There is no such thing as the freemarket (3 Viewers)

[Rothbard]

capital + labour boom

 

[Rothbard]

lol or homesteading

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

Pollution - obvious, industrial revolution, mass production of unnecessary goods and reluctance of large corporations to adopt greener methods as they hurt profits in the short term.

isnt russia one of the most polluted countries in the world?

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,904549,00.html

 

[SeCKSiiMiNh]

Terrible, terrible argument. You're basically saying that these atrocities, and that's what they are, atrocities of the poor for the profit of Nike, are justifiable because they're better than the alternative. That we should allow Nike to exploit these developing countries for profit is ludicrous. Even more insane is your justification for their actions. What kind of fucked up world is this?

I wasn't asserting whether corporations are noble, because usually its the opposite. Nor was I making a claim that capitalism is better (even though it is). Given the situation these people find themselves in, sweatshops for them are often, more or less a good thing. If you going to remove these sweatshops, you better think of something else to put in its place. Otherwise you're going to encourage a situation where they move to begging, subsistence farming or prostitution (as has happened).

Consider also India's 1991 reforms and the abandonement of its socialist policies. India, as we all know, is the outsourcing capital of the world. And places like Bangalore (and even places like Dalian, in Communist China) are fast becoming technological centers, the likes of which to rival Silicon Valley. Even if you deplore capitalism, there's no denying that it is what's making globalisation occur, and that globalisation is the fastest process by which poor areas become part of the world economy.
I don't see how anyone can declaim those powers which allow individuals from around the globe, based on nothing more than their talents, to become international forces.


edit: according to this http://reason.com/blog/2009/02/23/recently-at-reasontv-what-slum
approximately 300million people have escaped extreme poverty since said reforms.

 

[SylviaB]

That's not an argument. By using a computer I'm benefiting from technology, not the 'fruits of competition'. I'm benefiting from the labour of the people who made the computer, by trading the computer for my own labour. I want an intelligent response to the argument I posted, damnit. Instead, I got an ill-founded attack on my character.

You curse competition, and yet it is precisely because of this competition that you are using your powerful, inexpensive computer, and most everything else in your life that makes your life easy and enjoyable.

Heck, without competition, the human race wouldn't exist. You know, evolution and all that.

Half of my argument was profanity, I agree. This was done for a reason. I can't change your mind with logic, so I'd rather just vent my frustration.

What logic? Your arguments consist of nothing more than emotive, economic illiterate subjective value claims.

Increases in standards of living have improved slowly, true. However, productivity is not what makes a decent society. To say that 'Nigerians are twice as rich' is misleading. Nigeria is still a shithole.

How does a nation become not a shithole other than by becoming richer, even if only gradually?

Anyway, the reason african nations are s shit is because of repressive kleptocratic governments. People seem to have this idea that Africa is one giant state of laissez-faire, when in reality the opposite is true.
Africa is the most economically repressed continent on the planet, and s it is precisely a lack of capitalism that causes its poverty.
Places such as Botswana that have embraced comparatively free market economic policy have experienced dramatic rises in per capita income and standard of living compared to their heavily statist neighbours.

Nigerians live in poverty, along with most of the world that is used for slave-like cheap labour. Significant portions of even industrialised, First World countries are still living in relative poverty because the system has failed to provide for them. The gap between rich and poor is increasing.

So? It's not a free market. Government action is responsible for all that you have listed.

Capitalism is a system which stratifies society into classes. There can be no social equality within a system like this because wealth provides a freedom of its own that isn't available to everyone. Even in a stateless free market, social stratification would be rampant.

So basically, it's okay if everyone is poor and miserable, just as long as no one is less poor and less miserable than anyone else, right?

Living within capitalism is great if you're rich. If you're one of the 90%+ that has to sell their labour for a pittance within a workplace you have no control over in order to survive, it's not so great.

Um, you're joking right?

My parents are far from rich, but my life is amazing. I have a higher standard of living than even the richest people did a few hundred years ago. I have all the food I need and a huge variety to pick from. I can choose what line of work to get into, I have plenty of free time, I have all the art, music and literature I'll ever want just a click away on my ridiculously cheap laptop.
So does the majority of this 90%.

Sure, a number of people on the margins struggle, but it is state action that prevents them from being helped and from them rising out of poverty.

The argument that conditions are slowly improving in poverty-stricken regions of the world whilst the rich have more money than they can spend and enough power to dictate the world's decisions is frankly not good enough.

How did western nations become wealthy?
Was it through violent wealth redistribution that you apparently support?
No, it was through economic development. These nations can't stop being poor until they become industrialised and developed like western nations.

You have a particularly strange way of viewing things.

