Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
"Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must
lay you off."
"What do you mean, Master?"
"Why, you know there's a big surplus of last year's crop. I
don't need you to plant another this year. I've got enough
goatskin coats to last me a lifetime. My house needs no
repairs. I can gather turtle eggs myself. There's an
overproduction. When I need you I will send for you. You
needn't wait around here."
"That's all right, Master, I'll plant my own crop, build up
my own hut and gather all the eggs and nuts I want myself.
I'll get along fine."
"Where will you do this, Friday?"
"Here on this island."
"This island belongs to me, you know. I can't allow you to
do that. When you can't pay me anything I need I might as
well not own it."
"Then I'll build a canoe and fish in the ocean. You don't
own that."
"That's all right, provided you don't use any of my trees
for your canoe, or build it on my land, or use my beach for
a landing place, and do your fishing far enough away so you
don't interfere with my riparian rights."
"I never thought of that, Master. I can do without a boat,
though. I can swim over to that rock and fish there and
gather sea-gull eggs."
"No you won't, Friday. The rock is mine. I own riparian rights."
"What shall I do, Master?"
"That's your problem, Friday. You're a free man, and you
know about rugged individualism being maintained here."
"I guess I'll starve, Master. May I stay here until I do? Or
shall I swim beyond your riparian rights and drown or starve
there?"
"I've thought of something, Friday. I don't like to carry my
garbage down to the shore each day. You may stay and do
that. Then whatever is left of it, after my dog and cat have
fed, you may eat. You're in luck."
"Thank you, Master. That is true charity."
"One more thing, Friday. This island is overpopulated. Fifty
percent of the people are unemployed. We are undergoing a
severe depression, and there is no way that I can see to end
it. No one but a charlatan would say that he could. And if
any ship comes don't let them land any goods of any kind.
You must be protected against foreign labor. Conditions are
fundamentally sound, though. And prosperity is just around
the corner."
[First appeared in the Industrial Worker, Feb. 9, 1932; text
taken from Joyce L. Kornbluh, ed., _Rebel Voices: An IWW
Anthology_.]
--
Dan Clore
Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"It's a political statement -- or, rather, an
*anti*-political statement. The symbol for *anarchy*!"
-- Batman, explaining the circle-A graffiti, in
_Detective Comics_ #608
Josh Dougherty
news:413BE3F5...@columbia-center.org...
Is there no one to give Robinson a tax cut?
Alex K
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
> by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
>
> "Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must lay you off."
>
> "What do you mean, Master?"
>
The next step would be to find real world examples where property
rights lead to such absurdities. One usually has lots of different
Robinsons to chose from -- and often quite a lot of islands.
Cheers,
Alex
xyz
I am not denying that shit can happen anywhere, but your post is a non plus
ultra example of populism, it aims at providing an emotional rush that
offers no solution.
You guys are amazing, I can't figure out how you can continue to proclaim
that you have a solution, specially after the collapse of the Soviet block.
We have had anti-monopoly laws in place since a century ago, and yes, you
stand a better chance of owning your own business in a capitalist society
than you do in a socialist society, are you denyig that?
James A. Donald
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
> by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
>
> "Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must
> lay you off."
>
> "What do you mean, Master?"
>
> "Why, you know there's a big surplus of last year's crop. I
> don't need you to plant another this year. I've got enough
> goatskin coats to last me a lifetime. My house needs no
> repairs. I can gather turtle eggs myself. There's an
> overproduction. When I need you I will send for you. You
> needn't wait around here."
>
> "That's all right, Master, I'll plant my own crop, build up
> my own hut and gather all the eggs and nuts I want myself.
> I'll get along fine."
>
> "Where will you do this, Friday?"
>
> "Here on this island."
>
> "This island belongs to me, you know. I can't allow you to
> do that. When you can't pay me anything I need I might as
> well not own it."
This is an argument against one single entity owning eveything, that
is to say recently existent socialism, not an argument against
capitalism.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Oi+imZW9RKpOzfNFOHxnc69bnbEGN4jyeQv4Y4gd
4/yn/ZkQJ4kCJrHDLItL09RLrXlBMUR4D25QKalvv
Stan de SD
"Alex K" <alex...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:413cadf0$0$570$b45e...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
> Dan Clore wrote:
> > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
> >
> > Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
> > by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
> >
> > "Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must lay you off."
> >
> > "What do you mean, Master?"
> >
>
> The next step would be to find real world examples where property
> rights lead to such absurdities.
It appears it's easier to find individuals that would concoct such
absurdities as opposed to real-life situations...
brian turner
> "Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
> news:413BE3F5...@columbia-center.org...
> > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
> >
> I am not denying that shit can happen anywhere, but your post is a non plus
> ultra example of populism, it aims at providing an emotional rush that
> offers no solution.
>
> You guys are amazing, I can't figure out how you can continue to proclaim
> that you have a solution, specially after the collapse of the Soviet block.
Don't you realize how intellectually vapid this argument is? Prior to
Gorbachev, the Soviet Union union was not anywhere close to
egalitarian (incomes were more inegalitarian than the US actually),
had no meaningful worker participation inside factories, had no
independent unions, had no local, regional, or national elections with
any meaning, had no working class or any other independent critical
press, etc.
Virtually all of the elements Dan and democratic socialists et al call
for are absent.
Their proposal (PARECON), in my opinion, is -- as one more realistic
socialist critic called it -- "quite mad". But for reasons having not
the most remote relevance to the Soviet Union.
And keep in mind PARECON is just one of many alternatives to both
laissez-faire capitalism (which is unrealistic itself) and the more
common conservative inegalitarian preserving state capitalism that
retards much of Latin America for instance.
PARECON's only flaw is the rejection of markets. Many activists that
hang their hat on PARECON actually work and talk in the real world as
if markets are acceptable and necessary in the very long term (as Marx
did). Given this, PARECON's utopianism is not all that relevant, and
markets and cooperative socialism has not been discredited. To the
contrary it seems to work except when the state exploits them.
Whether it is popular is another question socialists aren't always
prepared to look at honestly, just as proponents of capitalism don't
wish to.
xyz
"brian turner" <bk...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:66dc0679.04090...@posting.google.com...
> "xyz" <x...@d.net> wrote in message news:<413d3...@news1.prserv.net>...
> > "Dan Clore" <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message
> > news:413BE3F5...@columbia-center.org...
> > > News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> > > http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
> > >
>
> > I am not denying that shit can happen anywhere, but your post is a non
plus
> > ultra example of populism, it aims at providing an emotional rush that
> > offers no solution.
> >
> > You guys are amazing, I can't figure out how you can continue to
proclaim
> > that you have a solution, specially after the collapse of the Soviet
block.
>
> Don't you realize how intellectually vapid this argument is?
Easy now, please keep in mind that I do not belong to your elite.
> Prior to
> Gorbachev, the Soviet Union union was not anywhere close to
> egalitarian (incomes were more inegalitarian than the US actually),
> had no meaningful worker participation inside factories, had no
> independent unions, had no local, regional, or national elections with
> any meaning, had no working class or any other independent critical
> press, etc.
I don't know if it didn't have a working class, but I agree with most of the
above.
>
> Virtually all of the elements Dan and democratic socialists et al call
> for are absent.
I promise to keep reading, but I've gotta tell you, this rings a bell.
>
> Their proposal (PARECON), in my opinion, is -- as one more realistic
> socialist critic called it -- "quite mad". But for reasons having not
> the most remote relevance to the Soviet Union.
>
> And keep in mind PARECON is just one of many alternatives to both
> laissez-faire capitalism (which is unrealistic itself) and the more
> common conservative inegalitarian preserving state capitalism that
> retards much of Latin America for instance.
>
> PARECON's only flaw is the rejection of markets. Many activists that
> hang their hat on PARECON actually work and talk in the real world as
> if markets are acceptable and necessary in the very long term (as Marx
> did). Given this, PARECON's utopianism is not all that relevant, and
> markets and cooperative socialism has not been discredited. To the
> contrary it seems to work except when the state exploits them.
> Whether it is popular is another question socialists aren't always
> prepared to look at honestly, just as proponents of capitalism don't
> wish to.
There is no 'third way'. You can come up with an infinite number of
ways in which people can organize themselves, and variations there
of, but at the end of the day, if you disregard the individual, and
disregard its own self interests, your ideas are doomed to failure,
they become just another recipe for oppression.
The world is the way it is because individuals made it so.
It isn't a matter of social ideology, it is more a matter of "how do
you make the individual care", and I can't think of any other way
to achieve that except appealing to the individual's own
self interests. (If you value freedom, that is)
James A. Donald
On 7 Sep 2004 20:41:40 -0700, bk...@hotmail.com (brian turner)
wrote:
> Don't you realize how intellectually vapid this argument is?
> Prior to Gorbachev, the Soviet Union union was not anywhere
> close to egalitarian (incomes were more inegalitarian than
> the US actually), had no meaningful worker participation
> inside factories, had no independent unions, had no local,
> regional, or national elections with any meaning, had no
> working class or any other independent critical press, etc.
Because all of those things are incompatible with socialism.
You are merely proclaiming good intentions, but good intentions
are worth two cents a bale. No one had better intentions than
Pol Pot.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
bOdIi/mRM1vAja/8SKh5vp1newyC2P1jeBWh0k0b
4pWclTOQau/csSd9ezWxLUgf31i6GYVwgS/U8jwnY
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > And where in the world and in history have pioneers ever
> > succeeded in claiming land they did not improve?
> >
> > The kind of property rights you are arguing against are
> > never claimed by individuals or small group, but only by
> > states, states that are usually socialist or close to it.
Alex Russell
> So you agree that Friday should indeed claim some land, and
> that the little parable is a good example of the
> over-reaching of many governments, including some that claim
> to support capitalism.
I am unaware of any governments that claim to support
capitalism which overreach in this manner.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Y6bLQJo/hyQxmEcwUMeFBFE2WXnDuT8C7SK2NtUh
4rOzSkomf/uB3cX02X7lam8Dxc5nMm5q3TpGDupEE
Josh Dougherty
news:a501k05pmker8qfb7...@4ax.com...
> --
> > > On Sun, 05 Sep 2004 21:13:41 -0700, Dan Clore
> > > <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> > >
> > >>News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> > >>http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo Depression Hits
> > >>Robinson Crusoe's Island by Mrs. Mary Atterbury "Friday,"
> > >>said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must lay you
> > >>off." "What do you mean, Master?" "Why, you know there's
> > >>a big surplus of last year's crop. I don't need you to
> > >>plant another this year. I've got enough goatskin coats to
> > >>last me a lifetime. My house needs no repairs. I can gather
> > >>turtle eggs myself. There's an overproduction. When I need
> > >>you I will send for you. You needn't wait around here."
> > >>"That's all right, Master, I'll plant my own crop, build up
> > >>my own hut and gather all the eggs and nuts I want myself.
> > >>I'll get along fine." "Where will you do this, Friday?"
> > >>know. I can't allow you to do that. When you can't pay me
> > >>anything I need I might as well not own it."
>
> > > This is an argument against one single entity owning
> > > eveything, that is to say recently existent socialism, not
>
> Alex Russell
> > I saw it as an argument against overly strong and broad
> > property rights.
> >
> > Robinson should own the property he improved and still uses,
> > but to claim the whole island, plus fishing rights, etc...
> > doesn't seem fair to me, given the situation.
>
> And where in the world and in history have pioneers ever
> succeeded in claiming land they did not improve?
You should probably start by looking beneath your feet.
Alex Russell
Well, how about the USA government.
100 year plus copyright
software patents
business method patents
200 mile limit off the coast - the first to implement this rule back in
1945.
abuse of "eminent domain"
The FCC
this site is devoted to property right abuse by the usa government:
http://www.freedom.org/prc/
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > > > And where in the world and in history have pioneers
> > > > ever succeeded in claiming land they did not improve?
> > > > The kind of property rights you are arguing against are
> > > > never claimed by individuals or small group, but only
> > > > by states, states that are usually socialist or close
> > > > to it.
Alex Russell
> > > So you agree that Friday should indeed claim some land,
> > > and that the little parable is a good example of the
> > > over-reaching of many governments, including some that
> > > claim to support capitalism.
James A.Donald:
> > I am unaware of any governments that claim to support
> > capitalism which overreach in this manner.
Alex Russell
> Well, how about the USA government.
