The problem with a sane discussion is that Chom… threw the first F bomb, then got all snippy. Thing is that site has a lot of the same crap as the video. Capitalism can has cycles too, where the market gets overloaded or starved and people have to think of something else to invent, sell, do for a living. The BIGGEST thing it has going for it is exactly what Irish and Sporty like most, you control your own self. You work for it, it’s yours… no one has the right to come take it… it’s yours. You screw up and spend your money on a rip off, you don’t do it again. I wish all the people who think socialism is so great would just move to one of those countries and leave ours alone.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
You’re wrong, it’s not that easy. Critizing capitalism isn’t an attack on individual liberty. There are some serious flaws in our system and blindly believing that we have reached the pinnacle of economic systems is being incredibly narrow-minded. At the very least, engage in a serious debate and defend your position rather that simply stating it’s the American way and all else is evil.
I would suggest you think about how you immediatley label any threat to your views as ANTI-AMERICAN. America is a great country exactly because people are free to say what they wish. National pride to the point where any dissenting voice is labeled an outsider and an enemy is exactly the type of behavior that took place in Communist Russia and Nazi Germany. I don’t mean to compare you directly to a Nazi, but a system where any critizism is labeled as evil is only a few steps ahead of a system where critizism is met with a bullet. Both practices seriously inhibit the possiblity of a real debate.
I’m not saying capitalism needs to be replaced by socialism by any means, but saying that anything associated with socialism is an attack on individual liberty is just crazy. We should be able to debate the successes and faliures of both capitalism and socialism without the ANTI-AMERICAN label immediately being thrown around.[/quote]
I did not immediately label socialism a threat - it is by it nature a threat. Once you understand what it is you can easily identify it as a threat. So after a prolonged study of the philosophy - I can label it a threat.
Criticizing and looking for a solution within a free market is substantially different that suggesting the replacement of free markets with something else.
But since (as i stated above) socialism is both anti-individual and anti-free market, it is therefore anti-American. easy as pie
[quote]JEATON wrote:
[quote]sportyrider wrote:
What I mean you fucking douche, is that if you would look at history, Germany, Italy, Soviet Union, many latin america countries, china, vietnam, laos, etc etc, you would see that what you want or think you want for a govt system fucking SUCKS for personal freedom! In fact, they KILL millions of their citizens.
Maybe your such a weak fuck that you cant take care of yourself and think you deserve to have politicians steal money from my kids mouths so you can use your welfare to buy food staples so that you can use your other money to buy beer and smokes and cell phones and shit like that! Or maybe your well to do and you think that others are so pathetic that you know better and should “help” them because your so suppierior! You fuck!
Leave my family alone, I already work 2 jobs to put my wife thru school and raise my 5 kids, yeah fuck you, I’ll do it my self, I dont need a douche bag in washington to fuck my kids future!
This country was founded by men who took care of shit, not pussies that look to others to do what they should do for themselves!
You liberals make me sick, just a bunch of friggin idiots that ignore reality. [/quote]
I like this new guy.
[/quote]
me too
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
[quote]sportyrider wrote:
Thing is, this is by far the greatest country on the planet, bar non.[/quote]
Statements like these are about as pig-headed as they come. By what standard are we the greatest country on the planet? What the fuck do you even mean by that statement? Do you really think our shit doesn’t stink, simply because we’re the United States and everything we do is good by default?[/quote]
Americans redefined what government is. Installing a system of negative rights, we brought a breath of freedom to an unfree world. It is only when we let ourselves become infected with the rotten old cultural ideologies of Europe that we got into the mess we have.
I would say that Americans are actually the only moral people on earth, in the sense that ‘All men are created equal’ and ‘endowed by their Creator with rights’…not bestowed by King, Parliament, or popular vote.
Yes, Americans are the noblest and only moral (or perhaps most moral) people on earth.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yes, Americans are the noblest and only moral (or perhaps most moral) people on earth.
[/quote]
I’m would honestly like you to elaborate on this a bit.
-
I’m guessing you mean to imply that because of the good we have done in the world up to this point our country’s citizens should be regarded as the most noble on the planet? Is this because of our history, because of our aspirations of spreading the US’s idea “freedom” around the world, or what?
-
Do you really see no wrong in any of our past actions or does the nobility of our goals mean that negative aspects of actions can be ignored? Do you at least see where I’m coming from when I say that “all men are created equal” was ironic in the sense slavery continued for a century or so and also that we continued to kill Native Americans that inhabited the land we wanted to expand on to. If you were a African American man or a Native American man during that time “all men are created equal” didn’t exactly apply to you. Do you see no hypocracy in that?