The thing is, everywhere and everyone was poor at some stage. Some people, some regions, some nations over time gradually improved their standards of living, while others, for whatever reason, did not.
You, however, apparently pre-suppose everyone being wealthy and happy, but then some evil "capitalists" came along and made them poor. This of course, is a load of crap.
Granted, government action helps certain individuals unfairly (ie without providing value on a market) become wealthy, but this only supports my position.

How can you possibly argue this point? How can you possibly assert with a straight face that capitalism isn't rapidly fucking up the planet? 'No causal link', what a joke.

People consuming stuff is depleting certain resources, yes, but what are you going to do? Violently force people to live in poverty?

Private property and command economies aren't the only options. Are you implying that capitalism produces no waste? Are you suggesting that overproduction isn't contributing to dwindling resources?

Why would an entrepreneur waste capital producing things nobody wants?
They are financially punished for this on a free market, in the form of monetary 'loses', as opposed to profits.

Irrelevant. Government exists to protect private property.

Property rights are an emergent social construct that exist independently of the state.

The state's whole subsistence is dependant upon violations of property rights. Nearly all of state's actions involve violations of property rights.
Your claim is flat out wrong.

Governments and corporations go hand in hand.
Government exists solely to physically protect private property and maintain the status quo. The fact that ExxonMobil doesn't have a standing army doesn't mean that they can't influence government to look after their interests. Halliburton doesn't need a standing army when they can bomb Iraq through the USAF.

And this is why I want to et rid of government. What's your point?

And produced by private corporations for profit. Global capitalism, or more precisely, unrestricted greed, is the biggest proponent of war. Almost all modern warfare is carried out for economic reasons.

And almost NONE of it would be carried out on a free market. The only way any entity can afford to wage large scale warfare is through the systematic violation of property rights known as taxation.

Justify the existence of private property.

Private property is necessary for capital accumulation. Capital accumulation is necessary for investment. Investment, when preceded by accurate economic calculation by entrepreneurs (who strive to make said accurate calculations because of profit incentives), creates wealth, which allows employment and a better standard of living for everyone else.

Honestly, would you please do all of us a giant favour and have a read of this book, please?
And before you accuse me of being a condescending twat, despite what the title may imply this is a high-school level book.

 

[cosmo kramer]

lol

 

[SylviaB]

most modern warfare and group conflict is actually intra-national and ethnic/racial or religious fyi

I hope you realise you were quoting him there, not me

could you explain why niggers replicate the dark continent when you take them out of therse repressive kleptocratic environments and stick them in first world reigions with developed market economies the

get to the root of the problem

why do niggers seem essentially incapable almost EVERYWHERE you find them (besides botswana which is a de beers protectorate and barbados and antigua which are tiny island states with massive tourism and offshore financing industries run by white people) of creating governments that arent repressive and kleptocratic

don't get me wrong, I believe that blacks on average are inhernetly intellectually inferior to whites. I'm not saying that free market africa would have standards of living like a western nation, but even being less intelligent, a lot of it really should be capable of becoming a mexico or something eventually

 

[cosmo kramer]

yeah no argument from me there

blacks would obv do better and DO do better if they werent.. run by blacks

black rule always devolves into violence, incompetence, thuggery, socialism and plutocracy

which is the problem here

still i was talking to dan roodt yestetrday (white south african activist) and he was talking to me about botswanans

he was saying that the main tribe in botswana has always been a more cooperative tribe than a lot of the other tribes in the cape

i thought it was interesting it hink there is actually something characteristic to botswanans

theres a lot of diversity within the african population cluster

 

[TacoTerrorist]

I wasn't asserting whether corporations are noble, because usually its the opposite. Nor was I making a claim that capitalism is better (even though it is). Given the situation these people find themselves in, sweatshops for them are often, more or less a good thing. If you going to remove these sweatshops, you better think of something else to put in its place. Otherwise you're going to encourage a situation where they move to begging, subsistence farming or prostitution (as has happened).

Consider also India's 1991 reforms and the abandonement of its socialist policies. India, as we all know, is the outsourcing capital of the world. And places like Bangalore (and even places like Dalian, in Communist China) are fast becoming technological centers, the likes of which to rival Silicon Valley. Even if you deplore capitalism, there's no denying that it is what's making globalisation occur, and that globalisation is the fastest process by which poor areas become part of the world economy.
I don't see how anyone can declaim those powers which allow individuals from around the globe, based on nothing more than their talents, to become international forces.


edit: according to this http://reason.com/blog/2009/02/23/re...ontv-what-slum
approximately 300million people have escaped extreme poverty since said reforms.

I'm glad we can settle this, I misunderstood your point. We can however both agree that the economic situation whereby those in poverty have no option but sweatshops shouldn't exist in the first place.

How does a nation become not a shithole other than by becoming richer, even if only gradually?

