FUCK NEW WORLD ORDER...no more turning the other cheek while the rich get richer and do what the hell they want, BRING DOWN THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD...infowars.com
jeeze guys, lets turn it down a notch, shall we? no need to start world war 3 over a comment list!!!!!!!
Globalisation has both its good and bad points, and we all have our opinions on it. Personally, I more or less completely agree with the video, but we all have our own opinions. Lets just call it a day and stop arguing, shall we???????
If you can't see the biased, uninformed elements in this documentary, I question what level of education you have. His implication that global capitalism is the savior of all humanity is a lie. There is no "one size fits all" type of system and I could respect the West more if they quit pretending like imperialism, slavery, exploitation and various other atrocities didn't contribute to the booming of their economies. (-_-) He's damn Swedish and their economy isn't even "capitalist", it's mixed.
@DivinelyMochaDipped I live in Sweden, and our system is in a kind of way more capitalistic than in for example USA. Small businesses have easy to start up due to lack of huge burocriacy and the tax is equal on all the companies, in USA on the other hand banks and big companies can lobby with the legislators to get lower taxrates. Banks doesnt get bailouts in Sweden.
i did not say your economy does not have capitalist principles, i said it is not in its entirety a capitalist system. and u r absolutely right, ya'll are more capitalist than the u.s. so in canada and switzerland who both have socialized medicine and other socialist elements/public programs as well. u just reiterate my point, laisse faire capitalism is none existent in the West. there are principles of more than 1 system in these economies.
haha I love the translator. The kenyan could be talking about how much of a bad state he's in but the translator could say that he's saying globalisation is helping his business out
I just don't understand how you can still be anti-globalist when the PEOPLE THEMSELVES WHO LIVE IN THESE COUNTRIES confess the benefits of it...
This is some kind of brainwashed religion. These people need to be shot because they're preventing the progress of struggling nations all over the world.
Because they totally asked and received opinions from the majority of the population and not just a few select individuals. (-_-) I assume you are not a socio- or anthropologist.
Capitalism and free trade are the most harmonious, beautiful, and intricately complex system ever witnessed by man.
The phenomenon is that it's not a result of one organization doing something, but many organizations and groups of people working and competing, ultimately improving the lives of everyone.
That's the beauty of it...it puts people in charge, and not one organization: the government.
The day people learn to embrace capitalism and free enterprise in all its regards...is the day this world will become a much better place for humankind, at a faster rate than it ever has in history.
i know nothing i can say here will influence anyone to actually study the subject in depth, i've been forced to do so as part of my degree program, but wouldn't have myself otherwise. Let me just say that as someone who knows what i'm talking about - this documentary scares me.
@iliketh It's okay. Some people's minds simply aren't capable of understanding the harmonious beauty and complex intricacy of the free market.
Of course it's because of them and idiots like you that we still have poverty, and that Africa is poor. Hong Kong and Shanghai used to be like Africa.
Now look at them.
The results are there, you're just too ignorant and stupid and scared to acknowledge them.
@Spjungen i understand all too well that 80% of the consumer products we buy are manufactured abroad. What you don't seem to realise is someone always has to lose in a free market global economy. Most people in the west drink coffee, people work in the 3rd world 12 hours a day in the sun to grow it. You talk on a phone, people in the 3rd world work 12 hours a day mining for the rare earths required to create it. See where i'm going with this?
@iliketha The people who works in the mines arent made to do it. If they think that isnt worth it, they can go back to farming crops instead. Free markets doesnt force anyone to work, that is what a FREE market is all about.
@Denutvalde94 mate even in the US and Britain, people ARE forced to work in jobs they hate to survive, there's no choice in it for many people, in parts of Africa you can't imagine the way life works, mine and get a handful of rice and live or don't and starve, that sound like freedom to you? the fact that you are so naive about this shows me that you've never been working class in any country let alone in the 3rd world and can't possibly understand what it's like to have no options
@iliketha When people get forced to work, it simply isnt a free market anymore. In a free-market, people can allways in the worst case for example go out to the shore, fish some and sell the fish. Go out to the woods, farm some crops and sell them. For that money they can exapand their business, buy maybe a better fishing pole or start a company which does things that he/she likes to do. Forcing people to work somewhere is called slavery...
@iliketha My parents and my grandparents understood very good what it meant to be in the workingclass. If i go back far enough, they were even farmers that owned their land, selling their goods and making a living. In a kindofway, they were even waaay more capitalistic than me, becouse of owning the land, selling the goods for exactly the price they wanted.
@Denutvalde94 the fact that you think people who own a farm could be understood as working class shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the term. Yes they work hard, but they could never be understood as working class - WC are ppl who can't afford to own their own houses, let alone land for a farm, their pay cheques go towards rent and basic utilities as no-one will loan them enough for a mortgage, they have little education and so no access to jobs above min wage, no time or money to train
@Denutvalde94 again i'm talking about the west here! the 3rd world is immeasurably worse - even if you were lucky enough to have land to grow crops, you're at the mercy of the weather an likely to die if there is drought
@iliketha The big reason is often that the governent is owning the land, not making it worth for the people to grow crops and such. One example of where this was Taiwan where the governent handed out land to the people so they could own the land they grew crops on. In Sweden at the beginning of the 19-th century we had a big famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people, but we didnt get any contributions or help by other countries at all, and look where we are today.
@Denutvalde94 1: the big reason for what? 2: one example of what? 3: famine in Sweden in 1800s, but by 2012 they are fine - and this proves that poor African nations are being held back by foreign aid? Do you realise how dumb it is to compare the two situations? African nations experience draught because of climate change caused by the industrial revolution - hardly the same as a single period of famine in the 1800s. Secondly foreign aid is an insignificant spec in the ocean of 3rd world debt -
@Denutvalde94 you talk as if money is flowing from the first world to the 3rd world, this couldn't be further from the truth, the poorest nations on earth pay $100 million dollars every day to the richest in debt repayments, compared to that foreign aid is laughable, does this sound like the situation in sweden in the 1800s???
@Spjungen for you to have all this great stuff, other people have to be subjugated. In order for you to be "rich" others have to be poor! if everyone was rich, there would be no-one to work 12 hours per day to grow your coffee, or mine, or manufacture or countless other things. You bring up Hong Kong and Shanghai, yes they are rich but at the expense of others, 100% of the world can never be rich in this system. Why would i be scared? surely if i thought neo-liberal globalization was -
@Spjungen working, i'd just be happy as that's what's going on. Also to call me ignorant for having a different opinion when you clearly don't know any of the things i just told you is arrogant. But you're not ignorant for not knowing, we aren't born knowing this stuff, but you shouldn't really be taking part in this debate until you do more research. I noticed you said in another post, that ppl who hold anti-capitalist views must be brainwashed -
@Spjungen but who would benefit from such brainwashing, who would want ppl to falsely believe that capitalism isn't perfect when it is? You live in a capitalist society and are proclaiming the wonders of capitalism (despite not having done any serious research on the issue) so don't you think you ought to engage in some self -examination?
The only one who is brainwashed and ignorant is u. This guy is swedish. Their economy isn't even capitalist. Nordic countries have mixed economies/strong welfare states. Hong Kong is capitalist but in recent years have moved in a direction w/ more gov regulations as well (min. wage/anti-discrimination laws, corp export tax etc.) My anthropology professor (PH.D) himself (as our entire class) concluded that this doc is extremely 1-sided & biased. any1 minimally educated can see this.
@DivinelyMochaDipped If you say that the Swedish economy isnt very capitalistic then im not sure that you even know what capitalism is. Anyone in Sweden is free to start which buisness he or she pleases and there isnt much interferrance by the government. Compared to USA, Sweden wastes half the money per capita on healthcare so the welfare state isnt that big actually. Its mostly about getting people back to work quickly.
@DivinelyMochaDipped You're an idiot. Please learn to write correctly, first. Second, Sweden is a lot less socialist than you might think, and from what I've read it's in fact the "nordic model" that RUINED their economy. It's only when they turned away from it that all their great companies like sony ericsson or volvo were able to thrive. I'm not surprised.
I don't care about your "professor," most of academia is extremely anti-market so I know not to trust them anyway.
@DivinelyMochaDipped Finally, just because Hong Kong has "recentlee moovd ina direkshin w/moar guv regs" doesn't mean they did the right thing, or that they'll prosper with it. And frankly I've not read of such a thing so I'm not even going to listen. They've been free market for about 50 years now and owe their success and prosperity to it.
I don't see them changing anytime soon.
They're the last shining paragon of prosperity while the west continues to strangle itself.
Yes it does. A small area with no real production can't be applied to a huge industrial capital. If it did, the only industry in the entire world would be tourism, taking after Dubai.
@FuchsiaFF00FF So the laws of Supply and Demand do not apply in Dubai? Does the law of Comparative Advantage or Opportunity Cost also not apply in Dubai??
They do, but it can't be used as a model for the US. They're small and are rich from oil. We're neither of those things.
Besides, Dubai is a constitutional monarchy. They have a centrally planned government. They're hardly an example of free-market capitalism succeeding.
@FuchsiaFF00FF I am really confused now. Can you please clarify your point in the context of our discussion? I am simply saying that economic laws and logic apply to all economies, regardless if they are made up of 1000 people or 1 million, no matter what their resources.
And I don't agree with that. Hong Kong can be an economic center, but the US needs production. Laissez-faire capitalism draws banking traffic, but you only need that in one city. That's why China has great production and Hong Kong has none.
@FuchsiaFF00FF I am still confused. Explain why the laws of supply and demand do/do not apply to Dubai, U.S., China and Hong Kong? Why does/does not comparative advantage apply to these countries? How does geographic size, resources, population validate or invalidate these economic laws. Which countries in the world do not face scarcity?
They all face scarcity. The difference is that Hong Kong is a city. It doesn't have the infrastructure and industry of a country. Their lack of regulation helps draw business traffic, but it isn't clear to me lack of regulation would help increase production even if it makes Hong Kong rich.
@FuchsiaFF00FF My point is correct then. Economic logic applies to all kinds of places. I think what you are debating is the mix of industry etc. Less regulation does help increase production, obviously this will be more more pronounced in heavy industry based economies. Less regulation/government intervention increases burdens and expenses on business which would otherwise go towards increasing productivity. Hong Kong is rich largely due to free trade and limited government intervention
Laissez-faire capitalism in Hong Kong can draw economic traffic there. A country like the US could not function with just economic traffic. They're rich due to free trade, but the entire world cannot be a banking center.