>
> 100 year plus copyright software patents business method
> patents 200 mile limit off the coast - the first to implement
> this rule back in 1945. abuse of "eminent domain" The FCC
All of these things overreach what is natural and proper for
property - but none of them overreach in the extreme fashion
that Robinson Crusoe does in the parable. None of them force
Friday to be an employee, and make it impossible for him to be
an employer.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
Gu/NORWgQGktUkQGx43ylFWE8Nj/GvbY8/iEQ8bn
48+SZgYt+V7ma53PzUKRCPfofguJTQETE23cA7Chw
James A. Donald
"James A. Donald"
> > And where in the world and in history have pioneers ever
> > succeeded in claiming land they did not improve?
"Josh Dougherty"
> You should probably start by looking beneath your feet.
The ground under my feet looks extensively improved to me.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
N/HudQ0SM6aLmWNYZtS7xPQkHoCjDgwDhLYAaxt+
4xZGSMyoXMcBOK38NiC4IDpBXqje0qzmyXdVnBSGI
G*rd*n
>>>>And where in the world and in history have pioneers ever
>>>>succeeded in claiming land they did not improve?
>>>>
>>>>The kind of property rights you are arguing against are
>>>>never claimed by individuals or small group, but only by
>>>>states, states that are usually socialist or close to it.
Alex Russell:
>>>So you agree that Friday should indeed claim some land, and
>>>that the little parable is a good example of the
>>>over-reaching of many governments, including some that claim
>>>to support capitalism.
James A. Donald:
>> I am unaware of any governments that claim to support
>> capitalism which overreach in this manner.
Alex Russell <alexande...@telus.net>:
> Well, how about the USA government.
>
> 100 year plus copyright
> software patents
> business method patents
> 200 mile limit off the coast - the first to implement this rule back in
> 1945.
> abuse of "eminent domain"
> The FCC
That's just the 20th century. During its more nominally
liberal phase, the United States government and its political
predecessors (the British colonies) stole most of North
America from its prior possessors, and also stole the
lives of millions of Africans by enslaving them and their
descendants.
However, I think all that misses the point of the story.
Desert-island scenarios illustrate but cannot prove.
James A. Donald
Alex Russell:
> > > > So you agree that Friday should indeed claim some land,
> > > > and that the little parable is a good example of the
> > > > over-reaching of many governments, including some that
> > > > claim to support capitalism.
James A. Donald:
> > > I am unaware of any governments that claim to support
> > > capitalism which overreach in this manner.
Alex Russell <alexande...@telus.net>:
> > Well, how about the USA government.
> >
> > 100 year plus copyright software patents business method
> > patents 200 mile limit off the coast - the first to
> > implement this rule back in 1945. abuse of "eminent domain"
> > The FCC
> That's just the 20th century. During its more nominally
> liberal phase, the United States government and its political
> predecessors (the British colonies) stole most of North
> America from its prior possessors,
What mostly happened was that pioneers stole unimproved land,
and improved it, increasing its productivity and its ability to
support population a hundred fold - which again does not
resemble the overreach of the parable.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ZKvRFqc+PPbOE7rcofcs5PKzQiVQ49dgFqzehVDV
4nDFc9+xrVsnrhQmwvSgFctV977MCCU2fsZ13FryQ
Josh Dougherty
> --
> Alex Russell:
> > > > > So you agree that Friday should indeed claim some land,
> > > > > and that the little parable is a good example of the
> > > > > over-reaching of many governments, including some that
> > > > > claim to support capitalism.
>
> James A. Donald:
> > > > I am unaware of any governments that claim to support
> > > > capitalism which overreach in this manner.
>
> Alex Russell <alexande...@telus.net>:
> > > Well, how about the USA government.
> > >
> > > 100 year plus copyright software patents business method
> > > patents 200 mile limit off the coast - the first to
> > > implement this rule back in 1945. abuse of "eminent domain"
> > > The FCC
>
> > That's just the 20th century. During its more nominally
> > liberal phase, the United States government and its political
> > predecessors (the British colonies) stole most of North
> > America from its prior possessors,
>
> What mostly happened was that pioneers stole unimproved land,
> and improved it, increasing its productivity and its ability to
> support population a hundred fold - which again does not
> resemble the overreach of the parable.
James, I've decided that your land is unimproved. I'll be moving in Friday.
Will you be packed by then?
James A. Donald
James A. Donald:
> > What mostly happened was that pioneers stole unimproved
> > land, and improved it, increasing its productivity and its
> > ability to support population a hundred fold - which again
> > does not resemble the overreach of the parable.
"Josh Dougherty"
> James, I've decided that your land is unimproved. I'll be
> moving in Friday. Will you be packed by then?
If my land actually was unimproved there would be nothing to
pack.
brian turner
> Easy now, please keep in mind that I do not belong to your elite.
I didn't know I was in the elite. That's good to know.
> There is no 'third way'.
Uhhh...so there's only laissez-faire (which only exists in certain
sectors) and the USSR? Virtually everything is not either, so there
must be a third, and fourth, fifth... way.
> You can come up with an infinite number of
> ways in which people can organize themselves, and variations there
> of, but at the end of the day, if you disregard the individual, and
> disregard its own self interests, your ideas are doomed to failure,
> they become just another recipe for oppression.
Thus the flaw in your reasoning. Market oriented cooperatives don't
depend on pure benevolence.
James A. Donald
brian turner
> > > Don't you realize how intellectually vapid this argument
> > > is? Prior to Gorbachev, the Soviet Union union was not
> > > anywhere close to egalitarian (incomes were more
> > > inegalitarian than the US actually), had no meaningful
> > > worker participation inside factories, had no independent
> > > unions, had no local, regional, or national elections
> > > with any meaning, had no working class or any other
> > > independent critical press, etc.
James A. Donald:
> > Because all of those things are incompatible with
> > socialism.
brian turner
> I'm no Chomsky, but I can do 'linguistics for dummies'. If
> "socialism", the word, is defined as "a thing which includes
> the aforementioned characteristics", then it must include
> those things.
If you collectivise, you need someone to plan, and the rest to
be planned, hence no egalitarianism, no real participation,
unions must be smashed and so on and so forth.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
DeXituEru85A9EGz9vchrJRaLPzOcBwdCdFv+Uk7
4TzQ4WsuNtFaGjO8vvznEIQNmFh6xSgM3QhbTkrKy
xyz
news:<413e9...@news1.prserv.net>...
>
> > Easy now, please keep in mind that I do not belong to your elite.
>
> I didn't know I was in the elite. That's good to know.
>
>
> > There is no 'third way'.
>
> Uhhh...so there's only laissez-faire (which only exists in certain
> sectors) and the USSR? Virtually everything is not either, so there
> must be a third, and fourth, fifth... way.
That is precisely my point. You cannot come up with a single way that will
bring man kind to paradise. You got let him look for it on his own. Just
give him the tools to make smart decisions.
>
> > You can come up with an infinite number of
> > ways in which people can organize themselves, and variations there
> > of, but at the end of the day, if you disregard the individual, and
> > disregard its own self interests, your ideas are doomed to failure,
> > they become just another recipe for oppression.
>
> Thus the flaw in your reasoning. Market oriented cooperatives don't
> depend on pure benevolence.
My point is, people make up the system. People will make hell or heaven for
themselves, and/or for others, wherever they go, and the best system is the
system that guarantees basic human rights, promotes investment, and leaves
the bastards alone, so long as they don't interfere with said human rights.
Is this too vapid for you?
Ben Sharvy
> > You guys are amazing, I can't figure out how you can continue to proclaim
> > that you have a solution, specially after the collapse of the Soviet block.
>
> Don't you realize how intellectually vapid this argument is?
Of course he doesn't. The average libertarian is blinded by ideology
to no less a degree than the average socialist.
Ben Sharvy
> If you collectivise, you need someone to plan, and the rest to
> be planned, hence no egalitarianism, no real participation,
> unions must be smashed and so on and so forth.
The term "socialism" is so corrupted in the public discourse that to
use it is to beg for endless bullshit that never gets beyond the
meaning of words. If you want real discussion of reality (for which
you are not particularly noted, to put it mildly), you need to avoid
that term and its relatives.
Modern socialists, i.e. people who call themsleves socialists and aim
to extend the ideas of Marx and Engels, do not necessarily require
collectivism. And there is such a thing as cooperative action, i.e.,
planning without individual leaders who have more power than others.
That, at least, is a socialist ideal, so to leave it out of your
picture of how socialism (loosely defined) works is disingenuous
(coming from you, we are all very shocked).
Courageous
>The term "socialism" is so corrupted in the public discourse that to
>use it is to beg for endless bullshit that never gets beyond the
>meaning of words.
Indeed. We might believe that the word "socialism," as understood
by the dictionary and economists both, means something like:
"Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which
the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively
or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy."
If "socialism" just means something watered-down, like redistribution
of monies to the needy, or what not, the U.S. is a socialist country
already. I'd prefer to think that we are an enlightened free market
economy, but be that as it may...
C//
James A. Donald
On 10 Sep 2004 19:58:06 -0700, bsh...@mac.com (Ben Sharvy)
wrote:
> Modern socialists, i.e. people who call themsleves socialists
> and aim to extend the ideas of Marx and Engels, do not
> necessarily require collectivism.
Private property rights in the means of production are the
boundaries between one man's plan and another man's plan.
Abolish those boundaries, you are going to have collectivism,
you are going to need a central plan, and hence wind up with
planners and planned, and in consequence all the horrors of
recently existent socialism.
> And there is such a thing as cooperative action, i.e.,
> planning without individual leaders who have more power than
> others.
This only works in very small groups, planning simple matters,
such as "shall we get a pizza". A committee of seventeen
people could not pass a motion to adjourn a meeting held in a
burning building.
Let us consider for example the online game "Everquest."
Typically six strangers get together, pretending to be elves,
ogres, paladins, barbarian warriors, and suchlike, and plot to
raid a temple defended by computer generated characters, kill
the priests and steal the simulated temple treasure. The six
invariably appoint a leader, usually without voting or
anything. The leader just somehow appears, and the rest then
just do as they are told, because they want to get on with
slaughtering the priests, rather than holding a debate on how
best to slaughter the priests.. If they get pissed at the
leader, they usually do not call for a vote, those pissed just
resign.
That is real egalitarianism. When people are completely free
to choose their own form of organization, it resembles the
capitalist workplace, rather than socialism.
Conversely, the noun "cooperative" has ominous and disturbing
overtones, because every time a large portion of the population
was forced into cooperatives it required shocking cruelty and
unrelenting terror.
My observation in massively multplayer online games is that
when two players decide on a joint mission they invariably
discuss what they shall do, with three or four players they
sometimes discuss, with seven or more players, a leader just
appears and decides what shall be done, because it is too damn
tedious to get anything organized otherwise.
> That, at least, is a socialist ideal, so to leave it out of
> your picture of how socialism (loosely defined) works is
> disingenuous
Yet socialists in these newsgroups, while claiming their ideal
is completely different from the terror and torture of recently
existent socialist regimes, seem to wind up defending those
regimes with tedious regularity.
See for example "Lessons of the thread"
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=38a81ebe...@nntp1.ba.best.com
which is a commentary on the response to
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=3892d6b6.2636150%40nntp1.ba.best.com
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
ktszsop0cYiBHRxmYwgYpqGUSogrLGXa9vETYXab
4h1o+tgRiuJPDtn7Z3oZejIBtMgUC2RH8rTbNFiaM
Alex K
> "Alex K" <alex...@gmail.com> wrote
>>Dan Clore wrote:
>>
>>>Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
>>>by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
>>
>>rights lead to such absurdities.
>
>
> It appears it's easier to find individuals that would concoct such
> absurdities as opposed to real-life situations...
>
>
And for good reason too.
It is indeed a logical possibility that a system of private property
rights resembling current capitalism might lead to such absurdities --
it just never happens, because it's so unlikely.
Likewise, it is a logical possibility that the collectivist systems
advocated by leftist will lead to great prosperity -- it just never
happens in the real world.
The point missed by leftist --at least by those that think this
parable to be anything but silly nonsense-- is that when predicting how
systems work in the real world, mere logical possibility is a useless
indicator of outcome -- you need a way to grok the probabilities involved.
One way to do this is to think about the incentives people face in
different systems and _then_ compare them. Cool headed people did just
that from the moment socialism appeared on the political scene --
predicting the catastrophe to follow.
On the other hand socialists seem utterly incapable of thinking in
terms of incentives -- and if they once could do it, it seems that
they've willfully atrophied the part of the brain responsible for such
thinking.
