Socialism or Capitalism: What is better?
nob...@nowhere.com
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>(Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
>> Of course, a laundry list of Bad Things about socialism/communism etc.
>> is completely unconvincing. What is needed are *four* lists: a list of
>> pros and cons for both sides (of a debate). To be specific, a list of
>> virtues of capitalism, plus a list of faults of socialism, needs to be
>> balanced by a list of the faults of capitalism plus a list of the
>> virtues of socialism.
>
>Socialism necessarily results in famine
Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children and
emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the Berlin
wall fell down?
or tyranny, or both for
>reasons that are obvious, and were explained long ago.
>
>> If you can't see *anything* to put (in those last two lists), you look
>> (to me) biased.
>
>Let us compare actually existent socialism to actually existent
>capitalism, and you tell us what virtues you think socialism had.
AFAIK, neither of you have any experience of life in former
USSR.
Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former USSR
and other socialist countries? Do they love capitalism and
democracy they have now, or do they want the USSR back?
>
>And if you want to compare hypothetical socialism to actually existent
>capitalism, please address the reasoning that explains why socialism
>always turns out the way it has always turned out.
john fernbach
> >Socialism necessarily results in famine
>
> Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children and
> emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the Berlin
> wall fell down?
>
German Communism was not such a great thing -- but this statement is
FALSE, isn't it?
What "pot bellied children and emaciated walking skeletons" were there
when the
Berlin Wall fell?
None I can recall from the media reports at the time.
True: A lot of East Germans really did dislike their Communist
government and economy,
and they really did applaud the fall of Communism. German "socialism"
or Communism
in its last years wasn't popular at all.
But there weren't any signs of gross poverty in East Germany that I
remember.
Do you have any cites for your statement? Any respectable sources?
Now in Communist Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu, there was
horrible hunger during the 1980s -- partly because Romania had gotten
large loans from foreign Western bankers, as many less-developed
countries had during the 1970s and 1980s, and because Ceauşescu was
scrupulous about repaying Romania's debts -- at a steep cost to his
people.
And Communism in some other places also caused some terrible hunger
problems. In the late 1950s and early 1960s in China under Mao Zhe
Dong, for example, there was a collapse in food production that some
sources estimate may have killed up to 25 million people, thanks to
Mao's ill-fated "great leap forward" campaign.
But I think you're just full of it when you write about near-
starvation in connection with the Berlin Wall.
East German Communism, like communism in many other parts of Eastern
Europe, was pretty unpleasant and authoritarian, but it mostly fed its
people -- and the Germans being Germans, they were a bit more
successful at keeping fed than some of their Communist neighbors.
Why don't you know this? Do you in fact know much of anything about
Communism, except myths that you've been handed by professional
apologists for capitalism?
You appear to be just handing on a anti-communist legend you heard or
read somewhere, without bothering to check its accuracy. Shame on you
-- not for being anti-communist, but for spreading ignorance on the
Internet.
>
Jonathan L Cunningham
> In article <7ukb84hsqe32kmtcb...@4ax.com>
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>
> >(Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
> >> Of course, a laundry list of Bad Things about socialism/communism etc.
> >> If you can't see *anything* to put (in those last two lists), you look
> >> (to me) biased.
> >
> >Let us compare actually existent socialism to actually existent
> >capitalism, and you tell us what virtues you think socialism had.
>
> AFAIK, neither of you have any experience of life in former
> USSR.
>
> Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former USSR
I don't regard the former USSR as demonstrating all forms of socialism.
In particular, I differentiate between soviet communism and other
political systems which might be called socialism.
Picking a *single* system is not a good way to understand a general
concept, although it can be useful to understand a specific example as
giving insight into the general problem.
What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the general
case?
Jonathan
(Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
all Africans are murderers.)
--
Jonathan L Cunningham
Yukon
> Jonathan
> (Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
> like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
> political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
> the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
> than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
> all Africans are murderers.)
>
> --
>
> - Show quoted text -
One of the dumbest statements I read in a long time. Do you study
history at all? y
James A. Donald
> > Socialism necessarily results in famine
> Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children
> and emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the
> Berlin wall fell down?
They don't have famines all the time, but they have
famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor quality
food most of the time.
Further, international progressives are reluctant to say
"famine" unless commies are dropping like flies. I
recall when Cubans had adequate calories, but multiple
nutritional deficiencies was causing an epidemic of
blindness, and one could not hear anyone doubt that in
Cuba, poverty did not oppress.
> Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former
> USSR and other socialist countries? Do they love
> capitalism and democracy they have now, or do they
> want the USSR back?
There is not one party in the USSR which will run on the
program of putting things wholly back to the old
economic order. There are some parties that promise to
put somethings back the way they were, while somehow
preserving the benefits of the new capitalism, but
anyone who stood on a platform of restoring the old
economic order, lock stock and barrel, would be treated
as simply evil and insane. Even the communist party is
not communist, but is proposing some kind of moderated
market order, that will not be the way things were.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> Picking a *single* system is not a good way to understand a general
> concept, although it can be useful to understand a specific example as
> giving insight into the general problem.
So who are your good guy successful socialists?
Brian M. Scott
<Loy...@gmail.com> wrote in
<news:e56541d5-ef17-4560...@s21g2000prm.googlegroups.com>
in
rec.arts.sf.misc,soc.culture.baltics,soc.culture.czecho-slovak,soc.culture.russian,alt.politics:
>> (Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
>> like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
>> political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
>> the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
>> than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
>> all Africans are murderers.)
> One of the dumbest statements I read in a long time. [...]
You outdid it rather handily right here.
Brian
Jerry Kraus
> In article <7ukb84hsqe32kmtcbgbfg50pjd4rren...@4ax.com>
>
> - Show quoted text -
Stalin remains a wildly popular figure in Russia. Putin's popular
too, and Putin is no democrat. Live expectancy has dropped by almost
10% in Russia since the collapse of Communism, according to Western
figures. Look them up for yourself. In other words, people were a
lot healthier under Communism than they are under Captalism. No
surprise there. Same thing in Europe versus the U.S. Socialist
health care, in particular, works much better than Capitalist health
care.
Russia is currently Capitalist, but certainly not Democratic. It is
mildly fascist, or Peronist. Rather like the regime of Juan Peron in
Argentina in the 1940's.
Jerry Kraus
> Jonathan L Cunningham:
> So who are your good guy successful socialists?
How about Western Europe, particularly Scandanavia. Or, Australia,
for that matter?
As far as that goes, Stalin probably did more good than harm. Average
life expectancy skyrocketed by 50% under his rule, far more than in
the West. And, that's not just the Soviet view. It is confirmed and
accepted by Western experts.
James A. Donald
> Stalin remains a wildly popular figure in Russia.
> Putin's popular too, and Putin is no democrat. Live
> expectancy has dropped by almost 10% in Russia since
> the collapse of Communism, according to Western
> figures.
In Russia they have elections, and at election time, do
you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will restore the
old economic system just the way it was"?
Life expectancy for negroes in America dropped when the
slaves were freed.
Life expectancy has dropped because people who are
unused to looking after themselves are apt to spend the
rent money on booze and go to sleep in a ditch just
before it snows.
Brian M. Scott
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote in
<news:hrcf84pni53gliq01...@4ax.com> in
rec.arts.sf.misc,soc.culture.baltics,soc.culture.czecho-slovak,soc.culture.russian,alt.politics:
> Jerry Kraus
>> Stalin remains a wildly popular figure in Russia.
>> Putin's popular too, and Putin is no democrat. Live
>> expectancy has dropped by almost 10% in Russia since
>> the collapse of Communism, according to Western
>> figures.
> In Russia they have elections, and at election time, do
> you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will restore the
> old economic system just the way it was"?
Damn' near, in Zyuganov's case.
> Life expectancy for negroes in America dropped when the
> slaves were freed.
Conceivable, but your assertion isn't evidence. And even if
the claim is true, one would need to compare the changes in
life expectancy of blacks and southern whites in order to
draw any conclusions about the effect of emancipation on
black life expectancy.
> Life expectancy has dropped because people who are
> unused to looking after themselves are apt to spend the
> rent money on booze and go to sleep in a ditch just
> before it snows.
Alcoholism is an important factor, but it was also a major
problem in the Soviet Union. In fact the causes are
multifarious, precisely as one would expect. In particular,
Russia has very high death rates from both cardiovascular
disease and cancer. (Note that Russian men are among the
world's heaviest smokers.)
<http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/7023-14.cfm>
<http://go.worldbank.org/C8ZON4IGB0>
Yukon
So white people would live longer if they were enslaved? Just wonder
what Enquirer you getting your info from. y
Jerry Kraus
> Jerry Kraus
> In Russia they have elections, and at election time, do
> you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will restore the
> old economic system just the way it was"?
Uh...yeah. The large and powerful Russian Communist Party. But,
since Putin rigs the elections it really doesn't matter whether the
Communists win, or not. Putin and his puppets run the show. Former
world chess champion Gary Kasparov gets beaten up and imprisoned from
time to time for complaining about things. He's an opposition member
in the Russian parliament, now.
Yukon
You are talking about a world you don't understand. Talk to people
who lived it as somebody suggests here. Who lived in both worlds. y
Jonathan L Cunningham
> Jonathan L Cunningham:
> > Picking a *single* system is not a good way to understand a general
> > concept, although it can be useful to understand a specific example as
> > giving insight into the general problem.
>
> So who are your good guy successful socialists?
Can you avoid every question (e.g. the one in my post which you deleted)
by asking another question?
--
Jonathan L Cunningham
Jonathan L Cunningham
It's only dumb if it makes sense. I don't think it quite achieves that,
in context.
<sigh> It's a bit depressing in a way. It suggests a form of dialogue
which is more like Eliza programs than anything resembling reason.
--
Jonathan L Cunningham
Yukon
Confirmed and accepted by Western experts? Huh. By Homer Simpson or
some other genious. Or by the Socialist Republic of Berkley? Can't
believe you would spread such a nonsence. y
Yukon
wrote:
> Brian M. Scott <b.sc...@csuohio.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> > On Tue, 22 Jul 2008 22:15:10 -0700 (PDT), Yukon
> > <Loy...@gmail.com> wrote in
> > <news:e56541d5-ef17-4560...@s21g2000prm.googlegroups.com>
> > in
> sian,alt.politics:
>
> > >> (Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
> > >> like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
> > >> political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
> > >> the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
> > >> than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
> > >> all Africans are murderers.)
>
> > > One of the dumbest statements I read in a long time. [...]
>
> > You outdid it rather handily right here.
>
> It's only dumb if it makes sense. I don't think it quite achieves that,
> in context.
>
> <sigh> It's a bit depressing in a way. It suggests a form of dialogue
> which is more like Eliza programs than anything resembling reason.
>
> --
>
> - Show quoted text -
socialism or capitalism, what's better. only an idiot who tries to
agitate would pose such a question. You a fine bunch of loonies on
this thread.
kujebak
wrote:
>
> - Show quoted text -
The reason that Soviet style socialism died in Eastern
Europe was because it was not economically viable,
and *because* it was fundamentally (philosophically)
immoral. I realize the connection between morality
and the condition, and long-term viability of any sort
of ordered society is not immediately self-evident to
everyone, but is always there, and it is very important.
Rather than getting into the specific arguments here,
and now, may I recommend a primer on Objectivist
ethics, such as Loving Life, by Craig Biddle.
kujebak
> James A. Donald:
>
> > > Socialism necessarily results in famine
>
> nob...@nowhere.com
>
> > Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children
> > and emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the
> > Berlin wall fell down?
>
> They don't have famines all the time, but they have
> famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor quality
> food most of the time.
>
> Further, international progressives are reluctant to say
> "famine" unless commies are dropping like flies. I
> recall when Cubans had adequate calories, but multiple
> nutritional deficiencies was causing an epidemic of
> blindness, and one could not hear anyone doubt that in
> Cuba, poverty did not oppress.
And what happened in Germany after reunification was
that everyone, who was displaced and dispossessed
as a result of privatization of the industry in the East,
became a ward of the West German economy. A great
many of those people, especially the older workers,
remained on welfare rolls until retirement. It was the
strength of the West German healthy CAPITALIST
economy that provided a level of economic security
through this transition, which was not available to other
former COMECON countries. In spite of this, since 1989,
the economic growth rates shown by all of these countries
far outpaced anything capable of achieving by their for-
mer centrally planned SOCIALIST economies. Where
do people get their information, to be able to ask such
truly stupid questions.
ar...@hotmail.com
> Alcoholism is an important factor, but it was also a major
> problem in the Soviet Union. In fact the causes are
> multifarious, precisely as one would expect. In particular,
> Russia has very high death rates from both cardiovascular
> disease and cancer. (Note that Russian men are among the
> world's heaviest smokers.)