@FuchsiaFF00FF What has banking centres got to do with anything? I really don't understand your points. All countries are better off with free trade and free markets as economics does not change depending on geography, population etc. 250 years ago, most of the world lived in relative poverty, now much more of the world is living out of poverty. Absent government interventions, this should continue.
@AussieAustrianBlog do you not think than if the world was in a complete free market, rid of the imf/world bank and all government intervention, people would do anything to get one up on their competitors? How could you have workers rights and genuine financial security without social contract backing of the state? Surely the politics of it would undermine the economics?
@Andrew920917 Why wouldn't their be competition? There would be more competition as big business, interest groups etc could not collude with government, granting special privileges and regulations that protect them from competition. That is the current sad state of affairs. We do not have financial security now, i.e. baby boomers, thanks to the state - not the free market! Politics currently undermines economics. What rights do workers have? Individuals have rights. Not this group or that group.
@AussieAustrianBlog No, i meant the opposite. Competition would become so extreme without government intervention that people would do anything to control the market share. What you'd eventually get is one business emerging dominant and getting a monopoly. Surely you need the government as a fair regulator to make sure small business doesn't get bowled over by big companies unfairly. And workers do have rights - minimum wage, health and safety acts, maternity leave, equality laws
@AussieAustrianBlog IF you look at the US markets in the 1800's which were built on the free market "non intervention" principles, you had very big companies like Carnegie and Pullman which literally dominated everything. They owned entire towns and it was only through eventual government support of unions that their monopolies were broken up.
@Andrew920917 Monopoly can only exsist through government intervention. If you refer to something like standard oil, you'll fine they constitently delivered cheaper and better oil then their competitors and then their competitors lobbied for regulations, distorting the price. Same with railroads, all were subsidized by government and were non profitable except that one in the north, and they lobbied for government regulations so that the northern railroad wouldnt under cut their prices, hurting
@astreocclu thats true, but surely a monopoly can also easily result without any regulation. a dominant business in a market can massively control and without regulation, is free to use undercut pricing to eliminate competitors. Maybe government regulation is too much of a loosely defined term.
@FuchsiaFF00FF Sweden an example of success?? You have a very different definition of "success" to mine. Sweden is far from a model country for others to follow.
Same here, I'm a sociology major and anthropology is on my degree plan. my professor showed us this. The very point in him showing us this, though, was to show us an extremely one-sided/ biased view with falsified information. idk if the guy who did this doc is just flat out ignorant or manipulative but he is NOT an anthropologist.
i've bn snowed under with research over the last few weeks, i came across this documentary, i watched the first few minutes and whilst i laughed at first - i am actually quite concerned that these views are so widely disseminated and taken seriously by "ordinary ppl". This man does not know what he is talking about, he uses neo-liberalisation and globalisation interchangeably! to conflate the two concepts is dangerous and irresponsible! seriously ppl, this is just... i don't even...
Globalization does not eradicate poverty totally. So far, nothing has ended poverty completely just look at US and EU right now, but it can alleviate large mumbers of poverty cases.
Also, not every counrty that benefits from globalizatioin turns democratic China is a prime example of that, however it usually does lead to greater consideratiosn of rights for people or in the least the easing of extremely brutal government restrictions.
There is no denying globalization can be used for good, but so far I see powers abusing it. Just because a few countries have benefited doesn't mean that the whole world will.
this is a beautiful documentary,i used to be anti capitalist as a kid and was brainwashed by anti capitalist media and idiots like michael moore,then i started studying economics,i studied entrepnuership in high school and met real entreprenuers and workers,noticed how capitalism worked for my country.
my advice to people is do your own research and study economics before blaming capitalism.
you may argue capitalism caused the recession in the US,it was because of corrupt policies
First World countries need to start from somewhere, and if it takes cheap goods production or sweatshops then that is fine by me. Socialism can only go so far before Capitalism has to kick in. Sentient beings disserve equal rights, but skill wise they are not. You will have always have a concentration of wealth no matter what economic system you have. And the wealth doesn't have to be in money.
Socialism can only go so far before Capitalism has to kick in<---That's ironic seeing as capitalism predates socialism. Everywhere there has been capitalism, socialism followed. (-_-) Keep in mind that there is no society with a full-blown laisse-faire capitalist economy. All of these former laisse faire nations in the West now have socialist elements, especially in Western Europe which is where capitalism first began.
@qwertypoiu4321 I want to make it clear that I having nothing against you personally. Yet having said as much, and whether you realize it or not, these ideas are internally contradictory and have done our society grievous harm. So a word of reproof is in order: words and the ideas to which they refer have little meaning in a vacuum. You have to examine real-world cases. (Of course, MSS has done an apt job of pointing this out and of rebutting your argument pretty thoroughly)
@earthshine2Y Imagine, for instance, that at some future time a group of private firms own the most of the planet's water supply (the company Bechtel did this in the Bolivia in 1999 and water prices rose over 50% and people could not afford to drink. So much for the price mechanism controlling costs). The firms bring the water to market and inevitably some people will no longer be able to afford to drink. My question to you is this: the water is the property of the firms.
What's going on is this NWO conspiracy theorist called qwertypoi4321 wants to violently overthrow the government and then sell off all the powers of the state to corporations - effectively establishing a corporate oligarchy in place of democracy.
He claims "all democracy is coercive mob-rule statism". And that anyone who disagrees with him is a "criminal" and worthy of being violently murdered by him and his "voluntary class"; with whom he wants to wage violent war against democracy.
lol, there it is; bring up consent with a violent person and they flip:
'Everything consensual! The dollar store will take over the world! You believe in consent?!? That is Plutocracy! Violent submission to my 'ownership' is voluntary! Submit to my 'ownership' or else!'
Ochlocracy=Violent Mob Rule Submission (Prop 8). Violent mob referendum is not consent by definition, do you get that?
Demanding people submit to be 'under' your violent 'ownership' speaks for itself: you are a violent person.
Which I already made clear to you is impossible living in the world you idealize. Sorry to inform you of this but most people don't like the idea of their lives being controlled by an owning class in place of the existing state.
You decry the very idea of "statism" yet you have no objections to what the state actually does, merely that it's the state that does it.
I actually agree that referendum is not consent. It's also not democracy - it's majoritarianism. Real democracy requires consensus; as I made clear to you numerous times but which you simply choose to ignore.
Also, give the "under"(!) and "ownership"(!) schtick a rest. You sound like that lunatic Glenn Beck writing words on a chalkboard then picking them apart to mean whatever silly thing you want them too.
You defeat your own argument with this sematic nonsense.
@MsSexySocalist lol, violent people like yourself just can not comprehend consent:
'Consent! That is slavery! Plutocracy! Submit to be 'under' my 'ownership' or I will get out the club! Submission to my violent 'ownership' is voluntary! Do not use my quote! Consent is enslavement! Slavery is voluntary!'
I know you hate actual quotes and definitions, but you stomping your feet will change none of them.
Democracy (Merriam-Webster): 1a. government by the people; especially: rule of the majority.
Majority (Merriam-Webster): 3a. a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total.
Ochlocracy (Merriam-Webster): government by the mob : mob rule.
They will submit to be 'under' your 'ownership' or else you will blow their brains out: you are a *violent* person by your own tyrannical, Stalinist *quotes*.
It is amazing how unhinged and raving violent people like yourself get at the mere mention of consent.
If anyone Have a Version with French Subtitles, It would be gift of god!! As I am trying to educate people (as well as my friend and family) here in France where there is a lot of people against globalization. Please just send me a message
just have to watch this because of my tutor stronger recommend ! i don't know why simply just some words can list this out but always use a huge and difficult book to expound! suck IB!!!!!
@MsSexySocialist Sorry Miss, Cold War is over. Read up on Ludwig von Mises (anything he has written will do) and Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action to understand why direct participatory democracy is impossibly inefficient and its alternative central planning is a disaster waiting to happen. No property=no markets=no prices=no information. This "running blind" makes Socialism the undoubted leader for worldwide deaths in the last century and much of its continuing poverty.
And when in Africa presents the complex problems in ludicrously simplistic terms of statism versus privatism.
Despite the myriad of other solutions that would offer people economic self-determination, municipalization, cooperatization, mutualization, and collectivization are never even mentioned.
Why? Because they don't fit into Norberg's black and white virtuous capitalism versus evil statism argument.
The whole documentary isn't so much a straw man as an 80-foot tall wicker man.
@MsSexySocialist The common scene in '3rd world' countries is people rejoicing whenever a MNC comes in to provide better employment (otherwise nobody would be hired) while ivory tower intellectuals despair. I live in a '3rd world' country. Nothing improves the lot of the ordinary man more than foreign capital investment. All the 'alternatives' you offer are just another brand of Statism. It's either consumers decide or politicians. It's that simple.
@truevoice08 What absolute nonsense - noticebly unsupported by even a shred of evidence..
How exactly is having a business directly owned and run by the people who work in it in any way, shape or form relatable to statism? Such as set-up is in fact more anti-statist than anti-privatist as it operates asserting that neither bosses nor politicians have a right to tell people how to run their lives in economic terms.
Corporate economic colonialism breeds nothing but serfdom in the name of capital.
@MsSexySocialist Do employers tell employees how to live their lives? I think not. The relationship between the employer and the employee is only that designated in the employment contract (which requires the consent of the employee to be valid). Worker-run factories are COMPATIBLE with capitalism. The workers are free to do a mass quit and invest their collective savings into a business. In that sense, workers should indeed own the capital goods they work on.
But it is not a real choice when anyone is forced by destitution to work in a sweatshop for a multinational corporation when the alternative is to toil in the fields until probable starvation.
The choice is completely illusory without equality of opportunity.
@MsSexySocialist First of all, your exaggerating. Sweatshop workers get paid little but stuff in their country is also very cheap. And yes they toil in the fields w/o MNCs but isn't that an argument IN FAVOR of MNCs going there and facilitating productive use of labor (which inevitably raises wages)? Regarding equality of opportunity, there ain't no such thing. You westerners don't understand the historical context in poorer countries so don't try to sic socialism on us.
@truevoice08 That would be an argument in favor of MNCs if the actually demanded that the private sweatshops they outsource to paid their employees a living wage. This would facilitate the emergence of a powerful new force of consumers who could start up their own domestic businesses which could raise the standard of living and increase growth without the economic colonialism perpetuated by MNCs.
But they won't.
Why? Because oligopolies can't allow their business to be taken away by competition.