We've seen that in the recent "soap discussion:" the part defending
the plausibility of having a limited offer of soap under "anarchy" kept
on harping on the _logical possibility_ of a diverse set of people
preferring and producing only one or two types of products -- while the
other side made the rather obvious point that a large mass of people
with different preferences, which are free under any reasonable
definition of the word, will also follow their incentives and consume
and produce a diverse array of products ("soap" as the discussion had it).
But to make the latter point a basic ability to think in terms of
incentives is assumed -- and in the case of socialists that seems a
wrong assumption to make.
In short, socialists would rather emphasize absurd scenarios --which
are logically possible-- than talk about the probable, because talking
about the probable would require thinking in terms of incentives, and
this would deflate whatever fantasies they have about working socialist
systems.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
>>rights lead to such absurdities.
>
>
> a result, then there is something wrong with that system of property
> rights.
>
Utter nonsense.
Any system which has democratic decision making "allows" the majority
--whether simple majority or not-- to screw up badly the minority.
Any system which has consensus as a rule will "allow" critical
opportunities to pass --as in allowing starvation-- until the consensus
decision is reached.
The point --which you're conspicuously missing-- is that mere logical
possibility of bad things happening is useless in criticizing a given
system. What you need is a rough estimation of how likely bad outcomes
are -- giving real world examples of the above Robinson Crusoe scenario
is a good way of showing that the outcome is likely, since capitalism is
not something recently invented.
> Claim: Private ownership of nuclear bombs is wrong.
> Argument: A theoretical scenario in which a jilted lover buys a nuke
> at K-Mart and nukes a whole city.
> Alex K: Yeah, well, the next step is to "find real world examples
> where private ownership of nuclear bombs lead to such absurdities."
>
Since we don't have a historical record of private ownership of
nuclear bombs but we _do_ have a record of private property rights, your
example is just rhetorical tripe.
Pure theory is always only a second best to empirical evidence
--which is not to say that theory is not necessary. In the case of
private ownership of nuclear bombs theory is all we have, but that's no
argument against requiring empirical evidence for supporting claims,
where empirical evidence _is_ available.
Indeed, requiring empirical evidence in such cases is the next
logical step.
> Some people just don't get it.
You seem to be among them.
Cheers,
Alex
brian turner
as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
or at least not very far from it. Otherwise opportunity is not equal,
markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
I've never heard a critique of such a system -- meaning, capitalism
without massive concentrations of wealth and power. Before any
socialists declare this impossible keep in mind such a situation has
existed many times -- large sectors of post-war Italy and Japan (which
also have cooperative elements), Taiwan, etc.
And if Marx and Schumpeter are right that economic forces push
societies in the direction of larger and larger scale, that will
create potential inequalities, but that what's the welfare state and
regulation is for.
So, in my view, the carte blanche case against capitalism on ethical
grounds is very weak. Certain types -- of which the parable is an
super extreme version -- are vulnerable however.
Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote in message news:<413BE3F5...@columbia-center.org>...
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
> Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
> by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
>
> "Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must
> lay you off."
>
> "What do you mean, Master?"
>
> "Why, you know there's a big surplus of last year's crop. I
> don't need you to plant another this year. I've got enough
> goatskin coats to last me a lifetime. My house needs no
> repairs. I can gather turtle eggs myself. There's an
> overproduction. When I need you I will send for you. You
> needn't wait around here."
>
> "That's all right, Master, I'll plant my own crop, build up
> my own hut and gather all the eggs and nuts I want myself.
> I'll get along fine."
>
> "Where will you do this, Friday?"
>
> "Here on this island."
>
> "This island belongs to me, you know. I can't allow you to
> do that. When you can't pay me anything I need I might as
> well not own it."
>
> Now available: _The Unspeakable and Others_
> http://www.wildsidepress.com/index2.htm
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1587154838/thedanclorenecro
> Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
> http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
> News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
>
Roger Johansson
> The term "socialism" is so corrupted in the public discourse that to
> use it is to beg for endless bullshit that never gets beyond the
> meaning of words. If you want real discussion of reality (for which
> you are not particularly noted, to put it mildly), you need to avoid
> that term and its relatives.
Only in USA. The views on socialism in the rest of the world are a lot
more positive and well-informed. The US-american population have been
hammered with intensive propaganda against socialism like no other
people in the world.
I saw a program on tv last night about the big depression in the
beginning of the 30-ies. Somebody said that capitalism would have died
then if it was not for Hitler, he was the saviour of capitalism. That is
why so many capitalists supported him, and helped build up the fascist
parties in Germany, Italy and the rest of the world. There was a big
fascist party in USA too, by the way.
> Modern socialists, i.e. people who call themsleves socialists and aim
> to extend the ideas of Marx and Engels, do not necessarily require
> collectivism. And there is such a thing as cooperative action, i.e.,
There has always been a socialism which supports individual freedom.
The more authoritarian side of socialism gained a lot when socialism was
attacked from the capitalist world. It was like on a ship in storm, then
there is a need for a strong leadership and obeying orders. The
militarisation of the Soviet economy and the whole society was a result
of the neverending attacks from foreign powers.
--
Roger J.
Roger Johansson
> And if Marx and Schumpeter are right that economic forces push
> societies in the direction of larger and larger scale, that will
> create potential inequalities, but that what's the welfare state and
> regulation is for.
The welfare state and regulation are results of democracy.
Democracy is the "dictatorship of the proletariat" which Marx talked
about.
Democracy wasn't strong enough to abolish capitalism at the beginning of
the 20th century, but it will soon be.
During the 20th century the power of democracy has grown, and the power
of big money has decreased, soon we will be able to finally abolish
capitalism completely, and abolish the money system.
The only remaining power which defends capitalism is the US government.
We have two big problems in this world, the military power of USA,
backed up by the stupidity of its population, and the aggressive and
violent expansionist islamic movement, backed up by the stupidity of its
population.
Right now we are working on a solution to both these problems.
Through a bitter war of attrition between USA and the islamic
fundamentalists the population of both sides will get very tired of
seeing their sons and daughters come home in a coffin or do things they
have to be ashamed about. They will start to question the views which
lead to this horrible war and its consequences.
This secret plan is the real reason why USA invaded Iraq, to create a
hotspot where the most aggressive of their supporters can kill each
other and show their respective populations that there is something
wrong with their most basic views.
--
Roger J.
Alex K
> This piece may have been written by socialists, but it could be read
> as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
> capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
> or at least not very far from it.
No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
today's 6 figure income in real terms and the rest of the population
owns billions in wealth and very large incomes, that would be a very
unequal distribution of wealth -- but not any serious impediment to
viable capitalism.
> Otherwise opportunity is not equal,
> markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
> for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
>
Opportunity is never equal --some are smart some are dumb-- and
markets are and always will be imperfect. The question is whether there
are substitutes for it -- whether as a rule, government intervention in
them improves the outcome or not.
The state is captured by special interests and idiotic measure making
memes anyway -- it just doesn't have the right incentive structure to do
a good job in what it's supposed to do. That doesn't require
inequalities of wealth as a precondition -- it is sufficient that the
self-interest of law makers is not aligned with the interest of the ruled.
But that is almost a tautology.
Your solution --expanding the the state and increasing its power--
doesn't even touch on the problem of how incentives are structured in
government. Making the government larger will make the problem of
special interests and idiotic legislation worse, regardless of any
marginally plausible initial distribution of wealth.
Cheers,
Alex
Courageous
>During the 20th century the power of democracy has grown, and the power
>of big money has decreased, soon we will be able to finally abolish
>capitalism completely, and abolish the money system.
But "we," wouldn't want to. The idea that "we" are is just a fantasy
inside your head. Margaret Thatcher said it best. "Give people a choice,
and they will choose to be free." Do not forget it.
>The only remaining power which defends capitalism is the US government.
Totally untrue.
C//
James A. Donald
On 11 Sep 2004 10:34:20 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
wrote:
> I saw a program on tv last night about the big depression in
> the beginning of the 30-ies. Somebody said that capitalism
> would have died then if it was not for Hitler
The depression of the 1930s was "the great depression" because
of the enemies of capitalism, such as Roosevelt who radically
prolonged the depression with price and wage controls, and by
fostering class warfare. In those countries where the
government did not implement price and wage controls, or work
up class warfare, the depression, like previous depressions, did
not last very long.
In America, during the worst of the depression, the communist
ran for presidency on a platform of central planning to be
sustained by terror and mass murder. . Almost 100% of the
intellectuals supported them, as near to unanimity as made no
difference, yet they got a vote down in the asterixs.
Despite the worst that President Roosevelt could do, he was
never able to put capitalism in the US in any real danger.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
GliIAmAIHUS5PAgncZCXlshVOyJ2fOuvZc9NwpJA
4SlGdEnndHncB/kTF/G7c0xD9yYJHbc3KJlE79nhe
James A. Donald
On 11 Sep 2004 11:01:40 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
wrote:
> Democracy wasn't strong enough to abolish capitalism at the
> beginning of the 20th century, but it will soon be.
In Chile a Marxist president was elected with a plurality of
the votes. To legally implement socialism, he needed an
outright majority in the legislature, which he did not have. He
proceeded to implement socialism anyway, by illegal means. The
economy collapsed completely and totality, as it invariably has
wherever socialism has been implemented. Socialism can only
work by terror and torture.
Today in Venezuela, the president was elected by a genuine
majority on a platform of almost-but-not-quite socialism. The
economy has almost-but-not-quite collapsed. Like Allende,
Chavez is slowly vacillating his way towards the measures
needed to make socialism work.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
vhxMSh5DB2XCg8KnU7PErdprZUN/VLTMPr1KAlow
4m2UZgUHBNMjCjD4twdB/mDu6YRRp8ibOWbytv1Px
Courageous
>In America, during the worst of the depression, the communist
>ran for presidency on a platform of central planning to be
>sustained by terror and mass murder.
Worse, destroyed a central element of our Constitution, forcing
the Supreme Court in later years to rule it "unjudiciable" because
of previous federal government changes pushed through during
prior years. Two Amendments down, only a few more to go.
Constitutional government. Who needs it, right?
C//
Ben Sharvy
> Ben Sharvy wrote:
> > That is not the next step. If a system of property rights allows such
> > a result, then there is something wrong with that system of property
> > rights.
> Utter nonsense.
A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That can't be
utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
Insisting on empirical evidence when confronted with a tautology is
thickheaded.
> Any system which has democratic decision making "allows" the majority
> --whether simple majority or not-- to screw up badly the minority.
[snip]
>
> The point --which you're conspicuously missing-- is that mere logical
> possibility of bad things happening is useless in criticizing a given
> system.
Hm. You do a poor job of making that point, since the potential for
the majority to trample the dignities of a minority is a valid
criticism of democracy. It is, in fact, precisely why a pure "majority
rule" system of democracy is unacceptable, and why we do not have such
a system.
Ben Sharvy
> This piece may have been written by socialists, but it could be read
> as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
> capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
> or at least not very far from it. Otherwise opportunity is not equal,
> markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
> for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
>
> I've never heard a critique of such a system -- meaning, capitalism
> without massive concentrations of wealth and power.
Here you go:
Ben Sharvy
"We have two big problems in this world, the military power of USA,
backed up by the stupidity of its population, and the aggressive and
violent expansionist Islamic movement, backed up by the stupidity of its
population."
Nice.
James A. Donald
Ben Sharvy:
> > > That is not the next step. If a system of property rights
> > > allows such a result, then there is something wrong with
> > > that system of property rights.
Alex K
> > Utter nonsense.
Ben Sharvy
> A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That
> can't be utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
Then all justice systems are wrong, because not even God could
ensure a just outcome for everyone in every concievable
situation.
Obviously the more power people like you have over people like
me, the better you could in principle impose justice - but in
practice, the less justice I am likely to get.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
wdFshjkDlzy8hhoNbdL+p/hsURRc6PQjOU4rygAF
4oAaHGQVKiC6ErXvoCsUsE8U3UmwpUdBlk01j7R/8
Alex K
>
>
>>>That is not the next step. If a system of property rights allows such
>>>a result, then there is something wrong with that system of property
>>>rights.
>
>
>> Utter nonsense.
>
>
> A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That can't be
> utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
>
Utter nonsense is your knee-jerk categorical claim that "this is not
the next step."
It can be assumed that the author intended to make a significant
criticism -- since he/she took the trouble to write the article.
But unless a further step is taken to show how likely is the outcome
described, the parable is not a significant criticism capitalism anymore
than the possibility of being hit by lightning is a significant
criticism of carrying nickels.
> Insisting on empirical evidence when confronted with a tautology is
> thickheaded.
>
And insisting that it is the tautological part that I objected to is
boneheaded.