Also not that Russian medicine is still mostly socialist.
ar...@hotmail.com
> James A. Donald:
>
> > > Socialism necessarily results in famine
>
> nob...@nowhere.com
>
> > Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children
> > and emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the
> > Berlin wall fell down?
>
> They don't have famines all the time, but they have
> famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor quality
> food most of the time.
I don't believe there ever was a famine anywhere in the post WW2
Eastern Block.
In the Soviet Union the quality of socialist food was indeed poor. If
not for the food supplied by the private sector malnutrition could
indeed be a problem, but nowhere near the scale of famine.
I don't know about East Germany but I believe they had higher living
standards than the Soviets (contrary to what your theory may suggest).
James A. Donald
> You are talking about a world you don't understand. Talk to people
> who lived it as somebody suggests here. Who lived in both worlds.
Those who lived in both worlds are the Chinese and the Russians. No
one in Russia votes in favor of putting the economy back the way it
was, and opinion polls of Chinese indicate a similar attitude.
David Friedman
> > > Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> > > capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former
> > > USSR and other socialist countries? Do they love
> > > capitalism and democracy they have now, or do they
> > > want the USSR back?
I don't think people who live in the former USSR have yet experienced
capitalism.
Perhaps you should put the question to people in Estonia or the Czech
Republic.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
Published by Baen, in bookstores now
James A. Donald
> > In Russia they have elections, and at election time,
> > do you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will
> > restore the old economic system just the way it
> > was"?
"Brian M. Scott"
> Damn' near, in Zyuganov's case.
The word "nationalization" is nowhere to be found in his
platform.
Zyuganov's main pledge is increased state salaries and
pensions and tighter censorship - adjusting the present
economy a bit, not turning it upside down.
He was what I was referring to when I said "Even the
communist party is no longer communist". He summons
nostalgia for the good old days of Stalinist terror, but
not for the good old days of socialist economics. The
communist party platform does not contain the words
"communism", "Marx", or "Lenin". In Smolensk, he did
indeed speak to a rally calling for an end to private
property in the means of production with a great big
Lenin poster behind him - but got hammered so badly he
has not done so again. No trace of such a campaign is
to be found in his party platform, recent interviews, or
campaign literature. No Lenin, no Leninism, and no crap
about the means of production.
Maybe a majority of those who attended the rally in
Smolensk wanted a return to socialism, but it manifestly
does not sell in most of Russia. The communist party of
Russia is no more socialist than the labour party in
Britain. Maybe they say "socialism" from time to time
to the blood crazed fanatics who show up at rallies and
meetings, but they would never say it to the general
public, Zyuganov no more than Gordon Brown would.
James A. Donald
> > In Russia they have elections, and at election time,
> > do you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will
> > restore the old economic system just the way it
> > was"?
Jerry Kraus
> Uh...yeah. The large and powerful Russian Communist
> Party.
Zyuganov is no more likely to put a "vote socialist"
poster on the subway wall than Gordon Brown is.
His party platform and campaign literature fails to
mention socialism, nationalization, Lenin, or communism,
similarly in any advertising directed at the general public.
Like the British labour party, they will often talk
socialism to the party faithful nutroots at rallies, but
like the British labour party they don't want the press
to report such nutroots talk to normal voters.
The Soviet Communist Party humors their bloodcrazed
lunatics in the same way, and to the same extent, as the
British Labour Party humors their bloodcrazed lunatics.
Eugene Holman
<ddfr-625DA6.2...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>, David
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> Someone wrote:
>
> > > > Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> > > > capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former
> > > > USSR and other socialist countries? Do they love
> > > > capitalism and democracy they have now, or do they
> > > > want the USSR back?
>
> I don't think people who live in the former USSR have yet experienced
> capitalism.
>
> Perhaps you should put the question to people in Estonia or the Czech
> Republic.
You are a bit confused.
Estonia is part of the former USSR, although it is not, technically
speaking, a successor state but rather one that was under Soviet
occupation.
In Russia proper, at least the large urban centers such as St. Petersburg,
Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibersk, and Vladivostok, are booming centers
of industrial-strength robber-baron-type capitalism. If you enter Russia
through Finland, more than fifty kilometers from the border you see the
trucks loaded with Jaguars, BMWs, Mercedes-Benz's, and other luxury
automobiles, the same ones that have made the eight-lane Nevsky Prospect,
the main street in St. Peterburg, a case of 24/7 gridlock. The formerly
shabby border city of Vyborg shows clear signs that the money spreading
from St. Petersburg is beginning to have an impact on it.
The most significant development in Russia during the past ten years has
been the growth of a prosperous, generously spending middle class. Living
standards in Russia's main cities are clearly as high if not higher than
they are in the Baltic capitals, but this wealth has only begun to spread
to the countryside, for which reason Baltic living standards are still
statistically higher than those of Russia.
For informed discussion, see e.g.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6420231.stm.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
James A. Donald
> > They don't have famines all the time, but they have
> > famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor
> > quality food most of the time.
> I don't believe there ever was a famine anywhere in
> the post WW2 Eastern Block.
Implying you do believe their were famines in places
in the pre WW2 Eastern block.
James A. Donald
Jerry Kraus
> How about Western Europe, particularly Scandanavia.
> Or, Australia, for that matter?
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
socialism:
1: any of various economic and political
theories advocating collective or governmental
ownership and administration of the means of
production and distribution of goods
Those guys abandoned socialism shortly after the end of
World War II, where they saw where it was leading them.
> As far as that goes, Stalin probably did more good
> than harm. Average life expectancy skyrocketed by 50%
> under his rule
If you believe Stalin's statistics.
As far as anyone can tell, the wealth of the Soviet
Union appears to have been exaggerated by a factor of
approximately ten, so I would not put much confidence in
the life expectancy.
Similarly, I have been treated in the famous Cuban
health care system. For the ordinary Cuban, they get a
dirty bed to die in.
Recall how the Soviet Union was supposedly getting huge
growth by huges savings, and huge investments. When
Eastern European factories went up for sale, and the
buyers sniffed them over, they found mostly pre World
War II equipment, inadequately maintained. As in North
Korea, only their military sector was reasonably up to
date.
> far more than in the West. And, that's not just the
> Soviet view. It is confirmed and accepted by Western
> experts.
Lots of things were accepted by western "experts" that
are no longer accepted and that clearly should not have
been accepted at the time - for example that the Moscow
show trials provided compelling and undeniable evidence
of the guilt of the accused.
Similary there is a plentiful supply of "experts" that
accept or recently used to accept the North Korean
economic figures, even though the people are starving,
and their non military exports are the exports of not
even a third world economy, but a hunter gatherer
economy.
And there is also a plentiful supply of "experts" that
accept the Cuban health care figures, even though these
are internally inconsistent and contradicted by casual
observation.
James A. Donald
> > So who are your good guy successful socialists?
Jonathan L Cunningham
> Can you avoid every question (e.g. the one in my post which you deleted)
> by asking another question?
I am sticking to the topic in the subject line. You want to talk
about something else.
You want to defend the social democratic welfare state. Social
democracies, however are capitalist, and are only possible by the
wealth created by capitalists.
Eugene Holman
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > > So who are your good guy successful socialists?
>
> Jonathan L Cunningham
> > Can you avoid every question (e.g. the one in my post which you deleted)
> > by asking another question?
>
> I am sticking to the topic in the subject line. You want to talk
> about something else.
>
> You want to defend the social democratic welfare state. Social
> democracies, however are capitalist, and are only possible by the
> wealth created by capitalists.
However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their own
interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems. Thus,
as much free education as a person can absorb, generous unemployment
benefits, employers' unions as well as workers' unions, subsidized day
care, children's allowances, and support for single parents. These
minimize poverty and ensure that the vast majority of children will grow
up to be responsible, tax-paying adults.
Regars,
Eugene Holman, writing from Finland
David Friedman
<holman-2407...@ke-hupnet183-26.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> In article
> <ddfr-625DA6.2...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>, David
> Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
>
> > Someone wrote:
> >
> > > > > Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> > > > > capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former
> > > > > USSR and other socialist countries? Do they love
> > > > > capitalism and democracy they have now, or do they
> > > > > want the USSR back?
> >
> > I don't think people who live in the former USSR have yet experienced
> > capitalism.
> >
> > Perhaps you should put the question to people in Estonia or the Czech
> > Republic.
>
> You are a bit confused.
>
> Estonia is part of the former USSR, although it is not, technically
> speaking, a successor state but rather one that was under Soviet
> occupation.
Correct--I spoke imprecisely. I was thinking of the contrast between
parts of the former USSR and its satellites that had, and
those--including Russia proper--that had not, made the transition to an
economy no less capitalist than the western European or U.S. economies.
> In Russia proper, at least the large urban centers such as St. Petersburg,
> Moscow, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibersk, and Vladivostok, are booming centers
> of industrial-strength robber-baron-type capitalism. If you enter Russia
> through Finland, more than fifty kilometers from the border you see the
> trucks loaded with Jaguars, BMWs, Mercedes-Benz's, and other luxury
> automobiles, the same ones that have made the eight-lane Nevsky Prospect,
> the main street in St. Peterburg, a case of 24/7 gridlock. The formerly
> shabby border city of Vyborg shows clear signs that the money spreading
> from St. Petersburg is beginning to have an impact on it.
I don't think capitalism is defined by the import of luxury automobiles.
Eugene Holman
<ddfr-E27544.0...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>, David
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
Agreed. It is defined by the ability of a significant segment of the
society to use the economy to earn enough money honestly to cover living
costs and still have enough money left over for such extras as iPods,
caviar, and automobiles, including imported luxury ones :-)
I visit and do business in Russia quite often, most recently having
visited there in November 2007. Urban Russia has an economy and lifestyle
that cannot be characterized by any other designation than unadulterated,
unfettered capitalism. For details, see e.g.
http://www.mercer.com/searching/searching.htm?q=Moscow.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Jerry Kraus
Ummmm...so, you're saying that the Communist Party isn't Communist?
Just to ask a kind of obvious question, why do they call themselves
the "Communist Party"?
ar...@hotmail.com
> James A. Donald:
>
> > > They don't have famines all the time, but they have
> > > famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor
> > > quality food most of the time.
>
> ar...@hotmail.com
>
> > I don't believe there ever was a famine anywhere in
> > the post WW2 Eastern Block.
>
> Implying you do believe their were famines in places
> in the pre WW2 Eastern block.
Yes.
kujebak
> In article <8aig84luhs0nh0ssuvlkcdpo75vlqv5...@4ax.com>, James A. Donald
This is another one of those left-wing myths. I a global economy,
where markets are not constrained by dispensable income of
consumers in the particular country where the product is manu-
factured, and where skilled labor can be obtained at a cost that
is a fraction of what it costs to rear a college graduate in Finland
(from places like India and China), private enterprise has no obli-
gation, or self-serving purpose to spend resources on the welfare
of its workers. Its only obligation is profit to its owners, and
share-
holders, and payment of taxes, as required by law in its particular
locale.
Yukon
wrote:
> Someone wrote:
> > > > Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> > > > capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former
> > > > USSR and other socialist countries? Do they love
> > > > capitalism and democracy they have now, or do they
> > > > want the USSR back?
>
> I don't think people who live in the former USSR have yet experienced
> capitalism.
>
> Perhaps you should put the question to people in Estonia or the Czech
> Republic.
>
> --
> Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
> Published by Baen, in bookstores now
He forgets he is posting on the Czecho-Slovak forum. He'll a hard
time to convince those people
Eugene Holman
<46499f0b-a351-4906...@a6g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 24, 3:04=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
<deletions>
> > However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
> > social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their ow=
> n
> > interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
> > well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems. Thus,
> > as much free education as a person can absorb, generous unemployment
> > benefits, employers' unions as well as workers' unions, subsidized day
> > care, children's allowances, and support for single parents. These
> > minimize poverty and ensure that the vast majority of children will grow
> > up to be responsible, tax-paying adults.
> >
> > Regars,
> > Eugene Holman, writing from Finland
>
> This is another one of those left-wing myths.
Myth? It clearly works.
> I[n] a global economy,
> where markets are not constrained by dispensable income of
> consumers in the particular country where the product is manu-
> factured, and where skilled labor can be obtained at a cost that
> is a fraction of what it costs to rear a college graduate in Finland
> (from places like India and China), private enterprise has no obli-
> gation, or self-serving purpose to spend resources on the welfare
> of its workers.
