[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
We can work to …
[/quote]
No, “we” can do no such thing; but you have fun trying…
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]Dijon wrote:
All this has been tried before and it always ends up an oligarchy. It’s completely incompatible with human nature.
What is anyone’s motivation for being part of a society that ultimately needs to quash their freedom? [/quote]
Where has it been tried before? With all due respect, if you actually think something like the Soviet Union was socialist, then you’re not familiar with the views of actual socialists.
Just a tip: don’t rely on rabid right-wingers like ZEB, who won’t even acknowledge that people are having a hard time finding work right now, for information on socialism.
[/quote]
Isn’t socialism what they - any communist state - were aiming for at the get-go? You can set up your socialist paradise but my point is it won’t last long.
My opinions are not based on what anyone has said on this forum, but rather what I have been told by people that have lived in states that attempted to adhere to the ideology that you are such a proponent of.
[quote]orion wrote:What has the level of capital goods to the with the " proportion of productive to non-productive members of society, the productivity of the former group (which is itself a function of the amount and quality of capital), and the proportion between the resources used for consumption and those invested."
At any given proportion people could decide to consume instead of ploughing money back into the system.[/quote]
Sure, but in the aggregate, it’s not often that you see wild swings in savings vs consumption.
[quote]kamui wrote:except that, in the libertarian perspective, there is no “community-determined needs”.
they refuse to acknowledge the difference between “profitable” and “socially useful”.
if the market don’t want it, it’s not useful, no matter what.
if the market want it, it’s useful, no matter what.
the market know better, therefore the only way to determine values is not democracy, but supply and demand.
individuals can only agree on something if they exchange money. not if they exchange informations, words and arguments.
for libertarians : “community-determined” = “violence”.
it’s an autistic and asocial ideology.
you are wasting your time debating with them.[/quote]
Good points.
Bingo. Now you’ve moved into the realm of imposed order. This was never a part of “human nature” before capitalists decided they wanted it to be. In many ancient societies, everyone put their products in the community storehouses, and received what they needed. I’m not advocating this, but humans have run economies in many ways. Your analysis is anachronistic.
No, but that’s now what I said. A specific incident does not prove the general rule. The presence of renters in no way indicates that the entire society was run via the profit mechanism, which is what I was referring to.
[quote]kilpaba wrote:But I haven’t. I admit the government can, and in many instances does, provide management of resources. I contend this is precisely what owners of businesses do as well.
You may have different feelings on this, but from what I have gleaned from your comments and many of the posts in this thread there is a feeling that business owners are exploiting their workers by profiting from their labor, as if there organizing efforts were not also a job which demands a wage for the organizing work done. In short, a business owner is being productive by his organizing efforts so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts (i.e. the individual laborer).[/quote]
You seems to be making the same mistake as most others who have a problem with Marxism–I’m not positive, but it appears here that you are referring to small business owners, whom Marx didn’t really care about. His analysis concerns itself with a large, industrial economy. Corporations and big business is his subject. The small business owner may profit off the work of his employees, but he also works himself–this is the defining characteristic of a capitalist: one who does not need to work to support himself, but derives his income from ownership of assets. The small business owner probably could not maintain his standard of living were to stop working. Therefore, he is not a capitalist.
So in short, it looks like you’re extending Marx’s theory too far, or rather incorrectly.
[quote]If a business owner is NOT productive as you define it, then it is difficult to surmise how government organization also funded by the work of others IS productive. And if it is not, and capitalist/business owners are exploitative of their workers and effectively thieves, how then can we say the government is in any way different in this regard? Or do you simply believe that a government is going to be superior at organizing given enough information (this would assume objective price theory to be correct as otherwise values are by definition unknowable and in fact different from person to person)?
Following from this, the question would then become which method is superior at producing wealth as both rely on fundamentally the same method of organizing/exploitation (forgoing the ethical arguments). I would say an objective glance at the wealthiest societies would show that market systems are superior to centrally planned ones in pure efficacy.
I am also foregoing for the time being the distinction in types of government intervention (i.e. tax rates vs. regulatory measures- both affect the market but are not synonymous even if they are often highly correlated with each other).
[/quote]
This is a good, intelligent post. I think, however, my response should clear up the rest of it. Let me know if I’m wrong.
