is more efficient than many. And one OS for
> users to buy software for is more efficient than many. Monopoly is an
> efficient market solution in this case.
There is nothing natural about the monopoly: there are dozens
of companies who could knock off a version of Windows XP.
However, they'd get sued, that is, the monopoly is maintained
by state force, as monopolies usually are.
*Anarcissie*
> On Dec 31, 9:25 am, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > In the 20th century, the idea of having a totalitarian
> > state in which every activity is directed by central
> > authorities with government powers became popular
> > enough to come to power in several European countries.
> > This idea was given its clearest expression by Mussolini
> > and other fascist theorists, so I think the proper term
> > for it is _fascism_. Lenin, who seems to have believed
> > in about the same thing, was less clear, since he
> > conflated socialism and capitalism (as in "state
> > capitalism") with it.
>
> Note that Nazi germnay and the Soviet Union had more in common with
> each other than with any other country. Communism is merely a flavor
> of Fascism.
>
> > Socialism, meanwhile, is (as far as I know) nowhere a
> > government policy.
>
> Except for most of Europe, indeed most of the *world*... at least in
> it's 'light' version. Socialism was manifested as government control
> of industry 'for the common good'. BEcause power seeking politiciand
> are somehow magically supposed to be more trustworthy that mere profit
> seeking businessmen...
You are describing fascism. If you use the word "socialism"
to mean fascism, then you will have no word for the
ownership and control of the means of production by the
workers, no way to warn other people about it and forbid
it, and it will creep up on you and get yo' mama.
Ray Fischer
> Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> In the 20th century, the idea of having a totalitarian
>> state in which every activity is directed by central
>> authorities with government powers became popular
>> enough to come to power in several European countries.
>> This idea was given its clearest expression by Mussolini
>> and other fascist theorists, so I think the proper term
>> for it is _fascism_. �Lenin, who seems to have believed
>> in about the same thing, was less clear, since he
>> conflated socialism and capitalism (as in "state
>> capitalism") with it.
>
>Note that Nazi germnay and the Soviet Union had more in common with
>each other than with any other country.
They each killed several million of each other's people in WWII.
> Communism is merely a flavor
>of Fascism.
You really are a moron.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 31, 9:57�am, Anarcissie <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> > No, that isn't what I said. �In every industry one seeks to maximize
>> > economies of scale. �Those economies increase to some point, and then
>> > decrease. �A firm in the region of decrease will be underpriced,
>> > outsold and outcompeted by a smaller, more efficient firm. �The more
>> > efficient firm can simply produce at a lower cost.
>>
>> > Even if you come up with the money to buy out EVERY competing firm,
>> > nothing can stop new firms from entering the market.
>>
>> I think the career of Microsoft substantially
>> contradicts what you have written above.
>
>Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
>NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS.
So now you admit that there are such things as monopolies.
Your stories are ever changing.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Shawn Wilson
> So in the latest installment of your Idiot's Guide To Idiocy, we are to
> believe that if a company has a full monopoly on the market, it will
> never make as much money as it would if it had dozens of competitors.
Costs money to maintain that monopoly...
Shawn Wilson
> Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >On Dec 29, 8:48 am, "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >> > > I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
> >> > > economy could not have famines.
>
> >The intrinsic reason is that famine is unprofitable. Or, rather,
> >alleviating the effects of poor production is extremely profitable.
>
> Crackpot.
>
> >The price elasticity of sustenance is *extremely* low. Damn near zero
> >in fact.
>
> People with no money cannot afford even cheap food.
Then they died before the famine started and aren't an issue...
If your income is
> $1/day (as is the case with about 1,000,000,000 of the world's people)
> then there is no significant profit to be made no matter how efficient
> your production is.
Really? I bet I can hire as many $1 a day people as I want, for $1 a
day...
Free Lunch
alt.atheism:
Windows is a completely artificial monopoly created by government fiat.
Gerry Quinn
37g2000vbn.googlegroups.com>, anarc...@gmail.com says...
> On Dec 31, 3:16 pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
> > NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS. One OS for App
> > developers to write for is more efficient than many. And one OS for
> > users to buy software for is more efficient than many. Monopoly is an
> > efficient market solution in this case.
>
> There is nothing natural about the monopoly: there are dozens
> of companies who could knock off a version of Windows XP.
> However, they'd get sued, that is, the monopoly is maintained
> by state force, as monopolies usually are.
How do you mean "knock off a version of Windows XP"? Sell a pirated
copy?