I disagree. The Finnish multinational Nokia pays its workers in Finland,
some of whom are from India and China, outstanding wages. However, Nokia
does not manufacture its mobile devices in Finland. The Chinese and Indian
workers employed by Nokia in Finland are involved in design, programming,
and localization, all of which are essential preliminaries if the actual
product, usually manufactured in China, is to be a success on local
markets.
Private enterprise has every self-interested reason to lavish resources on
its workers, one obvious reason being that disgruntled workers with
cutting-edge expertise could quit and form their own rival corporation.
> Its only obligation is profit to its owners, and
> share-
> holders, and payment of taxes, as required by law in its particular
> locale.
True enough, but any intelligent and foreward-looking company has programs
to make workers shareholders with a stake in corporate success. That might
be regarded as the "socialist" aspect of modern social-democracy.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Zeborah
If "he" means the "Someone" quoted above, they're a pure and
unadulterated troll who is trolling trollishly with trollish intent;
they took an existing single-posted thread and cross-posted it to five
groups, changing the subject line in the process to the most sneakily
inflammatory line possible.
If "he" means David then it's possible he hasn't noticed the
crossposting; it was done, after all, with mild sneakiness.
Zeborah
--
Gravity is no joke.
http://www.geocities.com/zeborahnz/
rasfc FAQ: http://www.lshelby.com/rasfcFAQ.html
Karel Kriz
<holman-2407...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
You have to excuse Kujebak. He's been inhaling a lot of Ayn Rand
pseudo-philosophy and is therefore unable to think of anything except
himself. Clearly the days of Massa running the plantation as a tight
ship with few hundred slaves to do his bidding, are over. Kujebaku,
whether you want them back or not is irrelevant - it's not going to
happen.
An enlightened company should (but is not compelled to) try to keep it's
workers happy and content. The attitude of "Fuck you, I only care about
the shareholders and making money for them - go back to work!" is not
going to do that.
I know first hand how they do things in Scandinavia. Some of it is good
and some of it less so. Even though I've never benefited from any large
company perks (having chosen to work for myself all of my adult life), I
admire the leaders of companies who recognize that providing care for
the children of employees, subsidizing lunches, offering health care and
educational benefits is a small price to pay for having a content and
stable workforce. It's not rocket science. Nor is it a socialist
ideology, as it does not have the control of production by the workers
as it's goal, nor does it advocate a wholly government controlled
economy. It is simply good business policy decided individually by each
company with very little government input beyond, perhaps, tax breaks to
encourage these programs.
But Ayn Rand would not understand and that is why she remains on the
more narcissistic philosophical fringes. It's a good place for her to be.
K
constan...@gmail.com
>
> kujebak <kuje...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 24, 3:04=A0am, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> <deletions>
>
> > > However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
> > > social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their ow=
> > n
> > > interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
> > > well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems. Thus,
> > > as much free education as a person can absorb, generous unemployment
> > > benefits, employers' unions as well as workers' unions, subsidized day
> > > care, children's allowances, and support for single parents. These
> > > minimize poverty and ensure that the vast majority of children will grow
> > > up to be responsible, tax-paying adults.
>
> > > Regars,
> > > Eugene Holman, writing from Finland
>
> > This is another one of those left-wing myths.
>
> Myth? It clearly works.
Rather, you have an explanation for the fact that Europe isn't doing
so badly. But there are other explanations, and James has given one
(i.e. that it's because of the private sector and despite the public
sector).
Causation is hard to get right, and even harder to observe directly.
What you can observe are correlations, and those are also hard to
observe on the level of a large population, because there are so many
other factors that need to be taken into account and factored out -
take for instance the absurdity of judging a country's health care
system by the longevity of its population, without taking into account
factors such as average lifestyle, diet, and so on, or the absurdity
of comparing infant mortality when some countries count all baby
deaths as baby deaths and others count them as never having officially
been born, thus artificially suppressing their infant mortality
statistics. There is a small number of cases where the real world
comes as close as it can to providing a laboratory-like experiment.
Just to give an example, one is North Korea versus South Korea.
constan...@gmail.com
>
>
>
> Friedman <d...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> > In article
> > <holman-2407081057100...@ke-hupnet183-26.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,> > > <ddfr-625DA6.20304223072...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>, David
Not that either. You seem to be trying to define capitalism as
success, which begs the question. That capitalism creates success, I
don't doubt, but capitalism is defined by such things as protection of
private property, ability of people to engage freely in voluntary
exchange, and so on.
> I visit and do business in Russia quite often, most recently having
> visited there in November 2007. Urban Russia has an economy and lifestyle
> that cannot be characterized by any other designation than unadulterated,
> unfettered capitalism. For details, see e.g.http://www.mercer.com/searching/searching.htm?q=Moscow.
While I don't doubt that you are familiar with Russia, I doubt that
you understand what capitalism is - given that you've described it in
terms of some surface features readily observable to any visitor while
failing to clearly display any understanding of the underlying
economic system that is capitalism and that does indeed often produce
the economic success needed to purchase luxury goods.
Jonathan L Cunningham
> On Jul 22, 6:19 pm, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
> wrote:
> > (Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
> > like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
> > political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
> > the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
> > than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
> > all Africans are murderers.)
> The reason that Soviet style socialism died in Eastern
> Europe was because it was not economically viable,
> and *because* it was fundamentally (philosophically)
> immoral.
That's two different reasons, but...
> I realize the connection between morality
> and the condition, and long-term viability of any sort
> of ordered society is not immediately self-evident
Very true. I don't see that the connection is obvious.
> to
> everyone, but is always there, and it is very important.
If it is always there, then yes, it is very important.
> Rather than getting into the specific arguments here,
> and now, may I recommend a primer on Objectivist
> ethics, such as Loving Life, by Craig Biddle.
Can you give a hint as to what the argument is? I already spend too much
time reading stuff, and need some clue that it's not yet another
fruitcake article, but is actually worth my time, before reading it.
> http://www.glenallenpress.com/loving-life/
Incidentally, it is not at all obvious that soviet socialism was not
viable: ISTM that it was out-competed by America, which had more
resources to start with. This complicates the analysis.
As it happens, I'm inclined to feel that socialism encourages corruption
(of bureacrats, officials, party members etc.) so I think it quite
likely that soviet style socialism *is* less economically viable. But,
returning to the subject line, is that *inherent* in socialism, or is it
just a bad implementation? And is it even true? (I've not been there, so
I can only read the propaganda from both sides, and try to guess who is
lying the most.)
--
Jonathan L Cunningham
Jonathan L Cunningham
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > > So who are your good guy successful socialists?
>
> Jonathan L Cunningham
> > Can you avoid every question (e.g. the one in my post which you deleted)
> > by asking another question?
>
> I am sticking to the topic in the subject line. You want to talk
> about something else.
No. You said, "Let us compare actually existent socialism to actually
existent capitalism".
I asked, "What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the
general case?"
IOW, what does the USSR tell us about "socialism v. capitalism"? I think
that matches the subject line.
Telling me that the rulers of the USSR were evil bastards doesn't answer
the question.
--
Jonathan L Cunningham
kujebak
However, the bottom line is this: The value of the entire wage
and benefit packages cannot exceed the value provided to the
company by its workforce. If it does, then the company is not
in the business of making profit to its owners, which means it's
not going to stay in business very long. At least not in the lo-
cation where that is required of it. As far as the workers are
concerned, it is now up to each individual to find his place in
the market place, which now transcends national boundaries,
and social concerns. The effect being is the Finnish worker
now has to compete with workers in India, and China in evalu-
ating his worth to his employer *in Finland*. In other words, the
national welfare state economies have become outdated en-
tities in the 21st century world of global commerce. Now Nokia
may well be a conscientious, socially responsible company,
but it can only afford as much expense in contributing to the
current economic standard of its Finnish emloyees, as its
competitors. When that becomes too much of a burden,
then R&D, and product development is moved offshore as
well.
>
> Private enterprise has every self-interested reason to lavish resources on
> its workers, one obvious reason being that disgruntled workers with
> cutting-edge expertise could quit and form their own rival corporation.
Disgruntled workers with cutting edge expertise are not
going to be retained by general employment perks, we
are talking about here, like free meals, and babysitting.
Accross-the-board yearly wage raises, on which the ave-
rage Finnish worker's hish standard of living depends,
do not serve any purpose to this end either. The only way
to hold onto such employees who are essential to running
the company is by offering them a share of the profits,
and/or equity partnership (incentive stock options), which
is a practice that is not legal in most countries outside
of the U.S., if I'm not mistaken.
>
> > Its only obligation is profit to its owners, and
> > share-
> > holders, and payment of taxes, as required by law in its particular
> > locale.
>
> True enough, but any intelligent and foreward-looking company has programs
> to make workers shareholders with a stake in corporate success. That might
> be regarded as the "socialist" aspect of modern social-democracy.
On the other hand, I hope you'll agree that every progressive
social democracy needs a capitalist economy to sustain it.
Institutions charged with protecting the workers' general wel-
fare - employee unions, government regulatory entities, do not
create any additional economic value. They can only distribute
wealth, which *is* socialism. As that wealth is no longer res-
trained by national economies, the options for the welfare state
are becoming more and more limited.
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
kujebak
Really? What do you know about Ayn Rand?
Other than that she rubs a lot of peoiple off.
>
>
> K
abraca...@europe.com
> James A. Donald:
>
> > > In Russia they have elections, and at election time,
> > > do you see anyone saying "vote me, and I will
> > > restore the old economic system just the way it
> > > was"?
>
> Jerry Kraus
>
> > Uh...yeah. The large and powerful Russian Communist
> > Party.
>
> Zyuganov is no more likely to put a "vote socialist"
> poster on the subway wall than Gordon Brown is.
>
> His party platform and campaign literature fails to
> mention socialism, nationalization, Lenin, or communism,
> similarly in any advertising directed at the general public.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Russian_Federation
Sorry, but you are wrong. They definitely want the USSR back.
Here is the original KPRF party platform
Since it is in Russian, here is my translation of the beginning:
Our major goals
1/Rule of the people, which means constitutional rule of working
majority, united in Soviets and other forms of demcratic self-
government of the people
2/Justice, presupossing guaranteed right to work and its reward
according to results, right to free education and medical care
accessible to all, right to furnished living place, rest and social
security
3/Equality, based on liberation of labor, elimination of exploitation
of man by another man and all forms of social parasitism, based on
domination of societal forms of ownership of means of production
4/Patriotism, equality of nations, friendship of peoples, unity of
patriotism and internationalism
5/Responsibility of citizen to society and of society to citizen,
unity of rights and duties of man
6/Socialism in its updated form, fixed in new constitution, adequate
to modern development of productive forces, ecological safety and
caracter of problems facing mankind
7/Communism as future of human history
kujebak
You're kidding, of course. Right?
>
> As it happens, I'm inclined to feel that socialism encourages corruption
> (of bureacrats, officials, party members etc.) so I think it quite
> likely that soviet style socialism *is* less economically viable. But,
> returning to the subject line, is that *inherent* in socialism, or is it
> just a bad implementation? And is it even true? (I've not been there, so
> I can only read the propaganda from both sides, and try to guess who is
> lying the most.)
Soviet style socialism was not less economically viable
because it failed to work due to some exogenous cosmic
interference, despite lingering on for 70 years under threat
of a whip and a firing squad, but because there was no
way to make it work. And the reason there was no way
to make it work is in the flaw of the basic premise of eco-
nomic collectivism, which is that there is no greater im-
morality than in taking the fruit of one individual's efforts
to provide for the livelihood of another simply because
of his need. A society based on trading economic need
instead of economic value (which was the basis for the
Soviet-style central economic planning) is doomed to
self-annihilation. Not to mention the moral devastation it
leaves behind. Present-day Russia specific case in point.
>
> --
> Jonathan L Cunningham
kujebak
Perhaps the troll's intent was not trollish at all. Perhaps by
posting this thread to s.c.c-s the troll's intent was to set
you people (all you green-ass collectivists) straight ;-)
Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj
> On Jul 23, 4:01 am, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> Jonathan L Cunningham:
>
>
>
>> So who are your good guy successful socialists?
>
> for that matter?
>
> the West. And, that's not just the Soviet view. It is confirmed and
> accepted by Western experts.
>
Rostyslaw J. Lewyckyj
> On Jul 23, 4:31 am, James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>> James A. Donald:
>>
>>>> Socialism necessarily results in famine
>> nob...@nowhere.com
>>
>>> Indeed. Do you also remember the pot bellied children
>>> and emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the
>>> Berlin wall fell down?