>
>> Any system which has democratic decision making "allows" the majority
>>--whether simple majority or not-- to screw up badly the minority.
>
> [snip]
>
>> The point --which you're conspicuously missing-- is that mere logical
>>possibility of bad things happening is useless in criticizing a given
>>system.
>
>
> Hm. You do a poor job of making that point, since the potential for
> the majority to trample the dignities of a minority is a valid
> criticism of democracy. It is, in fact, precisely why a pure "majority
> rule" system of democracy is unacceptable, and why we do not have such
> a system.
It would be very thickheaded to deduct from my sentence that my
point is that failure of democratic institutions is unlikely. I was
simply pointing out that _all_ systems formed by humans as opposed to
gods allow as a logical possibility bad outcomes -- therefore further
investigations are necessary in order to make significant criticisms.
In particular, providing empirical evidence is the natural next step
in the case discussed.
Cheers,
Alex
Ben Sharvy
> --
> Ben Sharvy:
> > > > That is not the next step. If a system of property rights
> > > > allows such a result, then there is something wrong with
> > > > that system of property rights.
>
> Alex K
> > > Utter nonsense.
>
> Ben Sharvy
> > A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That
> > can't be utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
>
> Then all justice systems are wrong, because not even God could
> ensure a just outcome for everyone in every concievable
> situation.
That remark managed to be meaningless and irrelevant at the same time.
If unjust outcomes are justifiable according to the rules of a certain
system. If so, the system is unjust. The Crusoe example suggests that
an unjust situation is justifiable according to the rules of
capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is an unjust system. This is a
tautology.
Alex K
>
> If unjust outcomes are justifiable according to the rules of a certain
> system. If so, the system is unjust. The Crusoe example suggests that
> an unjust situation is justifiable according to the rules of
> capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is an unjust system. This is a
> tautology.
Let me try to rephrase your incoherent babble above: you consider
"just" to be something objective that applies as a predicate to specific
outcomes on one hand and to "systems" on the other. Furthermore, a
system is unjust when it considers as legitimate an unjust outcome.
Since one particular scenario is unjust but recognized as legitimate by
the system called "capitalism" then capitalism is unjust.
(You also try to formulate some tautology above, but you don't
manage to form coherent English language sentences, much less a coherent
logical structure which you can call a tautology -- i.e. a well formed
formula whose truth does not depend of the truth of the propositions it
is composed of)
The problem with this argument is that it proves too much. Not only
would capitalism be unjust, but so would any arrangement of human
affairs -- if nothing else, because humans lack omniscience and are
prone to make bad judgments and legitimize something that is "unjust"
according to you.
The real question is how often do various systems result in bad
outcomes -- and to this, empirical evidence and other forms of
understanding the likelihood of bad outcomes in a system are all too
relevant.
Cheers,
Alex
Ben Sharvy
> >>
> >>>A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That
> >>>can't be utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
> >>
> >>Then all justice systems are wrong, because not even God could
> >>ensure a just outcome for everyone in every concievable
> >>situation.
> >
> >
> > That remark managed to be meaningless and irrelevant at the same time.
> >
> > If unjust outcomes are justifiable according to the rules of a certain
> > system. If so, the system is unjust. The Crusoe example suggests that
> > an unjust situation is justifiable according to the rules of
> > capitalism. Therefore, capitalism is an unjust system. This is a
> > tautology.
>
>
> meaningless and irrelevant, since all systems formed by humans "allow"
> unjust outcomes.
Maybe you could expand on that a tad?
> Even if you come up with the "Ben Sharvy approved plan for justice"
> which you would be willing to call "just" -- it would still be extremely
> unjust to impose it upon all the innocent bystanders.
I have no idea what you're trying to say, other than something vaguely snotty.
Ben Sharvy
> Ben Sharvy wrote:
> > Alex K <alex...@gmail.com> wrote
> >
> >>Ben Sharvy wrote:
> >
> >
> >>>That is not the next step. If a system of property rights allows such
> >>>a result, then there is something wrong with that system of property
> >>>rights.
> >
> >> Utter nonsense.
> >
> > A justice system which allows unjust results is wrong. That can't be
> > utter nonsense, because it is a tautology.
> >
>
> Utter nonsense is your knee-jerk categorical claim that "this is not
> the next step."
It was the mirror of your "knee-kerk categorical claim" that "this" is
the next step.
Complaining about knee-jerk reactions while beginning your
(complaining) sentences with pronouncements of "utter nonesense" is a
comedy in the world of people with integrity.
> It can be assumed that the author intended to make a significant
> criticism -- since he/she took the trouble to write the article.
> But unless a further step is taken to show how likely is the outcome
> described,
You don't advance your claim by repeating it.
> the parable is not a significant criticism capitalism anymore
> than the possibility of being hit by lightning is a significant
> criticism of carrying nickels.
The claim about nickels and lightning isn't philosophical and
therefore can't be tautologous, making it disanalagous to claims about
justice.
> > Insisting on empirical evidence when confronted with a tautology is
> > thickheaded.
> And insisting that it is the tautological part that I objected to is
> boneheaded.
There was no other part.
> >> Any system which has democratic decision making "allows" the majority
> >>--whether simple majority or not-- to screw up badly the minority.
> >
> > [snip]
> >
> >> The point --which you're conspicuously missing-- is that mere logical
> >>possibility of bad things happening is useless in criticizing a given
> >>system.
> >
> >
> > Hm. You do a poor job of making that point, since the potential for
> > the majority to trample the dignities of a minority is a valid
> > criticism of democracy. It is, in fact, precisely why a pure "majority
> > rule" system of democracy is unacceptable, and why we do not have such
> > a system.
> It would be very thickheaded to deduct from my sentence that my
> point is that failure of democratic institutions is unlikely.
It is a very straightforward interpretation of your sentence.
> I was
> simply pointing out that _all_ systems formed by humans as opposed to
> gods allow as a logical possibility bad outcomes
What you are pleased to call "pointing out", most people would call
"making assertions."
Now you are claiming nothing very relevant at all, since whether a
perfect justice system is designed by gods or humans is irrelevant to
the question of whether we can have such a thing.
You'd be well advised to leave theology out of this question.
Alex K
>>>thickheaded.
>
>
>> And insisting that it is the tautological part that I objected to is
>>boneheaded.
>
>
> There was no other part.
>
Actually, the opposite is true -- there was no tautology in the
initial message, so I couldn't have been talking about a tautology.
And I've just clarified to what part of your message I was responding to
when saying "utter nonsense."
[...]
>
>>I was
>>simply pointing out that _all_ systems formed by humans as opposed to
>>gods allow as a logical possibility bad outcomes
>
>
> What you are pleased to call "pointing out", most people would call
> "making assertions."
>
> Now you are claiming nothing very relevant at all, since whether a
> perfect justice system is designed by gods or humans is irrelevant to
> the question of whether we can have such a thing.
>
What I was claiming is very relevant: if the author of the article
wanted to make a significant criticism of capitalism then more than
pointing out logically possible outcomes --that many would call unjust--
is needed. This is so because _all_ human designed or implemented
systems have this flaw.
A natural step towards making that significant criticism then, is
providing some empirical evidence that the kind of outcomes presented
are something likely to happen. Hence my initial claim.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
>>meaningless and irrelevant, since all systems formed by humans "allow"
>>unjust outcomes.
>
>
> Maybe you could expand on that a tad?
>
I did that just today, in a previous post -- but since you seem to
be following this discussion via Google Groups there is some delay
weirdness going on.
Cheers,
Alex
brian turner
> brian turner wrote:
> > This piece may have been written by socialists, but it could be read
> > as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
> > capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
> > or at least not very far from it.
>
> No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
> today's 6 figure income in real terms and the rest of the population
> owns billions in wealth and very large incomes, that would be a very
> unequal distribution of wealth -- but not any serious impediment to
> viable capitalism.
If everyone is insanely rich, inequality doesn't matter? Am I
understanding the argument right?
>
> > Otherwise opportunity is not equal,
> > markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
> > for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
> >
>
> Opportunity is never equal --some are smart some are dumb-- and
> markets are and always will be imperfect.
Talent or effort inequalities are hardly the only possible sources of
unequal opportunity, which is the point of the parable, extreme as it
is.
> The question is whether there
> are substitutes for it -- whether as a rule, government intervention in
> them improves the outcome or not.
It can and does many times. The counter argument usually involves
pointing to the worst examples of government intervention and treating
them as typical.
> The state is captured by special interests and idiotic measure making
> memes anyway -- it just doesn't have the right incentive structure to do
> a good job in what it's supposed to do. That doesn't require
> inequalities of wealth as a precondition -- it is sufficient that the
> self-interest of law makers is not aligned with the interest of the ruled.
> But that is almost a tautology.
If there is relative inequality, no group has more power than others,
so each's power checks others and some sensible result (re:
cooperative problems) can emerge easier.
> Your solution --expanding the the state and increasing its power--
> doesn't even touch on the problem of how incentives are structured in
> government. Making the government larger will make the problem of
> special interests and idiotic legislation worse, regardless of any
> marginally plausible initial distribution of wealth.
Equality would make it better, regardless whether bigger or smaller or
constant.
brian turner
checked to an extent
Jeff George
the following from Alex K <alex...@gmail.com>:
> In short, socialists would rather emphasize absurd scenarios --which
>are logically possible-- than talk about the probable, because talking
>about the probable would require thinking in terms of incentives, and
>this would deflate whatever fantasies they have about working socialist
>systems.
It's sad that the prosperity of all mankind isn't considered incentive
enough. Greed always takes precedence in the human creature.
--
Jeff George, Freedom Fighter
"Will no one rid me of this Monkeydent?"
- Jeff George starring as Henry II
Jeff George
the following from Courageous <dont...@spam.com>:
>
>>During the 20th century the power of democracy has grown, and the power
>>of big money has decreased, soon we will be able to finally abolish
>>capitalism completely, and abolish the money system.
>
>But "we," wouldn't want to. The idea that "we" are is just a fantasy
>inside your head. Margaret Thatcher said it best. "Give people a choice,
>and they will choose to be free." Do not forget it.
Your statement presumes that one can't be free without a money system.
Since that hasn't been proven Thatcher's quote is irrelevant.
Jeff George
the following from James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com>:
> --
>On 11 Sep 2004 11:01:40 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
>wrote:
>> Democracy wasn't strong enough to abolish capitalism at the
>> beginning of the 20th century, but it will soon be.
>
>In Chile a Marxist president was elected with a plurality of
>the votes. To legally implement socialism, he needed an
>outright majority in the legislature, which he did not have. He
>proceeded to implement socialism anyway, by illegal means. The
>economy collapsed completely and totality, as it invariably has
>wherever socialism has been implemented. Socialism can only
>work by terror and torture.
Pure speculation. Of course, since the interventionist Americans
interfered in that situation we will never know.
James A. Donald
Roger Johansson
> > > Democracy wasn't strong enough to abolish capitalism at
> > > the beginning of the 20th century, but it will soon be.
James A. Donald:
> > In Chile a Marxist president was elected with a plurality
> > of the votes. To legally implement socialism, he needed an
> > outright majority in the legislature, which he did not
> > have. He proceeded to implement socialism anyway, by
> > illegal means. The economy collapsed completely and
> > totality, as it invariably has wherever socialism has been
> > implemented. Socialism can only
> >work by terror and torture.
Jeff George
> Pure speculation
We observed the economy collapse totally.
Over the past three hundred years there have been many, many,
many attempts to implement socialism, and always to get
anything done on any large scale required extraordinarily
violent coercion. The outcome was economic collapse, often
with famine, or else slavery, or both. In mixed economies,
the socialist sector does not produce anything anyone much
wants - it just confiscates the wealth created by the private
sector.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
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4XyEA4bJO5HfcGW3Rb66WG1gOG5e7lqLURTVW2mOg
Ben Sharvy
> Ben Sharvy wrote:
> Actually, the opposite is true -- there was no tautology in the
> initial message,
Because you say so.
> > Now you are claiming nothing very relevant at all, since whether a
> > perfect justice system is designed by gods or humans is irrelevant to
> > the question of whether we can have such a thing.
> >
>
> What I was claiming is very relevant: if the author of the article
> wanted to make a significant criticism of capitalism then more than
> pointing out logically possible outcomes --that many would call unjust--
> is needed.
This claim has already been rejected. If your theory of justice
justifies an injustice, your theory is mistaken. This is a tautology
and not open to argument.
> This is so because _all_ human designed or implemented
> systems have this flaw.
Because you say so.