Anyway, the reason african nations are s shit is because of repressive kleptocratic governments. People seem to have this idea that Africa is one giant state of laissez-faire, when in reality the opposite is true.
Africa is the most economically repressed continent on the planet, and s it is precisely a lack of capitalism that causes its poverty.
Places such as Botswana that have embraced comparatively free market economic policy have experienced dramatic rises in per capita income and standard of living compared to their heavily statist neighbours.

Not by becoming the economic slaves of the West, that's for sure. I agree, corrupt African governments are part of the problem. The other part of the problem is foreign corporations raping their land.

quote=SylvesterBr] So basically, it's okay if everyone is poor and miserable, just as long as no one is less poor and less miserable than anyone else, right? [/quote]

No, no, no. There doesn't have to be any poverty on the planet. There is more than enough food to go around, more than enough productive capacity to give everyone a decent life. And yet millions die of starvation and easily-treatable diseases every year. Why is this the case? Because those in power have no interest in helping them. Those with wealth have no interest in helping them either. I want a society where there is very little disparity. Where everyone is well off.

My parents are far from rich, but my life is amazing. I have a higher standard of living than even the richest people did a few hundred years ago. I have all the food I need and a huge variety to pick from. I can choose what line of work to get into, I have plenty of free time, I have all the art, music and literature I'll ever want just a click away on my ridiculously cheap laptop.
So does the majority of this 90%.

Great, so do I. We're the lucky ones. Btw, computers are quite expensive. $1000 for a decent one, minimum, when it costs far far less to produce one. If I'm on say, $20 an hour (probably far less if the labour movement didn't exist) why should I have to work 50 hours in exchange for it? If it costs, say, $200 to produce, why can't I work 10 hours for it? I know the answer, supply and demand, profit margin etc etc. I'm, not supporting the labour theory of value. I'm saying that goods should be produced for human need. Fuck profit margins.

Sure, a number of people on the margins struggle, but it is state action that prevents them from being helped and from them rising out of poverty.

So if welfare was removed, minimum wage was removed, the lower class and underclass would be better off? What a farce, they'd starve and/or become criminals. Evidence plz.

How did western nations become wealthy?
Was it through violent wealth redistribution that you apparently support?
No, it was through economic development. These nations can't stop being poor until they become industrialised and developed like western nations.

It was through state-sponsored violence. Every country that is now rich was imperialistic in its past or present. The US was built on the backs of slaves. The UK on theft and coercion of foreign countries etc. These nations will always be poor as long as the West keeps exploiting their resources.

The thing is, everywhere and everyone was poor at some stage. Some people, some regions, some nations over time gradually improved their standards of living, while others, for whatever reason, did not.
You, however, apparently pre-suppose everyone being wealthy and happy, but then some evil "capitalists" came along and made them poor. This of course, is a load of crap.
Granted, government action helps certain individuals unfairly (ie without providing value on a market) become wealthy, but this only supports my position.

Everyone was poor, except the elites who were far better off. Nothing's changed, except the rich allowed us some of our production after the industrial revolution, after much rioting, violence and trade unionism. 'Capitalists' are the same class of people as nobles, kings and tsars of the past. Pieces of shit who contribute nothing except social division, yet own and run everything. We're both anti-government, but for different reasons.

People consuming stuff is depleting certain resources, yes, but what are you going to do? Violently force people to live in poverty?

I don't have the answer, I was just showing the cause.

Why would an entrepreneur waste capital producing things nobody wants?
They are financially punished for this on a free market, in the form of monetary 'loses', as opposed to profits.

And they're also financially punished for it under our corporate plutocracy, and yet it still continues to happen.

Property rights are an emergent social construct that exist independently of the state.

The state's whole subsistence is dependant upon violations of property rights. Nearly all of state's actions involve violations of property rights.
Your claim is flat out wrong.

Perhaps I should reiterate. The state protects wealth. Its subsistence is dependant on violations of property rights, certainly, but that doesn't prove my claim wrong at all. The state upholds property rights, and its employees protect private and state property. The state is just the means by which the bourgeoisie maintain their wealth and privilege.

And this is why I want to et rid of government. What's your point?

So do I. I was addressing that Kim-il-Sung dude.

And almost NONE of it would be carried out on a free market. The only way any entity can afford to wage large scale warfare is through the systematic violation of property rights known as taxation.

Agree. I still feel that the free market is undesirable.

Private property is necessary for capital accumulation. Capital accumulation is necessary for investment. Investment, when preceded by accurate economic calculation by entrepreneurs (who strive to make said accurate calculations because of profit incentives), creates wealth, which allows employment and a better standard of living for everyone else.

I'll provide an alternative appraisal. Private property is a means for exorbitant individual wealth without contributing one's labour to society. With sufficient private property and deviance, one can even entrap others to produce for you, whilst you strive to pay them the lowest wage the state and/or economic conditions can allow you, without concern for their health or welfare. Private property accumulation is advanced without regard for the environment or the general welfare of other people. Private property is good for the individual, and can raise living standards in a society that practices feudalism. However, it is of no use for a modern society that has adopted more ethical systems of distribution.

