How does Miltion Friedman and "Ayn" explain the Nordic social democracies of Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Finland. We are the richest and most well run contries on the planet, yet we were ALL socialist for 40 years or more after WW2.
We have 50% taxes or more, yet our salaries are the highest in the world. We have free health care, free education, the best food, the cleanest environment. How does Friedman and the other egotists explain it? By pretending we dont exist. retarded.
@gunthaarz There are some advantages for you, homogeneous race & culture, protection umbrella of the US military and almost universal work ethic. There are also some cracks beginning to show for your countries with the aging population and under replacement birth rates. Young workers will not be able to sustain the welfare state. Enjoy while you can. Change is a coming.
@gunthaarz Freidman does answer the question for for iceland. His political views are for his own country not any other and he notes how homogenity of culture in Iceland, and by extension Scandanavia, allow for more unified social institutions. Check out the Freidmand debates in Iceland.
Liberate is just a word... it sounds very nice doesnt it. But what does it actually mean?
Well it means we should remove all regulations such as minimum wage, health and safety, consumer rights, environmental laws etc etc so a business can make as much money as possible.
Whay if we made it legal that businesses can mug people in the street?
A business will do whatever it takes to make monoey (and why not, thats the point?) so we need to set up a legal framework showing where we dram lin
good thing you are not an elected official and get a vote towards the laws of this country...bad thing that people with your brain are though.
The Federal Reserve is to blame for this mess...the only logical and moral thing is to allow everything tied to the disease, the Fed, to fail with the Fed.
And as for your savings...it is paper money and not backed by anything, so in the event of a collapse, who are you going to blame when you have nothing?
"What is your government solution to these "Informational asymmetries?"
In planned economies the solution simply is information technology and telecommunications everyone gets the information they need to know. For example if a store in Los Angles is selling a lot of product A they can search databases to see if there is a larger trend and how the world wide stock of Product A including those in transit and to where and the manufactures will also see all this information due to open databases
Really the technology already exist for computers to automatically manage production to some extent, were computers automatically makes orders for production for new products and places shipment orders by looking at the demand at stores with very little human input. If more blue toothbrushes are bought, a computer could make priority for blue toothbrushes over other toothbrushes and do this in seconds thus computers could keep up with changes in consumer demand faster then any capitalists.
That sounds expensive. Something has to update these databases. Someone has to build the software. Someone has to ensure that all claims are real. If it could be done for cheaper than advertising today, don't you think someone would have done it?
If it is too expensive, the prices of the commodities could go up.
No computer has yet identified a demand for an ipod which had not been built. CEOs can handle the supply and demand. Capitalists must find the new industries and create them.
"No computer has yet identified a demand for an ipod which had not been built. "
Neither has capitalists, it has always been engineers that has identified demand for new products in fact most new products have been held up by capitalists just not getting why engineers are so exited by the new product. Thus engineers find and build new industries not capitalists.
It is capitalists who create the demand. That is what they do. There was NO demand for an Ipod until capitalists looked at the technology available to them through inventors, took a RISK and invested in the production, distribution and advertisement of the product. These actions are what created the product. A computer can not take the advise of experts, independently decide which experts to agree with, then figure out a way to implement the production of the product.
Wrong it is the state that creates new demand. The internet, computers, microwave technology, electronics, jet engines all was originally created for militaries with government money and government oversight.
It was capitalists who saw the use of such technologies, took a risk, and invested in their production and distribution to the populace. The government did not see how to make a personal computer, or many of the search engines, and whatnot, which have made the internet usable.
Government may create certain technologies, but it is capitalists which have to ascertain if they can make a profitable product from them. Just because the government used computers, does not mean that they foresaw the demand for ipods. Many government technologies are not marketable, and it is up to capitalists to find which ones which are, and try to market them. Some inventions come up in defense, but many are made by private inventors.
Someone else invented the automobile, but Henry Ford made the great innovation in making a marketable one. No one else had done so before. There was not a demand for a cheap automobile before Ford made the first ones. Many people did not even imagine one.
