I might point out that ephrem is posting from The Netherlands. Is it safe to assume you’re Dutch? I think so. These ideas you espouse are so typical Dutch/socialist/liberal. I lived in Holland less than 3 years ago, for 2 years. I understand this is how your society thinks, and it’s what you are taught in school, but it’s not American, or what America is about, generally.
Since WWII, Western Europe has been “socialized” and the gov takes care of everything, while the Dutch pay 52% in taxes, before your VAT (value? what value?). These social systems do promote the general welfare of the populace , but at the expense of the individual. Mediocre healthcare for all. A lot of laws (Holland is referred to as Germany-Light). The system for you has made things more “fair” and flattened out the playing field, but in doing so has encouraged mediocrity. One thing the Dutch have going for them is business and banking.
And come on, I know the Dutch hate footing the bill for all the Turks and Moroccans that have come to your country for the social welfare. The contempt the average Dutch person has about those groups is more pronouced than the average American has for illegals here.
But maybe that’s because you guys don’t care about being “PC”, which I love!
[quote]strangemeadow wrote:
I might point out that ephrem is posting from The Netherlands. Is it safe to assume you’re Dutch? I think so. These ideas you espouse are so typical Dutch/socialist/liberal. I lived in Holland less than 3 years ago, for 2 years. I understand this is how your society thinks, and it’s what you are taught in school, but it’s not American, or what America is about, generally.
Since WWII, Western Europe has been “socialized” and the gov takes care of everything, while the Dutch pay 52% in taxes, before your VAT (value? what value?). These social systems do promote the general welfare of the populace , but at the expense of the individual. Mediocre healthcare for all. A lot of laws (Holland is referred to as Germany-Light). The system for you has made things more “fair” and flattened out the playing field, but in doing so has encouraged mediocrity. One thing the Dutch have going for them is business and banking.
And come on, I know the Dutch hate footing the bill for all the Turks and Moroccans that have come to your country for the social welfare. The contempt the average Dutch person has about those groups is more pronouced than the average American has for illegals here.
But maybe that’s because you guys don’t care about being “PC”, which I love![/quote]
The quote I posted was from Thomas Paine, a founding father. I know my opinion, but I was curious what others’ ideas on it were.
52% is a little high, I’m afraid. But I’m afraid I’m a little high aswell, so that makes it allright.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
As citizens we, in the West, have not been more free than in the last 60 years or so.
The last true free peoples are the various native tribes living in the bush, but somehow I don’t think that’s your ideal, is it?[/quote]
As far as economic freedoms go, this is not true and economic freedom is 9/10 of freedom. [/quote]
If you mean that you were better able to exploit people economically 60 years ago, then I guess you’re right. Obviously I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
[quote]ephrem wrote:
As citizens we, in the West, have not been more free than in the last 60 years or so.
The last true free peoples are the various native tribes living in the bush, but somehow I don’t think that’s your ideal, is it?[/quote]
As far as economic freedoms go, this is not true and economic freedom is 9/10 of freedom. [/quote]
If you mean that you were better able to exploit people economically 60 years ago, then I guess you’re right. Obviously I don’t think that’s a bad thing.
[/quote]
Exploit?
How do you exploit people with a nonexistent unemployment rate?
Because that would be an awesome trick, to exploit people who can leave at the drop of a hat.
Also, that is not what I meant.
What I meant was, they can make all sorts of things illegal, but as long as there are private means of production and you get to keep your money you can probably get it and some sort of black market.
If they take half your money out of your paycheck before it even gets to you, no such luck.
Hunter gathers practice a form of socialism. It is well documented.
It wasn’t until people started to settle and accumulate things that capitalism began to take form. One man in the tribe would agree to accept more responsibility than normal. This responsibility created power. With the responsibility, he gained favors from others. Those future favors became a form of capital. He would accumulate grain in exchange for granting people some of those future favors. With enough favors, he would have so much grain that he could fund multiple projects in his village.
He could pay people to create crafts for him, hunt, gather food. He also could use women as a form of capital. He could essentially use his many wives as a form of working capital to earn more favors, so he could require more grain. Eventually, this guy would blend religious ideologies to strengthen his position, claiming he was chosen by god to lead the society. Make up stories about earth and sun gods and require sacrifice as a means of control.
Hire soldiers and create a ruling class. Wage war on other societies and make them his slaves. Pass his power onto his heirs who would continue the same process over and over again. Eventually, those at the bottom get tired of being exploited, and they seize control. A new leader rises up through a similar mechanism, and the process restarts.
[quote]D Public wrote:
Hunter gathers practice a form of socialism. It is well documented.