>> They don't have famines all the time, but they have
>> famines some of the time, and disturbingly poor quality
>> food most of the time.
>
> Eastern Block.
1947! and a panic fearing famine in 1963.
> In the Soviet Union the quality of socialist food was indeed poor. If
> not for the food supplied by the private sector malnutrition could
> indeed be a problem, but nowhere near the scale of famine.
> I don't know about East Germany but I believe they had higher living
> standards than the Soviets (contrary to what your theory may suggest).
>
kujebak
> > emanciated walking skeletons that emerged when the Berlin
> > wall fell down?
>
> FALSE, isn't it?
>
> What "pot bellied children and emaciated walking skeletons" were there
> when the
> Berlin Wall fell?
>
> None I can recall from the media reports at the time.
>
> True: A lot of East Germans really did dislike their Communist
> government and economy,
> and they really did applaud the fall of Communism. German "socialism"
> or Communism
> in its last years wasn't popular at all.
>
> But there weren't any signs of gross poverty in East Germany that I
> remember.
>
> Do you have any cites for your statement? Any respectable sources?
>
> Now in Communist Romania under dictator Nicolae Ceauºescu, there was
> horrible hunger during the 1980s -- partly because Romania had gotten
> large loans from foreign Western bankers, as many less-developed
> countries had during the 1970s and 1980s, and because Ceauºescu was
> scrupulous about repaying Romania's debts -- at a steep cost to his
> people.
>
> And Communism in some other places also caused some terrible hunger
> problems. In the late 1950s and early 1960s in China under Mao Zhe
> Dong, for example, there was a collapse in food production that some
> sources estimate may have killed up to 25 million people, thanks to
> Mao's ill-fated "great leap forward" campaign.
>
> But I think you're just full of it when you write about near-
> starvation in connection with the Berlin Wall.
> East German Communism, like communism in many other parts of Eastern
> Europe, was pretty unpleasant and authoritarian, but it mostly fed its
> people -- and the Germans being Germans, they were a bit more
> successful at keeping fed than some of their Communist neighbors.
>
> Why don't you know this? Do you in fact know much of anything about
> Communism, except myths that you've been handed by professional
> apologists for capitalism?
>
> You appear to be just handing on a anti-communist legend you heard or
> read somewhere, without bothering to check its accuracy. Shame on you
> -- not for being anti-communist, but for spreading ignorance on the
> Internet.
>
>
>
> - Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
You obviously don't know anything about the essential
role of the former DDR to the Soviets and the rest of the
Communist East Block as a conduit for transfer of key
technologies and goods, which they were not able to
develop and provide themselves. Because of the inherent
defficiencies of their socialist government planned eco-
nomies. The former Democratic Republic of East Ger-
many was never considered a separate sovereignty by
West Germany, so the usual East-West trade restric-
tions did not apply. For obvious reasons, the Soviets
nurtured this economic relationship (between East and
West Germany), by lavishing the East Germans with
all kinds of special economic privileges, and civil free-
doms, denied to the other COMECON members. This
might have something to do with why we didn't see
potbellied children when the Wall was finally taken
down, wouldn't you think? It is amazing to see how
many things regarding the former East Block have yet
to make it into history books :-)
James A. Donald
Holman) wrote:
> However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
> social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their own
> interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
> well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems.
This presupposes that the purpose of state intervention in the
education system is to promote knowledge, rather than ignorance,
obedience to the state, state propaganda, and ignorant hatred of
capitalism.
The largely private Hong Kong education has produced considerably
better results than any predominantly state system.
In America, children are taught "the grapes of wrath" as a
documentary, as if its wholly Marxist account of the great depression
was accurate. They are thus taught to hate capitalists and
capitalism.
James A. Donald
> > > > In Russia they have elections, and at election
> > > > time, do you see anyone saying "vote me, and I
> > > > will restore the old economic system just the
> > > > way it was?
Jerry Kraus
> > > Uh...yeah. The large and powerful Russian
> > > Communist Party.
James A. Donald:
> > Zyuganov is no more likely to put a "vote socialist"
> > poster on the subway wall than Gordon Brown is.
Jerry Kraus
> Ummmm...so, you're saying that the [Russian] Communist
> Party isn't Communist?
Not any more.
Similarly with the various "socialist" parties. British
Labour has been fleeing socialism since 1949.
Eugene Holman
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 13:04:34 +0300, hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene
> Holman) wrote:
> > However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
> > social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their own
> > interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
> > well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems.
>
> This presupposes that the purpose of state intervention in the
> education system is to promote knowledge, rather than ignorance,
> obedience to the state, state propaganda, and ignorant hatred of
> capitalism.
There is a consensus that the Finnish educational system promotes
knowledge in a very effective manner. For details, see the Wall Street
Journals article at
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7Bp8YFw7Yy1n9bdKtVyP7KBAcJA_20080330.html
.
> The largely private Hong Kong education has produced considerably
> better results than any predominantly state system.
That may be because of the extraordinary situation and history of Hong Kong.
> In America, children are taught "the grapes of wrath" as a
> documentary, as if its wholly Marxist account of the great depression
> was accurate. They are thus taught to hate capitalists and
> capitalism.
That's America. Different countries have different agendas. In Finland
schools emphasize the importance of social equality and social
responsibility.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
James A. Donald
> Agreed. It is defined by the ability of a significant segment of the
> society to use the economy to earn enough money honestly to cover living
> costs and still have enough money left over for such extras as iPods,
> caviar, and automobiles, including imported luxury ones :-)
That is the desired and expected outcome of capitalism - but that is
not capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of
capital, where economic decisions are the outcome a relatively free
market in goods and labor.
<http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definition/capitalism>
gives a good account of what capitalism is.
Eugene Holman
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> Eugene Holman:
> > Agreed. It is defined by the ability of a significant segment of the
> > society to use the economy to earn enough money honestly to cover living
> > costs and still have enough money left over for such extras as iPods,
> > caviar, and automobiles, including imported luxury ones :-)
>
> That is the desired and expected outcome of capitalism - but that is
> not capitalism
Agreed. But capitalism exists as a theory as well as in various
implementations, none of which fully conforms to the ideal. The present
Russian implementation, quite similar to the American implementation of a
century or so ago, certainly falls within the definition of capitalism as
a type of economic system based primarily on private ownership of capital
and means of production, a free market in goods and labor, and the
important role in running and maintaining the system played by a large and
stable tax-paying middle class. Russian idiosyncracies include the
relatively high level of corruption, the key role played by the state in
certain sectors of the economy (i.e. railways, natural resources), and the
extraordinary concentrations of wealth in the circles associated with
certain oligarchs who have agreed to stay out of politics and maintain a
low profile as the price for not having the state show too much interest
in how they became billionaires
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/6577129.stm].
> Capitalism is an economic system based on private ownership of
> capital, where economic decisions are the outcome a relatively free
> market in goods and labor.
> <http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definition/capitalism>
> gives a good account of what capitalism is.
Contemporary Russia arguably conforms better to this definition than the
contemporary United States. The Russian economy is currently based on
private ownership of the means of production, although there is
considerable public ownership of the natural resources and means of
distribution. Despite the presence of the state in certain key sectors,
there is far less state regulation of the economy in Russia than in more
developed western economies, for which reason environmental and worker
welfare issues constrain the Russian economy less than they do in more
developed ones. Additionally, in Russia it is frequently possible to
bypass existing regulatory legislation with an appropriate bribe. Russia's
flat income tax regime (13% on all income), the envy of American
conservatives [http://www.heritage.org/press/commentary/ed032403.cfm],
encourages people to earn and spend as much money as they can and has
fueled an expansion of the Russian economy at a phenomenal growth rate of
close to 10% annually
[http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Business/2008/07/25/6260611-sun.html].
According to the CIA world Factbook
[https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/rs.html#Econ]
<quote>
Economy - overview:
Russia ended 2007 with its ninth straight year of growth, averaging 7%
annually since the financial crisis of 1998. Although high oil prices and
a relatively cheap ruble initially drove this growth, since 2003 consumer
demand and, more recently, investment have played a significant role. Over
the last six years, fixed capital investments have averaged real gains
greater than 10% per year and personal incomes have achieved real gains
more than 12% per year. During this time, poverty has declined steadily
and the middle class has continued to expand. Russia has also improved its
international financial position since the 1998 financial crisis. The
federal budget has run surpluses since 2001 and ended 2007 with a surplus
of about 3% of GDP. Over the past several years, Russia has used its
stabilization fund based on oil taxes to prepay all Soviet-era sovereign
debt to Paris Club creditors and the IMF. Foreign debt is approximately
one-third of GDP. The state component of foreign debt has declined, but
commercial debt to foreigners has risen strongly. Oil export earnings have
allowed Russia to increase its foreign reserves from $12 billion in 1999
to some $470 billion at yearend 2007, the third largest reserves in the
world. During President PUTIN's first administration, a number of
important reforms were implemented in the areas of tax, banking, labor,
and land codes. These achievements have raised business and investor
confidence in Russia's economic prospects, with foreign direct investment
rising from $14.6 billion in 2005 to approximately $45 billion in 2007. In
2007, Russia's GDP grew 8.1%, led by non-tradable services and goods for
the domestic market, as opposed to oil or mineral extraction and exports.
Rising inflation returned in the second half of 2007, driven largely by
unsterilized capital inflows and by rising food costs, and approached 12%
by year-end. In 2006, Russia signed a bilateral market access agreement
with the US as a prelude to possible WTO entry, and its companies are
involved in global merger and acquisition activity in the oil and gas,
metals, and telecom sectors. Despite Russia's recent success, serious
problems persist. Oil, natural gas, metals, and timber account for more
than 80% of exports and 30% of government revenues, leaving the country
vulnerable to swings in world commodity prices. Russia's manufacturing
base is dilapidated and must be replaced or modernized if the country is
to achieve broad-based economic growth. The banking system, while
increasing consumer lending and growing at a high rate, is still small
relative to the banking sectors of Russia's emerging market peers.
Political uncertainties associated with this year's power transition,
corruption, and lack of trust in institutions continue to dampen domestic
and foreign investor sentiment. PUTIN has granted more influence to forces
within his government that desire to reassert state control over the
economy. Russia has made little progress in building the rule of law, the
bedrock of a modern market economy. The government has promised additional
legislative amendments to make its intellectual property protection
WTO-consistent, but enforcement remains problematic.
</quote>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
<deletions>
constan...@gmail.com
> In article <bq2j84pec07fulsmcmj2gdpcmmp2ni6...@4ax.com>, James A. Donald
>
> <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> > Eugene Holman:
> > > Agreed. It is defined by the ability of a significant segment of the
> > > society to use the economy to earn enough money honestly to cover living
> > > costs and still have enough money left over for such extras as iPods,
> > > caviar, and automobiles, including imported luxury ones :-)
>
> > That is the desired and expected outcome of capitalism - but that is
> > not capitalism
>
> Agreed. But capitalism exists as a theory as well as in various
> implementations, none of which fully conforms to the ideal.
Some ways and degrees of conforming to the ideal are better than
others. In particular, as Hernando de Soto has pointed out, the
details of the system of private property rights is more important
than previously believed. Russia is among the former communist nations
that that de Soto criticizes on these grounds. See for example this:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2001/03/desoto.htm
Yukon
>
> - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -
It's simple, the dude is a real numbnut who is trying to agitate. As
you know, those people used to be known as usuful idiots by the
Soviets.
Jerry Kraus
I've noticed that it's very important to Capitalists to define all
other economic systems out of existence. Otherwise, the obvious flaws
of Capitalism would have to be addressed.
David Friedman
<holman-2407...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> > I don't think capitalism is defined by the import of luxury automobiles.
>
> Agreed. It is defined by the ability of a significant segment of the
> society to use the economy to earn enough money honestly to cover living
> costs and still have enough money left over for such extras as iPods,
> caviar, and automobiles, including imported luxury ones :-)
>
> I visit and do business in Russia quite often, most recently having
> visited there in November 2007. Urban Russia has an economy and lifestyle
> that cannot be characterized by any other designation than unadulterated,
> unfettered capitalism. For details, see e.g.
> http://www.mercer.com/searching/searching.htm?q=Moscow.
I'm not sure a lifestyle can be characterized as unadulterated
capitalism--there are an awful lot of different lifestyles, from ascetic
to sybaritic, that are consistent with a free market economy.
I may well be mistaken--I've never been to Russia--but my understanding
was that the government still played a very large role in the economy.