Capitalism is just a illogical system since rather then the people with the most knowledge in managing production actually planning production you have the people with the least knowledge in managing production (the capitalist). Even if smart capitalists plan production logically in capitalism due to externalizes that makes it bad side-effects of capitalist decisions are paid for the entire society while the capitalist reaps all the gains.
Even if Sarbanes-Oxley dies off, you think businesses will somehow magically become "saints of God"? NO. There's a reason why Rex Tillerson is a republican and not libertarian.
Psy500, If you consider the sacrifice of millions of people in the USSR by starvation, violent expansion, and more starvation, for the purpose of constructing factories, to be an adequate definition of industrialization, at least don't refer to it as prosperity.
"Defibrillator?" This fellow, no matter how well-intentioned or sincere is simply a neo-con conservative republican more of the same syncophant who is absolutely blind to the stark economic and political reality of the past 40 years. What we really need to do is change the case law that grants corporations with "personhood." That single act fundamentally liberate the people that actually breath. Google "Santa Clara Blues."
In pure economic terms, an unregulated market, for the most part, produces much more growth and wealth overall than a regulated one. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean we should eliminate things like 40-hour workweeks and workplace safety laws. But on purely economic terms, it does work. Take it for what it's worth.
Historically that is not the case, the peak in the rate of profit was also the peak of Keynesianism. Also no free-market has industrialized as rapidly as those that subsidized their industrial growth (the US did so well subsidizing its industrialization the US was the model for protectionists economists like Friedrich List)
Surely the real measure of wealth is the GDP per capita, as well as how equal society is economically (so the moneys spread around to everyone)
Norway for example is higer than the USA per capita, aswell as a much more equal society. This means peoples quality of life is very much higher. The USA is very rich, but the money is tied up in a tiny minority. Regulation by govt is the way to control this as a market left to itself can cause huge inequalit
No overregulated Western European or Communist state elsewhere can do quite as well. And it's not like the people in these more socialist states, even the democratic ones, have much social mobility either. If you start a company, it'll be much harder to make it grow there and expand. And getting rich will only be available to a select few.
"No overregulated Western European or Communist state elsewhere can do quite as well."
The USA industrialized not through free-markets but through subsidizes from the state and Russia industrialized even faster then the US did. The free-market has de-industrialized both the USA and Russia so free-market currently has a worse track record then even the U.S.S.R when it comes to prosperity.
Keynesianism does not create prosperity. It has long been debunked. I don't know where you idiots on the left who keep vouching for the stimulus get your numbers and 'facts' that it will "work." How about OUT YOUR ASS?
Letting the market work does work. Of course, this doesn't mean we can't have some sensible regulations. But letting regulations run amuck ruins us, esp. institutions like the Fed.
Keynesianism has not been debunked, at least not in the way you think. Keynesianism borough far more rapid growth then any free-market economy, Keynesianism only stalled due to over-production which free-markets still have yet to solve as proven by the current world wide economic crisis of over production of most commodities.
Companys only care about maxium profit (which is what capatalism is) and they would mug you in the street if it was legal. I dont blame them> This is obviously what business is about
therefore we need restrictions on business such as workers rights, or environmental laws. These can only be made by government and enforced by govt institutions like the police
this guy is calling for anarcho capitalism, which scares the bejeesus out of me.
First of all, Markgg1, I have never heard Dr. Brook advocate for the abolition of the police. Such a force would be needed in order to make sure that some other thug besides a government did not try to regulate business or harm individual rights. Doing this is the role of govt. I can tell by the fact that you wouldn't blame people for munging, and that you support a worker's right to violate the right to free trade, or the environment's claim on human life, that you don't understand rights.
I am referring to "worker's rights", as an agent to infringe individual rights. A law which institutes, for example, a minimum wage, infringes upon both a worker's right to compete with others, by offering lower prices, and a employer's right to hire such a worker at that price. It is a clear violation of a right to free trade.
You misunderstand the nature of rights in the first place. Where does this right to free trade come from? Why is it a right? It isn't. There is no right to free trade.