“Don’t set out to raze all shrines. You’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity, and the shrines are razed.”
-Ellsworth Toohey
You see Chomskyian, the whole problem with our past sins is that is what they are, in the past, it happened, yeah it sucks about the indians getting screwed over, and the slaves, but yeah know what? We killed a whole lot of our own in a war that ended slavery. I think that debt is paid, besides, I never have owned a slave, nor has anyone else here, get over it! The pharos built the pyramids with slaves, the mayan, the azteks, there are slaves in modern day in other countries! Throughout history that has been the case.
I think your political persuasion continue to use these issues because it keeps segments of our population in a state of victimhood and gaurantees votes for you, meanwhile the race issue heats up because of it! I’m not racist, but I sure get sick and tired of hereing about it and it makes me cynical towards the whole issue. GET OVER IT!
I guess like I said earlier, don’t be a pussy, take care of yourself and quit thinking your so righteous that you know better for the serfs in this county than they do, your holding them down.
…capatalism does have it’s flaws. Perpetual growth can’t be sustained indefinitly, not in the current model anyway. We are all securely in the grip of multinational corporations and financial institutions. Make no mistakes about that. What we can do is to refrain from attaching ourselves to a media-induced ideology, because at the end of the day that is what enslaves us all…
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
That critique has some interesting points but is seriously flawed in some respects.
- “Nowhere does he even consider talking about how risk was removed from parts of the economy via government intervention in the markets.”
The idea that government intervention is the reason that risk was removed is complete bullshit. The finance industry has spent millions on lobbying year after year that resulted in the deregulation of the finance sector. This process of deregulation (Glass-Steagal getting repealed in 1999, Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000, etc.) was taken in the name of growth and the supposed “free market” but we can see what deregulation resulted in aka a worldwide financial crisis. Also, the government didn’t make banks sell their mortgages as securities to other banks over and over.
- “The result of free trade, almost unanimously agreed by economists of the left and right, is that all people are better off.”
This is perhaps the biggest crock of shit I’ve heard in a while. Look in to studies on NAFTA; who benefited? Big corporations benefited tremedously, Americans saw a significant amount of manufacturing jobs move to Mexico, and many Mexian farmers were put out of work because they couldn’t compete with big corporations on price. While free trade results in lower prices and more competition, you’d have to be blind to say that it is universially seen as good. It is WELL documented the working class is hurt in many ways by these so called “free trade” agreements.
- “The reason India has more billionares than ever is because India has been bringing itself out of poverty via free trade.”
Here’s a quote from the World Bank’s webside under India - Global Poverty Estimates that I think speaks for itself:
“the number of poor people [in India] living under $1.25 a day has increased from 421 million in 1981 to 456 million in 2005”
There are many other points in that critique of David Harvey’s lecture that are just plain wrong.[/quote]
These are all very good counter points. I agree with every one of them. But what we have in America today is NOT! capitalism. It is the merger of state and corporate powers, which is by very definition called FASCISM.
Look around today, the top six banks control over 65% of all the action, 15 years ago they only controlled 15%. Walmart controls 44% of all the retail sales in this country. The top 3 pharmaceutical companies control over half of the action. It is like that in every single industry.
What we have today is capitalism for the little guy. The rules don’t apply to the “Too big to fails”. If you own a small business or are trying to start one, government will clamp down on you like there is no tomorrow and make it almost impossible to operate. If you are a big business however, there are all sorts of perks (tax breaks, infrastructure, etc).
Government does indeed have a role. It has to. Like you pointed out the Glass-Steagall Act was very important. It prevented commercial banks from becoming investment banks (casinos that lose big and then socialize the loses to the taxpayers via their cronies in government).
Government today is doing the exact opposite of what it is supposed to do. It protects the “too big to fails” and destroys the middle class. It gives more power to the federal reserve and grows the debt. It passes laws that protect big business interests but hurt small businesses.
There is now only one option and it must come from the people themselves.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
…capatalism does have it’s flaws. Perpetual growth can’t be sustained indefinitly, not in the current model anyway. We are all securely in the grip of multinational corporations and financial institutions. Make no mistakes about that. What we can do is to refrain from attaching ourselves to a media-induced ideology, because at the end of the day that is what enslaves us all…[/quote]
This is the most insightful comment of the whole thread. I wish more people thought as you do.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yes, Americans are the noblest and only moral (or perhaps most moral) people on earth.