@MsSexySocialist MNCs pay higher wages compared to alternative domestic employment. "Because oligopolies can't allow their business to be taken away by competition." But that's not capitalism, that's protectionism.
The whole reason Multinationals exist in the first place is because of protectionism and state subsidization.
The United States and the British Empire became two of the wealthiest nations on earth back in the 19th century because they were two of the most protectionist economies in the world.
If protectionism is "not capitalism" then capitalism has never existed - except perhaps in the minds of rich and middle-class fools who hate working people.
@MsSexySocialist "The United States and the British Empire became two of the wealthiest nations on earth back in the 19th century because they were two of the most protectionist economies in the world." North Korea doesn't do foreign trade. Protectionism doesn't work. The fact that multinationals try to get State support is not even relevant since there is no way to know market structures sans interventionism (calculation problem, von Mises). The point is that MNCs RAISE THE STANDARD OF LIVING.
Von Mises was wrong about just about everything - which is why neither he, nor the Austrian school as a whole, are taken seriously in mainstream economic debates.
You also here display a clear ignorance of even basic macro-economics by stupidly equating state-capitalist protectionism with the state-corporatist central planning of DPRK.
The fact MNCs get state support is the entire issue at hand: state support aids in the creation of monopolies and perpetuates economic feudalism.
@MsSexySocialist It's a pretty big claim to say that von Mises was wrong especially when the Austrian school has been proven right over and over again, especially since the recession of 2008. My whole argument is that MNCs have raised the standard of living DESPITE the various protectionist measures. If we remove protectionism then there would be more capital investment and hence even higher wages. I don't get what you're advocating here. Do you want full protectionism so that MNCs go away?
What I would advocate is the complete dissolution of the state and private ownership of the means of production (productive property) to be replaced with a system of decentralized confederalism based on direct participatory democracy - placing political and economic decision-making directly in the hands of those affected by them.
I disagree vehemently with the false polarity of statism versus privatism.
With each of these, power is never dissolved; just moved around and around.
@MsSexySocialist Your concern is with what you perceive as power inequality between the haves and have nots. I respect that. But you need to study (Austrian) economics. The first response to your position would be to say "How will this be enforced? What if I don't want to join a democracy?". You have no benchmark. Insofar as we have a spatiotemporal coordination process that supports 6B people, we have a market economy. I merely want to remove the restrictions to that system to make it better.
I have studied Austrian school economics. While I can appreciate its principles of decentralism and bottom-up approach to seeing the economy, I come to very different conclusions about what the solutions are to economic problems.
To answer your question, it ISN'T enforced if you choose not to abide by it and simply opt out.
Free and voluntary association doesn't operate diktat or coercion but by mutual agreement and decision-making via consensus.
As I see it, a fair and equatable future economy needs to balance the need for the pursuit of enlightened self-interest with a concern for general well-being, ecology, solidarity, and the economic self-determination of each actor.
To my mind, even with a completely free and open market without corporate monopolies, there still exists a perpetuation of hierarchy and domination by the retaining of wage labor and splitting economic actors into a producer and appropriator class.
@MsSexySocialist You seem to view laborers working for capitalists as unjust and this is a major part of the reason why you need to learn economics. Even today, workers are free to do a mass quit and invest their collective savings in a business. Why don't they? Answer: TIME PREFERENCE. Labor would have to absorb possible losses in such an endeavor. Employment means security. Scientists get paid because venture capitalists take risk and are willing to wait ten years for the new tech to sell.
@truevoice08 I have a degree in political science for your information. Don't think you can talk down to me and tell me I need to learn economics.
This ability to "mass quit" you talk about is a stupid fantasy
I find it hard to believe that people in a state of destitution who are compelled by economic disadvantage to work for a company feel secure in staging a mass walkout and pooling what little money they all have together in some futile attempt to start their own company
@MsSexySocialist I'm not talking you down Miss, I'm just speaking my mind. I'm disappointed that you resorted to using extreme scenarios of people starving to death if they don't work for corporations. I thought you better than that. The 'poor' in America today are part of the 20% richest in the world, are obese and have more comforts than 18th century kings. In Philippines, the poor are much poorer but most of them are far from starving.
@truevoice08 Sorry, forgot to respond for a while.
No, what I'm describing is a worst case scenario but the same criteria still applies.
Any system that involves inherent economic hierarchy is going to be a system of coercion and domination rather than free association. Until economic feudalism is replaced with economic democracy, society will always be the shadow cast on it by big business.
@MsSexySocialist I don't like words like economic feudalism and economic democracy. For me, it's either a voluntary association or coercive one. I see that you oppose any form of inequality, whether natural or artificial. With that being the case we will just have to agree to disagree. There exists radical heterogeneity in skills and traits among men that will translate into economic disparities. That doesn't bother me at all since markets facilitate this inequality towards cooperation.
He claims sweatshop labor is some sort of necessary stage in achieving greater economic abundance - effectively justifying a modern-day form of slavery.
The "success stories" he presents are all rich elites with vast wealth and power. No presentation at all is given to ordinary working people and how their lives are affected.
He writes off the very notion that the enormous size of multinationals is a problem, despite their perpetuation of monopoly and economic colonialism
@MsSexySocialist "effectively justifying a modern-day form of slavery."
Read any book by Harriet Jacobs or Frederick Douglass. By likening the low-wages of 3rd world workers to slavery insults actual slaves and trivializes their suffering.
If Norberg is correct, that sweatshops are a necessary means to building a first world economy, then we have justified them because the good of the ends (1st world economy) greatly outweigh the bad of the means (sweatshop labor)
Slavery came in many forms. And standards of living and work improved for slaves as time went on. That didn't make the institution itself any less monstrous.
On your actual point, Norberg is NOT correct in his false assessment that sweatshops are the only way to build a first world economy.
It's an assessment he makes based on deliberate false dichotomies and straw man arguments directed at supporters of alter-globalization - whom he falsely identifies as ANTI-globalization.
"Slavery came in many forms. And standards of living and work improved for slaves as time went on"
Read any history of colonial america or the atlantic slave trade. the conditions for slaves got slightly better after the english took over the transatlantic trade, but here in America especially the conditions became worse and worse. Hint hint, your slave or free status didn't depend on the status of your mother from perpetuity, it was enacted by colonial legislatures.
"On your actual point, Norberg is NOT correct in his false assessment that sweatshops are the only way to build a first world economy."
I dont think anyone here is saying that they're the "only" way to develop a first world economy, Smith himself laid out many more conditions for successful development.
To your point however, the empirical evidence demonstrates that sweatshops and child labor really are necessary for economic development.
...every first world nation in the world, The United States, South Korea, Japan, even Johan Norberg's home Sweden, had child labor and sweatshops in its industrialization periods. The reason for this is pretty simple: adult workers by themselves are not productive enough to support their families by themselves in the early industrial period. As there is more capital investment and education, they become more productive and, usually within a generation, children stop working.
Now finally, you're correct to say that Johan Norberg doesn't quite conclusively prove that the globalization scheme we have now is the best of all possible worlds, but it is demonstrably better than the vast majority of given alternatives (fair trade, protectionism, etc.)
Your economic system in the comments here looks like some anarcho-syndicalism. The idea of abolishing capitalist-ownership of capital and giving it to workers is appealing on face value, but one huge...
...problem quickly arises: if workers own the plant, how will they get paid now, before the products of their labor reach the market and are sold?
certainly they will make more in the end, but money to be spent right now is far more valuable than money that will be earned much later. Furthermore, workers will have to take on the risk if they own the plant, rather than in the most popular mode of production, where they take on very little risk and the capitalist suffers the risk.
Or first one then the other; as anarcho-communism presupposes a post-scarcity society.
What you ask in your question does not apply as both systems operate without a medium of exchange (money). Anarcho-collectivism replaces it with a system of labor vouchers and an artificial market, while anarcho-communism abolishes all forms of remuneration in favor of universal free access and a gift economy - like I said, it presupposes post-scarcity.
"Or first one then the other; as anarcho-communism presupposes a post-scarcity society."
"abolishes all forms of remuneration in favor of universal free access"
"both systems operate without a medium of exchange"
Thanks for making my job a million times easier. If both anarchist systems presuppose these ideas, post-scarcity, no currency, then we've discovered the sheer absurdity of anarcho-communism. There's a big, big reason why currency arose independently in mesopotamia and mesoamerica
Many things arose and caught on in ancient human civilization. That didn't mean they were good things; or things we couldn't do without in the future in the wake of better alternatives.
Additionally why do you think either (although I have disagreements with both) would not include specialization?
And both of these systems do NOT presuppose free access - only the latter.
If we had to barter (face it, anything besides currency, and "work vouchers" are currency), we would have far, FAR fewer choices on what, where, how, and with whom to trade. That's the big reason why isolated societies still used currency.
Slavery, misogyny, religion, homophobia, war, and imperialism all arose independently of each other in different societies and were "inevitable" in this way too Is that an argument for any of those unsavory things?
And your remark re: specialization displays a clear lack of understanding on the subject. I do not advocate a free access economy but it is not based upon barter - it is based upon production-for-use based on democratically determined plans
Notice I never said "inevitable=good", or that natural=good. I'm aware of the naturalistic fallacy and the is-ought gap, perhaps you should remember it.
And I would say, 10 times out of 10, that those phenomena you point to really were inevitable, and that it really was a mitigating circumstance.
"I don't favor it"
You don't favor communism or you don't favor division of labor?
"Democratically determined plans"
So democracy is a value for you. Good. Then we need freely-fluctuating...
...prices of goods and services to get a truly democratic economy. Prices, I'm sure you know, reflect the consensus of the competing producer and consumer classes.
But that did seem to be your argument in favor of a money-based economy.
I do agree that they were inevitable, and perhaps necessary evils in the development of human civilization, but all of these should of course be done away with in a rational society.
"You don't favor communism or you don't favor division of labor?"
I don't favor either anarcho-collectivism or (in that case mentioned) anarcho-communism. Each for different reasons [cont]
"But that did seem to be your argument in favor of a money-based economy."
I would not call markets "money-based", that's very ambiguous. I guess we can use "currency-as-an-institution" to be more precise. Anyway, my argument for currency as institution is simple: it makes us materially better off by allowing a highly specialized division of labor across communities.
Of course. Although I can't see why you would be in favor of it. Democracy is antithetical to your right-libertarian political beliefs (I've watched some of your videos).
"Then we need freely-fluctuating prices of goods and services to get a truly democratic economy"
Not at all. What we need is self-management in every firm and directly-democratic allocation of all productive resources.