Giorgio Torrieri
> Depression Hits Robinson Crusoe's Island
> by Mrs. Mary Atterbury
>
> "Friday," said Robinson Crusoe, "I'm sorry, I fear I must
> lay you off."
...
> "One more thing, Friday. This island is overpopulated. Fifty
> percent of the people are unemployed. We are undergoing a
> severe depression, and there is no way that I can see to end
> it. No one but a charlatan would say that he could. And if
> any ship comes don't let them land any goods of any kind.
> You must be protected against foreign labor.
...
From a historical perspective, this last line is the most interesting.
The IWW saw protectionism as a ruse which ultimately
benefitted property owners, by trapping the customers in a
restricted market and shutting poor people out of access to cheap goods.
They saw the aquisition of labor rights as a global, and not a local process.
I am not saying I agree or disagree (I do have views on this, but don't have time
to write a long post), just noticing how much the IWW differed from "modern"
US trade unions (as well as most trade unions at the time)
> [First appeared in the Industrial Worker, Feb. 9, 1932; text
> taken from Joyce L. Kornbluh, ed., _Rebel Voices: An IWW
> Anthology_.]
Alex K
> Alex K <alex...@gmail.com> wrote in message news:<41449fdf$0$572$b45e...@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu>...
>
>>Ben Sharvy wrote:
>
>
>> Actually, the opposite is true -- there was no tautology in the
>>initial message,
>
>
> Because you say so.
>
It's not because I say so -- it's because there is no tautology in
the initial message.
How about this: you look up the rigorous definition of a logical
tautology, you post it here and then we search for a tautology in the
initial message.
If you're correct, I'll give you $1000 -- if I'm correct you give me
$500.
Deal?
>
>>>Now you are claiming nothing very relevant at all, since whether a
>>>perfect justice system is designed by gods or humans is irrelevant to
>>>the question of whether we can have such a thing.
>>>
>>
>> What I was claiming is very relevant: if the author of the article
>>wanted to make a significant criticism of capitalism then more than
>>pointing out logically possible outcomes --that many would call unjust--
>>is needed.
>
>
> This claim has already been rejected. If your theory of justice
> justifies an injustice, your theory is mistaken. This is a tautology
> and not open to argument.
>
You were the one that introduced a "theory of justice" here other
than talking about bad outcomes at an intuitive level, so it's not my
theory that is "mistaken."
I simply pointed out that in order to make a significant criticism of
capitalism, the initial message is not sufficient, a further step is
necessary to show that such outcomes are likely -- as I said, empirical
evidence was a most fitting thing to ask for.
I don't know why you take the impersonal tone about the "rejection"
-- it's only you that rejected my claim.
>
>>This is so because _all_ human designed or implemented
>>systems have this flaw.
>
>
> Because you say so.
OK. It would be interesting to find out about the flawless human
designed or implemented "system of justice."
Could you please give me the web page were it is described? I can't
seem to find anything relevant on Google.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
>>
>>>This piece may have been written by socialists, but it could be read
>>>as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
>>>capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
>>>or at least not very far from it.
>>
>> No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
>>today's 6 figure income in real terms and the rest of the population
>>owns billions in wealth and very large incomes, that would be a very
>>unequal distribution of wealth -- but not any serious impediment to
>>viable capitalism.
>
>
> If everyone is insanely rich, inequality doesn't matter? Am I
> understanding the argument right?
>
>
Well, firstly, having a 6 figures income is not "insanely rich" by
any reasonable _absolute_ standards -- it's just a comfortable living.
On the other hand, if you consider relative richness, then a six
figure income is indeed "insanely rich." More than that, if you consider
relative richness compared to the world population income and to
historical incomes, then today's average 30K-40K income in the US is
also "insanely rich" -- even those living at today's misnamed "poverty
level" in the US are very rich.
So, if you concede that in the situation I described inequality
doesn't matter for the success of capitalism --assuming a minimal
constitutionally incapacitated government-- then you've conceded the
whole point.
And obviously my point was that equality is by no means essential for
capitalism to be successful -- whether measured on the average standard
of living or the standard of living of the "relatively poor."
>>>Otherwise opportunity is not equal,
>>>markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
>>>for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
>>>
>>
>> Opportunity is never equal --some are smart some are dumb-- and
>>markets are and always will be imperfect.
>
>
> Talent or effort inequalities are hardly the only possible sources of
> unequal opportunity, which is the point of the parable, extreme as it
> is.
>
No doubt. But it is immensely more important that the opportunity for
assuring a reasonable standard of life _exists_ first -- whether those
opportunities are equal or not is a secondary issue.
>
>>The question is whether there
>>are substitutes for it -- whether as a rule, government intervention in
>>them improves the outcome or not.
>
>
> It can and does many times. The counter argument usually involves
> pointing to the worst examples of government intervention and treating
> them as typical.
>
It is the rule, rather than the exception that government
intervention leads to bad outcomes. That there are "many times" when the
government does good does not contradict that.
The only place where this might not be so is the army -- if used
solely for defensive purposes.
And there are good arguments about why this is so.
>
>> The state is captured by special interests and idiotic measure making
>>memes anyway -- it just doesn't have the right incentive structure to do
>>a good job in what it's supposed to do. That doesn't require
>>inequalities of wealth as a precondition -- it is sufficient that the
>>self-interest of law makers is not aligned with the interest of the ruled.
>> But that is almost a tautology.
>
>
> If there is relative inequality ["equality" right? -- Alex], no group has more power than others,
> so each's power checks others and some sensible result (re:
> cooperative problems) can emerge easier.
>
>
In theory yes. But there is no such thing as equality of political
power wherever there are governments. And unlike economic power,
political power can actually be used to do immense harm -- the first
type of power is the power to persuade, the second type is the power to
coerce.
Cheers,
Alex
brian turner
> brian turner wrote:
> > Alex K <alex...@gmail.com> wrote
> >
> >>brian turner wrote:
> >>
> >>>This piece may have been written by socialists, but it could be read
> >>>as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
> >>>capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
> >>>or at least not very far from it.
> >>
> >> No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
> >>today's 6 figure income in real terms and the rest of the population
> >>owns billions in wealth and very large incomes, that would be a very
> >>unequal distribution of wealth -- but not any serious impediment to
> >>viable capitalism.
> >
> >
> > If everyone is insanely rich, inequality doesn't matter? Am I
> > understanding the argument right?
> >
> >
>
> Well, firstly, having a 6 figures income is not "insanely rich" by
> any reasonable _absolute_ standards -- it's just a comfortable living.
>
> On the other hand, if you consider relative richness, then a six
> figure income is indeed "insanely rich." More than that, if you consider
> relative richness compared to the world population income and to
> historical incomes, then today's average 30K-40K income in the US is
> also "insanely rich" -- even those living at today's misnamed "poverty
> level" in the US are very rich.
If people at the bottom make 6 figures, that means the overall level
of the society is insanely high compared to what exists today, so is
only somewhat more realistic to speak about than Marx's distant
"communism" situation.
The US is both unequal and has few genuinely poor people (even though
many more than Europe). Yet look how long it took to get there. The
US could have had much lower poverty and higher health/vital stats at
every stage of the growth process for the past 200 years with the same
growth rate if there had been equality. So capitalism could have
lived up to its most cheerful promoters' claims.
> So, if you concede that in the situation I described inequality
> doesn't matter for the success of capitalism --assuming a minimal
> constitutionally incapacitated government-- then you've conceded the
> whole point.
Inequality would create problems even then, but it would be less
morally offensive.
> And obviously my point was that equality is by no means essential for
> capitalism to be successful -- whether measured on the average standard
> of living or the standard of living of the "relatively poor."
If "successful" means GDP growth, it's true it's possible to have fast
growth with high inequity (even though equality probably speeds up
growth).
But I said capitalism must be relatively egalitarian to meet it's
marketing claims, which are more than GDP growth. Maoism created GDP
growth (at least for its first generation...it probably had shot its
only bullet though), contrary to ignorant claims to the contrary. But
it was undesirable for many other reasons.
> It is the rule, rather than the exception that government
> intervention leads to bad outcomes. That there are "many times" when the
> government does good does not contradict that.
> The only place where this might not be so is the army -- if used
> solely for defensive purposes.
Fairly honest and effective government exists in enough places to
suggest it's possible to get the institutions right. Though the
culture can work against it. For example Islamic culture is poison to
the effort apparently.
> >> The state is captured by special interests and idiotic measure making
> >>memes anyway -- it just doesn't have the right incentive structure to do
> >>a good job in what it's supposed to do. That doesn't require
> >>inequalities of wealth as a precondition -- it is sufficient that the
> >>self-interest of law makers is not aligned with the interest of the ruled.
> >> But that is almost a tautology.
> >
> >
> > If there is relative inequality ["equality" right? -- Alex], no group has more power than others,...
yes typo sorry
> > so each's power checks others and some sensible result (re:
> > cooperative problems) can emerge easier.
> >
> >
>
> In theory yes. But there is no such thing as equality of political
> power wherever there are governments.
There is somewhat equal influence over policy making in Scandinavian
countries, with their thriving civil societies...to pick the best
example. Others can aspire to that.
> And unlike economic power,
> political power can actually be used to do immense harm -- the first
> type of power is the power to persuade, the second type is the power to
> coerce.
So can private power. Because private power can construct a state to
do its bidding if one doesn't exist or exists but is doing little.
It's not only leftists who initiate state actions. That's why
anarchism (left or right) is as big a pipe dream as "communism". well
actually Marxian commmunism is leftist anarchism so never mind the
distinction.
michael price
> On Sat, 11 Sep 2004 15:21:04 GMT I used my godlike powers to observe
> the following from Courageous <dont...@spam.com>:
>
> >
> >>During the 20th century the power of democracy has grown, and the power
> >>of big money has decreased, soon we will be able to finally abolish
> >>capitalism completely, and abolish the money system.
> >
> >But "we," wouldn't want to. The idea that "we" are is just a fantasy
> >inside your head. Margaret Thatcher said it best. "Give people a choice,
> >and they will choose to be free." Do not forget it.
>
> Your statement presumes that one can't be free without a money system.
No it only presumes that we can't be free if someone takes it upon
themselves to "abolish" something that we were using without their
asking our consent.
Patrick Powers
> >The term "socialism" is so corrupted in the public discourse that to
> >use it is to beg for endless bullshit that never gets beyond the
> >meaning of words.
>
> Indeed. We might believe that the word "socialism," as understood
> by the dictionary and economists both, means something like:
>
> "Any of various theories or systems of social organization in which
> the means of producing and distributing goods is owned collectively
> or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy."
>
> If "socialism" just means something watered-down, like redistribution
> of monies to the needy, or what not, the U.S. is a socialist country
> already. I'd prefer to think that we are an enlightened free market
> economy, but be that as it may...
>
> C//
Well, if this is enlightenment, I'd hate to see ignorance.
The US has a mixed economy. I'm suspicious of simple answers.
Patrick Powers
> as an argument for certain preconditions for viable capitalism. For
> capitalism to approach its marketing claims, it must be egalitarian,
> markets highly imperfect, the state is easily captured by the wealth
> for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
>
What marketing claims? When I was a youngster in the US they kept
telling us how things were going to be easier for everybody. They
never claim that anymore. Instead we have a state-sponsored lottery
so that everybody has a microscopic chance to get rich. I guess you
could call that egalitarianism.
> the state is easily captured by the wealth
> for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
You can say that again. It is the fashion. Wealth is power, use the
power to change the game in your favor, grow wealthier. Repeat as
desired.
James A. Donald
On 14 Sep 2004 00:25:34 -0700, bk...@hotmail.com (brian turner)
wrote:
> The US is both unequal and has few genuinely poor people
> (even though many more than Europe). Yet look how long it
> took to get there. The US could have had much lower poverty
> and higher health/vital stats at every stage of the growth
> process for the past 200 years with the same growth rate if
> there had been equality.
But your proposed methods for providing equality condemns
almost everyone to "an very early state in the growth process"
- which is to say starvation and slavery.
By "equality" you do not mean equality - for you regard Mao's
China a and Castro's Cuba as egalitarian. By "equality" you
mean people like yourself having power over people like myself
- and no matter what communist statistics say, this produces
povery and ruin.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
j27zH3LU/kmRN77vR4FM9+D8UF6ShYiS1tLfSjMb
4m3FsT1sqMgDd21rL611XOShZ3hKgW2bvrwR6ViSQ
Jeff George
following from nini...@yahoo.com (michael price):
Kind of like when slavery was abolished in the U.S.?