The owner of assets does not work?
Tell that to someone like Gates.
[quote]benos4752 wrote:Umm, wow…talking to you is like talking with the handicapped…fucking retard…
How in the hell did I not know what I was talking about? You’re the one who said, ‘Thanks to my American “freedom,” I am legally prohibited from traveling there’[/quote]
By “travelling there,” most people do not mean “spend the afternoon there” which, thanks to US law, is all I can do. Did you read the link? If you stay longer than a day, that’s considered prrof that you’ve spent money, which is against the law. So yes, I am prohibited by US law from travelling to Cuba.
You’re just pissed off that you leaped before you looked, and now you look like an ass.
[quote]And besides, dipshit, I wasn’t talking about getting a license or some shit, people go there all the time, from this country and others, to buy things there, or vacations etc. You just have to go through another country, like Mexico for example. Happens everyday.
And to top it off, none of us said to go visit there. Go move there. If it’s such a utopia, leave us alone to fail and go live in your communist heaven. Trust me, no one is going to stop you from moving there. Reading comprehension, use it little boy.[/quote]
But I don’t want to move there. I don’t want to move anywhere. My family and friends are here. My life is here. I never said it was a utopia, dumbass, that’s just you dishonestly trying to get out of a debate that you know you’d lose. Do you even read these posts before your programming kicks in?
[quote]So, thank you for making yourself look like an idiot, once again.
[/quote]
Jesus, what a dumb cunt.
[quote]JesseS wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]ReignIB wrote:Lolwut? Gates has no right to profit from the sale of M$ product?
k, so if a baker makes a loaf of bread he has no right to sell it for more then what he paid for the ingredients + power, etc?[/quote]
Exactly. Gates has no right to profit from the sale of Microsoft products. He of course has the right to a salary, compensation, even a very generous one, but after he finishes coding, he does nothing to earn money from the production, distribution, or sale of the product. Is that hard to understand? Just as you wouldn’t give the manufacturer of the actual discs containing the software any of Gates’ money he got for writing it, Gates shouldn’t expect any money from the actual sale.
And your analogy is wrong. The baker of course has a right to be paid for the bread he bakes, but you’re saying he has a right to license bread, and be paid for every loaf sold anywhere, whether he baked it or not, which I am disputing.
[/quote]
What if a renowned baker is asked for his “secret” recipe and the baker decides to sell it, but only if the buyer signs a non-disclosure agreement not to reveal the recipe to anyone else or bake more than enough of the recipe to feed his immediate family? What about contracts between individuals?[/quote]
I don’t see any problem with it. So long as no one makes any effort to prevent the “unauthorized” baking of the secret recipe, in the event that it unintentionally gets out or reverse-engineered, haha.
To translate it to computers again: it’s fine for someone not to reveal the code for their application, but if someone figures out how to do whatever-it-is that their application does, there’s nothing the original programmer can do.
No no, there’s nothing ethical or unethical about it, period. Marx’s argument, that is presently being so dramaticaly confirmed, was that capitalism doesn’t work. That’s why we need an alternative, because eventually, we’ll have to change.
See? Right here is the problem. You say it violates an individual’s rights, others say it does not, because they do not recognize that right. The bottom line is, there really is NO SUCH THING as a right. They’re all arbitrary, so you’re no more correct than they are, but you take the position that you have Truth on your side. It’s a society, baby! Which rights are recognized depends on what people finally decide.
The problem with that, is that there’s always the possibility that one of the underfunded, and thus axed items might be something that really should be in there. Like protecting the equal rights of minorities. Not to mention that it ensures the government is on the side of the wealthy. A lot of the budget goes to correct imbalances between the poor and the rich. I’d wager that not many rich people would give much to Social Security or Medicare when they know they will never need it. Asking the poor to fund those themselves defeats the purpose.
Not to mention it would likely be one giant clusterfuck to implement, if people could arbitrarily allocate their tax money.
[quote]Dijon wrote:Isn’t socialism what they - any communist state - were aiming for at the get-go? You can set up your socialist paradise but my point is it won’t last long.