Honestly, would you please do all of us a giant favour and have a read of this book, please?
And before you accuse me of being a condescending twat, despite what the title may imply this is a high-school level book.

As I've said before, I have moral and ethical concerns with capitalism, not economic ones. The fact that the book you recommended is of high-school level is all the more condescending, you twat.

 

[Lentern]

most modern warfare and group conflict is actually intra-national and ethnic/racial or religious fyi

I hope you realise you were quoting him there, not me



don't get me wrong, I believe that blacks on average are inhernetly intellectually inferior to whites. I'm not saying that free market africa would have standards of living like a western nation, but even being less intelligent, a lot of it really should be capable of becoming a mexico or something eventually

#conservativehidingbehindthemaskofanarchism

 

[cosmo kramer]

b/c you have to be a conservative to acknowledge or think that

such a question should ultimately be an empirical issue rather than a political issue anyway

The US was built on the backs of slaves.

lmao no it wasnt

even more amusingly the prescence of those slaves and the descendants of those slaves in the u.s is one of the biggest financial drains that country has ever seen

the u.s would undoubtably be much, much, much better off if the negro had never been introduced into it in the first place

interestingly it was recently estimated that medieval britain was even wealthier than many third world countries are TODAY

 

[byebyebye]

You need capitalism to bake pies. Just putting it out there that no one would produce the marginal grain, blueberry (mmm, blueberry pie...), sugar etc without a price signal so as to justify that allocation of labour and resources.

Otherwise, good luck with your cool society bro. The rest of us will just be chilling here, enjoying our lack of famine.

Wrong. I'm quite certain pies were enjoyed in communist Russia as well as under the Tzar. Alternative lifestyle communes in California which exist on barter alone have no trouble baking pies. You only need capitalism to make a PROFIT from baking pies. It's also great if you wish to exploit the people who provide the various materials.

Of course life is (or ought to be) an ‘us versus them’ affair. Competition for scarce resources, wealth and/or privilege is one of the drivers of modern human progress. The world we live in today was not a product of a bunch of people sitting around in some feel-good fantasy, singing Kumbuya.
Competition, however, does not necessarily entail a ‘zero sum’ outcome.

Wrong. Life often is a "us versus them" affair, however, it does not have to be, nor should it be. When you grow up, you'll learn that it is better to cooperate then to fight amongst ourselves. This is a basic lesson that you should have learned in kindergarten, or its equivalent in whichever school system you attended. If you have or had siblings, then the person who raised you should have taught you this lesson as well.

The United States as a country, is the single greatest representative of the economic nonsense that you spout. She is the epitome of free market capitalism. How does the flagship of market economics stack up to other countries? Embarrassingly lacking. There should be no excuse for America to not be the best at everything if what you say were true.

The whole point of the free market is that it increases individual choice. It rewards those with intelligence, initiative and entrepreneurial abilities. If you can successfully pull the levers of individual choice, you will find a measure of success in the free market system no matter how rich or poor you were when you began. Capitalism as the basis of wealth creation benefits all social classes – the only ones who wilt and die are the ones too slothful and lazy to improve their lot.

Nope, you are wrong. You say things without thinking about how naive it makes you look. Success in our modern capitalist society is the results of many factors. An individuals work ethic is one, however, it is certainly not THE deciding factor. Once you mature, and learn how to objectively and accurately assess a person's character, you'll discover a few things.

Such as, financially speaking, where a person starts out in life, is also where they are likely to end in life.

The circle of friends and relatives of rich people are no more, nor less "human", then the friends and relatives of poor people. Both sets has it's share of industrious, and slothful people. Yet as far as free enterprise and market economics are concerned, inexplicably, slothful rich people tend to remain rich, and industrious poor people tend to remain poor. There is not a great deal of mobility between "classes", despite work ethic.

You should ask yourself, "Why is this true?".

There is a sad, poignant truth in the saying, "The rich get richer, while the poor get poorer.". You need to learn that not only does it blow away your mean spirited fantasy that all those who are poor, are poor by choice ,and all those who are rich, are somehow special and deserving, but also that we as a species are not realizing our full potential because of this truth.

This is where things get really fucking loopy. You assert that there is an infinite amount of wealth in the world at any given time; no justification for this assertion is provided. Obviously it is blatantly false; how the fuck can we have absolutely unlimited wealth in a world of scarce resources?