The justification for rights is that rights allow men to live. Force restricts a man's actions. A forced man's ability to think, act and live is shrunk. Rights protect man's ability to think, act, produce the values needed for his life, and to freely trade for the values produced by others.
Man must live by the product of his own thought, for reason is his only means of survival. The restrictions of force which rights protect man against are restrictions on life.
Rights allow men to live? You're still taking rights as a given, abstract from any particular time or place. Which rights? Where are these magical rights against force?
Man must live by the product of his own thought? I don't see how someone could be alive if they were not capable of thought.
This is just idealism. These rights do not exist in the way you are describing them. It's really a pointless discussion, you just don't understand the nature of rights.
The right to the products of your own labor under capitalism is inconceivable, the whole system is based on forcing the majority to give up the products of their labor in exchange for a wage covering only a fraction of what they create.
True. Only a fraction of the price of the items goes to the workers. This is because only a fraction of the labor which went into production of the items was preformed by the laborer. The other part was produced by the inventor of the process, and the capitalist who funded it. The capitalist, mind you, who saw the value which could be created, not an easy thing, and used his own assets, which he produced by his labor, in order to fund it. Investment is not easy. It is also necessary.
Funding produces no value...that funding goes towards paying for labor. All of the things the capitalist contributes are the result of the labor of workers...his factories, his raw materials, etc. Without labor you would have no value.
Investment is only necessary within your narrow framework.
True. Without labor there would be no value. But the primary value provided by human labor is always the use of the mind.
A capitalist provides something which no other individual under any system could possibly provide. Only a capitalist has both the incentive and the ability to engage in the task of assessing whether a particular venture is likely to be successful. All that is lost if they are wrong is the money they created and the money of those who joined them.
Whether a venture is likely to be profitable, you mean? But this is only socially necessary in the context of the capitalist system. You're still stuck in your circular reasoning.
It produces no value. If I loan a tractor company $1000, does that produce a tractor? No, the labor that the money puts into action is responsible. The capitalist doesn't contribute anything by walking to his mail box once per month to receive his dividends.
It is true that one can not be alive as a human being without being capable of thought. But one can chose not to think, if one would prefer to live of the charity of others or to force them to provide for your needs.
To make such a choice is to choose not to live as a man.
You can choose not to think? How do you do that, exactly? Become a coma patient? Since coma patients can't live by the product of their own thought, does that mean we should kill them?
The majority of society is forced by economic relations to provide for the capitalist class. Does that mean we would be justified in expropriating their property?
Seriously, these are just objectivity slogans...there really is nothing rational about her philosophy.
A person who chooses to beg for money when he could be working is choosing to live off of the products of others' labor. He is choosing not to apply his mind to the task of keeping himself alive. He may have a mind, he may think of things, but he is not USING his mind. Because coma patients can't live by the products of their own thought, they are at the mercy of charity to provide for their needs. No one is stopping people from keeping them alive. They still have rights, so killing is wrong.
So those genius bank robbers we see on tv who spent months devising the perfect plan to steal millions were not applying their minds? Charity? But charity/altruism is immoral!
if people can go out and find some unused land to live off of, they are free to do so under capitalism. If they cant find land, they have no moral right to insist that others use their property in a way which is more beneficial to them.
Rights do not spring from the minds of novel writers, they exist and are only realizable through society. If society decides that capitalists do not have a right to their property, then they will be expropriated. Your rights and morals exist only in your head, they're fiction.
So society can decide whatever rules it wants to if it sees them as beneficial?
How do you imagine anyone else could possibly have the incentive to work hard enough to work out such complex and difficult calculations involved in risk assessment?
Immensely difficult calculations. In today's market there is so much uncertainty, that only those who fully immerse themselves in it have even a chance of figuring out what ventures will be successful.
Again, I would ask what the basis of those decisions of what rights are should be.
This is essentially to ask what the needs of the individuals in the society are, since a society as a whole, can not make a decision in the sense that a person can.
"Immensely difficult calculations. In today's market there is so much uncertainty, "
If that is the case the capitalists can't really plan production since if the calculations are too difficult for a computer then the calculations would be impossible for a human to do.