My opinions are not based on what anyone has said on this forum, but rather what I have been told by people that have lived in states that attempted to adhere to the ideology that you are such a proponent of.[/quote]
Well, here’s the thing: whether the answer is yes, or whether the answer is no, it really doesn’t matter very much. Here’s why:
no matter what system you live under, the government has stated goals. The socialist states failed to live up to those goals, but also, capitalist states have failed to live up to their goals. The US, more than anyone else, as much as we talk a good game about the “rule of law,” chuck the law out the nearest window when the government really wants something done. Just look at Wikileaks. They’ve committed no crime. The DOJ has no basis whatsoever, none, zero, zilch, the null set, NOTHING in the law even begins to support their attempt to prosecute them. At least none that doesn’t ALSO allow them to prosecute the New York Times (which they are not doing). But here they are, preparing to prosecute.
The whole point is that, whether you talk about the socialist states, or the present capitalist state, neither one was run by the people. In all of them, there’s a seperate political/economic class that rules, supposedly, “in the interests of” the people. So the opint is that it’s not really the stated goals that matter nearly as much as the composition of the government that must carry them out. None of the socialist states came about in the manner that Marx described; by mass worker revolt.
I think the lesson is that we can’t trust one party to rule in the interest of another. If we want the people to rule, the people themselves must run the government. This is highly unlikely under capitalism.
[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
[quote]CappedAndPlanIt wrote:
Then consider how we define people based on income, into “lower class”, “middle class”, and “upper class”.
Or the reaction people collectively give to a person with a huge house (and wonder why all those McMansions which harmed the housing market were built)
Or consider the fraudulent advertising many supplement companies will engage in, rationalizing the practice with “We’re a business, we need to make money”.
I know, I know, these are all small examples. But life is a whole bunch of small examples that add up to bigger facts.[/quote]
But you still miss the larger point:
The only way to change people’s minds is to set the example by living a virtuous life. Talking about it and actually doing it are two separate things. For this reason it takes many generations to make a significant change of “social attitude”.
Personally, I think you are too focused on the collective. You should worry about your own success rather than worry about what the automatons are are watching on TV.[/quote]
Right. I should just worry about getting as much money as possible and finding ways to get some other fool to work hard so I can profit from it.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]Dijon wrote:Isn’t socialism what they - any communist state - were aiming for at the get-go? You can set up your socialist paradise but my point is it won’t last long.
My opinions are not based on what anyone has said on this forum, but rather what I have been told by people that have lived in states that attempted to adhere to the ideology that you are such a proponent of.[/quote]
Well, here’s the thing: whether the answer is yes, or whether the answer is no, it really doesn’t matter very much. Here’s why:
no matter what system you live under, the government has stated goals. The socialist states failed to live up to those goals, but also, capitalist states have failed to live up to their goals. The US, more than anyone else, as much as we talk a good game about the “rule of law,” chuck the law out the nearest window when the government really wants something done. Just look at Wikileaks. They’ve committed no crime. The DOJ has no basis whatsoever, none, zero, zilch, the null set, NOTHING in the law even begins to support their attempt to prosecute them. At least none that doesn’t ALSO allow them to prosecute the New York Times (which they are not doing). But here they are, preparing to prosecute.
The whole point is that, whether you talk about the socialist states, or the present capitalist state, neither one was run by the people. In all of them, there’s a seperate political/economic class that rules, supposedly, “in the interests of” the people. So the opint is that it’s not really the stated goals that matter nearly as much as the composition of the government that must carry them out. None of the socialist states came about in the manner that Marx described; by mass worker revolt.
I think the lesson is that we can’t trust one party to rule in the interest of another. If we want the people to rule, the people themselves must run the government. This is highly unlikely under capitalism.
[/quote]
Its highly unlikely, period. The vast majority of people just want to live quietly and not see a war.
Whats much more likely to happen, and already seems to be, is people give up and take as much of a free ride as they can.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]JesseS wrote:
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]ReignIB wrote:Lolwut? Gates has no right to profit from the sale of M$ product?
k, so if a baker makes a loaf of bread he has no right to sell it for more then what he paid for the ingredients + power, etc?[/quote]
Exactly. Gates has no right to profit from the sale of Microsoft products. He of course has the right to a salary, compensation, even a very generous one, but after he finishes coding, he does nothing to earn money from the production, distribution, or sale of the product. Is that hard to understand? Just as you wouldn’t give the manufacturer of the actual discs containing the software any of Gates’ money he got for writing it, Gates shouldn’t expect any money from the actual sale.