The economic allocation problem with your pie analogy has already been covered. To say that all the world’s problems can be fixed by ‘baking more pies’ is just about the most pathetically reductionist statement that I have ever read. To continue the analogy, decisions will need to be made regarding what type of pies are to be baked, what ingredients to bake them out of, how large they ought to be, whether you need some gluten-free pies, and so on. Capitalism is the only economic system in which these decisions can be appropriately made, because it involves a price mechanism. Without a price mechanism, decisions as to the allocation of scarce resources to the baking of pies are likely going to be made arbitrarily by some government bureaucrat.
Consider the Trabant, a ‘car for everyone’ that was built in certain Communist countries. The design brief for this car was along the lines ofyour ‘bake more pies’ brainwave above. As it was produced by the state, no competing car existed and resource allocation failed to conform to the needs of the market. Unsurprisingly, it turned out to be absolute shit, and inferior to pretty much every Western car as a day-to-day ownership proposition.





Is that right? Everyone ought to ‘enjoy the most out of life’ for ‘the betterment of humanity’? Can you please tell me what this bland pseudo-philosophical drivel actually fucking means?
What you have done here, is conform flawlessly to the leftist stereotype of somebody who bleats about ‘improving peoples' abilities’ without giving a fuck about what those people actually value in their lives. Observe Leon Trotsky explain the idea in a far more eloquent way than yourself:


This sounds like an amazing vision of the future to credulous morons such as yourself. However, it completely ignores the fact that some people are naturally stupid. They are naturally lazy. They may not be at all interested in intellectual endeavour and would rather bludge on the dole and go surfing, and so on. The presupposition of the leftist is that redistribution of wealth would, in some unexplained way (perhaps re-educative propaganda), alter peoples’ natures to enable them to rise up and get ‘the most out of life’. Innumerable examples from around the world tell us that this idea is completely false.
Because of their natures, some poor people will always be poor. No amount of redistributive welfare will catapult them to the level of an Aristotle, a Goethe, or a Marx. Instead, all that will happen is that the vast majorty of wealthy people who worked to earn their wealth will have that wealth coercively taken away. ‘Ideal equality’ is all well and good on paper, but ‘practical equality’ does indeed involve simply making everybody poorer.

There are two things you need to know:

1.] Once again, you're wrong. "Redistributive welfare"? Pfft! As a class, the poor don't want "redistributive welfare". They are not out to take money from the wealthy. They want the wealthy to stop preventing them from making their OWN money.

In order for there to be a privileged class, there has to be a underclass to serve them. Since the privileged class commands the wealth and power, they are the ones I hold responsible for the policies, practices, and the deception that not only keep poor people poor, but they are also responsible for adding to the numbers of the poor with such gusto.

Capitalism and your precious market economy relies on a two-tier system of "haves" and "have nots". If you are correct, the swelling ranks of the "have nots" merely reflect the unbelievable investment potential of Hawaiian shirts and surfboards. If I'm correct, we should seriously start trying to figure out a way to avoid the "Mother of all French Revolutions".

2.] People who talk like you are always going on about how the poor are just lazy. Capitalism and market economics are not only the best, they're the only system that helps the poor. The poor are poor because they chose to be poor. They deserve all of the hardships that they get. If they don't like it, too bad, they shouldn't be poor in the first place. Yadda, yadda, yadda... You fools never seem to care that people who are poor, also have children who are poor.

Approximately, 65% of the people on welfare are children under the age of 12.

You may think that a mother who works two or three jobs for the sake of her children deserves to die, worn out and weary from some financially preventable cause, but it boggles the mind that you should feel that way about the children too. Look at two babies side-by-side, one rich, and the other poor, and think about each of their likely futures, and the odds of each child realizing its full potential. Think about the chances of a positive impact or the potential benefits that either child are likely to be able to share with the rest of humanity. In this light, I hope you reconsider making any further venal statements like the ones you made above.

You are being deliberately obtuse. You chose to profess an inability to grasp the concepts I have laid out for you. I have explained that there is a clear and pressing need to transcend the petty selfishness of the current system of capitalism. I have employed analogous constructs to make it easy for you to understand this. Unfortunately, you would rather embrace pithy lies and echo the perniciously false justifications that make up the injustice of capitalism. I recommend you stop whining like a five year old who has been asked to share his pie with a sibling. Grow up, develop some empathy and evolve. Dare to objectively and critically examine this sad reality, then try to conceptualize a mutually beneficial way forward.