I'm flattered that you actually took the time to watch my videos. However I have largely changed my political beliefs in the past year. I think "neoconservative" is the best label for my political philosophy.
"overemphasizes microeconomic consumption over macroeconomic wants and needs"
I reject this notion that macroeconomic wants and needs are different than microeconomic consumption. Further, I would not call...
(cont.) luxury resources "useless", and to tell people what they should and should not buy is deeply anti-democratic.
The only empirical evidence I think one could cite is the fact that people around the world are starving while some people live in luxury. a simple redistribution, in theory, could alleviate the problem of hunger.
Of course unliteral free trade between the developing world and the west would eliminate hunger within a generation...
I agree with you on the issue of state subsidization of corporations.
But I go further in seeing no reason for corporations to even exist. They are essentially private states with more economic power than several small countries but without any accountability to the public which states have in liberal democracies.
On macro and micro economics, there is a clear divide as I cannot express through interaction with the market my desire for green technology like I can . . . [cont]
"But I go further in seeing no reason for corporations to even exist."
The first corporations ever were more like quasi-govt. entities, like the post office. Right now, however, they are necessary because you can't possibly have huge economies of scale without corporations. There's a pretty good reason why corporations make (almost) every consumer good that every person enjoys.
"but without any accountability to the public which states have in liberal democracies"
I cannot disagree more. governments and actors within said governments have the power to tax (and hence the power to borrow money on promises to tax in the future), corporations do not. People can, and do, stop buying from corporations when in the rare events they do something egregious. Governments have no such liability.
"News Corp is still operating. Despite the News of the World Hacking scandal."
If you had evidence of a knowing connection between Rupert Murdoch and the phone hacking scandal (BTW, news of the world is NOT still operating) then maybe, just maybe, you'd have a point.
Now your other examples, I don't consider Shell or BP's impact on the environment sufficient to warrant their destruction. However if you aim to show that these disasters...
...would not happen if we had a "democratic" way of running things. Our own government still exists despite a smorgasbord of crimes and mishandling that everyone is aware of.
"Are you proposing a direct athenian democracy in a community with hundreds of millions of people?"
In a sense yes. Through a system of confederation at the wider level beyond the local sphere through a system of elected delegates (not representatives).
Consensus based decision making - not majority rule
"Does that include current property owners?"
Yes. Although to achieve this I would propose a strategy of driving them out of business through what's called the dual power strategy
On the issue of vital resources being wasted on luxuries for wealthy consumers (yachts, private jets, and the like), there are clearly only so many scarce resources available to us and it makes no rational sense to pore these into useless things to enrich the lives of a few while some people in the world are starving
Additionally, capitalism (a privatist market economy) is structurally unable to internalize negative externalities [cont]
"there are clearly only so many scarce resources available to us and it makes no rational sense to pore these into useless things to enrich the lives of a few while some people in the world are starving"
I disagree entirely that there has to be a justification for these things beyond mere will. The permissibility of the capitalist buying a yacht is justified by his simple desire and ability to buy a yacht.
No, actually I was quite clear. prima facie, there is no reason other than will that one should be able to buy a luxury good. Your example isn't quite a counter-example, as nuclear warheads are weapons that kill indiscriminately. peaceful activity needs no justification beyond simple will.
I'd like to point out that anyone should be allowed to do anything so long as it does not inhibit or oppress the free will of others. If a billionare wants to buy a fleet of private jets, then so be it. He/she worked smart to get there, its one's right.
Paris Hilton became rich because of her father. Who did work smart, now he chose to pass his wealth onto Paris, there's nothing wrong there.
Now if you've kept up with technology, you'd know that Boeing and Airbus have become more competitve in producing energy efficient and green planes. Billionares buying these planes will increase demand and further research. Also, using "indirect" as a rebuttal is too broad to be counted. Especially in the way you've used it.
So you're saying that in order to live a good life in your ideal system, my objective must not be to work hard or to contribute something, but to have rich parents?
On the subject of green tech, the privatist market economy is the very thing standing in the way of more rapid development. In an economic democracy, a macroeconomic decision could be made to simply stop destroying the planet full stop
What you advocate is just trying to coax and cajole the rich into doing the right thing
@2013branth Pollution is what economists call an externality. Say, for instance, having to inhale another's exhaust or second-hand smoke is just as deleterious as more overt forms of force.
...I'm sure you are aware of the cluster-fuck that is agricultural trade and subsidies. Right now the EU and USA subsidize large corporate farms, the excess of which is dumped into markets of 3rd world countries which, supposedly, have a chronic hunger problem. This free food prices local farmers out of the market and, unwittingly, bolsters 3rd world dictators.
Free trade would allow individuals, without coercion, to invest resources in the 3rd world and shift business away from big-agro
[cont] wrought by competitive firms - especially of a large scale. This is most often a problem when it come to the environment.
In this doc, Norberg NEVER discusses any alternatives to the usual false dichotomy of statism vs. privatism.
What about instead of relying on multinational corporations to do everything for the developing world initiate more cooperatives, municipalization, a systems of commons?
"This is most often a problem when it come to the environment."
And this is why governments enact certain regulations when public goods cannot be privatized (and in most cases they can). This is, at best, a problem for market anarchism. I explicitly reject market anarchism, but there's certainly a large gulf between the tragedy of the commons and abolishing all capitalism.
When there exists a structural problem, we should get rid of it - not merely try to deal with it.
Which is why economic democracy makes the most sense for accounting for the social and ecological effects of economic decisions taken in production consumption and allocation.
"When there exists a structural problem, we should get rid of it"
with what? This "structure" is what humans simply have come to in the course of history.
"economic democracy makes the most sense for accounting..."
Once again, in a community of hundreds of millions, one can't rely on the popular vote to make decisions about allocating resources when so many people are isolated from the effects of those decisions.
"with what? This "structure" is what humans simply have come to in the course of history."
With an alternative structure. Not the vacuum of structure.
"in a community of hundreds of millions, one can't rely on the popular vote to make decisions about allocating resources when so many people are isolated from the effects of those decisions. "
It can and has been done through a system with local affairs handled in local assemblies and macro affairs by confederal councils.
There is the Voluntary Class vs. the Coercive, Criminal Class.
The Criminal Class like 'MsSexySocialist' Rachel want to coerce, rob and/or murder anyone that does not do what they want.
She goes into conniption fits at the mere thought of interacting voluntarily. If I grow a pineapple tree and do not allow her to steal it she just wants to murder me and steal it anyway. She wants to coerce, rob and/or murder anyone that does not do what she wants: she is a bare example of the Criminal Class.
I loooove Taiwan!!
spencerqify 1 month ago
FUCK NEW WORLD ORDER...no more turning the other cheek while the rich get richer and do what the hell they want, BRING DOWN THE HOUSE OF ROTHSCHILD...infowars.com
Soldier1B 1 month ago
jeeze guys, lets turn it down a notch, shall we? no need to start world war 3 over a comment list!!!!!!!
Globalisation has both its good and bad points, and we all have our opinions on it. Personally, I more or less completely agree with the video, but we all have our own opinions. Lets just call it a day and stop arguing, shall we???????
DANjonesRADIO 1 month ago
If you can't see the biased, uninformed elements in this documentary, I question what level of education you have. His implication that global capitalism is the savior of all humanity is a lie. There is no "one size fits all" type of system and I could respect the West more if they quit pretending like imperialism, slavery, exploitation and various other atrocities didn't contribute to the booming of their economies. (-_-) He's damn Swedish and their economy isn't even "capitalist", it's mixed.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
@DivinelyMochaDipped I live in Sweden, and our system is in a kind of way more capitalistic than in for example USA. Small businesses have easy to start up due to lack of huge burocriacy and the tax is equal on all the companies, in USA on the other hand banks and big companies can lobby with the legislators to get lower taxrates. Banks doesnt get bailouts in Sweden.
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94
i did not say your economy does not have capitalist principles, i said it is not in its entirety a capitalist system. and u r absolutely right, ya'll are more capitalist than the u.s. so in canada and switzerland who both have socialized medicine and other socialist elements/public programs as well. u just reiterate my point, laisse faire capitalism is none existent in the West. there are principles of more than 1 system in these economies.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
haha I love the translator. The kenyan could be talking about how much of a bad state he's in but the translator could say that he's saying globalisation is helping his business out
ProfCantonius 1 month ago
I just don't understand how you can still be anti-globalist when the PEOPLE THEMSELVES WHO LIVE IN THESE COUNTRIES confess the benefits of it...
This is some kind of brainwashed religion. These people need to be shot because they're preventing the progress of struggling nations all over the world.
Spjungen 1 month ago
@Spjungen
Because they totally asked and received opinions from the majority of the population and not just a few select individuals. (-_-) I assume you are not a socio- or anthropologist.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
Capitalism and free trade are the most harmonious, beautiful, and intricately complex system ever witnessed by man.
The phenomenon is that it's not a result of one organization doing something, but many organizations and groups of people working and competing, ultimately improving the lives of everyone.
That's the beauty of it...it puts people in charge, and not one organization: the government.
Spjungen 1 month ago
The day people learn to embrace capitalism and free enterprise in all its regards...is the day this world will become a much better place for humankind, at a faster rate than it ever has in history.
Spjungen 1 month ago
i know nothing i can say here will influence anyone to actually study the subject in depth, i've been forced to do so as part of my degree program, but wouldn't have myself otherwise. Let me just say that as someone who knows what i'm talking about - this documentary scares me.
iliketha 1 month ago
@iliketh It's okay. Some people's minds simply aren't capable of understanding the harmonious beauty and complex intricacy of the free market.
Of course it's because of them and idiots like you that we still have poverty, and that Africa is poor. Hong Kong and Shanghai used to be like Africa.
Now look at them.
The results are there, you're just too ignorant and stupid and scared to acknowledge them.
Spjungen 1 month ago
@Spjungen i understand all too well that 80% of the consumer products we buy are manufactured abroad. What you don't seem to realise is someone always has to lose in a free market global economy. Most people in the west drink coffee, people work in the 3rd world 12 hours a day in the sun to grow it. You talk on a phone, people in the 3rd world work 12 hours a day mining for the rare earths required to create it. See where i'm going with this?
iliketha 1 month ago 2
@iliketha The people who works in the mines arent made to do it. If they think that isnt worth it, they can go back to farming crops instead. Free markets doesnt force anyone to work, that is what a FREE market is all about.