Can a private individual start a firm producing and trading stuff
without permits from the government? How much of the land, capital
assets, and the like are in private hands? If an entrepreneur is
successful, does he need friends in government to stay successful?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Bert Hyman
news:holman-2407...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi:
> Urban Russia has an economy and lifestyle
> that cannot be characterized by any other designation than
> unadulterated, unfettered capitalism.
Russia's economy is still regulated top to bottom and to add insult to
injury, the government is run by criminal thugs.
--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN | be...@iphouse.com
kujebak
But it's *nobody* who linked this thread to this newsgroup.
David Friedman
<holman-2407...@ke-hupnet183-26.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> However, the capitalists in countries working according to a
> social-democratic welfare-state philosophy realize that it is in their own
> interest to invest in social programs that ensure that they have a
> well-educated workforce encumbered by a minimum of social problems. Thus,
> as much free education as a person can absorb, generous unemployment
> benefits, employers' unions as well as workers' unions, subsidized day
> care, children's allowances, and support for single parents. These
> minimize poverty and ensure that the vast majority of children will grow
> up to be responsible, tax-paying adults.
>
This raises two sorts of questions, one about what the capitalists in
such a society believe and one about whether the beliefs you describe
are correct. So far as the first is concerned, I am guessing that you
are using "capitalist" in the common economic sense of someone who gets
a large part of his income from the return on non-human capital. Such
people are a small minority of the electorate, so the fact that the
policies you describe exist doesn't tell us what they believe about
them. You may, of course, have other sources of information--personal
conversation, polls, or whatever. I would expect that in most societies
most people, including capitalists, accept a good deal of the society's
conventional wisdom, true or false, so wouldn't be surprised if that
part of your claim were true.
If by "capitalist" you mean "believer in capitalism," then the claim
becomes circular, since it assumes that believing in the welfare state
is consistent with believing in capitalism.
The more interesting question is whether you are correct about the
benefits of the welfare state. This again has two parts. One is the
claim that the state can and does do these things relatively well, the
other that private arrangements can't or don't.
Finland is a rather unusual society, and I don't know a great deal about
it. In particular, it's relatively homogeneous ethnically, despite
minority groups such as the Kaale, the Lapps, and Swedish speakers,
which might have some advantages for making political institutions work
better.
So far as societies I know more about, in particular the U.S., I think
both parts are mistaken. Contrary to conventional wisdom (here as well
as in Finland), I see no reason to believe that private institutions
wouldn't do a better job of educating the populace than the public
schools now do. I don't know if you are familiar with West's book
_Education and the Industrial Revolution_, which deals with 19th century
Britain, but I think it provides a good deal of empirical evidence
against the belief that, without universal free public schooling, only
well off people will educate their children.
In the case of the U.S., I think there is good reason to believe that
government actions tend on net to perpetuate poverty rather than
eliminate it. If you look at data on the fraction of the U.S. population
that is poor, definition held constant, the pattern is quite striking.
The fraction was falling pretty rapidly from the end of WWII to about
the point at which the federal War on Poverty got seriously
started--i.e. actually spending large amounts of money. Since then it
has been roughly constant.
Obviously this could be a long argument. My point at the moment is
merely that there is reason to doubt the truth of the view you present,
despite the widespread belief in it that you share with many others.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
kujebak
Success of the modern European welfare state
is clearly a matter of opinion. If you think wealth
redistribution by a behavior altering tax system is the
formula to a stable, civilized coexistence, and that
capitalism, such as we have in the US, is an unfair
game*, then your view is going to be skewed toward
the belief that socialism works for the Europeans.
But if you believe every individual is entitled to ma-
ximum self-fulfillment limited only by the extent of
his own abilities and initiative, and that social con-
science is something of you own mind, not be de-
legated to a committee, then you might possibly be
willing to acknowledge some of the flaws inherent
in your philosohy, such as the intellectually and
morally degrading effects of collective responsibility,
and class envy on the individual, and society as
a whole.
* this is from one of your own references:
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The bell jar makes capitalism a private club, open only to
a privileged few, and enrages the billions standing outside
looking in. This capitalist apartheid will inevitably continue
until we all come to terms with the critical flaw in many
countries' legal and political systems that prevents the
majority from entering the formal property system."
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mystery of Capital
Hernando de Soto
>
> Causation is hard to get right, and even harder to observe directly.
> What you can observe are correlations, and those are also hard to
> observe on the level of a large population, because there are so many
> other factors that need to be taken into account and factored out -
> take for instance the absurdity of judging a country's health care
> system by the longevity of its population, without taking into account
> factors such as average lifestyle, diet, and so on, or the absurdity
> of comparing infant mortality when some countries count all baby
> deaths as baby deaths and others count them as never having officially
> been born, thus artificially suppressing their infant mortality
> statistics. There is a small number of cases where the real world
> comes as close as it can to providing a laboratory-like experiment.
> Just to give an example, one is North Korea versus South Korea.
Causation is always difficult to establish when the
empirical does not bear out the theoretical ;-)
David Friedman
<holman-2407...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> True enough, but any intelligent and foreward-looking company has programs
> to make workers shareholders with a stake in corporate success. That might
> be regarded as the "socialist" aspect of modern social-democracy.
I can certainly believe that many companies encourage their workers to
buy stock--both in the hope that doing so will more nearly align the
interest of employee and employer, and because people buying stock tends
to drive up its price, which makes management look good.
It's not at all clear, however, that it's in the interest of the worker
to buy stock in the company that employs him, since doing so means that
variations in his income and in his wealth are correlated. If the
company does badly enough he loses both his job and his savings.
I also don't see in what sense employee stock ownership is socialist. In
the limit, a worker managed firm is still a capitalist entity so long as
it doesn't have any special advantages from or control by government. I
think the historical evidence suggests that worker managed firms may
work for small enterprises--consider, as a somewhat specialized example,
a law firm where a good deal of the skilled labor is being provided by
the partners. But they seem to work poorly for large firms, with the
result that, when they compete on even terms with other organizational
forms, they turn out to be pretty rare.
David Friedman
<1afc1c18-3a71-48cc...@s21g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
constan...@gmail.com wrote:
> > Myth? It clearly works.
>
> Rather, you have an explanation for the fact that Europe isn't doing
> so badly. But there are other explanations, and James has given one
> (i.e. that it's because of the private sector and despite the public
> sector).
>
> Causation is hard to get right, and even harder to observe directly.
> What you can observe are correlations, and those are also hard to
> observe on the level of a large population, because there are so many
> other factors that need to be taken into account and factored out -
> take for instance the absurdity of judging a country's health care
> system by the longevity of its population, without taking into account
> factors such as average lifestyle, diet, and so on, or the absurdity
> of comparing infant mortality when some countries count all baby
> deaths as baby deaths and others count them as never having officially
> been born, thus artificially suppressing their infant mortality
> statistics. There is a small number of cases where the real world
> comes as close as it can to providing a laboratory-like experiment.
> Just to give an example, one is North Korea versus South Korea.
I don't think Mr Holman is arguing for a centrally planned socialist
system, however, so the striking examples aren't really relevant. The
interesting question here is whether a welfare state with a basically
capitalist system works better or worse than something much closer to
pure laissez-faire. One might try to compare, say, Bismarck's Germany
with the contemporary U.S. or U.K., but there are so many other
differences that the comparison becomes very difficult.
Vladimir Makarenko
> hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote in
> news:holman-2407...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi:
>
>> Urban Russia has an economy and lifestyle
>> that cannot be characterized by any other designation than
>> unadulterated, unfettered capitalism.
>
> Russia's economy is still regulated top to bottom and to add insult to
> injury, the government is run by criminal thugs.
>
Heh, a baby is in a low mood. Probably just get back from a gas station
paying Russian government a nice ransom. Sucker.
VM.
Karel Kriz
<e846af9d-7bcc-468f...@i24g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 22, 6:19 pm, s...@sofluc.co.uk.invalid (Jonathan L Cunningham)
> wrote:
> > <nob...@nowhere.com> wrote:
> > > In article <7ukb84hsqe32kmtcbgbfg50pjd4rren...@4ax.com>
> > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> >
> > > >(Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
> > > >> Of course, a laundry list of Bad Things about socialism/communism etc.
> > > >> If you can't see *anything* to put (in those last two lists), you look
> > > >> (to me) biased.
> >
> > > >Let us compare actually existent socialism to actually existent
> > > >capitalism, and you tell us what virtues you think socialism had.
> >
> > > AFAIK, neither of you have any experience of life in former
> > > USSR.
> >
> > > Wouldn't be better to ask people who experienced both
> > > capitalism and socialism, i.e. the citizens of former USSR
> >
> > I don't regard the former USSR as demonstrating all forms of socialism.
> >
> > In particular, I differentiate between soviet communism and other
> > political systems which might be called socialism.
> >
> > Picking a *single* system is not a good way to understand a general
> > concept, although it can be useful to understand a specific example as
> > giving insight into the general problem.
> >
> > What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the general
> > case?
> >
> > Jonathan
> > (Incidentally, I repeat /again/ that I'm not a socialist. I just don't
> > like anything that appears to be an unreasoned rejection of any
> > political system. I want to know the reasons. And I no more think that
> > the defeat of the USSR in the cold war is proof that socialism is bad,
> > than I think that one murder by a person of Arican descent proves that
> > all Africans are murderers.)
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan L Cunningham- Hide quoted text -
> >
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> The reason that Soviet style socialism died in Eastern
> Europe was because it was not economically viable,
> and *because* it was fundamentally (philosophically)
> immoral. I realize the connection between morality
> and the condition, and long-term viability of any sort
> of ordered society is not immediately self-evident to
> everyone, but is always there, and it is very important.
> Rather than getting into the specific arguments here,
> and now, may I recommend a primer on Objectivist
> ethics, such as Loving Life, by Craig Biddle.
>
> http://www.glenallenpress.com/loving-life/
You keep talking about "morality" a great deal and that makes you sound
like a preacher in search of a religion. Defining what is moral and what
is not is a purely subjective exercise. Is prostitution immoral? Many
would say yes, yet it has flourished in all societies since time
immemorial. But I suspect that you regard as "immoral" any act that
somehow impedes your self professed desire to be an individual a do as
you please, including keeping ALL of your income. But since you pay
taxes, as we all must, and these taxes are then used to pay for programs
and services that you may not care about. Does that render our society
"immoral" in your eyes and, consequently are we doomed to fail soon?
Personally, it raises my heckles every time someone declares something
immoral, whether or not there is God involved. But to state flatly that
a society like USSR, flawed as it was, failed because it was immoral,
ignores the big picture in order to make an argument that jives with
your ideology-du-jour.
K
kujebak
> In article
> <e846af9d-7bcc-468f-9b72-fe6ba7e38...@i24g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
If my self-righteousness turns you off, then don't read and
don't respond to my posts. I think you know me well enough
by now to expect no less. As to your reaction to my use
of this word, I would say it is you who is constrained by pre-
conceptions here. In the context of this discussion, I place
no religious meaning on the use of the word "morality" what-
soever. It would be to your own handicap to think morality
has no meaning in and of itself. If you actually believed that ;-)
>
> Personally, it raises my heckles every time someone declares something
> immoral, whether or not there is God involved. But to state flatly that
> a society like USSR, flawed as it was, failed because it was immoral,
> ignores the big picture in order to make an argument that jives with
> your ideology-du-jour.
Whether you agree with my ideology or not, you cannot
possibly have any sort of disagreement with my conclusion.
The conclusion being that the Eastern Block collapsed,
because the societies that comprised it, the societies that
were nurtured by 40 yeard of collectivist mentality lacked
an adequate sense of self-worth in order to continue on
existing. We may leave it at that, leave it to the academics
here to ponder what coud have possibly gone wrong with
such a noble social experiment, or we may simply call it
a name it truly deserves - the greatest perversion of reason
in the history of mankind. Right, Mr. Kriz?
>
> K- Hide quoted text -
Karel Kriz
<37597f2c-380a-4a86...@b30g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
OK, OK, I am going to stop riding you on this. You are right, I know
your personal philosophy. It seems a bit kooky to me, but WTH, you are
entitled to it. There are far worse cults out there than Ayn Rand. But I
cannot resist...can you define "morality" for me? If thee's God
involved, it becomes far easier to do that, but without a deity, it's a
tough nut to crack...I'd like to hear your definition, that is hopefully
less milquetoast than "community standards" which is a cop out.
> >
> > Personally, it raises my heckles every time someone declares something
> > immoral, whether or not there is God involved. But to state flatly that
> > a society like USSR, flawed as it was, failed because it was immoral,
> > ignores the big picture in order to make an argument that jives with
> > your ideology-du-jour.