What you need to understand is that computers, as they stand today, can not think. It is true, they do "calculations" but I was referring to is choosing the advise of one expert in the field, or another. A computer can not do that. A capitalist has the motivation to understand the risk he is undertaking. If he can, he is successful, if he can't, he takes losses.
There is no justification for the expropriation of property on the basis of "economic relations"
The fact is that the workers are not "forced" they are perfectly free to attempt to engage in any trades which they want to. When factories first popped up, people preferred to live in those conditions than to work in the fields. They were even able to provide for more children, resulting in an increased population.
The job opportunity offered by the them was beneficial to the workers and still is.
As opposed to starving or living in poverty, sure. That's the point, it's economic coercion. You're forced by need to labor for the wants of others. Working for a capitalist is obviously beneficial as opposed to starving, but worker and capitalist do not equally benefit, and it certainly is beneficial as opposed to a system where workers have full control over the value they produce instead of most of it being siphoned off by capitalists.
Because you have a choice, it is not force. If I said that I would give you a million dollars if you invented the light bulb, and you did, and I paid you, would that be coercion?
Am I going to starve if I don't invent the light bulb? If so, then sure it's coercion.
I'm not going to waste my time debating on the internet for hours...I suppose a good starting point would be looking up "economic coercion" on wiki or something.
The peasants working in the field were starving. But they had lived for hundreds of years, until a capitalist came along and gave them a job. If the job is beneficial to them, who is to say what terms the employer sets are not in the best interests of the employee.
"The peasants working in the field were starving..."
Learn history, the peasants and artisans were not looking for a job thus the Luddite revolts, artisans were already self-sufficient thus revolted against capitalists for taking away their Independence and peasants also revolted against capitalists as they wanted land to be independent not to be a wage slave in the sweatshops of Britain.
Ok, Mr history, I would claim that it was improvements in the agriculture industry which ALLOWED the population shift from rural to the urban. The factory jobs were beneficial to the first, starving peasants, and then, when they were in place, the artisans went out of business. Would you have suggested a government bail-out of the artisan industry?
Nope it was not beneficial at first, peasants only starved during times of famine it was not a normal condition of Feudalism, it only become "beneficial" with the enclosures of the commons were government took land that was suppose to be owned by God (and simply entrusted to the crown to manage) was privatized thus peasants no longer had access to this land thus their ability to production food fell that created starvation.
As for the Artistians they problem was capitalists were using horrid conditions and low wages to undercut them. Artistans through their guilds were able to ban capitalists from the major cities of Europe through pressuring mayors but capitalists circumvented democracy by going to small towns instead were workers was far less organized and used the ignorant town folks against skilled urban workers to undermined their collective bargaining.
Peasants were self sufficient. They were self sufficient in that they could produce enough food to prevent their population from dwindling to nothing. Peasants always prefer to work in factories. Look at the poorest countries in the world. The peasant farmers always rush to the factories for a better life.
Well, if the peasants lost their land, because improvements in agriculture pushed them out of the farming business, and they don't want to work in the factories, I don't know what to tell you. All I can say is that they do not have a right to their old jobs, because just because you had a job one day does not mean you can't lose it tomorrow. To impose such a restriction is to make the people who pay for the inferior products the slaves of the producers.
So no one is allowed to make any kind of trade with a person who is starving....I think you are just tired that makes no sense. If I cant give a person a million dollars, for doing something, than I certainly cant employ him for anything close to what even you consider his work to be worth.
The worker and the capitalist do not produce equal values in their lives. If a company had a hundred loaves of bread, and giving up one was not of great significance, and you were starving, but only paid a few dollars for the bread, which saved you, you could say that you benefited too much from the transaction, and you owe the shop which saved you all of your money.
So you wouldn't have a problem with a company selling a starving man a loaf of bread in exchange for his entires lifes savings? If that isn't economic coercion, then I don't know what is.
No what I am saying is that if in any transaction, both parties must benefit equally, if you were starving and you absolutely needed the bread, it would be wrong to offer anything less than all that you have.
I do not agree with this. This is based on your claim that workers and capitalists should benefit equally.