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94 mate even in the US and Britain, people ARE forced to work in jobs they hate to survive, there's no choice in it for many people, in parts of Africa you can't imagine the way life works, mine and get a handful of rice and live or don't and starve, that sound like freedom to you? the fact that you are so naive about this shows me that you've never been working class in any country let alone in the 3rd world and can't possibly understand what it's like to have no options
iliketha 1 month ago
@iliketha When people get forced to work, it simply isnt a free market anymore. In a free-market, people can allways in the worst case for example go out to the shore, fish some and sell the fish. Go out to the woods, farm some crops and sell them. For that money they can exapand their business, buy maybe a better fishing pole or start a company which does things that he/she likes to do. Forcing people to work somewhere is called slavery...
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@iliketha My parents and my grandparents understood very good what it meant to be in the workingclass. If i go back far enough, they were even farmers that owned their land, selling their goods and making a living. In a kindofway, they were even waaay more capitalistic than me, becouse of owning the land, selling the goods for exactly the price they wanted.
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94 the fact that you think people who own a farm could be understood as working class shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the term. Yes they work hard, but they could never be understood as working class - WC are ppl who can't afford to own their own houses, let alone land for a farm, their pay cheques go towards rent and basic utilities as no-one will loan them enough for a mortgage, they have little education and so no access to jobs above min wage, no time or money to train
iliketha 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94 again i'm talking about the west here! the 3rd world is immeasurably worse - even if you were lucky enough to have land to grow crops, you're at the mercy of the weather an likely to die if there is drought
iliketha 1 month ago
@iliketha The big reason is often that the governent is owning the land, not making it worth for the people to grow crops and such. One example of where this was Taiwan where the governent handed out land to the people so they could own the land they grew crops on. In Sweden at the beginning of the 19-th century we had a big famine which killed hundreds of thousands of people, but we didnt get any contributions or help by other countries at all, and look where we are today.
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94 1: the big reason for what? 2: one example of what? 3: famine in Sweden in 1800s, but by 2012 they are fine - and this proves that poor African nations are being held back by foreign aid? Do you realise how dumb it is to compare the two situations? African nations experience draught because of climate change caused by the industrial revolution - hardly the same as a single period of famine in the 1800s. Secondly foreign aid is an insignificant spec in the ocean of 3rd world debt -
iliketha 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94 you talk as if money is flowing from the first world to the 3rd world, this couldn't be further from the truth, the poorest nations on earth pay $100 million dollars every day to the richest in debt repayments, compared to that foreign aid is laughable, does this sound like the situation in sweden in the 1800s???
iliketha 1 month ago
@Spjungen for you to have all this great stuff, other people have to be subjugated. In order for you to be "rich" others have to be poor! if everyone was rich, there would be no-one to work 12 hours per day to grow your coffee, or mine, or manufacture or countless other things. You bring up Hong Kong and Shanghai, yes they are rich but at the expense of others, 100% of the world can never be rich in this system. Why would i be scared? surely if i thought neo-liberal globalization was -
iliketha 1 month ago 2
@Spjungen working, i'd just be happy as that's what's going on. Also to call me ignorant for having a different opinion when you clearly don't know any of the things i just told you is arrogant. But you're not ignorant for not knowing, we aren't born knowing this stuff, but you shouldn't really be taking part in this debate until you do more research. I noticed you said in another post, that ppl who hold anti-capitalist views must be brainwashed -
iliketha 1 month ago
Comment removed
iliketha 1 month ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@Spjungen but who would benefit from such brainwashing, who would want ppl to falsely believe that capitalism isn't perfect when it is? You live in a capitalist society and are proclaiming the wonders of capitalism (despite not having done any serious research on the issue) so don't you think you ought to engage in some self -examination?
iliketha 1 month ago
@Spjungen
The only one who is brainwashed and ignorant is u. This guy is swedish. Their economy isn't even capitalist. Nordic countries have mixed economies/strong welfare states. Hong Kong is capitalist but in recent years have moved in a direction w/ more gov regulations as well (min. wage/anti-discrimination laws, corp export tax etc.) My anthropology professor (PH.D) himself (as our entire class) concluded that this doc is extremely 1-sided & biased. any1 minimally educated can see this.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
@DivinelyMochaDipped If you say that the Swedish economy isnt very capitalistic then im not sure that you even know what capitalism is. Anyone in Sweden is free to start which buisness he or she pleases and there isnt much interferrance by the government. Compared to USA, Sweden wastes half the money per capita on healthcare so the welfare state isnt that big actually. Its mostly about getting people back to work quickly.
Denutvalde94 1 month ago
@Denutvalde94
were you born in '94?
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
@DivinelyMochaDipped You're an idiot. Please learn to write correctly, first. Second, Sweden is a lot less socialist than you might think, and from what I've read it's in fact the "nordic model" that RUINED their economy. It's only when they turned away from it that all their great companies like sony ericsson or volvo were able to thrive. I'm not surprised.
I don't care about your "professor," most of academia is extremely anti-market so I know not to trust them anyway.
Spjungen 1 month ago
@DivinelyMochaDipped Finally, just because Hong Kong has "recentlee moovd ina direkshin w/moar guv regs" doesn't mean they did the right thing, or that they'll prosper with it. And frankly I've not read of such a thing so I'm not even going to listen. They've been free market for about 50 years now and owe their success and prosperity to it.
I don't see them changing anytime soon.
They're the last shining paragon of prosperity while the west continues to strangle itself.
Spjungen 1 month ago
@Spjungen
Hong Kong's too small to be relevant to macroeconomics.
FuchsiaFF00FF 3 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF You're joking right? Economic logic does not change depending on the size of a geographical area!
AussieAustrianBlog 3 weeks ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
Yes it does. A small area with no real production can't be applied to a huge industrial capital. If it did, the only industry in the entire world would be tourism, taking after Dubai.
FuchsiaFF00FF 3 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF So the laws of Supply and Demand do not apply in Dubai? Does the law of Comparative Advantage or Opportunity Cost also not apply in Dubai??
AussieAustrianBlog 2 weeks ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
They do, but it can't be used as a model for the US. They're small and are rich from oil. We're neither of those things.
Besides, Dubai is a constitutional monarchy. They have a centrally planned government. They're hardly an example of free-market capitalism succeeding.
FuchsiaFF00FF 2 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF I am really confused now. Can you please clarify your point in the context of our discussion? I am simply saying that economic laws and logic apply to all economies, regardless if they are made up of 1000 people or 1 million, no matter what their resources.
AussieAustrianBlog 2 weeks ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
And I don't agree with that. Hong Kong can be an economic center, but the US needs production. Laissez-faire capitalism draws banking traffic, but you only need that in one city. That's why China has great production and Hong Kong has none.
I don't like China either, BTW.
FuchsiaFF00FF 2 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF I am still confused. Explain why the laws of supply and demand do/do not apply to Dubai, U.S., China and Hong Kong? Why does/does not comparative advantage apply to these countries? How does geographic size, resources, population validate or invalidate these economic laws. Which countries in the world do not face scarcity?
AussieAustrianBlog 2 weeks ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
They all face scarcity. The difference is that Hong Kong is a city. It doesn't have the infrastructure and industry of a country. Their lack of regulation helps draw business traffic, but it isn't clear to me lack of regulation would help increase production even if it makes Hong Kong rich.
FuchsiaFF00FF 2 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF My point is correct then. Economic logic applies to all kinds of places. I think what you are debating is the mix of industry etc. Less regulation does help increase production, obviously this will be more more pronounced in heavy industry based economies. Less regulation/government intervention increases burdens and expenses on business which would otherwise go towards increasing productivity. Hong Kong is rich largely due to free trade and limited government intervention
AussieAustrianBlog 2 weeks ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
Laissez-faire capitalism in Hong Kong can draw economic traffic there. A country like the US could not function with just economic traffic. They're rich due to free trade, but the entire world cannot be a banking center.
FuchsiaFF00FF 2 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF What has banking centres got to do with anything? I really don't understand your points. All countries are better off with free trade and free markets as economics does not change depending on geography, population etc. 250 years ago, most of the world lived in relative poverty, now much more of the world is living out of poverty. Absent government interventions, this should continue.
AussieAustrianBlog 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog do you not think than if the world was in a complete free market, rid of the imf/world bank and all government intervention, people would do anything to get one up on their competitors? How could you have workers rights and genuine financial security without social contract backing of the state? Surely the politics of it would undermine the economics?
Andrew920917 1 week ago
@Andrew920917 Why wouldn't their be competition? There would be more competition as big business, interest groups etc could not collude with government, granting special privileges and regulations that protect them from competition. That is the current sad state of affairs. We do not have financial security now, i.e. baby boomers, thanks to the state - not the free market! Politics currently undermines economics. What rights do workers have? Individuals have rights. Not this group or that group.
AussieAustrianBlog 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog No, i meant the opposite. Competition would become so extreme without government intervention that people would do anything to control the market share. What you'd eventually get is one business emerging dominant and getting a monopoly. Surely you need the government as a fair regulator to make sure small business doesn't get bowled over by big companies unfairly. And workers do have rights - minimum wage, health and safety acts, maternity leave, equality laws
Andrew920917 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog IF you look at the US markets in the 1800's which were built on the free market "non intervention" principles, you had very big companies like Carnegie and Pullman which literally dominated everything. They owned entire towns and it was only through eventual government support of unions that their monopolies were broken up.
Andrew920917 1 week ago
@Andrew920917 Monopoly can only exsist through government intervention. If you refer to something like standard oil, you'll fine they constitently delivered cheaper and better oil then their competitors and then their competitors lobbied for regulations, distorting the price. Same with railroads, all were subsidized by government and were non profitable except that one in the north, and they lobbied for government regulations so that the northern railroad wouldnt under cut their prices, hurting
astreocclu 1 week ago
@astreocclu thats true, but surely a monopoly can also easily result without any regulation. a dominant business in a market can massively control and without regulation, is free to use undercut pricing to eliminate competitors. Maybe government regulation is too much of a loosely defined term.
Andrew920917 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
Also, if we're saying a single successful country should be the standard for the rest of the world, explain Sweden.
FuchsiaFF00FF 2 weeks ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF Sweden an example of success?? You have a very different definition of "success" to mine. Sweden is far from a model country for others to follow.
AussieAustrianBlog 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
I'd say it's as good as Hong Kong.
FuchsiaFF00FF 1 week ago
@FuchsiaFF00FF You are living in a fantasy world. Study Sweden, that is my only advice.
AussieAustrianBlog 1 week ago
@AussieAustrianBlog
Study Hong Kong. That is my advice.