--
"Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
- The Who
"Who? What? There's an old saying in Guatemala. Meet
the new boss. We don't get fooled again in teenage
wasteland."
- George W. Bush
James A. Donald
On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 11:32:39 -0400, Jeff George
> > > Your statement presumes that one can't be free without a
> > > money system.
> > No it only presumes that we can't be free if someone takes
> > it upon
> >themselves to "abolish" something that we were using without
> >their asking our consent.
> Kind of like when slavery was abolished in the U.S.?
What is involved in suppressing "the money system"
To suppress "the money system" have to forbid people to
exchange stuff, to stop them from pursing profit.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
XJouV/HkZcd+uaiE5FUM8I4KIhCxHv4X/8gEaMgE
44mTDIPhw3Eu2GqxiZv/vvDQPjVlNmtp+YjcYOR9F
Roger Johansson
> What is involved in suppressing "the money system"
>
> To suppress "the money system" have to forbid people to
> exchange stuff, to stop them from pursing profit.
No, there is no need for surpressing the money system.
If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their rights as
citizens there is no need for people to use money anymore.
We could have a society based on voluntary work, so every individual
would be free to do whatever he/she liked to do.
--
Roger J.
James A. Donald
James A. Donald
> > What is involved in suppressing "the money system"
> >
> > To suppress "the money system" have to forbid people to
> > exchange stuff, to stop them from pursing profit.
Roger Johansson
> No, there is no need for surpressing the money system.
>
> If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their
> rights as citizens there is no need for people to use money
> anymore.
Firstly, how do you get this housing and food except by forcing
people to provide it, with the result that the commissar holds
the peasants child in the fire until the mother reveals where
the seed corn is buried.
Secondly, observe state provided food in Cuba and state
provided housing in the Soviet Union. You could not provide
the food that everyone wants even in principle, and in
practice, state provision is terrible, because it cannot
reflect, or even effectively acknowledge individual desires.
What is provided free is usually not worth it, and where do you
get this free stuff?
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
6PZkHWDfgWjmWdv67NnCsdgGZb6pXYYUyhSA1Adr
4h3z7CVx+WiTSD6aMmV3dTRn6RSrgsZH0KxEDiskk
Roger Johansson
>> If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their
>> rights as citizens there is no need for people to use money anymore.
> Firstly, how do you get this housing and food except by forcing
> people to provide it,
If we abolished money tomorrow, and allowed doctors and nurses to go to
work as usual, if they want to, don't you think at least some of them
would do that? The same goes for a lot of other workers in all branches
of industry and services.
Of course some people would try to keep the money system alive, even
though the society is no longer backing it up with military force and
police force, but they would soon realize that it is useless, because
anybody can start printing any kind of money they wish, so all currencies
will be useless pieces of paper.
When people no longer have to pay for rent, mortgages, food, etc.. the
people who have loads of dollar bills can not use them as a power to make
people do as they want, and even less if anybody can print their own
money.
Money will simply become useless. People will do what they want.
Some will go fishing, or go surfing, others will work as teachers,
transport workers, farmers, etc..
Some farmers who are today forbidden to produce food, because of the
gross overproduction of food can start producing food again. There is no
lack of food in the world, there has been an abundance of food for
decades. Farmers have been paid off to stop producing food, or to use the
land in other ways. The need to keep prices up under capitalism has
forced governments to try to reduce food production in many ways.
For a number of years they even used wheat as fuel for electrical power
plants, because letting it out on the world market would lower the prices
of wheat very much.
There will be free food for everybody.
The efficiency in the workplaces will go up, because there is no need to
waste time and energy on concerns for money anymore. A taxi driver can
concentrate on driving people, he does not have to administrate, fill in
papers, worry about money, etc, tasks which today takes up at least half
his time.
The companies,schools, hospitals, workplaces, would be democratically
ruled by the people who work there.
--
Roger J.
Ben Sharvy
> Ben Sharvy wrote:
> >> What I was claiming is very relevant: if the author of the article
> >>wanted to make a significant criticism of capitalism then more than
> >>pointing out logically possible outcomes --that many would call unjust--
> >>is needed.
> >
> >
> > This claim has already been rejected. If your theory of justice
> > justifies an injustice, your theory is mistaken. This is a tautology
> > and not open to argument.
> >
> You were the one that introduced a "theory of justice" here
Would "theory of what is just" help you discuss the topic, rather than
what words mean?
> I simply pointed out that in order to make a significant criticism of
> capitalism, the initial message is not sufficient, a further step is
> necessary to show that such outcomes are likely -- as I said, empirical
> evidence was a most fitting thing to ask for.
Your habit of referring to your theories as things you are "simply
pointing out" is tedious. I am "simply pointing out" that you are
mistaken.
James A. Donald
> >> If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their
> >> rights as citizens there is no need for people to use
> >> money anymore.
James A. Donald
> > Firstly, how do you get this housing and food except by
> > forcing people to provide it,
Roger Johansson
> If we abolished money tomorrow, and allowed doctors and
> nurses to go to work as usual, if they want to,
But most of them would not go to work. They would ask to be
paid. You would then have to make them go to work. We
already have this crisis in Zimbabwe is trying to force doctors
to work for government money that has become worthless, and
they demand pay in something that has real value... And if
many of them did go to work, not everyone can get as much
medical treatment as he would prefer.
The same is even more true of the man who grows food, the man
who stores food, the man who ships it to the store, the man who
puts it on the shelves of the store etc.
Secondly, even if some of them did go to work, not everyone
gets as much housing as he wants, as much filet mignon as he
wants, as much medical treatment as he wants.
So you are not only going to need an apparatus to force people
to work, but with or without such an an apparatus, you will
need an apparatus to distribute stuff, an apparatus that owns
everything, and thus owns everyone.
> don't you think at least some of them would do that?
Probably, but not enough medical treatment, not enough food,
not enough of anything will be provided. People will want
more, they will try to get it through exchange, and you will
have to stop them.
> Of course some people would try to keep the money system
> alive, even though the society is no longer backing it up
> with military force and police force, but they would soon
> realize that it is useless, because anybody can start
> printing any kind of money they wish, so all currencies will
> be useless pieces of paper.
Pol Pot tried that. People just used gold.
Paper money existed long before governments took over its issue
- it was issued by wealthy merchants.
> When people no longer have to pay for rent, mortgages, food,
And where will houses and food come from? Existing housing
stock will last for a while, but food will run out mighty fast.
Not to mention computers, new cars, petrol, shoes, clothes,
garden tools, and so forth.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
G6J6K8iE5UYYLBd+jfFaq+Q/BaVlVn+ZYv+2ug7w
4IWNC92tKgSJ7NuMYClURjk11VMkQ/1M7zeK16zhg
Courageous
>If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their rights as
>citizens there is no need for people to use money anymore.
This is one of the most hiliariously naive statements I've heard
all year.
C//
Roger Johansson
>>If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their rights as
>>citizens there is no need for people to use money anymore.
>
> This is one of the most hiliariously naive statements I've heard
> all year.
That is a natural reaction when you have a brain filled to the brim with
decades of capitalist propaganda hammered into it.
Note that you have no decent arguments against such a solution, you just
laugh hysterically.
Or start to repeat like a parrot all the common propaganda sentences you
have heard millions of times.
Like this:
"That is communism, like Pol Pot, utopian dreams always lead to
dictatorship and catastrophy, that just cannot work, we would starve and
become cannibals, etc.. etc.."
--
Roger J.
Courageous
>>>If everybody are given housing and food as a part of their rights as
>>>citizens there is no need for people to use money anymore.
>> This is one of the most hiliariously naive statements I've heard
>> all year.
>Note that you have no decent arguments against such a solution, you ..
The plain and obvious counter is that food and housing is by far
not all of what people buy. Even in some future economy where
pure manufacturing and agricultural capacities are ridiculously
enormous, we will still have money. Services, don't you know. And
very specialized things.
Not to mention _differentiated_ houses, such as very nice ones,
or _gourmet_ food. No, you are quite incorrect. I could go on and
on. But really, you don't justify the time.
Go ahead and reply, if you want to embarrass yourself further.
C//
Josh Dougherty
news:66dc0679.04091...@posting.google.com...
No, it just means that 6 figures won't be worth anything. The overall level
of society could be the same, better, or worse.
Josh Dougherty
news:12tdk0l9dtqq41q89...@4ax.com...
> --
> On 14 Sep 2004 00:25:34 -0700, bk...@hotmail.com (brian turner)
> wrote:
> > The US is both unequal and has few genuinely poor people
> > (even though many more than Europe). Yet look how long it
> > took to get there. The US could have had much lower poverty
> > and higher health/vital stats at every stage of the growth
> > process for the past 200 years with the same growth rate if
> > there had been equality.
>
> But your proposed methods for providing equality condemns
> almost everyone to "an very early state in the growth process"
> - which is to say starvation and slavery.
>
> By "equality" you do not mean equality - for you regard Mao's
> China a and Castro's Cuba as egalitarian. By "equality" you
> mean people like yourself having power over people like myself
No James, he would have had you killed already, remember?
Roger Johansson
> The plain and obvious counter is that food and housing is by far
> not all of what people buy. Even in some future economy where
> pure manufacturing and agricultural capacities are ridiculously
> enormous, we will still have money. Services, don't you know. And
> very specialized things.
Some services will survive, because people want to help people with those
services. Teachers will teach in schools, people will help handicapped
people because they want to.
Other services will not survive, like butlers and maids for rich people
who could clean their own houses, make their own beds, wash their own
clothes.
This is the beauty of individual freedom, people will no longer be forced
to do things they do not really want to do. They will only produce goods
and services they really think are good and justified.
Most of the opposition to abolishing money is that money and capitalism
is needed to force people to work, capitalism is a system which pushes
people around, and some people want to keep that old system.
Capitalism is based on organized blackmail. Some rich people have taken
control of land and the production of food and housing, and use these
resources to force people to do what they want, to produce luxury
services and goods for the rich elite.
--
Roger J.
Alex K
>
> If people at the bottom make 6 figures, that means the overall level
> of the society is insanely high compared to what exists today,
That is correct. But the point you're missing is that compared to the
not so distant past we are _today_ insanely rich. If you concede that
inequality doesn't matter in the scenario I proposed then you must find
other problems with capitalism than inequality.
> The US is both unequal and has few genuinely poor people (even though
> many more than Europe). Yet look how long it took to get there.
Before you can criticize the time frame you need to show a faster
process to do it. Historically existing socialism has proved a failure
in this regard, so you can only have a fantasy scenario in mind when you
criticize capitalism for being too slow in bringing growth.
[...]
>
>> And obviously my point was that equality is by no means essential for
>>capitalism to be successful -- whether measured on the average standard
>>of living or the standard of living of the "relatively poor."
>
>
> If "successful" means GDP growth, it's true it's possible to have fast
> growth with high inequity (even though equality probably speeds up
> growth).
>
No -- I specifically mentioned the welfare of the "relatively poor."
> But I said capitalism must be relatively egalitarian to meet it's
> marketing claims, which are more than GDP growth. Maoism created GDP
> growth (at least for its first generation...it probably had shot its
> only bullet though), contrary to ignorant claims to the contrary. But
> it was undesirable for many other reasons.
>
As it happens, decrease in poverty level, measured in absolute terms,
does in fact correlate very well with GDP growth -- even where there is
inequality.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
> "brian turner" <bk...@hotmail.com> wrote
>
>>Alex K <alex...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>
>>>>> No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
>>>>>today's 6 figure income in real terms
>>If people at the bottom make 6 figures, that means the overall level
>>of the society is insanely high
>
>
> No, it just means that 6 figures won't be worth anything. The overall level
> of society could be the same, better, or worse.
>
Not surprisingly, Josh gets it wrong again: I specifically mentioned
"today's 6 figure income in _real_ terms."
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
>
>
>>>> What I was claiming is very relevant: if the author of the article
>>>>wanted to make a significant criticism of capitalism then more than
>>>>pointing out logically possible outcomes --that many would call unjust--
>>>>is needed.
>>>
>>>
>>>This claim has already been rejected. If your theory of justice
>>>justifies an injustice, your theory is mistaken. This is a tautology
>>>and not open to argument.
>>>
>>
>> You were the one that introduced a "theory of justice" here
>
>
> Would "theory of what is just" help you discuss the topic, rather than
> what words mean?
>
The topic has been clear from the beginning. I made a very apposite
remark, the purpose of which I repeated here many times.
You then popped out of the bowels of Usenet to make a typical "Usenet
asshole and nitpicker in chief" pose -- probably out of frustration with
real life as it so often happens in this medium.