 

[Kim Il-Sung]

and now you have gone full retard

Wrong. I'm quite certain pies were enjoyed in communist Russia as well as under the Tzar. Alternative lifestyle communes in California which exist on barter alone have no trouble baking pies. You only need capitalism to make a PROFIT from baking pies. It's also great if you wish to exploit the people who provide the various materials.

please explain to me

how to solve the economic calculation problem

if you even know what it is

Wrong. Life often is a "us versus them" affair, however, it does not have to be, nor should it be. When you grow up, you'll learn that it is better to cooperate then to fight amongst ourselves. This is a basic lesson that you should have learned in kindergarten, or its equivalent in whichever school system you attended. If you have or had siblings, then the person who raised you should have taught you this lesson as well.

all i see here is a paragraph of supercilious shit

The United States as a country, is the single greatest representative of the economic nonsense that you spout. She is the epitome of free market capitalism.

wrong - you clearly know jackshit about american economic history

How does the flagship of market economics stack up to other countries? Embarrassingly lacking.

it is only the largest and most prosperous economy in the world

Such as, financially speaking, where a person starts out in life, is also where they are likely to end in life.

do some research on social mobility and especially intergenerational social mobility kthx

Yet as far as free enterprise and market economics are concerned, inexplicably, slothful rich people tend to remain rich, and industrious poor people tend to remain poor. There is not a great deal of mobility between "classes", despite work ethic.

[citation needed]

also i love that your stereotypes of 'slothful rich' and 'industrious poor people' are so deliciously false

clive palmer's parents ran a local movie theatre

not exactly a silver spoon upbringing eh

perhaps he WORKED HARD

...but also that we as a species are not realizing our full potential because of this truth.

lol

you clearly missed the point of my last post

There are two things you need to know:

1.] Once again, you're wrong. "Redistributive welfare"? Pfft! As a class, the poor don't want "redistributive welfare". They are not out to take money from the wealthy. They want the wealthy to stop preventing them from making their OWN money.

which somehow always seems to involve...wealth redistribution

higher taxes imposed on the people who already pay the most tax by far

increases in unemployment benefits

increases in the minimum wage

etc

all these are examples of coercion by the state and involve forcibly seizing other peoples' money or dictating how it is to be spent

In order for there to be a privileged class, there has to be a underclass to serve them.

if you knew the first thing about social science and politics you would know that the bourgeois/proletariat dichotomy does not exist in modern society except in the eyes of dogmatists

also how the fuck can lower socioeconomic classes be considered an 'underclass' when they are able to form hugely powerful labour movements and be elected to political office

unionism is in decline anyway so it seems like most of this 'underclass' is abandoning its belief in the fatuous shit you blather on about; i wonder why this might be?

Capitalism and your precious market economy relies on a two-tier system of "haves" and "have nots". If you are correct, the swelling ranks of the "have nots" merely reflect the unbelievable investment potential of Hawaiian shirts and surfboards. If I'm correct, we should seriously start trying to figure out a way to avoid the "Mother of all French Revolutions".

as above

2.] People who talk like you are always going on about how the poor are just lazy. Capitalism and market economics are not only the best, they're the only system that helps the poor. The poor are poor because they chose to be poor. They deserve all of the hardships that they get. If they don't like it, too bad, they shouldn't be poor in the first place. Yadda, yadda, yadda... You fools never seem to care that people who are poor, also have children who are poor.

Approximately, 65% of the people on welfare are children under the age of 12.

and if those children do not appreciate their predicament then they ought to take the time to get a good education and improve their station

also nice work on not attempting to refute my point hahaha - clearly you know nothing about intergenerational social mobility

people who choose to remain poor remain poor and those who choose not to usually fare much better

my father grew up in a relatively poor household in rural new zealand, but through determination and hard work he got into med school. as a consequence of this i was able to get a good education and get into law school. yet apparently this effort ought to be rewarded by taking huge sums of money away from us.

this is a common story and it completely debunks whatever the vague point was that you were attempting to make above

 

[SylviaB]

Not by becoming the economic slaves of the West, that's for sure. I agree, corrupt African governments are part of the problem. The other part of the problem is foreign corporations raping their land.

You act as though the africans previously used their"their" land and were prosperous, but this ended when corporations came along.

I'm not exactly sure how you realistically expect Africans to become wealthier.

There is more than enough food to go around,

Only because of capitalist economies.

I want a society where there is very little disparity. Where everyone is well off.

Ok cool, you want this. But how.

Btw, computers are quite expensive. $1000 for a decent one, minimum, when it costs far far less to produce one. If I'm on say, $20 an hour (probably far less if the labour movement didn't exist) why should I have to work 50 hours in exchange for it? If it costs, say, $200 to produce, why can't I work 10 hours for it? I know the answer, supply and demand, profit margin etc etc. I'm, not supporting the labour theory of value. I'm saying that goods should be produced for human need. Fuck profit margins.

Without profit, they never would have been made.

You can say "oh but the workers can make them without the entrepreneurs!"

but this is just lunacy. You honestly think that a bunch of workers would be willing, let alone have the initiative, to pool their money together and invest in a factory and some machines, ad then coordinate all the necessary resources, and manage the supply chain and so forth? No way.

So if welfare was removed, minimum wage was removed, the lower class and underclass would be better off? What a farce, they'd starve and/or become criminals. Evidence plz.