>
> Whether you agree with my ideology or not, you cannot
> possibly have any sort of disagreement with my conclusion.
> The conclusion being that the Eastern Block collapsed,
> because the societies that comprised it, the societies that
> were nurtured by 40 yeard of collectivist mentality lacked
> an adequate sense of self-worth in order to continue on
> existing. We may leave it at that, leave it to the academics
> here to ponder what coud have possibly gone wrong with
> such a noble social experiment, or we may simply call it
> a name it truly deserves - the greatest perversion of reason
> in the history of mankind. Right, Mr. Kriz?
Oh, I think there are worse. What everybody in this string ignores is
the fact that the question is missing a qualifier.
What is better - for whom?
K
James A. Donald
> > > Ummmm...so, you're saying that the [Russian]
> > > Communist Party isn't Communist?
James A. Donald:
> > Not any more.
> >
> > Similarly with the various "socialist" parties.
> > British Labour has been fleeing socialism since
> > 1949.
Jerry Kraus:
> I've noticed that it's very important to Capitalists
> to define all other economic systems out of existence.
> Otherwise, the obvious flaws of Capitalism would have
> to be addressed.
Socialism still exists: Go to North Korea to see it in
action.
If the British Labour Party, or the Russian Communist
party, was actually socialist, then at election time
they would put up posters saying "vote for socialism" on
the subway wall.
They don't do that, for if they did, they would get
votes down in the asterisks.
James A. Donald
> I asked, "What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the
> general case?"
Every single example of socialism has been an economic catastrophe, or
tyranny and mass murder, and frequently both. The former USSR is less
dreadful than most.
> IOW, what does the USSR tell us about "socialism v. capitalism"? I think
> that matches the subject line.
The USSR is one of the complete set of examples, which complete set
tells us that the former Soviet Union is about as good as you can do.
James A. Donald
> > The largely private Hong Kong education has produced
> > considerably better results than any predominantly
> > state system.
Eugene Holman
> That may be because of the extraordinary situation and
> history of Hong Kong.
The extraordinary situation being a vast pile of
refugees abandoned on a barren rock.
It used to be that people claimed the third world could
not develop the way England developed, could not develop
by simply allowing capitalism, because there was
something special about England. Then Hong Kong and
Singapore developed. Whereupon you guys proceeded to
argue that total lack of resources was actually a huge
advantage.
And then Taiwan followed the path of Hong Kong and
Singapore, and you guys proceeded to argue ...
And then India and China moved substantially towards
capitalism, and are now following the path followed by
the rest.
The simple fact is that where ever capitalism is
allowed, it works. Wherever socialism is tried, it
fails - the latest run of this experiment being
Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
Within the countries of the former Soviet Union, all are
following the capitalist path to some extent, but some,
like Estonia, a lot more than others. They are
succeeding to the extent they follow the capitalist
path, and failing to the extent that they do not.
Hong Kong versus China was an experiment in capitalism
and socialism, spatially separated. China pre reform
and post reform was an experiment in capitalism and
socialism, temporally separated.
James A. Donald
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> But capitalism exists as a theory as well as in
> various implementations, none of which fully conforms
> to the ideal. The present Russian implementation,
> quite similar to the American implementation of a
> century or so ago
The American system of a century or so ago had a small
non interventionist government, and most land and
natural resources were private. The present russian
system has a large massively interventionist government,
and most land and natural resources are governmental.
Russia is a system that has moved only a short distance
from socialism. Estonia, on the other hand, has moved a
large distance from socialism.
> certainly falls within the definition of capitalism as
> a type of economic system based primarily on private
> ownership of capital
Some countries are more capitalist than others. Russia
is less capitalist than most of Europe, less capitalist
than most of the countries of the Soviet Empire. Hong
Kong and Estonia, on the other hand, are highly
capitalist.
"Economic Freedom of the World"
<http://www.freetheworld.com/> has a ranking system that
tries to measure how capitalist a country is. It ranks
Russia fairly low - 112 out of 144, while America is
ranked fifth out 144.
> > Capitalism is an economic system based on private
> > ownership of capital, where economic decisions are
> > the outcome a relatively free market in goods and
> > labor.
>
> > <http://www.websters-online-dictionary.com/definitio
> > n/capitalism> gives a good account of what
> > capitalism is.
>
> Contemporary Russia arguably conforms better to this
> definition than the contemporary United States.
"Economic Freedom of the World" disagrees.
> The Russian economy is currently based on private
> ownership of the means of production,
How private is private ownership is depends on your
prospects of being arrested, having your stuff taken
away from you, and needing to flee the country to evade
unjust prosecution.
> Despite the presence of the state in certain key
> sectors, there is far less state regulation of the
> economy in Russia than in more developed western
> economies, for which reason environmental and worker
> welfare issues constrain the Russian economy less than
> they do in more developed ones.
Regulation usually has objectives incompatible with
environmental and welfare goals, thus a countries
success in meeting environmental and welfare goals is a
poor indicator of the level of regulation. Hong Kong has
very little regulation, and an excellent environment.
Russia is listed by "Economic Freedom of the World" as
having high levels of regulation in the sense of
"Administrative Requirements" and "Bureaucracy Costs",
which agrees with anecdotes I have heard about Russia.
> Additionally, in Russia it is frequently possible to
> bypass existing regulatory legislation with an
> appropriate bribe.
This, however, gives administrators an incentive to make
sure that regulatory legislation is impossible to comply
with legally, which again agrees with anecdotes I have
heard about Russia.
Your argument is circular: You assume that anti
capitalist government actions are intended to achieve
good things, and succeed in achieving good things.
Since we don't see those good things in Russia, you
conclude Russia must be highly capitalist - but we saw
even less of those good things, even greater pollution,
even less welfare, when the place was socialist.
Mr Bungle 34
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTfcAyYGg
People really need to wake up.
Eugene Holman
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> James A. Donald
> > > The largely private Hong Kong education has produced
> > > considerably better results than any predominantly
> > > state system.
>
> Eugene Holman
> > That may be because of the extraordinary situation and
> > history of Hong Kong.
>
> The extraordinary situation being a vast pile of
> refugees abandoned on a barren rock.
I would say more a two-tier society, British and Cantonese/Chinese, with
each tier competing with the other to show its capabilities and possible
claim to superiority.
> It used to be that people claimed the third world could
> not develop the way England developed, could not develop
> by simply allowing capitalism, because there was
> something special about England.
Yes. It encouraged the development of colonial societies which kept
ambitious and competent members of the less-privileged classes in their
places, while allowing people with the proper birthright and background
all kinds of privileges that they never had to earn. It is due to a
variant of that system that the United States has been saddled with a
leader having the intelligence, capabilities, and track-record of
you-know-who for the past eight years.
> Then Hong Kong and
> Singapore developed. Whereupon you guys proceeded to
> argue that total lack of resources was actually a huge
> advantage.
Who is "you guys"? I am probably more a capitalist than you are, since I
actually am co-owner of a company in Estonia that does business in the
Baltics and in Russia. The issue is the degree to which capitalism and
social-responsibility are reconcilable. My position, briefly stated, is
that a far-sighted capitalist realizes that the long-term ability to run a
business and generate a profit requires a healthy society, and that being
required to plow some of the profits generated by his/her business into
such programs as national health care, subsidized day care, and quality
education ensure that a minimum of social resources will be spent on
resolving social problems and that society will produce a better pool of
people from which to draw competent worker/taxpayers in the future.
> And then Taiwan followed the path of Hong Kong and
> Singapore, and you guys proceeded to argue ...
>
> And then India and China moved substantially towards
> capitalism, and are now following the path followed by
> the rest.
I have no argument with you there. What we seem to disagree on is the
degree to which Russia is following the same path. My position is that
after a lot of farting around during the Yeltsin era, it is now securely
on the same track as India, China, and the others, even if some of the
details, such as the problems of corruption and gangsterism, are
country-specific.
> The simple fact is that where ever capitalism is
> allowed, it works. Wherever socialism is tried, it
> fails - the latest run of this experiment being
> Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
That is too sweeping a generalization. By American standards, most of
Western Europe, where the welfare state still in place, compulsory
national health insurance is the norm, and the state participates more in
the economy than would be possible or desirable in the USA, has socialist
features. Most indices of quality of life and standard of overall social
welfare put Western Europe ahead of the United States. In former
eastern-bloc countries such as Estonia, which went for capitalism 110% and
rejected the welfare-state model of neighboring Finland, there is now
serious political debate about how to continue. One Estonian politician
has stated it quite bluntly: "A society is best judged by how it treats
its weakest members". Anyone familiar with Estonian and Finnish society
knows that a key difference between them is the amount of resources
devoted to the care of children, the disabled, and the elderly. Estonian
society is, like the United States, clearly polarized between the very
rich and the very poor in a manner than Finnish society is not.
How you can call the unfortunate developments in Zimbabwe "socialist" is
beyond me. Zimbabwe is an example of the failure of a flawed
decolonialization program, coupled with the tragedy of a former national
hero degenerating into a megalomaniac concerned only with the welfare of
his cronies. Such egocentricism, monopolization of resources to serve
interests of a single grouping that is not even a class, and cronyism are
as far as one can possibly get from any classical model of socialism.
> Within the countries of the former Soviet Union, all are
> following the capitalist path to some extent, but some,
> like Estonia, a lot more than others. They are
> succeeding to the extent they follow the capitalist
> path, and failing to the extent that they do not.
Russia, too, is on this path and, given where it was as recently as ten
years ago, succeeding quite well at it. Given the relative size of the two
countries, Russia's success will have a far greater impact on the world
that Estonia's. On the other hand, there is, as far as I am able to
ascertain, more political debate in Estonia, where many people, deep in
their gut, regard Finland and Sweden, rather than the United States, as a
better model for what Estonia ought to be, about the alternatives to
industrial-strength capitalism than there is in Russia.
> Hong Kong versus China was an experiment in capitalism
> and socialism, spatially separated. China pre reform
> and post reform was an experiment in capitalism and
> socialism, temporally separated.
Those are pretty broad generalizations. Without wanting to delve into them
further, I suggest that Taiwan, which has a far more normal capitalist
economy and poliical culture than Hong Kong, be factored into the equation
as well.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
kujebak
> In article <7jfl84l6eq905hepgsbvfmvmmhln0lr...@4ax.com>, James A. Donald
Suppose the Estonian society decided the products or services
provided by *your* business were essential to general well-being
of all Estonians, and that their availability should not be subject
to anyone’s particular economic means, but as a basic entitlement
of Estonian citizenship. Would you, as a result, choose to find
another form of livelihood, or, in the off chance that you would
actually recognize your personal economic sacrifice as a worthy
price for the achievement of its social purpose, agree to give up
you right of economic self-determination by becoming de facto
public servant? The intent of this hypothetical example is to
illustrate that in very case of a government mandated economic
entitlement (socialized medicine being one of them) there
are costs, which are never included in the hypocritical reasoning
of the proponents of "social responsibility of private enterprise".
The Forgotten Man of Socialized Medicine:
http://tinyurl.com/6nqrrt
Jerry Kraus
If you simply choose to define the worst possible country on the
planet as the only socialist one, then Socialism will be a very bad
system. I could just as easily say Mexican drug dealers are the only
true Capitalists. Of course, you'd probably say they're socialists.
Basically, socialism is government control, capitalism is greed
motivated activity. A balance is necessary between the two. We're
greedy, but we're also social animals. Some government control is
necessary, and all governmental control is socialistic, including the
military and the police.
kujebak
Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist,
by maintaining law, order, and external security. The answer
to the question, whether it is also necessary to provide some
of the content of our lives, largely depends, I suppose, on how
much of a "social animal" in relation "individual rational human"
one considers himself to be :-))
Day Brown
> (Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
>> I asked, "What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the
>> general case?"
>
> Every single example of socialism has been an economic catastrophe, or
> tyranny and mass murder, and frequently both. The former USSR is less
> dreadful than most.
China, who are matriarchic, with the grandmothers in charge of communal
houses. Nobody owns private land.
But while each commune is socialist, each is in capitalistic competition
with all the others. This resembles what we can tell of the ancient
independent city states of the Silk Road, like Kucha, in what is now NW
China.
The ruins of this city, more than 2,000 years old, dont include any
palace, nor any slums. Its all middle class. The documentation, which
was abundantly preserved by the cold dry desert, shows Kucha was run by
a line of Gautamid queens until destroyed by the Mongols.
The queen didnt need a harem, so she didnt need a palace to keep them
in, and thus didnt need a castle to protect the palace, nor the taxes to
pay for it all.