You just picked the wrong target -- and since then you've had a
continuous success at embarrassing yourself.
Cheers,
Alex
Roger Johansson
> But the point you're missing is that compared to the
> not so distant past we are _today_ insanely rich.
USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing the rest of the
world for a long time.
The reason it intervened in Chile, killing a legally elected socialist
president, Allende, and they put in their own puppet Pinochet, was to
keep the copper price at a very low level, so they got a lot of copper
almost for free.
Today we see how they steal enormous amounts of cheap oil in Iraq.
Look at this:
http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/oil/irqindx.htm
http://www.fpif.org/papers/oil.html
This foreign policy, based on military interventions to achieve
economical advantages, has been going on for more than a hundred years,
so it is not surprising that USA is the richest nation in the world.
But it is not based on their own work, it is based on theft and
blackmailing.
--
Roger J.
Alex K
> Alex K <alex...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>But the point you're missing is that compared to the
>>not so distant past we are _today_ insanely rich.
>
>
> USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing the rest of the
> world for a long time.
> But it is not based on their own work, it is based on theft and
> blackmailing.
Interesting.
That also explains why the rest of capitalist countries _seem_ to be
growing at a greater pace than the rest: the US has obviously a great
deal to win by fabricating "statistics" in all those other countries.
But in today's world were all are puppets of, and brainwashed by,
the corporate/government/media/military complex it's only natural that
people don't see such obvious truths.
Cheers,
Alex
Roger Johansson
Fascism was born as a reaction against the growing power of
democracy and socialism which swept over Europe at the beginning of the
20th century.
The big capitalists knew they had to do something or lose the power they
had, so they invented corporativism, or fascism as it was also called.
The basic idea of corporativism was that the big corporations and
bankers could be able to control the democracy by supporting the
political parties which supported their interests with big campaign
contributions and secret financial support.
Wall street bankers and big american industrialists like Henry Ford
supported the fascist movements in Italy, Germany and Spain and built up
the military power of them, so they could fight against democrats and
socialists.
To crush Russia was also a big objective, and to remove the strong
jewish dominance in business and capital ownership.
During the great depression in the 30-ies capitalism was in serious
crisis. Workers in the industrial countries were attracted to socialism,
and wanted to abolish capitalism
One could safely say that capitalism was saved by one single man, Adolf
Hitler, heavily backed up by right wing politicians, bankers,
industrialists, capitalists.
Fascism is the idea that politics should be controlled by big business.
Through economic contributions to the political parties from big
companies the capitalists planned to control the democratic process. This
idea was first presented by the Pope in the end of the 19th century, and
was adopted around 1920 by german, italian and american bankers and
capitalists, and led to the creation of the fascist movements.
The capitalists in USA and western europe started supporting Hitler,
Mussolini and Franco, to fight against democracy and socialism. The big
shows and marches you can see in documentary films from the nazi movement
before WW2 were impressive shows, with thousands of flags and uniforms.
These shows were paid for by the capitalists and rich industrialists,
like Henry Ford, for example.
The value of money and the property rights has to be backed up by
violence. That is why capitalists and conservatives support the
corporative state, which can set up an army and a police force, to defend
their property rights. But they do not want the state to develop into a
real democracy. They want a minimal state, they only need the violence
which defends their property rights.
The strong reactions against fascism in Europe after the war meant that
the political parties were very much against the idea of financial
contributions from the big companies but in other parts of the world we
see that the fascist idea has been accepted and the political parties are
controlled big business.
http://reformed-theology.org/html/books/wall_street/
http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Corporativism
Anarchism is a movement against the corporative state, governments
controlled by big corporations.
--
Roger J.
G*rd*n
> >>>>> No it doesn't. If most of the population has the equivalent of
> >>>>>today's 6 figure income in real terms
> [...]
"brian turner" <bk...@hotmail.com>:
> >>If people at the bottom make 6 figures, that means the overall level
> >>of the society is insanely high
Josh Dougherty:
> > No, it just means that 6 figures won't be worth anything. The overall level
> > of society could be the same, better, or worse.
Alex K <alex...@gmail.com>:
> Not surprisingly, Josh gets it wrong again: I specifically mentioned
> "today's 6 figure income in _real_ terms."
What would that _mean_, though? Everyone lives in a McMansion and drives
a Hummer to the mall, or what? You can already have a six-figure income
and live rather badly. And work your butt off for it, too.
Alex K
> Alex K <alex...@gmail.com>:
>
>> Not surprisingly, Josh gets it wrong again: I specifically mentioned
>>"today's 6 figure income in _real_ terms."
>
>
>
> What would that _mean_, though? Everyone lives in a McMansion and drives
> a Hummer to the mall, or what? You can already have a six-figure income
> and live rather badly. And work your butt off for it, too.
>
It obviously means that you can afford the same basket of goods and
services you can afford today at the same income level.
Whether one lives badly or not given this is everyone's choice --
having a greater income only gives you more choices.
Cheers,
Alex
James A. Donald
On 15 Sep 2004 05:22:56 GMT, <no-e...@home.se> wrote:
Courageous
> > The plain and obvious counter is that food and housing is
> > by far not all of what people buy. Even in some future
> > economy where pure manufacturing and agricultural
> > capacities are ridiculously enormous, we will still have
> > money. Services, don't you know. And very specialized
> > things.
Roger Johansson
> Some services will survive, because people want to help
> people with those services. Teachers will teach in schools,
No, teachers will not teach in schools unless they get paid..
Parents will teach their kids, Some people will teach one or
two kids if they volunteer to turn up, but no one is going to
build and maintain a classroom and teach thirty kids every day
starting at 9AM.
Noverl writing is going to be produced quite adequately even
without payment. Teaching and medication is going to be
radically underproduced. Very few children will learn to read
unless their parents teach them. No one is going to produce
food or housing for other people unless they are paid, or, as
in the Soviet Union, unless they are terrorized.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
a042ysXxIMQRSsbFUQEeesWQETw/g5iizjI48xmM
43NazjaVhpVoizhgsRdBurHlrfkAeqOiiLCa2TLwL
James A. Donald
On 15 Sep 2004 06:01:17 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
wrote:
> USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing the
> rest of the world for a long time.
Why then are Swiss, Hong Kongers, and Singaporeans rich?
The US is rich because for the same reason as those places are
rich - because in those places people like yourself have little
power over people like me.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
DWEgJyi6fBBxvFRabTreiDCj8TIwQ4KVoT+ecy6y
4Ty73QGHx7BaKqeS7V0IACb+I5HHNhsbuRgty8SCD
Roger Johansson
>> USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing the rest of
>> the world for a long time.
> Why then are Swiss, Hong Kongers, and Singaporeans rich?
Switzerland is rich because it has hidden away money and gold for rich
people and gangsters for hundreds of years.
Hongkong is rich because it provided a center for rich people to
administrate their affairs from. The same goes for Singapor, although
with the addition of some real production also.
> The US is rich because for the same reason as those places are
> rich - because in those places people like yourself have little
> power over people like me.
Don't try to fool yourself, or anybody else.
These places have been low tax havens and centers for rich people's
administration of their affairs for a long time.
--
Roger J.
Roger Johansson
> No, teachers will not teach in schools unless they get paid..
If they get food and housing for free there is no reason to get paid to
work.
If there is no money used in such a society money are worthless pieces of
paper and each individual can be free to do whatever he likes to do. And
many will do useful things, because they like that kind of free society,
because they like their work, or because they want to feel that they are
doing something useful, or because they like the people in their
workplace. There are many reasons why people would work and produce
useful services or goods if they could do whatever they wanted to do and
still get free food and housing.
We don't live in a world of scarcity, even if capitalism has to try to
create scarcity to keep the prices up. We live in a world of abundance
and only a part of the possible workforce need to work for us all ti live
comfortably.
I quote from a reply I wrote to a shareware author who feels threatened
but the availability of freeware, he can't live from programming anymore:
The problem is that we live in a world were there is more and more
leisure time, and people already have enough food and other material
necessities.
So the people look for something interesting to do with their free time.
They often produce free services and goods for other people, like free
software created by real enthusiasts who program just for the fun of it,
or for some honor.
When hundreds of thousands, or even millions of people, do that, there is
no market for payware left for you to make a living from.
If you want to make a living you simply have to find another market or
another occupation.
In-house programming is for real top quality programmers, writing special
software for insurance companies, universities, commercial companies,
etc..
If you are not that good, find something else to make money on.
--
Roger J.
James A. Donald
On 15 Sep 2004 07:11:17 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
wrote:
> Fascism was born as a reaction against the growing power of
> democracy and socialism which swept over Europe at the
> beginning of the 20th century.
>
> The big capitalists knew they had to do something or lose the
> power they had, so they invented corporativism, or fascism as
> it was also called.
That is not the version of reality that the fascists perceived,
nor the version that big business perceived. Big business did
not notice much difference between communism and fascism, or
care about what differences existed, if any.. The Nazis
thought they were socialist, and big business thought they were
socialist.
The industrial employers association published an evaluation of
Nazism immediately before the 1930 election, in which they
concluded the Nazis were totalitarian, terrorist,
conspiratorial, and socialist, that they intended a fundamental
transformation of the existing economic order.
An evaluation that turned out to be entirely accurate.
See Henry Turner's "German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler"
(O.U.P. 1985). page 114.
On page 135 Turner quotes various German big business figures
saying that the difference between Nazis and commies is
insignificant, an observation rather similar to that made by
George Orwell who said anyone who claimed that nazis and
commies were very different from each other was always an
advocate of supporting one or the other.
Quoting from page 115 of "German Big Business and the Rise of
Hitler:" For brevity I have omitted the lengthy and copious
sources that he cites.
"If the mistrust of big busines rule out subsisdies from
that quarter for the Nazis in 1930, there remains the
question of how they financed thier impressive campaging
of 1930 as well as their expanding organization. An
aboundance of evidence indicates that the Prussian police
came close to the mark when they agreed with the part6ies
own answer to that question: The Nazis raised most of the
money themselves. The police also noticed that the
NSDAP required less money than did the bourgeois parties
with whcih it competed for votes. Like the Social
Democrats and the Communists, the National Socialists had
build a "party of mobilization" that demanded not only
financial sacrifices but also personal engagement from
its members, and the fanatic decication of many of thee
party's followers produced a willing response to those
demands. This enabled the Nazis to reduce their costs by
relying heavily on volunteer labor and contributions in
kind.
[...]
The answer, now confirmed by and abundance of
documentation, is that, just as the Nazis claimed, they
financed the SA almost exclusively with their own
resources and by their own efforts."
Several pages follow, depicting in vast detail the heavy
exactions that the Nazis demanded of their supporters, and the
vast volume of pitifully tiny donations on which the Nazis
relied, with numerous citations of tediously lengthy source
documentation
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
kvoTZ9dp219q8ZZtPIBKNeM0ZzSgXwc5lEbW0ejY
48hhBUTXaw66BbSfarRiuVpHoSvcDQr3a9T1RYZwj
Roger Johansson
>> Fascism was born as a reaction against the growing power of
>> democracy and socialism which swept over Europe at the
>> beginning of the 20th century.
>> The big capitalists knew they had to do something or lose the
>> power they had, so they invented corporativism, or fascism as it was
>> also called.
> The industrial employers association published an evaluation of
> Nazism immediately before the 1930 election, in which they
> concluded the Nazis were totalitarian, terrorist,
> conspiratorial, and socialist, that they intended a fundamental
> transformation of the existing economic order.
There is always a need for the people behind evil deeds to keep their
hands clean.
During all the years USA backed up Saddam Hussein secretly they also
codemned him officially. And when they had no use for him anymore they
got rid of him, and let him take all the blame for everything that had
happened.
That is the way they do these things, and similar situations have
happened many hundreds of times all over the world.
> See Henry Turner's "German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler"
So you managed to find a book which takes the blame for Hitler's rise to
power from the big business.
What do you think was the reason to publish such a book? Hahaha..
Anybody can study the material about these things by themselves and
decide for themselves which version seems more likely and what makes
sense.
Do some searches on google for combinations of words like
corporativism fascism
wall street rise of hitler
and study the documents you find.
--
Roger J.
Josh Dougherty
I did see that, but that just doesn't seem realistic, under capitalism
anyway. If people at the bottom have that in "real terms", then you have
socialism already, as basic needs are already met, people only need to work
to fulfill their creativity, and everyone has access to their own means of
production, therefore not needing to work for someone else who owns what
they need to live.