FuchsiaFF00FF 1 week ago
@iliketha
Same here, I'm a sociology major and anthropology is on my degree plan. my professor showed us this. The very point in him showing us this, though, was to show us an extremely one-sided/ biased view with falsified information. idk if the guy who did this doc is just flat out ignorant or manipulative but he is NOT an anthropologist.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
i've bn snowed under with research over the last few weeks, i came across this documentary, i watched the first few minutes and whilst i laughed at first - i am actually quite concerned that these views are so widely disseminated and taken seriously by "ordinary ppl". This man does not know what he is talking about, he uses neo-liberalisation and globalisation interchangeably! to conflate the two concepts is dangerous and irresponsible! seriously ppl, this is just... i don't even...
iliketha 1 month ago
@iliketha Can't process it, I know.
It's okay.
Not every mind is capable of understanding the beauty and complex intricacy of the free market.
Spjungen 1 month ago
Globalization does not eradicate poverty totally. So far, nothing has ended poverty completely just look at US and EU right now, but it can alleviate large mumbers of poverty cases.
Also, not every counrty that benefits from globalizatioin turns democratic China is a prime example of that, however it usually does lead to greater consideratiosn of rights for people or in the least the easing of extremely brutal government restrictions.
cecillbill 2 months ago
What an amazing documentary.
GreggyColbeckski 2 months ago
There is no denying globalization can be used for good, but so far I see powers abusing it. Just because a few countries have benefited doesn't mean that the whole world will.
Y0unis 3 months ago
@Y0unis The only places there is abuse are where there is a government to corrupt.
Spjungen 1 month ago
this is a beautiful documentary,i used to be anti capitalist as a kid and was brainwashed by anti capitalist media and idiots like michael moore,then i started studying economics,i studied entrepnuership in high school and met real entreprenuers and workers,noticed how capitalism worked for my country.
my advice to people is do your own research and study economics before blaming capitalism.
you may argue capitalism caused the recession in the US,it was because of corrupt policies
thenvdude 3 months ago
Capitalism!!
gibsonepi 3 months ago
@MrSmackdown100 I actually think he is very right and that the countries would be worse without globalization.
gibsonepi 3 months ago
First World countries need to start from somewhere, and if it takes cheap goods production or sweatshops then that is fine by me. Socialism can only go so far before Capitalism has to kick in. Sentient beings disserve equal rights, but skill wise they are not. You will have always have a concentration of wealth no matter what economic system you have. And the wealth doesn't have to be in money.
2013branth 3 months ago
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@2013branth
Socialism can only go so far before Capitalism has to kick in<---That's ironic seeing as capitalism predates socialism. Everywhere there has been capitalism, socialism followed. (-_-) Keep in mind that there is no society with a full-blown laisse-faire capitalist economy. All of these former laisse faire nations in the West now have socialist elements, especially in Western Europe which is where capitalism first began.
DivinelyMochaDipped 1 month ago
If you ate until you were full yesterday, you are the 1%. If you have braces, you are the 1%. If you are reading this, YOU ARE THE 1%
MrHamncheez 4 months ago 2
@MrHamncheez 1% of the worlds population is 60 million there are more than 60 million people who have access to youtube
sheikhooo07 3 months ago
@qwertypoiu4321 I want to make it clear that I having nothing against you personally. Yet having said as much, and whether you realize it or not, these ideas are internally contradictory and have done our society grievous harm. So a word of reproof is in order: words and the ideas to which they refer have little meaning in a vacuum. You have to examine real-world cases. (Of course, MSS has done an apt job of pointing this out and of rebutting your argument pretty thoroughly)
earthshine2Y 4 months ago
@earthshine2Y Imagine, for instance, that at some future time a group of private firms own the most of the planet's water supply (the company Bechtel did this in the Bolivia in 1999 and water prices rose over 50% and people could not afford to drink. So much for the price mechanism controlling costs). The firms bring the water to market and inevitably some people will no longer be able to afford to drink. My question to you is this: the water is the property of the firms.
earthshine2Y 4 months ago
I look down at the comments section, I have no idea what is going on....
2013branth 4 months ago
@2013branth 'mssexysocialist' is a violent, coercive person; I believe all interaction should be consensual and voluntary.
That is what is going on.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
@2013branth
What's going on is this NWO conspiracy theorist called qwertypoi4321 wants to violently overthrow the government and then sell off all the powers of the state to corporations - effectively establishing a corporate oligarchy in place of democracy.
He claims "all democracy is coercive mob-rule statism". And that anyone who disagrees with him is a "criminal" and worthy of being violently murdered by him and his "voluntary class"; with whom he wants to wage violent war against democracy.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
lol, there it is; bring up consent with a violent person and they flip:
'Everything consensual! The dollar store will take over the world! You believe in consent?!? That is Plutocracy! Violent submission to my 'ownership' is voluntary! Submit to my 'ownership' or else!'
Ochlocracy=Violent Mob Rule Submission (Prop 8). Violent mob referendum is not consent by definition, do you get that?
Demanding people submit to be 'under' your violent 'ownership' speaks for itself: you are a violent person.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
lol, the fact you are basically quoting Stalin and Mao as the foundation of your violently coercive worldview really irked you.
Stalin: "the [...] social ownership of the means of production has been established in our country,"
Mao: "the socialist economy [...] where the means of production are owned by the whole people"
Rachel: "The means of production [...] are under common ownership"
Throwing tantrum fits will not change this fact.
All interaction should be consensual, period.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
@qwertypoiu4321
"All interaction should be consensual, period."
Which I already made clear to you is impossible living in the world you idealize. Sorry to inform you of this but most people don't like the idea of their lives being controlled by an owning class in place of the existing state.
You decry the very idea of "statism" yet you have no objections to what the state actually does, merely that it's the state that does it.
A state owning land? EVIL!
A corporation owning land? FREEDOM!
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@qwertypoiu4321 (2)
[cntd]
I actually agree that referendum is not consent. It's also not democracy - it's majoritarianism. Real democracy requires consensus; as I made clear to you numerous times but which you simply choose to ignore.
Also, give the "under"(!) and "ownership"(!) schtick a rest. You sound like that lunatic Glenn Beck writing words on a chalkboard then picking them apart to mean whatever silly thing you want them too.
You defeat your own argument with this sematic nonsense.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@MsSexySocalist lol, violent people like yourself just can not comprehend consent:
'Consent! That is slavery! Plutocracy! Submit to be 'under' my 'ownership' or I will get out the club! Submission to my violent 'ownership' is voluntary! Do not use my quote! Consent is enslavement! Slavery is voluntary!'
I know you hate actual quotes and definitions, but you stomping your feet will change none of them.
Democracy (Merriam-Webster): 1a. government by the people; especially: rule of the majority.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
Majority (Merriam-Webster): 3a. a number or percentage equaling more than half of a total.
Ochlocracy (Merriam-Webster): government by the mob : mob rule.
They will submit to be 'under' your 'ownership' or else you will blow their brains out: you are a *violent* person by your own tyrannical, Stalinist *quotes*.
It is amazing how unhinged and raving violent people like yourself get at the mere mention of consent.
All interaction should be consensual, period.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
Anyone have French subtitles for this video? It is not for me, THX
marco77600 4 months ago
If anyone Have a Version with French Subtitles, It would be gift of god!! As I am trying to educate people (as well as my friend and family) here in France where there is a lot of people against globalization. Please just send me a message
marco77600 4 months ago
just have to watch this because of my tutor stronger recommend ! i don't know why simply just some words can list this out but always use a huge and difficult book to expound! suck IB!!!!!
MilaChen726 5 months ago in playlist MilaChen726's favorites
@MsSexySocialist Sorry Miss, Cold War is over. Read up on Ludwig von Mises (anything he has written will do) and Mancur Olson's Logic of Collective Action to understand why direct participatory democracy is impossibly inefficient and its alternative central planning is a disaster waiting to happen. No property=no markets=no prices=no information. This "running blind" makes Socialism the undoubted leader for worldwide deaths in the last century and much of its continuing poverty.
some1new1221221 5 months ago
And when in Africa presents the complex problems in ludicrously simplistic terms of statism versus privatism.
Despite the myriad of other solutions that would offer people economic self-determination, municipalization, cooperatization, mutualization, and collectivization are never even mentioned.
Why? Because they don't fit into Norberg's black and white virtuous capitalism versus evil statism argument.
The whole documentary isn't so much a straw man as an 80-foot tall wicker man.
MsSexySocialist 9 months ago
@MsSexySocialist The common scene in '3rd world' countries is people rejoicing whenever a MNC comes in to provide better employment (otherwise nobody would be hired) while ivory tower intellectuals despair. I live in a '3rd world' country. Nothing improves the lot of the ordinary man more than foreign capital investment. All the 'alternatives' you offer are just another brand of Statism. It's either consumers decide or politicians. It's that simple.
truevoice08 8 months ago
@truevoice08 What absolute nonsense - noticebly unsupported by even a shred of evidence..
How exactly is having a business directly owned and run by the people who work in it in any way, shape or form relatable to statism? Such as set-up is in fact more anti-statist than anti-privatist as it operates asserting that neither bosses nor politicians have a right to tell people how to run their lives in economic terms.
Corporate economic colonialism breeds nothing but serfdom in the name of capital.
MsSexySocialist 8 months ago
@MsSexySocialist Do employers tell employees how to live their lives? I think not. The relationship between the employer and the employee is only that designated in the employment contract (which requires the consent of the employee to be valid). Worker-run factories are COMPATIBLE with capitalism. The workers are free to do a mass quit and invest their collective savings into a business. In that sense, workers should indeed own the capital goods they work on.
truevoice08 8 months ago
@truevoice08
But it is not a real choice when anyone is forced by destitution to work in a sweatshop for a multinational corporation when the alternative is to toil in the fields until probable starvation.
The choice is completely illusory without equality of opportunity.
MsSexySocialist 8 months ago
@MsSexySocialist First of all, your exaggerating. Sweatshop workers get paid little but stuff in their country is also very cheap. And yes they toil in the fields w/o MNCs but isn't that an argument IN FAVOR of MNCs going there and facilitating productive use of labor (which inevitably raises wages)? Regarding equality of opportunity, there ain't no such thing. You westerners don't understand the historical context in poorer countries so don't try to sic socialism on us.
truevoice08 8 months ago
@truevoice08 That would be an argument in favor of MNCs if the actually demanded that the private sweatshops they outsource to paid their employees a living wage. This would facilitate the emergence of a powerful new force of consumers who could start up their own domestic businesses which could raise the standard of living and increase growth without the economic colonialism perpetuated by MNCs.