I have figured out where exactly I went wrong here. I accepted your idea that the capitalist gets more in the transaction between a capitalist and a worker. The worker receives a greater benefit by far, because the capitalist is not in such dire need of employment. The worker gains much more than the capitalist in this.
So you are saying that if someone has a job one day they should have a guarantee, no matter how much better the products of others are, to keep that job forever? This is ludicrous.
Why did the first workers go to the capitalists? Do you deny the tremendous value the capitalists provided to the starving field workers of the pre-industrial age?
Saying that the capitalists were wrong to drive the artisans out of buisness is crazy. It was the individuals who bought the products of industry over the artisans who caused that.
Also, saying the capitalists were wrong in this way is as bad as saying that Edison should not have invented the light bulb, because he put the old candle and oil lamp industry out of business. It is in complete disregard for the benefit which superior products offer to human life.
So the capitalist who gets millions receives less than the worker who gets an insignificant wage? Yeah, alright. If you want to live your life working for the benefit of someone else and telling your coworkers that they're ripping off the capitalist because they benefit more than him, then that's fine. I don't want to make someone else a billionaire while I can barely afford my car payments. I want control over what I produce and I want a standard of living corresponding to my contribution.
I am trying to show the contradictions in your view.
Just because I think that what the worker gets in return for his work is worth more to him than the work is to the capitalist, doesn't mean that either are being exploited.
As long as people engage in voluntary trade, no one should get in the way of that. Your primary concern as a person engaging in a trade is, "is this trade beneficial to me?"
To take any other consideration would be to commit self-sacrifice.
There is no contradiction, just your little philosophical crap that is at contradiction with your own philosophy. Rand deals only with increasing your technical means of life while disregarding anything psychological. I don't care about your romanticism of trade. I want to be payed according to what I contribute, not have half of what I produce go to some capitalist who contributed nothing. What don't you understand?
Are you serious? Are you saying that the profits a farmer gets back from paying for his raw materials should not accounted in the price? Capital has value. Prudent investment of capital is an incredible contribution. Should the farmer just be able to get the seed for free and just charge less for his crop? that is stealing. Who pays for the raw materials? Someone has to. We have a division of labor, so the capitalist pays for the venture.
I don't think there should be a parasitic class that contributes nothing and yet receives most of the wealth produced by other people simply because they own property. It's not hard to understand. I don't accept your morality or your rights. I want a world conductive to my happiness and standard of living. If you don't understand that then any claim of egoism on your part is bullshit.
It is not just because they own the capital. If you have money, and don't know how to invest it, you lose it. That is why it is so difficult to remain successful in the investment market, because it is hard. Prudent investment of capital is necessary if you want any of the ventures a society to profit the society. The only way to incentivise prudent investment of capital is to make the capitalists take on the risk they are taking.
Ok... If you don't have any ethics or morality, on what basis do you make decisions? How do you determine which choices are "good" and which ones are "bad." No one can function with out some kind of moral principles. It is a physical impossibility.
I form a value hierarchy from my moral principles and attempt to take actions to achieve my values. Do you not have any values? how do you determine your actions?
In farming for example, it is common for the farmer to perform labor, own the land, and pay for his raw materials(seeding). I would claim that the money he gets comes from wages, rent, and the profits of stock.
sometimes, however, in other industries, someone else is needed to fulfill the role of finance, and thus, they get the profits of the stock. This is justice, because the venture can not succeed as well without it, otherwise, that further division of labor would be unnecessary.
This is not justice because you are still being a narrow-minded randroid. Capitalists are no more necessary now than slave owners were. Sure, slaves performed an important function during slavery...the point was to get rid of slavery itself, not just slaves!
I don't work for the benefit of someone else. I work for the benefit of myself. I don't mind if others also benefit from my actions. Such is the beneficial nature of trade.
Such is your silly rhetoric. The majority of the people owns less than 3% of the wealth and yet they are mainly responsible for it's creation, and the top 5% who contribute little to it's creation own half of it. You are working for the benefit of others. Half of your day is unpaid labor. Of course you benefit from the half of your labor you are compensated for, but if you have no problem with working half your day directly to satisfy someone else, then could you come help me clean my house?