There are other OS's available for PC; I would not insult their makers
by claiming that they are knowck-offs of Windows XP. Unfortunately for
their creators, most people prefer to use Windows (Linux is free and it
STILL can't compete!).
By "state force" do you mean laws relating to the suppression of
pirating scum? Linux, MacOS, AmigaOS, BeOS, and the like are perfectly
legal - no state force is suppressing them. (Indeed, MS could
reasonably claim that oppressive laws force them to deliver parasitic
third party browsers etc. with thir OS.)
- Gerry Quinn
Gerry Quinn
lu...@nofreelunch.us says...
> Windows is a completely artificial monopoly created by government fiat.
What a moronic statement.
- Gerry Quinn
Free Lunch
in alt.atheism:
What do you call intellectual property?
Free Lunch
wrote in alt.atheism:
Copyright, trademark, patent.
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 29, 7:59�pm, rfisc...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
>> Shawn Wilson �<ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> > "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> >> > > I don't see any intrinsic reason why a capitalist
>> >> > > economy could not have famines.
>>
>> >The intrinsic reason is that famine is unprofitable. �Or, rather,
>> >alleviating the effects of poor production is extremely profitable.
>>
>> Crackpot.
>>
>> >The price elasticity of sustenance is *extremely* low. �Damn near zero
>> >in fact.
>>
>> People with no money cannot afford even cheap food.
>
>Then they died before the famine started and aren't an issue...
Every time I think that you can't out-stupid yourself you go and prove
me wrong.
> �If your income is
>> $1/day (as is the case with about 1,000,000,000 of the world's people)
>> then there is no significant profit to be made no matter how efficient
>> your production is.
>
>Really?
Duh, yes.
> I bet I can hire as many $1 a day people as I want, for $1 a
>day...
Yeah, go for it Mr-Business-Genius. I'll look forward to seeing your
name on the Forbes top 100.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
>On Dec 31, 3:16�pm, Shawn Wilson <ikonoql...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
>> NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS. �One OS for App
>> developers to write for is more efficient than many. �And one OS for
>> users to buy software for is more efficient than many. �Monopoly is an
>> efficient market solution in this case.
>
>There is nothing natural about the monopoly: there are dozens
>of companies who could knock off a version of Windows XP.
It's not as easy as all that.
>However, they'd get sued, that is, the monopoly is maintained
>by state force, as monopolies usually are.
You can indeed steal other people's property and, in the state allows
it, you can make money doing so. And yes, a monopoly is not possible
when stealing is legal.
Relevance?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
Ray Fischer
Ray Fischer
> Gerry Quinn <ger...@indigo.ie> wrote
>>lu...@nofreelunch.us says...
>>> Windows is a completely artificial monopoly created by government fiat.
>>
>>What a moronic statement.
>>
>>- Gerry Quinn
>>
>>
>What do you call intellectual property?
I call it intellectual property. What do you call it?
Are you one of those anarchists who thinks that you have a right to
anything that you want?
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
DouhetSukd
>
> Socialism is really no different from communism.
>
> It relies on the principle of beating people, usually psychologically,
> but sometimes beyond that boundary, out of their wants, into being
> slaves to the system's determining what everyone ought to have and how
> much they ought to have of what they are given. That, as in communism,
> is largely run by a capitalist elite.
>
> It never fails.
>
> Robert Morpheal
That's pretty effing stupid. I find socialism inefficient
economically and sometimes patronizing, sure. But it starts out with
good, if flawed, intentions and it didn't send millions of innocents
to the gulags. Big difference. Might I suggest reading Solzhenitsyn
for a clearer view of Communism?
Perhaps you should spend some of your brain cycles researching the
difference between a Stalin and, say, the ruling party of France circa
1990s (like Mitterand, whom I heartily disliked). Or like Callaghan,
in the UK, who was Thatcher's predecessor. I mostly liked Thatcher
and presumably Callaghan was someone incompetent enough to get a
majority to like her as well in a hitherto socialist country. But
that's pretty much it... incompetence and dogma, not evil.
European socialism has now mostly morphed into a left of center blend
which is not necessarily any worse at economic management or civil
liberties than their right of center counterparts. It's not
particularly good at liberal economics but neither are the right in
most of those countries because that is not what the voters want.