But they won't.
Why? Because oligopolies can't allow their business to be taken away by competition.
MsSexySocialist 8 months ago
@MsSexySocialist MNCs pay higher wages compared to alternative domestic employment. "Because oligopolies can't allow their business to be taken away by competition." But that's not capitalism, that's protectionism.
truevoice08 8 months ago
@truevoice08
The whole reason Multinationals exist in the first place is because of protectionism and state subsidization.
The United States and the British Empire became two of the wealthiest nations on earth back in the 19th century because they were two of the most protectionist economies in the world.
If protectionism is "not capitalism" then capitalism has never existed - except perhaps in the minds of rich and middle-class fools who hate working people.
MsSexySocialist 8 months ago
@MsSexySocialist "The United States and the British Empire became two of the wealthiest nations on earth back in the 19th century because they were two of the most protectionist economies in the world." North Korea doesn't do foreign trade. Protectionism doesn't work. The fact that multinationals try to get State support is not even relevant since there is no way to know market structures sans interventionism (calculation problem, von Mises). The point is that MNCs RAISE THE STANDARD OF LIVING.
truevoice08 7 months ago
@truevoice08
Von Mises was wrong about just about everything - which is why neither he, nor the Austrian school as a whole, are taken seriously in mainstream economic debates.
You also here display a clear ignorance of even basic macro-economics by stupidly equating state-capitalist protectionism with the state-corporatist central planning of DPRK.
The fact MNCs get state support is the entire issue at hand: state support aids in the creation of monopolies and perpetuates economic feudalism.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist It's a pretty big claim to say that von Mises was wrong especially when the Austrian school has been proven right over and over again, especially since the recession of 2008. My whole argument is that MNCs have raised the standard of living DESPITE the various protectionist measures. If we remove protectionism then there would be more capital investment and hence even higher wages. I don't get what you're advocating here. Do you want full protectionism so that MNCs go away?
truevoice08 7 months ago
@truevoice08
No.
What I would advocate is the complete dissolution of the state and private ownership of the means of production (productive property) to be replaced with a system of decentralized confederalism based on direct participatory democracy - placing political and economic decision-making directly in the hands of those affected by them.
I disagree vehemently with the false polarity of statism versus privatism.
With each of these, power is never dissolved; just moved around and around.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist Your concern is with what you perceive as power inequality between the haves and have nots. I respect that. But you need to study (Austrian) economics. The first response to your position would be to say "How will this be enforced? What if I don't want to join a democracy?". You have no benchmark. Insofar as we have a spatiotemporal coordination process that supports 6B people, we have a market economy. I merely want to remove the restrictions to that system to make it better.
truevoice08 7 months ago
@truevoice08 (1/2)
I have studied Austrian school economics. While I can appreciate its principles of decentralism and bottom-up approach to seeing the economy, I come to very different conclusions about what the solutions are to economic problems.
To answer your question, it ISN'T enforced if you choose not to abide by it and simply opt out.
Free and voluntary association doesn't operate diktat or coercion but by mutual agreement and decision-making via consensus.
(continued)
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@truevoice08 (2/2)
As I see it, a fair and equatable future economy needs to balance the need for the pursuit of enlightened self-interest with a concern for general well-being, ecology, solidarity, and the economic self-determination of each actor.
To my mind, even with a completely free and open market without corporate monopolies, there still exists a perpetuation of hierarchy and domination by the retaining of wage labor and splitting economic actors into a producer and appropriator class.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist You seem to view laborers working for capitalists as unjust and this is a major part of the reason why you need to learn economics. Even today, workers are free to do a mass quit and invest their collective savings in a business. Why don't they? Answer: TIME PREFERENCE. Labor would have to absorb possible losses in such an endeavor. Employment means security. Scientists get paid because venture capitalists take risk and are willing to wait ten years for the new tech to sell.
truevoice08 7 months ago
@truevoice08 I have a degree in political science for your information. Don't think you can talk down to me and tell me I need to learn economics.
This ability to "mass quit" you talk about is a stupid fantasy
I find it hard to believe that people in a state of destitution who are compelled by economic disadvantage to work for a company feel secure in staging a mass walkout and pooling what little money they all have together in some futile attempt to start their own company
A rich child's dream
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist I'm not talking you down Miss, I'm just speaking my mind. I'm disappointed that you resorted to using extreme scenarios of people starving to death if they don't work for corporations. I thought you better than that. The 'poor' in America today are part of the 20% richest in the world, are obese and have more comforts than 18th century kings. In Philippines, the poor are much poorer but most of them are far from starving.
truevoice08 7 months ago
@truevoice08 Sorry, forgot to respond for a while.
No, what I'm describing is a worst case scenario but the same criteria still applies.
Any system that involves inherent economic hierarchy is going to be a system of coercion and domination rather than free association. Until economic feudalism is replaced with economic democracy, society will always be the shadow cast on it by big business.
End of story.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist I don't like words like economic feudalism and economic democracy. For me, it's either a voluntary association or coercive one. I see that you oppose any form of inequality, whether natural or artificial. With that being the case we will just have to agree to disagree. There exists radical heterogeneity in skills and traits among men that will translate into economic disparities. That doesn't bother me at all since markets facilitate this inequality towards cooperation.
truevoice08 7 months ago
He claims sweatshop labor is some sort of necessary stage in achieving greater economic abundance - effectively justifying a modern-day form of slavery.
The "success stories" he presents are all rich elites with vast wealth and power. No presentation at all is given to ordinary working people and how their lives are affected.
He writes off the very notion that the enormous size of multinationals is a problem, despite their perpetuation of monopoly and economic colonialism
(Cont)
MsSexySocialist 9 months ago
@MsSexySocialist "effectively justifying a modern-day form of slavery."
Read any book by Harriet Jacobs or Frederick Douglass. By likening the low-wages of 3rd world workers to slavery insults actual slaves and trivializes their suffering.
If Norberg is correct, that sweatshops are a necessary means to building a first world economy, then we have justified them because the good of the ends (1st world economy) greatly outweigh the bad of the means (sweatshop labor)
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Slavery came in many forms. And standards of living and work improved for slaves as time went on. That didn't make the institution itself any less monstrous.
On your actual point, Norberg is NOT correct in his false assessment that sweatshops are the only way to build a first world economy.
It's an assessment he makes based on deliberate false dichotomies and straw man arguments directed at supporters of alter-globalization - whom he falsely identifies as ANTI-globalization.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
"Slavery came in many forms. And standards of living and work improved for slaves as time went on"
Read any history of colonial america or the atlantic slave trade. the conditions for slaves got slightly better after the english took over the transatlantic trade, but here in America especially the conditions became worse and worse. Hint hint, your slave or free status didn't depend on the status of your mother from perpetuity, it was enacted by colonial legislatures.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
"On your actual point, Norberg is NOT correct in his false assessment that sweatshops are the only way to build a first world economy."
I dont think anyone here is saying that they're the "only" way to develop a first world economy, Smith himself laid out many more conditions for successful development.
To your point however, the empirical evidence demonstrates that sweatshops and child labor really are necessary for economic development.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
...every first world nation in the world, The United States, South Korea, Japan, even Johan Norberg's home Sweden, had child labor and sweatshops in its industrialization periods. The reason for this is pretty simple: adult workers by themselves are not productive enough to support their families by themselves in the early industrial period. As there is more capital investment and education, they become more productive and, usually within a generation, children stop working.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
Now finally, you're correct to say that Johan Norberg doesn't quite conclusively prove that the globalization scheme we have now is the best of all possible worlds, but it is demonstrably better than the vast majority of given alternatives (fair trade, protectionism, etc.)
Your economic system in the comments here looks like some anarcho-syndicalism. The idea of abolishing capitalist-ownership of capital and giving it to workers is appealing on face value, but one huge...
migkillertwo 4 months ago
...problem quickly arises: if workers own the plant, how will they get paid now, before the products of their labor reach the market and are sold?
certainly they will make more in the end, but money to be spent right now is far more valuable than money that will be earned much later. Furthermore, workers will have to take on the risk if they own the plant, rather than in the most popular mode of production, where they take on very little risk and the capitalist suffers the risk.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo [cont]
Or first one then the other; as anarcho-communism presupposes a post-scarcity society.
What you ask in your question does not apply as both systems operate without a medium of exchange (money). Anarcho-collectivism replaces it with a system of labor vouchers and an artificial market, while anarcho-communism abolishes all forms of remuneration in favor of universal free access and a gift economy - like I said, it presupposes post-scarcity.
In neither case is "risk" a factor.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"Or first one then the other; as anarcho-communism presupposes a post-scarcity society."
"abolishes all forms of remuneration in favor of universal free access"
"both systems operate without a medium of exchange"
Thanks for making my job a million times easier. If both anarchist systems presuppose these ideas, post-scarcity, no currency, then we've discovered the sheer absurdity of anarcho-communism. There's a big, big reason why currency arose independently in mesopotamia and mesoamerica
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Independently of what?
Many things arose and caught on in ancient human civilization. That didn't mean they were good things; or things we couldn't do without in the future in the wake of better alternatives.
Additionally why do you think either (although I have disagreements with both) would not include specialization?
And both of these systems do NOT presuppose free access - only the latter.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"independently of what?"
Of eachother.
"That didn't mean they were good things"
It meant that they were inevitable.
"would not include specialization"
If we had to barter (face it, anything besides currency, and "work vouchers" are currency), we would have far, FAR fewer choices on what, where, how, and with whom to trade. That's the big reason why isolated societies still used currency.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Slavery, misogyny, religion, homophobia, war, and imperialism all arose independently of each other in different societies and were "inevitable" in this way too Is that an argument for any of those unsavory things?
And your remark re: specialization displays a clear lack of understanding on the subject. I do not advocate a free access economy but it is not based upon barter - it is based upon production-for-use based on democratically determined plans
Though again, I dont favor it
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
Notice I never said "inevitable=good", or that natural=good. I'm aware of the naturalistic fallacy and the is-ought gap, perhaps you should remember it.
And I would say, 10 times out of 10, that those phenomena you point to really were inevitable, and that it really was a mitigating circumstance.
"I don't favor it"
You don't favor communism or you don't favor division of labor?