From my perspective, a common laborer gets unimaginably more than their contribution. A common laborer gets all the advantages of the most ingenious innovators in the form of technological products he can afford. He gets values he would never be able to produce on his own. The capitalist does not care that he gets more than his contribution, because both benefit from the transaction, and it is not the capitalist's concern that the worker is taking advantage of such wonders.
From your perspective? What is your perspective, exactly? Do you work? I can't see how someone can be so brainwashed as to be entirely satisfied with their own wage slavery. How many capitalists do you actually think come up with these innovations? What about slaves using cotton gins, was that fine? Slaves in the middle of the 19th century were actually paid more than wage workers, mind you.
You realize that it was workers who produced these physical machines as well, right?
Capitalists generally do not invent things. This is true. What the do tend to invent, are methods of risk assessment. This is necessary for anyone to actually see their inventions produced on a practical scale. Some inventions have a tremendous cost to produce before they even see any returns. Who are you to say weather or not it should be tried unless you are taking on the risk?
What capitalists tend to do is pay people to do their risk assessment and inventing for them while they sit in their house and wait to receive their dividends.
Ok, but who do they get to do their risk assessment? in making such a decision, they are taking a risk. I don't understand how you can characterize capitalists as rich people who got lucky with who they lent out their investments to.
I do not consider that most workers are enslaved. Slavery is wrong. It is wrong because if forces a man's actions. A forced man can not use his mind, because whatever conclusion he comes to, his actions will not differ. Thoughts for actions are necessary in order to produce any human values. A slave is entirely dependent on his master to live. His decisions have no bearing on weather his life will be prolonged. He is not alive as a man. (cont.)
And the working class is dependent on the capitalist class to live. The working class is forced to work for capitalists or starve. Their ability to live - to exist - is dependant upon their willingness to labor for the benefits of others. They are only allowed to live as long as they are able to produce a surplus for non-laboring property owners. How you can be a wage labor and have any claim towards being a man of self-esteem or whatever objectivist crap you say is beyond me.
"It was workers who produced these physical machines"'
Ok, I would give a significant amount of credit for production. The majority of credit goes to those who produced more values. For example, the Inventor who invented the machines. The CEO who figured out how many factories and who to hire in his company. The employees who figured out which workers to hire. The capitalist who figured out that the technologies existed to make the venture productive and beneficial to, among other ppl, society.
Let me be clear on this. The capitalist does act primarily in his own interest and for his own benefit. This does not mean, however, that others do not benefit from his actions.
All the people I mentioned (workers, inventors, CEOs, Capitalists) deserve credit for the production of machines. They get it in the form of money, in proportion to the values they provided.
Hitler also acted primarily in his own interest, but this does not mean that others did not benefit from his actions.
They do not get it in proportion to the value they create, that's the basis of capitalism. Where do you think profit comes from? Magic? No, it comes from paying workers for less than what they produce. It's a system that does not benefit me, is not conductive to my happiness, and as such I want to get rid of it. Your dogmatic rantings about morals aren't going to change that.
I see. So you understand how inefficient the slave system was. That workers cost more to keep alive, as it was not the responsibility of slaves to care for themselves, and they produced less values.
Yet, you would prefer people be enslaved completely, than be "exploited"
The cost it takes to keep someone alive is not a measure of their standard of living.
Think of what would happen if an inventor took your view. "well, I could get a lot of money from producing this invention, and I could live well for the rest of my life, but, all those people who will buy my invention, could have their lives extended greatly, and they could support more children and live a better and more fulfilling life. I couldn't even imagine the benefit all those people would be getting, but it is clearly greater than a billion dollars. I'd be exploited if I invented it."
But that's not what happens. The inventor usually becomes a millionaire and will receive most of the value they produce, while they receive barely anything.
There is no way that a single person can receive the enough values to compensate Edison for inventing the light bulb. There is not enough money in the world. From your perspective, an inventor would be more exploited by society than anyone else could be.