ZnU
Anarcissie <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
[snip]
> Socialism, meanwhile, is (as far as I know) nowhere a government
> policy. It seems to be quite unpopular among almost all classes and
> categories. If people won't even join unions they can hardly be
> expected to take over the companies they work at. The minority who
> do desire to own and control their means of production go do it
> privately without talking about it too much,
One of the interesting things that has happened as developed economies
have shifted away from large-scale industrial manufacturing is that it
has become increasingly easy for people to choose to control their means
of production. Instead of being a vast factory that, even with
collective ownership, you'd only own a tiny fraction of, those means
increasingly consist of a computer worth one or two weeks wages, and the
contents of your brain.
[snip]
--
"The game of professional investment is intolerably boring and over-exacting to
anyone who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it
must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll." -- John Maynard Keynes
Ray Fischer
> Anarcissie <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Socialism, meanwhile, is (as far as I know) nowhere a government
>> policy. It seems to be quite unpopular among almost all classes and
>> categories. If people won't even join unions they can hardly be
>> expected to take over the companies they work at. The minority who
>> do desire to own and control their means of production go do it
>> privately without talking about it too much,
>
>One of the interesting things that has happened as developed economies
>have shifted away from large-scale industrial manufacturing is that it
>has become increasingly easy for people to choose to control their means
>of production. Instead of being a vast factory that, even with
>collective ownership, you'd only own a tiny fraction of, those means
>increasingly consist of a computer worth one or two weeks wages, and the
>contents of your brain.
Wafer fabrication plants (needed to make the integrated circuits
used in computers) routinely cost billions of dollars.
--
Ray Fischer
rfis...@sonic.net
ZnU
rfis...@sonic.net (Ray Fischer) wrote:
Sure. I'm not saying there's nothing that requires major capital
investment anymore. Some projects undertaken by private industry are
still astoundingly big. Large-scale fiber optic network rollouts, for
instance. Or development of complex modern computer software.
I'm just saying that there's a lot more that doesn't require major
capital investment -- probably more than enough that everyone who's
really serious about being able to run their own show can choose to do
so, if they're willing to pick an industry where that sort of thing
works. And technology opens up more possibilities along these lines
every year.
*Anarcissie*
> In article <9e3245fa-cc29-4e00-8e34-6a4b8d009512@
Yes, copyright is state force. Your use of the term "pirating
scum" suggests that you are quite passionate about the
matter, however, so I will try to avoid discussing it. We
will pretend it was handed down along with the Ten
Commandments at Sinai.
In order to compete with Microsoft, people would have to
construct a seamless imitation of the look and feel (stolen
from Apple, who stole in from Xerox, who stole it from
that fellow at Stanford) and of course of the application-
OS interfaces, which even if done completely from
scratch would almost certainly contain actionable
material. Microsoft's willingness to litigate can be
observed in many areas, such as their support for the
phony SCO lawsuit against Linux.
Without our peculiar intellectual property laws,
Microsoft's monopoly would disappear overnight;
it is not a natural monopoly.
Greg Goss
>Microsoft is n the position of having one of the very very rare
>NATURAL monopolies, in controlling the Windows OS. One OS for App
>developers to write for is more efficient than many. And one OS for
>users to buy software for is more efficient than many. Monopoly is an
>efficient market solution in this case.
>
>And despite that Wondows is not a monopoly. It faces competition
>(albeit weak) from Linux and Apple.
In the days before the rise of Linux, I was suggesting that the OS
side of Microsoft be a regulated monopoly, like a power company or
telco.
Since then, of course, they've figured out how to deregulate and
demonopolize most aspects of power supply to homes and business, and
most aspects of telcos.
>Monopolies are infinitely harder to obtain than people think. Unless
>you have government help...
I think that copyrights and software patents run too long.
> �The same is true of its operating
>> system, although this had already become pretty static
>> after NT/XP appeared because it had no serious
>> competitors whatever. � The fact that Microsoft sat on
>> the personal computer market like a giant, poisonous
>> toad slaying all that came within its purview almost
>> certainly inhibited development of personal computer
>> software and hardware. �It is only recently that that
>> domination has been compromised at its periphery.
>
>
>Well, no. Once upon a time Apple acted that way. They used to be THE
>major home computer maker. Now they are fringe...
Apple never owned the home market. I think that the Trash-80 had
close to 60% of the market at one point in there -- kinda difficult if
someone else has a monopoly. Apple welcomed the IBM because they
thought that it would legitimize a business market that Apple could
sell into. Apple lost that bet because their Apple /// was unreliable
and had to be REintroduced after their momentum had been lost.