And your analogy is wrong. The baker of course has a right to be paid for the bread he bakes, but you’re saying he has a right to license bread, and be paid for every loaf sold anywhere, whether he baked it or not, which I am disputing.
[/quote]
What if a renowned baker is asked for his “secret” recipe and the baker decides to sell it, but only if the buyer signs a non-disclosure agreement not to reveal the recipe to anyone else or bake more than enough of the recipe to feed his immediate family? What about contracts between individuals?[/quote]
I don’t see any problem with it. So long as no one makes any effort to prevent the “unauthorized” baking of the secret recipe, in the event that it unintentionally gets out or reverse-engineered, haha.
To translate it to computers again: it’s fine for someone not to reveal the code for their application, but if someone figures out how to do whatever-it-is that their application does, there’s nothing the original programmer can do.[/quote]
You avoided the whole scenario i presented; the baker(programmer) did reveal the recipe/code under strict contractual obligations; nobody “figures out” his recipe because it was revealed only under those strict guidelines: what recourse - if any - do you believe this individual has if the contract is broken? Or do you think such contracts should not exist?
Disagreement seems to be the one and only thing we can all agree on by default, so perhaps the best form of government is one that protects our ability to disagree to the greatest extent possible.
[quote]JesseS wrote:
Disagreement seems to be the one and only thing we can all agree on by default, so perhaps the best form of government is one that protects our ability to disagree to the greatest extent possible.[/quote]
This is the worst idea I’ve ever seen. 
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
The problem with that, is that there’s always the possibility that one of the underfunded, and thus axed items might be something that really should be in there. Like protecting the equal rights of minorities. Not to mention that it ensures the government is on the side of the wealthy.
[/quote]
Do you know the number 1 reason the government is on the side of the wealthy? Because the wealthy pay most of the tax! As such the wealthy have the government by the balls.
Imagine if we had a government where everybody paid an equal amount of tax and donating to a political party/campaign was capped at a very low figure per person. The rich would have no more say than anyone else.
A system where the rich pay most of the money is a system where the rich have most of the control. So you are trading power for trinkets.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
A lot of the budget goes to correct imbalances between the poor and the rich. I’d wager that not many rich people would give much to Social Security or Medicare when they know they will never need it. Asking the poor to fund those themselves defeats the purpose.
[/quote]
It doesn’t defeat the purpose. Plenty of countries have mandated personal retirement savings accounts which are in far better shape than Social Security. Because it is handled at the individual level there would be a massive revolt if the government dared touch it. Because it is a pooled fund in the US there is no such outcry when SS is diverted into other projects.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
None of the socialist states came about in the manner that Marx described; by mass worker revolt.
[/quote]
Interestingly what the average worker hates most is the lazy dole bludger. The workers have never been friends with the lazy slobs at the bottom.
[quote]JesseS wrote:
You avoided the whole scenario i presented; the baker(programmer) did reveal the recipe/code under strict contractual obligations; nobody “figures out” his recipe because it was revealed only under those strict guidelines: what recourse - if any - do you believe this individual has if the contract is broken? Or do you think such contracts should not exist?
[/quote]
If you can prove beyond reasonable doubt that the baker released it then it is only fair to sue the baker for damages. But if the baker tells me, and I start baking using the recipe you can’t come after me.
And beyond reasonable doubt is a high standard that you would be unlikely to prove even if the baker was the only person you shared the recipe with.
[quote]Ryan P. McCarter wrote:
[quote]orion wrote:What has the level of capital goods to the with the " proportion of productive to non-productive members of society, the productivity of the former group (which is itself a function of the amount and quality of capital), and the proportion between the resources used for consumption and those invested."
At any given proportion people could decide to consume instead of ploughing money back into the system.[/quote]
Sure, but in the aggregate, it’s not often that you see wild swings in savings vs consumption.
[/quote]
But on the individual level you see a huge difference.
WHich is why so some have more and some have less.
Asian immigrants to the US fell from the boats, took three jobs, opened a business and now their children are brain surgeons.
I doubt that they would have done that withoiut expecting to profit from it.