I don't have a problem with Edison only becoming enormously rich. He did not need to justify the returns he got on the basis of how much his labor benefited others. A worker should not either. Only consider if a trade is beneficial to you.
There were plenty of people who invented light bulbs before Edison and many creating improved versions at the same time, and someone else would have made one just as good as he did. Science is never the product of one person, we are always building on the inventions and discovery of others. Edison may not have invented his without the work of others.
I have no problem with society deciding to highly reward inventors, but there is no doubt that the money he made was the product of his laborers.
I'm sure you are familiar with Rand's critique of man as a sacrificial animal, yes? How is this reconciled with capitalism?
In capitalism the majority of society is forced to labor for the profits of the capitalists if they wish to survive. Their ability to live - to exist - is dependant upon their willingness to labor for the benefits of others. If they can not find a buyer for their labor in a free market, then they face starvation.
If they resist being forced to work for a wage, they can be replaced. If there is a downturn in the market, they will be fired. They are only allowed to live as long as they are able to produce a surplus for non-laboring property owners. Does this not sound like a sacrificial animal?
Ok just one minute. Under ANY system, if a venture is taken, and it is not practical, the standard of living goes down. If it is an enormous investment, people often starve. This is under any system. You can't produce values in any system without investing some values. (raw materials, machine and structure constriction)
How would you propose to incentivize productive and valuable ventures in society?
The main problem you have with capitalism seems to be that you don't think capitalists produce any values. The workers labor for their own benefit. Not for the capitalists. They would not engage in a trade which was not beneficial.
Of course it's beneficial, because if they don't do it they'll starve or be in poverty. It would also be beneficial for me to give up my house in exchange for a cup of water if some person somehow came to control all of the water in society. What exactly is your point? Would you justify that situation in the same way? My point is that I want to avoid these situations entirely and actually receive the majority of what I produce.
There you go, you said it. Capitalism helps people out of poverty. This happens all around the world every day. I take the increase in population as evidence of the improvement of conditions in the poorest countries. In the past, all those people would have died of disease or starvation.
The only alternative to capitalism is the capitalists sit back and watch people starve, or they provide for the barest needs of all starving people. (cont.)
Humanities productive forces have been increasing for hundreds of years, under all systems. The same thing happened in Stalinist Russia. While peoples real standard of living goes up in capitalism, their relative standard of living goes down. Workers used to receive half of this countries income in the 60s, they now receive a quarter. This is constantly decreasing.
Lower standards of living lead to higher birth raters, Malthus was disproved long ago.
Without capitalism, you would have no home, and no clean water. All values which have ever been produced have been produced to the extent the producers were free to produce and trade. You should get a contract that says that you will get a certain price for water from the tap. Or, buy a water filter, and filter water from your gutters when it rains. ( I would suggest the first)
There are plenty of people in existence today who live without capitalists or anyone who benefits from their work other than them and their families. They live in the poorest countries, and they live in the wilderness, as savages. If people would rather live like that, on the barest of subsistence, the opportunity still exists.
Under slavery, some people were peasants and grew their own food. Under feudalism, many people were independent traders and artisans. When we look at systematic phenomena, we make generalizations. One is that the working class would starve to death if they decided to stop working for capitalists. Work or die, this is no different than slavery. Where you see "freedom" I see economic coercion.
So. Let's imagine that a person were given the choice to truly live by their own labor, and live as a savage in the wilderness. Who among the population of any country which has even the slightest bit of development, would accept the opportunity?
Every man who has ever lived has been under the "work or die" "coercion"
Even a capitalist must feed himself, or pay someone to remind him to eat. He then must choose a responsible person to entrust with this job. So down the line for every value he requires.
The desire for life without work of some kind is impossible to fulfill.
You could say people are under the coercion "eat food or die" and thus people are forced to pay money for food, and thus the price of food is forcibly extorted.
Many capitalists do not have to work. Going to the fridge is not work in the same sense that we are dealing with.
No, but the desire to work with the knowledge that your labor is not being used to enrich some parasite while you can barely pay your rent is possible to fullfill.