Moreover, the Kuchi didnt breed welfare queens, but drafted them into
the brothels owned by the city. When the Kuchi coo by the brothel door,
the men who did the footwork on the Silk Road came running. And when
they paid for sexual services, they used Kuchan coin, which was
perforated like washers so it could be carried on a string on the road
and not get lost. The name for Kuchan coin:"Cash". And it was cash that
paid for the government.
David Friedman
<holman-2607...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
> On the other hand, there is, as far as I am able to
> ascertain, more political debate in Estonia, where many people, deep in
> their gut, regard Finland and Sweden, rather than the United States, as a
> better model for what Estonia ought to be,
I'm curious as to why you regard the U.S. system as strikingly different
from the Finnish or Swedish. The U.S. has a public school system. The
U.S. has extensive government intervention in and subsidy of medical
care. The U.S. has large scale welfare programs of various sorts. My
rather casual impression is that the developed western countries differ
somewhat in what their governments do, but that the broad model is
pretty much the same and the total amount of government intervention
isn't all that different.
The relevant contrast wouldn't be to the U.S. today but to the U.S. and
U.K. in the 19th century, when the total size of government relative to
GNP was about a quarter what it now is.
David Friedman
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> (Jonathan L Cunningham) wrote:
> > I asked, "What insights do you think the former USSR provides about the
> > general case?"
>
> Every single example of socialism has been an economic catastrophe, or
> tyranny and mass murder, and frequently both. The former USSR is less
> dreadful than most.
>
> > IOW, what does the USSR tell us about "socialism v. capitalism"? I think
> > that matches the subject line.
>
> The USSR is one of the complete set of examples, which complete set
> tells us that the former Soviet Union is about as good as you can do.
Economically speaking I would have said that Yugoslavia was considerably
better--and, of course, considerably less socialist.
It's true that the government killed quite a lot of people--but that was
in part during a civil war, and the events after Yugoslavia broke up
suggest that there were internal strains in the society which might have
been expected to produce a good deal of bloodshed even without socialism.
David Friedman
<1402f6e9-f7a6-426e...@x29g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
> conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist,
> by maintaining law, order, and external security.
Not "of course." There have, after all, been quite a lot of stateless
societies, although no modern developed ones.
Some of us think that the position you are arguing for doesn't carry its
support of capitalism quite far enough.
David Friedman
<3416faf7-d50d-42e6...@m45g2000hsb.googlegroups.com>,
Jerry Kraus <jkrau...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Basically, socialism is government control, capitalism is greed
> motivated activity.
I would have said that under capitalism individuals act in pursuit of
their own objectives, which might be narrow self interest, the interest
of themselves and those they care about, broadly altruistic objectives,
or practically anything else.
Do you use "greed" to describe all actions that individuals take because
they serve the objectives of those individuals?
David Friedman
Karel Kriz <ka...@bouncingczech.com> wrote:
> Personally, it raises my heckles every time someone declares something
> immoral, whether or not there is God involved.
But presumably, since "Defining what is moral and what is not is a
purely subjective exercise," the fact that it raises your hackles is
merely a random scrap of information about your own baseless
preferences. If, after all, you were suggesting that there was a good
reason why it ought to raise your hackles, that there was actually
something wrong with declaring something to be immoral, you would
yourself be taking a normative position, and you appear to believe that
all such are baseless.
Correct?
kujebak
wrote:
> In article
> <1402f6e9-f7a6-426e-ab25-b29578cc9...@x29g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
> kujebak <kuje...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
> > conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist,
> > by maintaining law, order, and external security.
>
> Not "of course." There have, after all, been quite a lot of stateless
> societies, although no modern developed ones.
>
> Some of us think that the position you are arguing for doesn't carry its
> support of capitalism quite far enough.
You think I should be more explicit?
>
> --
> http://www.daviddfriedman.com/http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
David Friedman
Karel Kriz <ka...@bouncingczech.com> wrote:
> What everybody in this string ignores is
> the fact that the question is missing a qualifier.
>
> What is better - for whom?
I'm curious. Suppose the communist revolution hadn't happened and
Czarist Russia had developed, either continuously or via a democratic
revolution, along the same lines as western European nations
did--perhaps, given its starting position, some of the poorer ones such
as Portugal or Greece.
Do you think there is any substantial part of the Russian population
that would be worse off in that alternate history than in the one that
actually happened?
As this may suggest, I think you are asking the wrong question. In the
short run, alternative economic arrangements indeed affect different
people in different ways. But in the long run, in my view, societies
that are much more capitalist are better for almost everyone, including
poor people.
I don't know if you have read the book _The Russians_, written back when
the USSR was a going concern. One of the things that struck me about
that book was that it was describing a society with much more inequality
than the society I lived in.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
David Friedman
<9e199c34-aa01-450b...@h17g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> On Jul 26, 7:46 pm, David Friedman <d...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com>
> wrote:
> > In article
> > <1402f6e9-f7a6-426e-ab25-b29578cc9...@x29g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
> >
> > kujebak <kuje...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > > Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
> > > conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist,
> > > by maintaining law, order, and external security.
> >
> > Not "of course." There have, after all, been quite a lot of stateless
> > societies, although no modern developed ones.
> >
> > Some of us think that the position you are arguing for doesn't carry its
> > support of capitalism quite far enough.
>
> You think I should be more explicit?
No. I think you should be in favor of less government than you are.
You wouldn't want to drive a car designed and produced by government, or
depend on government agriculture to feed you. Why do you expect
governments to be any better at producing law?
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Raymond
>
Why Socialism?
By Albert Einstein
Einstein's socialism was distinctly democratic.Most Americans don't
realize that they are surrounded by socialism and use it every day in
their own lives. Thank G-d for Socialism in America
Socialism is directed toward a social-ethical end. Science, however,
cannot create ends and, even less, instill them in human beings;
science, at most, can supply the means by which to attain certain
ends. But the ends themselves are conceived by personalities with
lofty ethical ideals and -- if these ends are not stillborn, but vital
and vigorous -- are adopted and carried forward by those many human
beings who, half-unconsciously, determine the slow evolution of
society.
The economic anarchy of capitalist society as it exists today is, in
my opinion, the real source of the evil. We see before us a huge
community of producers the members of which are unceasingly striving
to deprive each other of the fruits of their collective labor -- not
by force, but on the whole in faithful compliance with legally
established rules. In this respect, it is important to realize that
the means of production -- that is to say, the entire productive
capacity that is needed for producing consumer goods as well as
additional capital goods -- may legally be, and for the most part are,
the private property of individuals.
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Einstein.htm
Socialism is alive and well in America.....Socialism in America is
alive, well, and growing. Aided by such influential Congressmen as
John Conyers, Ranking Member of the House Judicial Committee, ...
http://www.sovereignty.net/center/socialists.htm
America is a plutocracy and is not a benefit to the majority of the
human American community. But, that is not common knowledge to
Americans who are more interested in " The Days of Our Lives" and a
visit to Disneyland.
We must open more public libraries and schools close to the thousands
of trailer parks in America so the tenants can learn more about why
they need socialism. .... "The greatest ignorance is to reject
something you know nothing about"
America is a Plutocracy
"Greed is Good."
--- Gordon Gekko
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/MovieSpeeches/moviespeechwallstreet.html
The term "plutocracy" is formally defined as government by the
wealthy, and is also sometimes used to refer to a wealthy class that
controls a government, often from behind the scenes.
Example:
The Carlyle Group
http://www.hereinreality.com/carlyle.html
More generally, a plutocracy is any form of government in which the
wealthy exercise the preponderance of political power, whether
directly or indirectly.
http://www.progressiveliving.org/plutocracy_defined.htm
Let us prey along with the Republicans and their corporation stooge
candidate in the 2008 election charade.
kujebak
wrote:
> In article
> <9e199c34-aa01-450b-94ab-30dd584ab...@h17g2000prg.googlegroups.com>,
>
>
>
>
>
> kujebak <kuje...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > On Jul 26, 7:46 pm, David Friedman <d...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com>
> > wrote:
> > > In article
> > > <1402f6e9-f7a6-426e-ab25-b29578cc9...@x29g2000prd.googlegroups.com>,
>
> > > kujebak <kuje...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > > > Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
> > > > conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist,
> > > > by maintaining law, order, and external security.
>
> > > Not "of course." There have, after all, been quite a lot of stateless
> > > societies, although no modern developed ones.
>
> > > Some of us think that the position you are arguing for doesn't carry its
> > > support of capitalism quite far enough.
>
> > You think I should be more explicit?
>
> No. I think you should be in favor of less government than you are.
>
> You wouldn't want to drive a car designed and produced by government, or
> depend on government agriculture to feed you. Why do you expect
> governments to be any better at producing law?
>
> --
> Author of _Harald_, a fantasy without magic.
>
> - Show quoted text -
Then you and I have misunderstood each other.
Of course I do not advocate big government.
I claim that govenment should play no role in
people's economic lives, and that we should
not need any kind of institutional protection from
each other (which is the essence of socialism),
as long as we are willing to stay honest, and
true to ourselves and to our principles. Of course
there'll always be a few who will not acknowledge
this paradigm, but those people should be con-
signed to the fringe of our society, insted of being
regarded as a gage of our cultural integrity.
David Friedman
<6ab4d153-f87e-44b0...@p31g2000prf.googlegroups.com>,
kujebak <kuj...@eudoramail.com> wrote:
> > Author of Harald , a fantasy without magic.
> > Published by Baen, in bookstores now- Hide quoted text -
> >
> > - Show quoted text -
>
> Then you and I have misunderstood each other.
> Of course I do not advocate big government.
> I claim that govenment should play no role in
> people's economic lives, and that we should
> not need any kind of institutional protection from
> each other (which is the essence of socialism),
> as long as we are willing to stay honest, and
> true to ourselves and to our principles. Of course
> there'll always be a few who will not acknowledge
> this paradigm, but those people should be con-
> signed to the fringe of our society, insted of being
> regarded as a gage of our cultural integrity.
You wrote:
"Of course goverment *is* necessary in order to safeguard the
conditions, in which individual freedom of choice can exist, by
maintaining law, order, and external security."
So you are arguing that government is needed to maintain law and order.
That is a role in people's lives, including their economic lives, and a
big one.
--
http://www.daviddfriedman.com/ http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/
Eugene Holman
<ddfr-90CC08.2...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>, David
Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> In article
> <holman-2607...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
> hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
>
> > On the other hand, there is, as far as I am able to
> > ascertain, more political debate in Estonia, where many people, deep in
> > their gut, regard Finland and Sweden, rather than the United States, as a
> > better model for what Estonia ought to be,
>
> I'm curious as to why you regard the U.S. system as strikingly different
> from the Finnish or Swedish.
Because it is.
> The U.S. has a public school system.
A poorly functioning one that allows vast disparities. Our system gives
all students the same resources and provides them with all the education
they can absorb, up to and including graduate degrees. For details, see
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB120425355065601997-7Bp8YFw7Yy1n9bdKtVyP7KBAcJA_20080330.html
.
> The
> U.S. has extensive government intervention in and subsidy of medical
> care.
It does not insure the entire population, as is the case here, nor does
the system show any particular interest in preventative medicine. Once
again, see the Wall Street Journal for an alternative:
http://www.ktl.fi/portal/english/ktl/organization/director_general/wall_street_journal_praises_finland_s_health_promoting_culture/
.
> The U.S. has large scale welfare programs of various sorts. My
> rather casual impression is that the developed western countries differ
> somewhat in what their governments do, but that the broad model is
> pretty much the same and the total amount of government intervention
> isn't all that different.
In the US you have approximately one child in four living in poverty
[http://www.heartsandminds.org/articles/childpov.htm]. Poverty
disproportionately targets the children of single mothers, particularly if
they belong to minority groups. Simply stated, Western European societies
do not punish children for the decisuions that their mothers have made or
for being members of the wrong ethnicity.
> The relevant contrast wouldn't be to the U.S. today but to the U.S. and
> U.K. in the 19th century, when the total size of government relative to
> GNP was about a quarter what it now is.
The US remains a polarized society. The same development is taking place
in hyper-capitalist Russia, which, with roughly half the population base,
presently has almost as many US dollar billionaires as the United States
[http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6433939.stm]. Estonia, which has had
nearly twenty years of experience with this model, is coming to second
thoughts about its longer-term viability.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
James A. Donald
James A. Donald wrote:
> > Every single example of socialism has been an
> > economic catastrophe, or tyranny and mass murder,
> > and frequently both. The former USSR is less
> > dreadful than most.