These things are only necessary because of other government interventions.

The US was built on the backs of slaves.

Work by slaves constituted a very small amount of economic activity in the US, and they were not very profitable as cosmo pointed out.
Further, as many as half the slaves taken from Africa to America were already slaves in Africa, and yet for some strange reason African nations never became anywhere remotely near as prosperous as America.
Further still, when the slaves were released, many of them were sent to Liberia, where they enslaved the native population using the plantation method under which they were enslaved..and yet Liberia is one of the poorest places on earth.

That argument is utterly destroyed.

. The UK on theft and coercion of foreign countries etc. These nations will always be poor as long as the West keeps exploiting their resources.

Australia. Boom.

Everyone was poor, except the elites who were far better off. Nothing's changed, except the rich allowed us some of our production after the industrial revolution, after much rioting, violence and trade unionism.

No...after extensive division of labour which made workers productive.

'Capitalists' are the same class of people as nobles, kings and tsars of the past. Pieces of shit who contribute nothing except social division, yet own and run everything. We're both anti-government, but for different reasons.

Capitalist is a meaningless word. I am a minimum wage worker, but I also have ownership in pieces of corporations.

Further, I'm going to be an engineer who works for companies. I'm not owning the means of production (other than in the form of equity as above), and yet I'll be making far more than a huge number of small business owners.
Doesn't, you know, workers being richer than capitalists kind of demonstrate the stupidity of such 'class' models of society.

I don't have the answer, I was just showing the cause.

Further, don't you think that if the whole world managed to rise out of poverty that this would be worse for the environment?

And they're also financially punished for it under our corporate plutocracy, and yet it still continues to happen.

So basically, 'capitalists' are greedy and only care about money, and yet they will do things that lead to making less money? um ok

Private property is a means for exorbitant individual wealth without contributing one's labour to society.

Firstly, few people are dedicated "capitalists". Most are a combination of worker and capitalist.

Secondly, investment does provide value. It's not just a matter of 'money makes money'. They have to A, know where to invest the money in order to create wealth and thus yield a profit, and B, actually be willing to risk their money.
Even if they just keep it in a bank, the money if getting loaned out and invested by entrepreneurs who create wealth and employment opportunities. Certainly far more desirable than bureaucrats blindly throwing money around and wasting/mis-allocating resources.

Further, you act as though if the "capitalists" didn't have this money that the "workers" would. The money they have represents wealth that didn't previously exist.

With sufficient private property and deviance, one can even entrap others to produce for you,

Or what a reasonable person would call "providing them with the means to earn a living"

whilst you strive to pay them the lowest wage the state and/or economic conditions can allow you

And, everything else being equal, workers will take the highest wage jobs they can find. What's your point.

, without concern for their health or welfare. Private property accumulation is advanced without regard for the environment or the general welfare of other people.

So providing the masses with employment opportunities and a (relative) abundance of inexpensive goods and services doesn't help the general welfare?

Okay, let's sit around a fire and sing Kumbaya and love one another. This will help, won't it.

However, it is of no use for a modern society that has adopted more ethical systems of distribution.

what the shit are u talking about

As I've said before, I have moral and ethical concerns with capitalism, not economic ones

.

Well morality is a load of shit, and capitalism as helped the bottom 1% and up more than any 'well-intentioned' collectivist bs ever as or will.

The fact that the book you recommended is of high-school level is all the more condescending, you twat.

I was trying to make it easy for you, but whatever. Here's a 950 page fucking treatsie. Knock yourself out.

 

[SylviaB]

#conservativehidingbehindthemaskofanarchism

#idiotwhokeepscallingpeopleconservativeasifthewordhasanymeaning

Anyway, this pretty much summarises why I believe what I do (on the issue of intelligence).

 

[Lentern]

#idiotwhokeepscallingpeopleconservativeasifthewordhasanymeaning

Anyway, this pretty much summaries why I believe what I do (on the issue of intelligence).

If he had gotten to meet you, Stuart-Mill would have called you a wanker. Just so you know.

 

[cosmo kramer]

stewie griffinb mill

 

[byebyebye]

Kim Sung or some shit -

I've decided that you are a troll, who merely wishes to argue, which means you're not as stupid as you pretend to be.

Aside from a specious request for help in understanding the theme of the article, (of which this thread was _supposed_ to be about), you have made no attempt to actually address the points raised therein. Indeed, it would seem that from you, questions are not meant as attempts at clarification or understanding, but rather as springboards for argument and contention.

You have refused to grasp the point of the article, (which I took the time to rephrased in several different ways solely for the benefit of your edification). Since you missed it, the point of the article is the fact that capitalism and free market economy are dangerous illusions which need to be replaced. You chose to misunderstand and ignore the examples I put forth, (i.e. how free market economies failed the U.S. and devastated Bhopal, India). When I framed the discussion in terms of people and spoke of children, you displayed your affinity with 18th century sensibilities and offered a return to child labor as the solution.