[/quote]
I’m would honestly like you to elaborate on this a bit.
-
I’m guessing you mean to imply that because of the good we have done in the world up to this point our country’s citizens should be regarded as the most noble on the planet? Is this because of our history, because of our aspirations of spreading the US’s idea “freedom” around the world, or what?
-
Do you really see no wrong in any of our past actions or does the nobility of our goals mean that negative aspects of actions can be ignored? Do you at least see where I’m coming from when I say that “all men are created equal” was ironic in the sense slavery continued for a century or so and also that we continued to kill Native Americans that inhabited the land we wanted to expand on to. If you were a African American man or a Native American man during that time “all men are created equal” didn’t exactly apply to you. Do you see no hypocracy in that?[/quote]
The moral premise of America is that all relationships between human beings MUST be voluntary on all sides. Anyone violating this rule is a criminal.
That is our ‘ideal’ and the difference between America and every other country. Those countries were formed from simple thuggery. America was born of Reason.
We have failed to live up to this ideal many times. We kept the whole idea of taxation (thuggery/theft) and regulation on business. We let immigrants use their thug philosophy to force productive people let the vampires feed off of them. We didn’t put up enough ‘firewalls’ to protect our principles and the thugs (like Obama) took over.
That’s doesn’t mean the moral premise is wrong; it just needs to be better protected next time. The thugs will eventually run out of victims (its happening now) and we will collapse. Our only hope is that our military will keep the flame alive and we can re-found this Republic on what made it great in the first place.
Headhunter
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yes, Americans are the noblest and only moral (or perhaps most moral) people on earth.
[/quote]
I’m would honestly like you to elaborate on this a bit.
-
I’m guessing you mean to imply that because of the good we have done in the world up to this point our country’s citizens should be regarded as the most noble on the planet? Is this because of our history, because of our aspirations of spreading the US’s idea “freedom” around the world, or what?
-
Do you really see no wrong in any of our past actions or does the nobility of our goals mean that negative aspects of actions can be ignored? Do you at least see where I’m coming from when I say that “all men are created equal” was ironic in the sense slavery continued for a century or so and also that we continued to kill Native Americans that inhabited the land we wanted to expand on to. If you were a African American man or a Native American man during that time “all men are created equal” didn’t exactly apply to you. Do you see no hypocracy in that?[/quote]
The moral premise of America is that all relationships between human beings MUST be voluntary on all sides. Anyone violating this rule is a criminal.
That is our ‘ideal’ and the difference between America and every other country. Those countries were formed from simple thuggery. America was born of Reason.
We have failed to live up to this ideal many times. We kept the whole idea of taxation (thuggery/theft) and regulation on business. We let immigrants use their thug philosophy to force productive people let the vampires feed off of them. We didn’t put up enough ‘firewalls’ to protect our principles and the thugs (like Obama) took over.
That’s doesn’t mean the moral premise is wrong; it just needs to be better protected next time. The thugs will eventually run out of victims (its happening now) and we will collapse. Our only hope is that our military will keep the flame alive and we can re-found this Republic on what made it great in the first place.
Headhunter
[/quote]
You are right about one thing. The country is going to collapse. But I highly doubt the military is going to save us. The people that are promoted to O-7 and above are the ones that sucked enough political dick and won’t rock the boat. In many ways they (general ranks) are as much to blame for this ridiculous “War on Terror” as the politicians.
[quote]Charlemagne wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Yes, Americans are the noblest and only moral (or perhaps most moral) people on earth.
[/quote]
I’m would honestly like you to elaborate on this a bit.
-
I’m guessing you mean to imply that because of the good we have done in the world up to this point our country’s citizens should be regarded as the most noble on the planet? Is this because of our history, because of our aspirations of spreading the US’s idea “freedom” around the world, or what?
-
Do you really see no wrong in any of our past actions or does the nobility of our goals mean that negative aspects of actions can be ignored? Do you at least see where I’m coming from when I say that “all men are created equal” was ironic in the sense slavery continued for a century or so and also that we continued to kill Native Americans that inhabited the land we wanted to expand on to. If you were a African American man or a Native American man during that time “all men are created equal” didn’t exactly apply to you. Do you see no hypocracy in that?[/quote]
The moral premise of America is that all relationships between human beings MUST be voluntary on all sides. Anyone violating this rule is a criminal.