About the only "monopolistic" act I can think of from the early days
of Apple was suppressing the ][x computer that Woz was working on
because it might compete with Jobs' Macintosh. Introducing the ][x as
the GS a year and a half too late was a major point in letting the IBM
clones step into the home market and let the Amiga get a foothold into
the upper home market.
--
Tomorrow is today already.
Greg Goss, 1989-01-27
Greg Goss
>In order to compete with Microsoft, people would have to
>construct a seamless imitation of the look and feel (stolen
>from Apple, who stole in from Xerox, who stole it from
>that fellow at Stanford) and of course of the application-
>OS interfaces, which even if done completely from
>scratch would almost certainly contain actionable
>material.
I noticed that Lotus didn't start suing people for looking like 1-2-3
until after they had bought the smoking wreckage of Visicalc. (what
ever happened to the look and feel copyright suits over spreadsheets?
Copyright on look and feel was the big thing in the eighties and seems
dead since.)
*Anarcissie*
It didn't work out very well for Apple.
Spreadsheets were prior art. I worked on a
spreadsheet program for PCs before Visicalc. Had
the idea- and money-man had more money and fewer
ideas, it might have been he and not Visicalc who went
first over the wall and became a smoking wreck. But
in any case there was no way of patenting or copy-
righting spreadsheets.
John Stafford
<04b7ce92-c761-4f33...@u20g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>,
"*Anarcissie*" <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Jan 1, 1:01�pm, Greg Goss <go...@gossg.org> wrote:
> > "*Anarcissie*" <anarcis...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > >In order to compete with Microsoft, people would have to
> > >construct a seamless imitation of the look and feel (stolen
> > >from Apple, who stole in from Xerox, who stole it from
> > >that fellow at Stanford) and of course of the application-
> > >OS interfaces, which even if done completely from
> > >scratch would almost certainly contain actionable
> > >material. �
> >
> > I noticed that Lotus didn't start suing people for looking like 1-2-3
> > until after they had bought the smoking wreckage of Visicalc. �(what
> > ever happened to the look and feel copyright suits over spreadsheets?
> > Copyright on look and feel was the big thing in the eighties and seems
> > dead since.)
>
> It didn't work out very well for Apple.
>
> Spreadsheets were prior art. I worked on a
> spreadsheet program for PCs before Visicalc.
Which personal computer? Visicalc preceded the introduction of the IBM
PC. In fact, it _made_ Apple at the time.
Enkidu
I ran VisiCalc on a trash-80 model I myself.
--
Enkidu
Howard Brazee
<ikono...@gmail.com> wrote:
>Monopolies are infinitely harder to obtain than people think. Unless
>you have government help...
Even with government help, they are hard to keep. Consider cable TV.
A government monopoly did not stop alternative technologies from
providing competition.
It is quite possible that the monopoly of the OS is on it's last legs,
as in the next decade or two applications won't be OS driven. Some
evidence of this is the merging of phones, tablets, desktops, and
mainframes. Google seems to think it can dominate in this trend.
--
"In no part of the constitution is more wisdom to be found,
than in the clause which confides the question of war or peace
to the legislature, and not to the executive department."
- James Madison
*Anarcissie*
> In article
> <04b7ce92-c761-4f33-a903-5c48edf2b...@u20g2000vbq.googlegroups.com>,
I don't remember. This was a long time before the IBM
PC, back in the days when PCs were really just for
hobbyists. The idea man had a number of bad ideas, one
of which was to build a dedicated machine which would do
only spreadsheets. Another was that the calculations
would be hard-coded. My job was to do a proof-of-concept
which would run on a minicomputer so he could then get
investors to build the dedicated machine. Everything was
to be in Basic, which was pretty bad but probably the
only language one could count on to be running on a
lot of different machines. When he began to talk about
how we were all going to make millions but he couldn't
pay anything just then, I bowed out, suggesting that he
find himself a bright high-school student with time
on his hands and no need to pay the mortgage. I ran
into him several months later and he said he had
followed my advice and they were all going to make
millions, etc. I guess Visicalc beat him out because
he was not one of their principals and in fact I
never heard of him again.
Another war story....
Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)
> In order to compete with Microsoft, people would have to
> construct a seamless imitation of the look and feel (stolen
> from Apple, who stole in from Xerox,
IIRC, Apple BOUGHT the rights from Xerox, as Xerox Parc was not using it.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Live Journal: http://seawasp.livejournal.com
teresita
>IIRC, Apple BOUGHT the rights from Xerox, as Xerox Parc was not
>using it.
The got it for $24 of blue glass beads, which are now on display at the
Chief Crazy Horse gift shop.