"Democratically determined plans"
So democracy is a value for you. Good. Then we need freely-fluctuating...
migkillertwo 4 months ago
...prices of goods and services to get a truly democratic economy. Prices, I'm sure you know, reflect the consensus of the competing producer and consumer classes.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo (1)
"Notice I never said inevitable=good"
But that did seem to be your argument in favor of a money-based economy.
I do agree that they were inevitable, and perhaps necessary evils in the development of human civilization, but all of these should of course be done away with in a rational society.
"You don't favor communism or you don't favor division of labor?"
I don't favor either anarcho-collectivism or (in that case mentioned) anarcho-communism. Each for different reasons [cont]
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"But that did seem to be your argument in favor of a money-based economy."
I would not call markets "money-based", that's very ambiguous. I guess we can use "currency-as-an-institution" to be more precise. Anyway, my argument for currency as institution is simple: it makes us materially better off by allowing a highly specialized division of labor across communities.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo (2)
"So democracy is a value for you. Good."
Of course. Although I can't see why you would be in favor of it. Democracy is antithetical to your right-libertarian political beliefs (I've watched some of your videos).
"Then we need freely-fluctuating prices of goods and services to get a truly democratic economy"
Not at all. What we need is self-management in every firm and directly-democratic allocation of all productive resources.
[cont]
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"I can't see why you would be in favor of it"
I'm flattered that you actually took the time to watch my videos. However I have largely changed my political beliefs in the past year. I think "neoconservative" is the best label for my political philosophy.
"overemphasizes microeconomic consumption over macroeconomic wants and needs"
I reject this notion that macroeconomic wants and needs are different than microeconomic consumption. Further, I would not call...
migkillertwo 4 months ago
(cont.) luxury resources "useless", and to tell people what they should and should not buy is deeply anti-democratic.
The only empirical evidence I think one could cite is the fact that people around the world are starving while some people live in luxury. a simple redistribution, in theory, could alleviate the problem of hunger.
Of course unliteral free trade between the developing world and the west would eliminate hunger within a generation...
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo (A)
I agree with you on the issue of state subsidization of corporations.
But I go further in seeing no reason for corporations to even exist. They are essentially private states with more economic power than several small countries but without any accountability to the public which states have in liberal democracies.
On macro and micro economics, there is a clear divide as I cannot express through interaction with the market my desire for green technology like I can . . . [cont]
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
"But I go further in seeing no reason for corporations to even exist."
The first corporations ever were more like quasi-govt. entities, like the post office. Right now, however, they are necessary because you can't possibly have huge economies of scale without corporations. There's a pretty good reason why corporations make (almost) every consumer good that every person enjoys.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
This has been flagged as spam show
@migkillertwo
"you can't possibly have huge economies of scale without corporations."
The Mondragon cooperative in the Basque region of Spain. An economy of scale that is owned and run by it's employee-owners.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"but without any accountability to the public which states have in liberal democracies"
I cannot disagree more. governments and actors within said governments have the power to tax (and hence the power to borrow money on promises to tax in the future), corporations do not. People can, and do, stop buying from corporations when in the rare events they do something egregious. Governments have no such liability.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
News Corp is still operating. Despite the News of the World Hacking scandal.
Shell is still operating - despite the niger delta.
BP after deep water horizon ect.
Consumer demand means nothing when you're too big to fail.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
"News Corp is still operating. Despite the News of the World Hacking scandal."
If you had evidence of a knowing connection between Rupert Murdoch and the phone hacking scandal (BTW, news of the world is NOT still operating) then maybe, just maybe, you'd have a point.
Now your other examples, I don't consider Shell or BP's impact on the environment sufficient to warrant their destruction. However if you aim to show that these disasters...
migkillertwo 4 months ago
...would not happen if we had a "democratic" way of running things. Our own government still exists despite a smorgasbord of crimes and mishandling that everyone is aware of.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Directly democratic and self-managed.
Not representative democracy. Which = democracy combined with a monopoly on the use of force and violence (a state)
I'm talking democracy in the sense of "decision-making input in proportion to the degree affected".
Nothing should be permitted to happen to anyone without their informed and uncoerced consent.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"I'm talking democracy in the sense of "decision-making input in proportion to the degree affected"."
Are you proposing a direct athenian democracy in a community with hundreds of millions of people?
"Nothing should be permitted to happen to anyone without their informed and uncoerced consent"
Does that include current property owners?
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
"Are you proposing a direct athenian democracy in a community with hundreds of millions of people?"
In a sense yes. Through a system of confederation at the wider level beyond the local sphere through a system of elected delegates (not representatives).
Consensus based decision making - not majority rule
"Does that include current property owners?"
Yes. Although to achieve this I would propose a strategy of driving them out of business through what's called the dual power strategy
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@migkillertwo (B)
[cont] . . . my desire for more Coke Zero
On the issue of vital resources being wasted on luxuries for wealthy consumers (yachts, private jets, and the like), there are clearly only so many scarce resources available to us and it makes no rational sense to pore these into useless things to enrich the lives of a few while some people in the world are starving
Additionally, capitalism (a privatist market economy) is structurally unable to internalize negative externalities [cont]
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"there are clearly only so many scarce resources available to us and it makes no rational sense to pore these into useless things to enrich the lives of a few while some people in the world are starving"
I disagree entirely that there has to be a justification for these things beyond mere will. The permissibility of the capitalist buying a yacht is justified by his simple desire and ability to buy a yacht.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
What if he wants to buy uranium?
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
I'm not exactly sure where you're going with this.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
"I'm not exactly sure where you're going with this."
Should I be able to buy uranium so I can make my own private nuclear warhead to do with as I please?
Are you saying there is ZERO reason to curb what people are allowed to purchase if it conflicts with social or ecological needs?
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"are you saying..."
No, actually I was quite clear. prima facie, there is no reason other than will that one should be able to buy a luxury good. Your example isn't quite a counter-example, as nuclear warheads are weapons that kill indiscriminately. peaceful activity needs no justification beyond simple will.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
I'd like to point out that anyone should be allowed to do anything so long as it does not inhibit or oppress the free will of others. If a billionare wants to buy a fleet of private jets, then so be it. He/she worked smart to get there, its one's right.
2013branth 3 months ago
@2013branth
"He/she worked smart to get there, its one's right."
Paris Hilton certainly didn't. Nor do any other wealthy heirs who possess vast sums of wealth yet never do a days work in their lives.
If a billionaire wants to buy a fleet of private jets that affects other people - by polluting the environment for a start.
This does oppress the free will of others in an indirect long-term manner.
MsSexySocialist 3 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
Paris Hilton became rich because of her father. Who did work smart, now he chose to pass his wealth onto Paris, there's nothing wrong there.
Now if you've kept up with technology, you'd know that Boeing and Airbus have become more competitve in producing energy efficient and green planes. Billionares buying these planes will increase demand and further research. Also, using "indirect" as a rebuttal is too broad to be counted. Especially in the way you've used it.
2013branth 3 months ago
@2013branth
So you're saying that in order to live a good life in your ideal system, my objective must not be to work hard or to contribute something, but to have rich parents?
On the subject of green tech, the privatist market economy is the very thing standing in the way of more rapid development. In an economic democracy, a macroeconomic decision could be made to simply stop destroying the planet full stop
What you advocate is just trying to coax and cajole the rich into doing the right thing
MsSexySocialist 3 months ago
@2013branth Pollution is what economists call an externality. Say, for instance, having to inhale another's exhaust or second-hand smoke is just as deleterious as more overt forms of force.
earthshine2Y 3 months ago
...I'm sure you are aware of the cluster-fuck that is agricultural trade and subsidies. Right now the EU and USA subsidize large corporate farms, the excess of which is dumped into markets of 3rd world countries which, supposedly, have a chronic hunger problem. This free food prices local farmers out of the market and, unwittingly, bolsters 3rd world dictators.
Free trade would allow individuals, without coercion, to invest resources in the 3rd world and shift business away from big-agro
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo (C)
[cont] wrought by competitive firms - especially of a large scale. This is most often a problem when it come to the environment.
In this doc, Norberg NEVER discusses any alternatives to the usual false dichotomy of statism vs. privatism.
What about instead of relying on multinational corporations to do everything for the developing world initiate more cooperatives, municipalization, a systems of commons?
Never even mentioned.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"This is most often a problem when it come to the environment."
And this is why governments enact certain regulations when public goods cannot be privatized (and in most cases they can). This is, at best, a problem for market anarchism. I explicitly reject market anarchism, but there's certainly a large gulf between the tragedy of the commons and abolishing all capitalism.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Governments shouldn't have to do anything.
When there exists a structural problem, we should get rid of it - not merely try to deal with it.
Which is why economic democracy makes the most sense for accounting for the social and ecological effects of economic decisions taken in production consumption and allocation.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
"When there exists a structural problem, we should get rid of it"
with what? This "structure" is what humans simply have come to in the course of history.
"economic democracy makes the most sense for accounting..."
Once again, in a community of hundreds of millions, one can't rely on the popular vote to make decisions about allocating resources when so many people are isolated from the effects of those decisions.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
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@migkillertwo
"with what? This "structure" is what humans simply have come to in the course of history."
With an alternative structure. Not the vacuum of structure.
"in a community of hundreds of millions, one can't rely on the popular vote to make decisions about allocating resources when so many people are isolated from the effects of those decisions. "
It can and has been done through a system with local affairs handled in local assemblies and macro affairs by confederal councils.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
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"With an alternative structure. Not the vacuum of structure."
So...a mass religious conversion? This sort of utopianism is why I no longer call myself a market anarchist.
"handled in local assemblies"
IDK about you, but I rather like the system now where I can efficiently buy goods made across the country, or across the world.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
@migkillertwo
Gotta go now.
Been interesting talking with you.
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
Same here. 'Till then.
migkillertwo 4 months ago
There is the Voluntary Class vs. the Coercive, Criminal Class.
The Criminal Class like 'MsSexySocialist' Rachel want to coerce, rob and/or murder anyone that does not do what they want.
She goes into conniption fits at the mere thought of interacting voluntarily. If I grow a pineapple tree and do not allow her to steal it she just wants to murder me and steal it anyway. She wants to coerce, rob and/or murder anyone that does not do what she wants: she is a bare example of the Criminal Class.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago
@qwertypoiu4321
lol.
At this stage you've launched yourself from mere ignorant teenager who can't accept when they're wrong to full on lunatic and NWO-conspiracy nut.
Keep this up and see how many people take your incoherent ramblings seriously ^^
MsSexySocialist 4 months ago
@MsSexySocialist You are a violent person.
qwertypoiu4321 4 months ago