Inequality would be very difficult to maintain as well. Who would clean the
toilets, flip the burgers, work the assembly-line, or sew garments in the
sweatshops of the "rich" if the people at the bottom had 6 figure incomes in
"real terms"? The ability to extract surplus value would be minimal, as
need and poverty would not be compelling anyone to submit to super
exploitation in order to survive. That's a very unpleasant prospect for
capitalits, which is why, even at a much less pronounced stage, capitalists
are fleeing the US and other industrialized countries with comparatively
high incomes at the bottom, and sending production to places where need and
poverty are functioning properly, compelling people to submit to super
exploitation in order to survive in more acceptable numbers.
James A. Donald
Roger Johansson
> >> The big capitalists knew they had to do something or lose
> >> the power they had, so they invented corporativism, or
> >> fascism as it was also called.
James A. Donald
> > The industrial employers association published an
> > evaluation of Nazism immediately before the 1930 election,
> > in which they concluded the Nazis were totalitarian,
> > terrorist, conspiratorial, and socialist, that they
> > intended a fundamental transformation of the existing
> > economic order.
Roger Johansson
> There is always a need for the people behind evil deeds to
> keep their hands clean.
The big capitalists in Germany did everything they could short
of coup to keep totalitarians out of power. They failed
because a majority of Germans voted for totalitarianism, and a
plurality voted for Hitler. Had the ordinary rules of
democracy been followed, Hitler would have been invited to form
a governemnt when he first won a plurality. Instead we saw
such radical and drastic measures as rule by decree, as the
establishment extensively violated the forms and customs of
democracy to keep the nazis and commies out of power.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
8kbCzqYEN2Lbr+2Ci8l9AN8fV4TZv4oanZP4+089
49lDWh6Bm0LVzzA2lfanhi6z/jkWamEu3z9nTLG4W
James A. Donald
> > > USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing
> > > the rest of the world for a long time.
James A. Donald
> > Why then are Swiss, Hong Kongers, and Singaporeans rich?
Roger Johansson
> Switzerland is rich because it has hidden away money and gold
> for rich people and gangsters for hundreds of years.
>
> Hongkong is rich because it provided a center for rich people
> to administrate their affairs from. The same goes for
> Singapor, although with the addition of some real production
> also.
But those rich people have no power to rob anyone. In the case
of Hong Kong they started off as starving refugees who had fled
the communists to a barren rock.
While it is certainly true that Hong Kong is a place where rich
people admister their world wide businesses, that fails to
explain why they are rich.
Similarly, if rich people are around the world are hiding their
money in Switzerland, that is a pretty good indication that
they have no power to rob, but rather are vulnerable to being
robbed.
Hong Kongers became rich by creting value. For a long time a
lot of stuff was made in Hong Kong, for example my computer
motherboard that I am using right now.. And today, though less
stuff is made in Hong Kong, a lot of stuff is designed in Hong
Kong, and has its production and distribution organized in Hong
Kong.
And similarly, Americans became rich by creating value.
What makes poor people poor, is the power that socialists like
yourself exercise over them - for example the infamous
Ethiopian famines. Where do we see famine in the world today?
North Korea. Where was the most recent terrible famine?
Mengistu's Ethiopia. If the US was wealthy by robbing people,
we would see poverty where its power is most. Instead we see
povery where its power is least.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
2CFF3zx5246/m52lhVnR5Fv88rv/95WuPxNAnx1g
46jDXbij5qZBxHZoH1Uhyv6pPWG85OFSq7cIsR5v8
Ben Sharvy
> Ben Sharvy wrote:
> >> You were the one that introduced a "theory of justice" here
> >
> >
> > Would "theory of what is just" help you discuss the topic, rather than
> > what words mean?
> >
>
> The topic has been clear from the beginning. I made a very apposite
> remark,
It was apposite, agreed. So was its refutation.
You have now veered into your favorite topic--yourself--and stubbornly
refuse to leave. Consider the leaving done for you.
James A. Donald
On 15 Sep 2004 16:20:40 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
wrote:
> If they get food and housing for free there is no reason to
> get paid to work.
No reason to work either - unless the commisar forces them.
And thus, with no one working, where will this free food and
housing come from?
Your proposal can only work by substituting negative
incentives, terror and torture, for positive incentives,
profit.
--digsig
James A. Donald
6YeGpsZR+nOTh/cGwvITnSR3TdzclVpR0+pr3YYQdkG
vS+b3V/FQvVMDilzD+kzF587zZbttw2nxPGzg/5
4fFNgu1FVgnmlgySt2+gQCUCFgoyhqtDMp2xi9IRo
Ben Sharvy
> bk...@hotmail.com (brian turner) wrote in message news:<66dc0679.04091...@posting.google.com>...
> > the state is easily captured by the wealth
> > for rent seeking inequality-expanding efforts, etc.
>
> You can say that again. It is the fashion. Wealth is power, use the
> power to change the game in your favor, grow wealthier. Repeat as
> desired.
Whether this violates anyone's rights depends on the kind of power
being aquired, and equality of opportunity to aquire that power. The
parable of Crusoe and Friday illustrates a certain kind of power
(monopoly over natural resources) that leads to injustice, but there
are other kinds of power. For example, a rich person has greater power
of advertising, but advertising doesn't reduce anyone's power of
self-determination, so I don't see how such power (of the rich)
violates anyone's rights. Having influence on people is not ethically
the same as having power over them.
Alex K
>>"today's 6 figure income in _real_ terms."
>
>
> I did see that, but that just doesn't seem realistic, under capitalism
> anyway. If people at the bottom have that in "real terms", then you have
> socialism already, as basic needs are already met, people only need to work
> to fulfill their creativity, and everyone has access to their own means of
> production, therefore not needing to work for someone else who owns what
> they need to live.
>
That doesn't follow. There are many people who already make that
much money and still work for an employer. And "owning your means of
production" doesn't mean the ability to slack off -- dealing directly
with the customer is often more demanding than dealing with a boss.
What today is regarded as "poverty level" was some decades ago the
standard of life for middle class, "bourgeois" population -- in the US.
A 6 figure income for the lower income bracket requires a more
spectacular increase than this -- but having a lower bracket income of
30K-40K is something that can be justified by historical precedents.
> Inequality would be very difficult to maintain as well. Who would clean the
> toilets, flip the burgers, work the assembly-line, or sew garments in the
> sweatshops of the "rich" if the people at the bottom had 6 figure incomes in
> "real terms"? The ability to extract surplus value would be minimal, as
> need and poverty would not be compelling anyone to submit to super
> exploitation in order to survive.
That seems to assume a very crude labor theory of value. Among other
things it ignores that capital, not just labor, is productive. And
people don't submit to super exploitation even today.
> That's a very unpleasant prospect for
> capitalits, which is why, even at a much less pronounced stage, capitalists
> are fleeing the US and other industrialized countries with comparatively
> high incomes at the bottom, and sending production to places where need and
> poverty are functioning properly, compelling people to submit to super
> exploitation in order to survive in more acceptable numbers.
>
When people are lining up to be employed by you that's not
exploitation. What happens is that inequality is decreased worldwide --
inequality between first world workers and third world workers.
If you don't like the results of this than that's further evidence
that equality is just a secondary issue here -- having the opportunity
to make a decent living comes first.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
>>
>>>> You were the one that introduced a "theory of justice" here
>>>
>>>
>>>Would "theory of what is just" help you discuss the topic, rather than
>>>what words mean?
>>>
>>
>> The topic has been clear from the beginning. I made a very apposite
>>remark,
>
>
> It was apposite, agreed. So was its refutation.
>
You have refuted nothing. You insisted that the message was somehow
a tautology and hence requiring empirical evidence for it was
superfluous. The initial post contained no tautology --you refused the
opportunity to make money by contradicting this-- and you certainly
didn't post anything to support your conclusion that consolidating that
criticism of capitalism was unnecessary.
And by the way, since you began our conversation by challenging the
appropriateness of my remark, your current claim that my remark "was
apposite" is a 180 degrees position switch -- it amounts to conceding
the whole point.
Cheers,
Alex
Alex K
> --
> On 15 Sep 2004 06:01:17 GMT, Roger Johansson <no-e...@home.se>
> wrote:
>
>>USA is very rich as a nation because it has been robbing the
>>rest of the world for a long time.
>
>
> Why then are Swiss, Hong Kongers, and Singaporeans rich?
>
And of course, talking about the success of capitalism on other
countries is overkill for the rudimentary nonsensical tinfoil hat
argument presented.
I don't think that even many conspiratorially inclined leftist would
argue such nonsense -- though I could be wrong. At the most you could
say that via undue influence in the governments by big corporations, the
USG took actions that while clearly against the economic interest of the
country, were in the interest of said corporations.
Wars were a huge money sink for the US -- much greater that whatever
meager money hey could extract from it, if the accounting is done
countrywide.
Cheers,
Alex
Josh Dougherty
> Josh Dougherty wrote:
> > "Alex K" <alex...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> >>
> >> Not surprisingly, Josh gets it wrong again: I specifically mentioned
> >>"today's 6 figure income in _real_ terms."
> >
> >
> > I did see that, but that just doesn't seem realistic, under capitalism
> > anyway. If people at the bottom have that in "real terms", then you
have
> > socialism already, as basic needs are already met, people only need to
work
> > to fulfill their creativity, and everyone has access to their own means
of
> > production, therefore not needing to work for someone else who owns what
> > they need to live.
> >
>
> That doesn't follow. There are many people who already make that
> much money and still work for an employer.
And many that don't.
> And "owning your means of production" doesn't mean the ability to slack
off
It means the ability not to have to line up to be employed by someone
because you can't otherwise eat or have a place to live.
> -- dealing directly with the customer is often more demanding than dealing
with a boss.
>
> What today is regarded as "poverty level" was some decades ago the
> standard of life for middle class, "bourgeois" population -- in the US.
That's not the case. Middle class bourgeois persons could own their homes,
a business, get medical care etc. Most people even at the high end of
poverty can not, and virtually none at the low end can. Further, poverty is
not properly measured just in real terms, it's relative. A person who's
better off than someone from 100 years ago in real terms, may be worse off
in reality, as his condition is relative to society today, not that of 100
years ago.
> A 6 figure income for the lower income bracket requires a more
> spectacular increase than this -- but having a lower bracket income of
> 30K-40K is something that can be justified by historical precedents.
No it can't, unless we're talking about one place shifting its cost and
starvation-wage production to labor markets outside the domestic
populations, and using government intervention to guarantee benefits and
social security at home, which is the historical precedent.
> > Inequality would be very difficult to maintain as well. Who would clean
the
> > toilets, flip the burgers, work the assembly-line, or sew garments in
the
> > sweatshops of the "rich" if the people at the bottom had 6 figure
incomes in
> > "real terms"? The ability to extract surplus value would be minimal, as
> > need and poverty would not be compelling anyone to submit to super
> > exploitation in order to survive.
>
>
> That seems to assume a very crude labor theory of value.
Some aspects of the labor theory of value or just elementary. Mine was just
an acknowledgement of surplus value extraction, or "value added" as the
bourgeois economists call a similar concept now.
> Among other things it ignores that capital, not just labor, is productive.
Well, capital is not productive, it's made productive by labor. But
regardless, the productivity of capital does not change my point.
> And people don't submit to super exploitation even today.
Sure they do.
> > That's a very unpleasant prospect for
> > capitalits, which is why, even at a much less pronounced stage,
capitalists
> > are fleeing the US and other industrialized countries with comparatively
> > high incomes at the bottom, and sending production to places where need
and
> > poverty are functioning properly, compelling people to submit to super
> > exploitation in order to survive in more acceptable numbers.
> >
>
> When people are lining up to be employed by you that's not
> exploitation.
Whether people are lining up has nothing to do with whether it is or isn't
exploitation. Under some conditions, people would line up to be exploited,
under others, they would not. The goal of the exploiter is to make sure the
conditions obtain that will ensure that people will line up to be exploited.
> What happens is that inequality is decreased worldwide --
What happens when and where, from what? Inequality has not decreased, and
in the past 30 years or so it's increased, as policies you tend to favor
hold more sway.
> inequality between first world workers and third world workers.
Making first world workers poorer and third world workers - supposedly -
richer, while those on top extend their inequality from both, has not
reduced inequality. It's just shifted inequality around to the primary
benefit of those on top.
> If you don't like the results of this than that's further evidence
> that equality is just a secondary issue here -- having the opportunity
> to make a decent living comes first.
I don't even know what to make of that paragraph. It doesn't make any
sense.