Day Brown
> Not egzactly. the exceptions are obscure. There are
> the Mosou of SW China, who are matriarchic, with the
> grandmothers in charge of communal houses. Nobody owns
> private land.
The supposed exceptions are sufficiently obscure that it
is easy to manufacture up total fantasies about them.
Matriarchal societies do not exist. Matrilineal
societies exist Actual examples of matriarchal societies
disappear under examination, so I am unsurprised to find
that a supposed successful socialist society is also
supposedly matriarchal.
The evidence for successful socialism resembles the
evidence for flying saucers. Somehow successful
socialism always fails to leave behind any solid
evidence.
> The ruins of this city, more than 2,000 years old,
> dont include any palace, nor any slums. Its all middle
> class.
Back then only the elite lived in cities, and their
personal slaves slept at their feet like dogs.
Technological limits necessitated that most people grow
food. Those who grew food lived in the countryside.
Those who ate other people's food usually extracted it
at sword point.
> The queen didnt need a harem, so she didnt need a
> palace to keep them in, and thus didnt need a castle
> to protect the palace, nor the taxes to pay for it
> all.
Kucha was surrounded by a ditch twenty feet deep. They
were protecting something.
Until they were conquered by Turkish speaking peoples,
the people of Kucha spoke Tokarian, a branch of the indo
european language. They had caucasian features. The
original indo europeans were hierarchical, aristocratic,
warlike, propertarian, optimistic, and male supremacist.
They had a firm belief that what is mine is mine, and
what was yours might also be mine with a suitable
application of sharpened iron. The early chinese
mentions of the inhabitants of Kucha depict them as
barbarian raiders, which sounds very much like the usual
Indo Europeans.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > If the British Labour Party, or the Russian
> > Communist party, was actually socialist, then at
> > election time they would put up posters saying "vote
> > for socialism" on the subway wall.
Jerry Kraus
> If you simply choose to define the worst possible
> country on the planet as the only socialist one.
There used to be a lot more socialist countries, but not
any more. Indeed, in the 1940s it was entirely
thinkable that the British labor party might put posters
saying "vote for socialism" on the subway wall.
> Basically, socialism is government control, capitalism
> is greed motivated activity. A balance is necessary
> between the two.
Governments, of course, being composed of angels who do
not have greed. :-)
Your statement of the "balance" is itself unbalanced -
unbalanced in favor of tyranny and against liberty.
> We're greedy, but we're also social animals.
Trade and exchange is social. Government is violence,
it is anti social. The business of government is war
and crime. The justification for government is that
other governments might successfully commit worse
crimes.
Eugene Holman
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
<deletions>
>
> Trade and exchange is social. Government is violence,
> it is anti social. The business of government is war
> and crime.
That may hold for large, imperial states, but it is not so for smaller
countries with ambitions no higher than ensuring that their populations
prosper. It is also important to remember that you live in a
"winner-take-all" system. Many countries have proportional representation.
If thre are three parties and their share of the votes are 55%, 30%, and
15%, political power is apportioned according to those percentages.
> The justification for government is that
> other governments might successfully commit worse
> crimes.
Many, perhaps most, of the world's governments are primarily concerned
with the welfare and prosperity of the populations that they represent.
<deletions>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
James A. Donald
> > Then Hong Kong and
> > Singapore developed. Whereupon you guys proceeded to
> > argue that total lack of resources was actually a huge
> > advantage.
Eugene Holman
> Who is "you guys"?
The guys who are explaining that the development of each society that
developed had nothing to do with capitalism but was some special
circumstance characteristic of that particular time and place, usually
some evil, sinful, wicked, and oppressive circumstance.
> The issue is the degree to which capitalism and
> social-responsibility are reconcilable. My position, briefly stated, is
> that a far-sighted capitalist realizes that the long-term ability to run a
> business and generate a profit requires a healthy society, and that being
> required to plow some of the profits generated by his/her business into
> such programs as national health care, subsidized day care, and quality
> education ensure that a minimum of social resources will be spent on
> resolving social problems
The two most rapidly growing countries in Europe are Estonia and
Ireland.
What do they have in common?
Low taxes on profits.
And let us look at France: They have enormous social problems, which
social problems are largely various groups fighting over the gravy
that the state distributes.
The more wealth the state redistributes, the more energy and effort
goes into confrontation, destruction, politics, hatred, extremism, ,
political agitation, and violence.
> > The simple fact is that where ever capitalism is
> > allowed, it works. Wherever socialism is tried, it
> > fails - the latest run of this experiment being
> > Rhodesia/Zimbabwe.
> That is too sweeping a generalization. By American standards, most of
> Western Europe, where the welfare state still in place, compulsory
> national health insurance is the norm, and the state participates more in
> the economy than would be possible or desirable in the USA, has socialist
> features.
The differences in the degree of capitalism between the US and Europe
are today small, and have been fairly small since Nixon.
> Most indices of quality of life and standard of overall social
> welfare put Western Europe ahead of the United States.
I don't think so.
On the measure of how much stuff people have, gadgets in their house,
room per person, the European middle class is worse off than the
typical American ghetto dweller.
On the measure of exposure to criminal acts, the prospect that some
thugs are going to barge into your house, humiliate you, terrify you,
and take your stuff, on your prospects that someone in the street is
going to rough you up, Europeans come off considerably worse than
Americans.
On the measure of medical treatment, the bad smells typical of British
hospitals makes any statistics concerning British medicine risible.
<http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22Jack+Tagg%22+macular+degeneration%22>
On the measure of employment, on people's ability to get jobs, get
careers, get on with their lives, young Americans can do it, young
Frenchmen and Germans cannot. An american can tell his boss to take
his job and stick it up his ass. A European generally cannot.
Then there is all the racism and hatred that we see in Europe. Paris
burns. At least America's terrorists attack us mostly from outside.
Europe spawns its own terrorists.
> In former
> eastern-bloc countries such as Estonia, which went for capitalism 110% and
> rejected the welfare-state model of neighboring Finland, there is now
> serious political debate about how to continue. One Estonian politician
> has stated it quite bluntly: "A society is best judged by how it treats
> its weakest members".
Estonia has seven percent growth. After fifteen years of that, the
weakest members of Estonia are going to be considerably better off
than the weakest members of Finland.
> How you can call the unfortunate developments in Zimbabwe "socialist" is
> beyond me.
You want redistribution of wealth from the richest to the poorest?
Zimbabwe took the richest people's land, and not only took their land,
but beat the shit out of them. If Finland is more socialist than
Estonia, Zimbabwe is a lot more socialist than Finland.
You want regulation? Zimbabwe sent in the bulldozers.
Socialism is a baton in the face. Zimbabwe hits people with bigger
batons, and hits harder.
> > Within the countries of the former Soviet Union, all are
> > following the capitalist path to some extent, but some,
> > like Estonia, a lot more than others. They are
> > succeeding to the extent they follow the capitalist
> > path, and failing to the extent that they do not.
> Russia, too, is on this path
Estonia ranks eighth in the world in economic freedom. Russia ranks
114th. They are both capitalist, but Estonia far more capitalist.
> > Hong Kong versus China was an experiment in capitalism
> > and socialism, spatially separated. China pre reform
> > and post reform was an experiment in capitalism and
> > socialism, temporally separated.
> Those are pretty broad generalizations. Without wanting to delve into them
> further, I suggest that Taiwan, which has a far more normal capitalist
> economy and poliical culture than Hong Kong, be factored into the equation
> as well.
Taiwan is a first world nation, China becoming a first world nation.
Same lesson:
Taiwanese GDP per head, at purchasing power parity $30 000
French GDP per head, at purchasing power parity, $33 000
David Friedman
<holman-2707...@mobile-hupnet30-156.hupnet.helsinki.fi>,
hol...@mappi.helsinki.fi (Eugene Holman) wrote:
...
> Many countries have proportional representation.
> If thre are three parties and their share of the votes are 55%, 30%, and
> 15%, political power is apportioned according to those percentages.
Representation in parliament is proportioned according to those
percentages. But if one party has 55% of the seats, as in your example,
why would they choose to give the minority parties political power,
actual control over outcomes, proportional to the number of seats they
have in parliament? Aren't outcomes in parliament still winner take at
all--the majority gets the outcome it votes for?
> > The justification for government is that
> > other governments might successfully commit worse
> > crimes.
> Many, perhaps most, of the world's governments are primarily concerned
> with the welfare and prosperity of the populations that they represent.
This explains why the governments of most developed countries, including
the U.S. and the countries of the E.U., spend substantial amounts of
money raising the price of food?
I don't know if you are familiar with public choice theory, but there
really are explanations of government behavior that come closer to
explaining observed outcomes than the one you propose.
Day Brown
> --
> James A. Donald wrote:
>>> Every single example of socialism has been an
>>> economic catastrophe, or tyranny and mass murder,
>>> and frequently both. The former USSR is less
>>> dreadful than most.
>
> Day Brown
>> Not egzactly. the exceptions are obscure. There are
>> the Mosou of SW China, who are matriarchic, with the
>> grandmothers in charge of communal houses. Nobody owns
>> private land.
>
> The supposed exceptions are sufficiently obscure that it
> is easy to manufacture up total fantasies about them.
examples. "There are more things, Horatio, in heaven and Earth than are
dreamt in thy philosophy." If you dont wanna think about them, I dont
have a problem with it.
> Matriarchal societies do not exist.
Surf for it dude. The Mosou are STILL in business.
> Matrilineal
> societies exist Actual examples of matriarchal societies
> disappear under examination, so I am unsurprised to find
> that a supposed successful socialist society is also
> supposedly matriarchal.
>
> The evidence for successful socialism resembles the
> evidence for flying saucers. Somehow successful
> socialism always fails to leave behind any solid
> evidence.
>
>> The ruins of this city, more than 2,000 years old,
>> dont include any palace, nor any slums. Its all middle
>> class.
>
> Back then only the elite lived in cities, and their
> personal slaves slept at their feet like dogs.
But not here. I never said matriarchy was common.
> Technological limits necessitated that most people grow
> food. Those who grew food lived in the countryside.
> Those who ate other people's food usually extracted it
> at sword point.
I'm not talking about "usually". The wells on the road to Kucha were too
small to provide enuf water for an army. The road to Kucha was famous
for the way it was so clearly marked out- by the skeletons of the dead.
They didnt need an army to protect them.
Unfortunately, eventually there was a year so wet the wadis were all
full, and the Mongol hordes swept in.
>
>> The queen didnt need a harem, so she didnt need a
>> palace to keep them in, and thus didnt need a castle
>> to protect the palace, nor the taxes to pay for it
>> all.
>
> Kucha was surrounded by a ditch twenty feet deep. They
> were protecting something.
>
> Until they were conquered by Turkish speaking peoples,
> the people of Kucha spoke Tokarian, a branch of the indo
> european language. They had caucasian features. The
> original indo europeans were hierarchical, aristocratic,
> warlike, propertarian, optimistic, and male supremacist.
> They had a firm belief that what is mine is mine, and
> what was yours might also be mine with a suitable
> application of sharpened iron. The early chinese
> mentions of the inhabitants of Kucha depict them as
> barbarian raiders, which sounds very much like the usual
> Indo Europeans.
>
> --
> ----------------------
> We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
> of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
> right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
We have different sources, and mine seem to be more extensive.
For one thing, look at a photo. No ditch. Kucha was built on what out
west would be called a mesa. Yes, what it protected was the world's
richest middle class. The place was famous for all the silk the women wore.
JP Mallory, "In Search of the Indo Europeans" reports that Aryan war
bands did not show up until the late bronze age.
Karel Kriz
<ddfr-C84151.2...@newsread1.mlpsca01.us.to.verio.net>,
David Friedman <dd...@daviddfriedman.nopsam.com> wrote:
> In article <karel-E6DB35....@news.west.cox.net>,
> Karel Kriz <ka...@bouncingczech.com> wrote:
>
> > Personally, it raises my heckles every time someone declares something
> > immoral, whether or not there is God involved.
>
> But presumably, since "Defining what is moral and what is not is a
> purely subjective exercise," the fact that it raises your hackles is
> merely a random scrap of information about your own baseless
> preferences. If, after all, you were suggesting that there was a good
> reason why it ought to raise your hackles, that there was actually
> something wrong with declaring something to be immoral, you would
> yourself be taking a normative position, and you appear to believe that
> all such are baseless.
>
> Correct?
Err...no. But after spending 15 minutes or so scanning your web site and
some its yawn-inducing contents, I thought "Here is a fine example of a
closed mind". And I leave it at that.
K