Despite the initial fun of exchanging insults, you display the archaic closed mindedness of a theist and have become boring.

This is unfortunate because in the exchange, there was potential for a silver lining. You and I hold diametrically opposing schools of thought concerning economic theorem, and I welcomed the debate as an opportunity to test my point of view. I only wish that you were equal to the challenge, capable of originality, and thus able to mount a true assault so that I could discover any flaws or weaknesses in my opinions. Sadly, this was not the case.

Therefore, I will respond to your latest post, but likely will offer no rejoinder to any reply...

and now you have gone full retard



please explain to me

how to solve the economic calculation problem

if you even know what it is

The economic calculation problem is merely another way of saying "cost benefit analysis". If you wanted to start a pie making business, or had a pre-existing pie business, we could have a sit-down and since you are probably one of those people who still use Microsoft's Office, I would launch Excel, craft one from scratch, and show you how it's done.

However, the problem is that "short term benefit" people such as yourself, are usually only interested in how such an analysis relates to profit generation.

it is only the largest and most prosperous economy in the world




do some research on social mobility and especially intergenerational social mobility kthx




[citation needed]

also i love that your stereotypes of 'slothful rich' and 'industrious poor people' are so deliciously false

clive palmer's parents ran a local movie theatre

not exactly a silver spoon upbringing eh

perhaps he WORKED HARD




lol

you clearly missed the point of my last post




which somehow always seems to involve...wealth redistribution

higher taxes imposed on the people who already pay the most tax by far

increases in unemployment benefits

increases in the minimum wage

etc

all these are examples of coercion by the state and involve forcibly seizing other peoples' money or dictating how it is to be spent



if you knew the first thing about social science and politics you would know that the bourgeois/proletariat dichotomy does not exist in modern society except in the eyes of dogmatists

also how the fuck can lower socioeconomic classes be considered an 'underclass' when they are able to form hugely powerful labour movements and be elected to political office

unionism is in decline anyway so it seems like most of this 'underclass' is abandoning its belief in the fatuous shit you blather on about; i wonder why this might be?



as above



and if those children do not appreciate their predicament then they ought to take the time to get a good education and improve their station

also nice work on not attempting to refute my point hahaha - clearly you know nothing about intergenerational social mobility

people who choose to remain poor remain poor and those who choose not to usually fare much better

my father grew up in a relatively poor household in rural new zealand, but through determination and hard work he got into med school. as a consequence of this i was able to get a good education and get into law school. yet apparently this effort ought to be rewarded by taking huge sums of money away from us.

this is a common story and it completely debunks whatever the vague point was that you were attempting to make above

I have presented data compiled by the United Nations, the C.I.A., and other organizations display how the people of "the largest and most prosperous economy in the world" are being ill served by the economic system you promote. This is shown along several international indexes, (arguably, the most important being the "International Human Development Indicators"), and presuming you actually looked at the data, your mind seems to be incapable of reconciling the prevarication of your premise, with actual reality.

The rest of your post dissolves into a mixture of insults, antidotes, and retreads of 18th century bourgeois snobbery. Including the outrageous assertion that a child born into poverty and less then 12 years old is not only responsible for their socio-economic plight, but also that they actually have the means to do something about it. The only explanation you can conceive of for the child's failure to do so, is "laziness".

Before you mentioned "intergenerational social mobility" I spoke of "trans-generational mutagenesis".

My friend, I'll do you a swap. There were mostly children among the 30,000 plus people killed in the Bhopal Disaster. You tell me how a poor 6 year old girl in India is responsible for the freemarket forces which drove Union Carbide to Bhopal seeking low wage workers to exploit. Then show me how the laziness of this child dictated the market incentives which made the cost cutting in safety equipment and procedures desirable. Explain why the responsible people of Dow Chemical and Union Carbide, and the ability of their lawyers to deny and delay just retribution for her, her dead friends and relatives, and the twisted, malformed babies that have exited her chemically ravaged uterus over the last 25 years, is proof that the capitalist system not only works, but is also desirable.

In return, I'll tell you everything you need to know about "intergenerational social mobility".

I do not suffer fools gladly, and as such, I grow weary of casting pearls of wisdom before swine who insist on wallowing in mud with the mindset of 18th century economic apologists.

 

[SylviaB]

Over the past decade alone over 800,000 pages of FEDERAL (not even including state-level) regulations have been created in America.

Yeah, epitome of free-market capitalism my arse.

 

[Rothbard]

The economic calculation problem is merely another way of saying "cost benefit analysis"

Um

no that is incredibly incorrect & v simplistic

please show me to your supercomputer/godlike AI