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
Greg Goss
>John Stafford wrote:
>
>> "*Anarcissie*" <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Spreadsheets were prior art. I worked on a
>>> spreadsheet program for PCs before Visicalc.
>>
>> Which personal computer? Visicalc preceded the introduction of the IBM
>> PC. In fact, it _made_ Apple at the time.
>
>I ran VisiCalc on a trash-80 model I myself.
Visicalc ran, if I recall correctly, only on machines with
memory-mapped bytewise video memory (Apple, PET/CBM and TRS-80 and
eventually the IBM). Did it run on terminal-based computers like the
CP/M guys? (and did the TRS-80 Mod II have memory-mapped video?)
I may be remembering it wrong, but did the terminal-based CP/M guys
have a popular spreadsheet before Supercalc?
(I was only an observer on the personal computer market in the
seventies. I didn't get a "real" job till 81, and the bank turned me
down on a loan to get an IBM. I didn't get a "real" computer till 85,
after a sidetrack through the C64. As an observer only, my memories
may be faulty on the state of business software on CP/M)
teresita
>> Spreadsheets were prior art. I worked on a spreadsheet program for PCs
>> before Visicalc.
>
> Which personal computer? Visicalc preceded the introduction of the IBM
> PC. In fact, it _made_ Apple at the time.
WikiPedia sez: "VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for
personal computers."
If the first spreadsheet had been on the Trash-80, we'd be using Radio
Shack net phones and listening to music on Radio Shack portable players
today.
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
teresita
> But
> in any case there was no way of patenting or copy- righting
> spreadsheets.
Yet they can patent the idea of going to the shopping cart with "one
click" of the mouse....
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
teresita
> In the days before the rise of Linux, I was suggesting that the OS side
> of Microsoft be a regulated monopoly, like a power company or telco.
I use Linux, and there's no "rise of Linux"...the penetration is about 1
or 2 percent of desktops. It remains a hacker's plaything.
--
Teresita
http://hackylinux.blogspot.com/
Free Lunch
alt.atheism:
VisiCalc first ran on the Apple ][, which used a 6502-based
microprocessor. Much of the Apple ]['s success was that VisiCalc ran on
it, though VisiCorp expanded to other personal computers not that long
afterward. The lack of success that would later allow IBM to develop a
dominant personal computer came from some poor choices with the Apple
/// and the Lisa.
Howard Brazee
<ikono...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>Except for most of Europe, indeed most of the *world*... at least in
>it's 'light' version. Socialism was manifested as government control
>of industry 'for the common good'. BEcause power seeking politiciand
>are somehow magically supposed to be more trustworthy that mere profit
>seeking businessmen...
I'll call the "light" version, corporations. They do the same
thing, to a lesser value of "common". Same advantages, same
problems.
>The economic stimulus of Obama is based solely and entirely on the
>economic theories of Keynes. Keynes+ was simply wrong. We know he
>was wrong. Unfortunately he was not wrong in any obvious smoking gun
>sort of way.
Of course, the Republicans have the same bosses as the Democrats.
That's why Obama's promised change did not come here - he kept the
same policies as Bush.
Follow the money.
John Stafford
teresita <rub...@newsguy.com> wrote:
> On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 12:33:15 -0600, John Stafford wrote:
>
> >> Spreadsheets were prior art. I worked on a spreadsheet program for PCs
> >> before Visicalc.
> >
> > Which personal computer? Visicalc preceded the introduction of the IBM
> > PC. In fact, it _made_ Apple at the time.
>
> WikiPedia sez: "VisiCalc was the first spreadsheet program available for
> personal computers."
It was first available on the Apple II which preceded the IBM PC.
*Anarcissie*
> On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:18:01 -0800, *Anarcissie* wrote:
> > But
> > in any case there was no way of patenting or copy- righting
> > spreadsheets.
>
> Yet they can patent the idea of going to the shopping cart with "one
> click" of the mouse....
You're right, I should have said there was no reasonable way
of patenting or copyrighting spreadsheets. A few years ago I
saw that some producer of a music-playing program had tried
to patent the hierarchical file system. I guess in the spirit
of 'Got lawyers?'
Mike Schilling
> On Fri, 01 Jan 2010 10:18:01 -0800, *Anarcissie* wrote:
>
>> But
>> in any case there was no way of patenting or copy- righting
>> spreadsheets.
>
> Yet they can patent the idea of going to the shopping cart with "one
> click" of the mouse....
Or making the cursor white on a black background but black on a white
one.