That is our ‘ideal’ and the difference between America and every other country. Those countries were formed from simple thuggery. America was born of Reason.
We have failed to live up to this ideal many times. We kept the whole idea of taxation (thuggery/theft) and regulation on business. We let immigrants use their thug philosophy to force productive people let the vampires feed off of them. We didn’t put up enough ‘firewalls’ to protect our principles and the thugs (like Obama) took over.
That’s doesn’t mean the moral premise is wrong; it just needs to be better protected next time. The thugs will eventually run out of victims (its happening now) and we will collapse. Our only hope is that our military will keep the flame alive and we can re-found this Republic on what made it great in the first place.
Headhunter
[/quote]
You are right about one thing. The country is going to collapse. But I highly doubt the military is going to save us. The people that are promoted to O-7 and above are the ones that sucked enough political dick and won’t rock the boat. In many ways they (general ranks) are as much to blame for this ridiculous “War on Terror” as the politicians.
[/quote]
I hope that someone in our military will take their oaths seriously enough to restore the Republic. We need someone like a Washington or a Cincinnatus who will use power for good. Its a hope. I think that integrity is more concentrated in the military than elsewhere, though I may be wrong.
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
let me put this real simple for those having a hard time understanding this:
America was founded on a free-market economy and has a constitution designed to protect individual liberty.
Any system of economics or politics that seeks to change us from a free-market economy to any other type of economy, or that lessens or removes individual liberty is on its face ANTI-AMERICAN.
Socialism seek to change the economic system of America and in so doing seeks to lessen individual liberty
Thus socialism is any form is ANTI-AMERICA - by its very nature is anti-American.
it is that easy . . . .[/quote]
Not exactly the US has had tarriffs in some form or fashion since its founding starting with the Tarriff Act of 1789, and thats not a free market. To my knowledge a truly free market has never existed in the modern era.
[quote]JoeGood wrote:
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
let me put this real simple for those having a hard time understanding this:
America was founded on a free-market economy and has a constitution designed to protect individual liberty.
Any system of economics or politics that seeks to change us from a free-market economy to any other type of economy, or that lessens or removes individual liberty is on its face ANTI-AMERICAN.
Socialism seek to change the economic system of America and in so doing seeks to lessen individual liberty
Thus socialism is any form is ANTI-AMERICA - by its very nature is anti-American.
it is that easy . . . .[/quote]
Not exactly the US has had tarriffs in some form or fashion since its founding starting with the Tarriff Act of 1789, and thats not a free market. To my knowledge a truly free market has never existed in the modern era.[/quote]
True…
But, you are picking the fly shit out of the pepper.
Exceptions always exist, but they do not overwhelm the rule.
[quote]JEATON wrote:
[quote]JoeGood wrote:
[quote]IrishSteel wrote:
let me put this real simple for those having a hard time understanding this:
America was founded on a free-market economy and has a constitution designed to protect individual liberty.
Any system of economics or politics that seeks to change us from a free-market economy to any other type of economy, or that lessens or removes individual liberty is on its face ANTI-AMERICAN.
Socialism seek to change the economic system of America and in so doing seeks to lessen individual liberty
Thus socialism is any form is ANTI-AMERICA - by its very nature is anti-American.
it is that easy . . . .[/quote]
Not exactly the US has had tarriffs in some form or fashion since its founding starting with the Tarriff Act of 1789, and thats not a free market. To my knowledge a truly free market has never existed in the modern era.[/quote]
True…
But, you are picking the fly shit out of the pepper.
Exceptions always exist, but they do not overwhelm the rule.
[/quote]
No doubt, but it is a characteristic of this forum(and probably all others) for people to speak in absolutes when in fact those absolutes rarely if ever occur. The idea that the United States was built on the idea of a free market utopia is highly flawed and until the begining of World War One the US had very high protectionist tarriffs in place.
Oddly it was Presidant Wilson who set about lowering the tarriffs. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a proponent of a lightly regulated markets but theres no value in pretending something existed that did not.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
We have failed to live up to this ideal many times.
[/quote]
That’s all I wanted to hear. I’m all about having pride for America, I just get frustrated when our failures are completely ignored. As a country we’ve done some great things as well as some horrible things and the rest of the world gets pissed because many US citizens refuse to recognize that we’ve ever messed up. Humility is not one of this country’s greatest qualities.