It wasn’t until people started to settle and accumulate things that capitalism began to take form. One man in the tribe would agree to accept more responsibility than normal. This responsibility created power. With the responsibility, he gained favors from others. Those future favors became a form of capital. He would accumulate grain in exchange for granting people some of those future favors. With enough favors, he would have so much grain that he could fund multiple projects in his village. He could pay people to create crafts for him, hunt, gather food. He also could use women as a form of capital. He could essentially use his many wives as a form of working capital to earn more favors, so he could require more grain. Eventually, this guy would blend religious ideologies to strengthen his position, claiming he was chosen by god to lead the society. Make up stories about earth and sun gods and require sacrifice as a means of control. Hire soldiers and create a ruling class. Wage war on other societies and make them his slaves. Pass his power onto his heirs who would continue the same process over and over again. Eventually, those at the bottom get tired of being exploited, and they seize control. A new leader rises up through a similar mechanism, and the process restarts.
[/quote]
You must have smoked a lot of pot with your teachers, mayn.
[quote]TigerTime wrote:
If I acquired property through trade, then have I not already paid my debt? Society has no part in this. I don’t owe the world for granting me the privilege of giving someone something in exchange for something else. By virtue of being open to trade myself, I contribute to societies trade-ability. Given this, I owe society as much as society owes me. I think we can just call it even here.[/quote]
Yet we exist by the grace of others, don’t we? Without the [initial] support and input from others there’s very little we might achieve.
[/quote]
It’s a two-way street. The benefits of society are found in the interactions made in it. Any time I trade with society, society trades with me. Saying I owe society more than I trade with it for the privilege of trading with it follows as well as me saying society owes me more than it trades with me for the privilege I give society of trading with me. We pour resources into children and they repay us by taking the torch when their time comes. There’s no intrinsic debt made in either direction.
Even if debt could logically be justified one way or the other, who in society would foot the bill/ who would my payment go to?
Society is possible because of tribute taking states. We pay taxes according to the laws that the people in charge create. They take those taxes and build roads, pay firefighters and other essential services. So what is this “debt” you speak of? I pay my taxes so I’m entitled to enjoy the benefits of society. I’d say it’s the people who DON’T pay taxes and live off the government cheese that are the one’s who have the DEBT to society! That would be almost HALF of the working class (when they bother to get off their lazy asses and find a job), the same one’s incidentally who feel as if society “owes” them something.
I’m a felon without a HS diploma. When I got out of jail I couldn’t afford college so I worked a blue collar job for ten years and saved my money. I used that money to start a mortgage business which got me a LOT more money. I leveraged that money to buy real estate and start and sell a few other businesses. When gov’t regulation ripped my mortgage career out from under me, I bartended and did electrical side work to make money. I finally decided to pack all my shit in my car, drive a thousand miles to another state, lived in a tent, paid for some industry classes and found a job in a completely different field than I ever worked in. I’ve never collected a SINGLE PENNY of unemployment, wellfare or foodstamps in my life. So please explain to me what exactly I “owe” to society?
I did what I had to do to feed MY family and I’m a felon without a HS diploma. Why can’t someone sitting on wellfare not doing shit with his life do the same thing? What’s his excuse?
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
When gov’t regulation ripped my mortgage career out from under me, [/quote]
Well, according to Obama, you didn’t build that buisness, soooo… He can take it away too.
;)[/quote]
Don’t get me started! Lest I be tempted to tell those pathetic, hemp-clad, spineless, tax-hiking, terrorist-coddling, tree-hugging, flag-burning, park-occupying, freedom-hating, tofu-licking, latte-drinking, personal responsibility-fleeing, pacifist, gun-grabbing, wealth-redistributing, welfare-depending, arugula-eating, socialist, crybaby, hypocrite, naive, brainless, piece-of-shit liberal parasites what I REALLY think of them and their plans to merge Starbucks, Apple and Planned parenthood so that in between occupying everything BUT a shower and a job, it will be more environmentally friendly for teenagers to text each other and get their venti caramel macciato three pump w/ extra whip lattes AND abortions in the same drive thru.
[quote]angry chicken wrote:
When gov’t regulation ripped my mortgage career out from under me, [/quote]
Well, according to Obama, you didn’t build that buisness, soooo… He can take it away too.
;)[/quote]
Don’t get me started! Lest I be tempted to tell those pathetic, hemp-clad, spineless, tax-hiking, terrorist-coddling, tree-hugging, flag-burning, park-occupying, freedom-hating, tofu-licking, latte-drinking, personal responsibility-fleeing, pacifist, gun-grabbing, wealth-redistributing, welfare-depending, arugula-eating, socialist, crybaby, hypocrite, naive, brainless, piece-of-shit liberal parasites what I REALLY think of them and their plans to merge Starbucks, Apple and Planned parenthood so that in between occupying everything BUT a shower and a job, it will be more environmentally friendly for teenagers to text each other and get their venti caramel macciato three pump w/ extra whip lattes AND abortions in the same drive thru.
What is society? Who should I address payments to?
[quote]ephrem wrote:
"Personal property is the effect of society; and it is as impossible for an individual to acquire personal property without the aid of society, as it is for him to make land originally.
Separate an individual from society, and give him an island or a continent to possess, and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end, in all cases, that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore, of personal property, beyond what a man’s own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice, of gratitude, and of civilization, a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came."
Thomas Pain - Agrarian Justice Part Three
[/quote]