What we have today I would call neoliberalism which is “a market driven approach to economic and social policy based on neoclassical theories of economics that maximise the role of the private business sector in determining the political and economic priorities of the state.” Facism I feel is a little strong because to me it implys a dictator-type rule. While it may seem like corporations and the state have merged as one, it’s really more a matter of corporations have so much money that they can influence our political process in a way that benefits them above all else.
Do you disagree?
I’m sure David Harvey (the guy in the video) would agree about the lack of “capitalism” like many of us; one of his books is actually called A Brief History of Neoliberalism in which he discusses the shift pioneered by Reagan/Thatcher that got us to where we are today. Many people are smart enough to know capitalism is just a word that’s thrown around now, but the average American citizen (and any US President in his speeches for that matter) would say we practice capitalism.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
A Brief History of Neoliberalism in which he discusses the shift pioneered by Reagan/Thatcher that got us to where we are today. Many people are smart enough to know capitalism is just a word that’s thrown around now, but the average American citizen (and any US President in his speeches for that matter) would say we practice capitalism.[/quote]
Are their people out there really stupid enough to blame this on Reagan? Sounds like a great way to get people to ignore everything they have to say.
Reagan led us out of an economic crisis, the policies Obama is practicing someone by the name of Carter did too, guess what happened? An economic crisis happened.
Now lets take a look at Reagan, cut taxes and if it wasn’t for the dems in congress who where unwilling to cut spending he would have cut that too. Take a look at the recovery of 1983, Take a look at the economic boom that was created, closest thing this country has had to an Austrian recovery since before 1913.
Really makes me sick that someone could blame an economic problem started by Bush SR on Reagan.
[quote]John S. Wrote:
Are their people out there really stupid enough to blame this on Reagan? Sounds like a great way to get people to ignore everything they have to say.
[/quote]
No one is saying that Reagan caused this crisis. Reagan/Thatcher pioneered a move toward neoliberalism, not toward this crisis. Take yourself out of “I will defend republicans to the death and hate all democrats mode” for a minute; I’m not attacking republicans. During the time when Reagan and Thatcher were both in office we saw a significant shift toward what was called the “free market.” This meant deregulation of busniesses and privatization of many services that were previously government run. The ideas were based on the work of people like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, but between the 90’s and early 2000’s things got out of control. This happened under Clinton too. What we have today is deregualtion on steroids. Because the “free market” attitude gained so much momentum, it continued and in the 90’s the financial sector was deregulated heavily. Because financial services we’re deregualted (like the repeal of Glass-Steagall) banks like Goldman Sachs were able to make rediculous amounts of money in retarted ways, many of which resulted in the American public getting douched.
It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s what happened in a paragraph. Did the shift toward deregulation begin under Reagan/Thatcher? Yes it did. Would I say that Reagan caused this crisis? If you were really reaching I guess you could make that arguement, but it would be pretty stupid to blame a guy that became president like 30 years ago for today’s crisis.
[quote]Chomskyian wrote:
[quote]John S. Wrote:
Are their people out there really stupid enough to blame this on Reagan? Sounds like a great way to get people to ignore everything they have to say.
[/quote]
No one is saying that Reagan caused this crisis. Reagan/Thatcher pioneered a move toward neoliberalism, not toward this crisis. Take yourself out of “I will defend republicans to the death and hate all democrats mode” for a minute; I’m not attacking republicans. During the time when Reagan and Thatcher were both in office we saw a significant shift toward what was called the “free market.” This meant deregulation of busniesses and privatization of many services that were previously government run. The ideas were based on the work of people like Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek, but between the 90’s and early 2000’s things got out of control. This happened under Clinton too. What we have today is deregualtion on steroids. Because the “free market” attitude gained so much momentum, it continued and in the 90’s the financial sector was deregulated heavily. Because financial services we’re deregualted (like the repeal of Glass-Steagall) banks like Goldman Sachs were able to make rediculous amounts of money in retarted ways, many of which resulted in the American public getting douched.
It’s a little more complicated than that, but that’s what happened in a paragraph. Did the shift toward deregulation begin under Reagan/Thatcher? Yes it did. Would I say that Reagan caused this crisis? If you were really reaching I guess you could make that arguement, but it would be pretty stupid to blame a guy that became president like 30 years ago for today’s crisis.[/quote]
Blaming this on deregulation is bullshit, what you are saying is freedom doesn’t work and we should all be slaves to the government. Such a bullshit stance that never stand up to the test of time.
De-regulate the market, institute laissez faire and watch the country go through an economic boom. Glass Stegal is only required if there is a federal reserve, end the Fed and watch this country become the envy of the world once again.