The necessity to eat is not the result of a type of economic or social system, it is natural, it can not be escaped. There is nothing natural about capitalism, it is one economic system among many that has existed and can be replaced by a system where people are not forced to work for the benefit of a parasitic class.
Think of your favorite book, if you have read any good books. Now think of the price you paid for that book. Under your system. How could you even begin to justify to yourself, paying such an insignificant price for it.
The fact is that there is nothing which can give an artist or a revolutionary inventor a value equal to that of all the benefit which they provide for society. It would be a physical impossibility. However, it is OK because they freely trade their work.
I have no problem with the compensation that most researchers and developers receive. They should receive a compensation in line with how much the community is valuing their skills. I support democratic control of the economy. Now honestly, please stop commenting, I do not have this much time to waste on an argument I have no interest in. CAPITALISM IS SIMPLY NOT CONDUCTIVE TO MY HAPPINESS, AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS, NOT SOME SOCIALLY PRODUCED MORALITY OR RELIGION.
Yeah tons of people in Cuba or who survived in East Germany or the USSR or North Korea I'm sure would agree with you. I wonder how dumb you'd sound to someone who has actually lived with the practical result of socialism...no basic freedoms etc.
"What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slaves action -- a control which is habitually to the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy anothers desires."
Are you talking about Herbert Spencer? he was just a collectivist. I do not agree with Social Darwinism...
What is your point? Are you saying that workers are slaves?
I would not agree that slavery was beneficial to either party. Many slave owners regarded their slaves altruistically, in that their actions were justified because the slaves were incapable of living properly on their own. That is how they justified it to themselves anyway, Socialism is justified in a similar fashion.
An objectivist not agreeing with Social Darwinism? lololol
By your logic the slaves benefitted just as much, and likely more, than the slave master, because they received food which they most likely valued greatly due to hunger.
NO OBJECTIVIST AGREES WITH SOCIAL DARWINISM. I cite Ayn Rand on the behaviorist school:
"This is Social Darwinism of a kind that Herbert Spencer would not dream of."
Pretty clear there...
Spencer justified the capitalist system on the basis that it produced the greatest benefit for the evolution of the species. THIS IS COMPLETE COLLECTIVISM.
I do not consider a relationship initiated by the use of force and requiring physical force to maintain, to be a beneficial relationship to anyone. Let's see. The slave gets food. Well that is a great value. They luse their whole lives. You did not get slave revolts to get more food. You got slave revolts for freedom.
By your logic we can just as easily justify slavery, because slaves receive far more "psychic value" or whatever philosophical crap you want to get into than they create for the slave owner, because they receive food which they value more since they probably aren't very well fed.
What are you talking about? My entire previous comment was a refutation of the justification of slavery. It is altruistic--it is evil. It destroys human values. It forces man to act for the sake of another. It imposes a claim on the slave owner to provide for the needs of his slave. The whole relationship is perverse. The worker should look out for himself, and the employer should look after himself. (cont.)
The slave did not benefit from their altruism. The point of altruism is not the benefit of the recipient of values. It is the sacrifice of values which is emphasized. A slave has no freedom of action. He is forced to work, he is forced to talk only when spoken to. He is forced to have his children with whoever his master decides he will. He is forced to leave his children when his master sells him away, or sells them away. He owns nothing, not even himself. They even try to make him christian.
At least the slave was guaranteed an existence. Slaves were such a large investment that the master had to guarantee their health. Workers on the other hand must rent themselves daily if they wish to live, they are replaceable, and ended up with. They live there lives as a means to the ends of others. As long as capitalism exists workers interests will be subordinates to the interests of the capitalist class.
No, it was not, and if it was you are simply refuting your own logic, which wouldn't matter because I was trying to show how flawed it is. Saying that slavery is altruistic is the STUPIDEST thing I have ever heard.
If the worker should look out for himself then why do you have a problem with workers establishing democratic control over society? Oh, right, that would contradict your objectivist religion and capitalist Gods.
Ok explain why the slave system was anything but altruistic.
Explain why all systems which have taken altruism's ultimate logical implications have reduced to slavery. It has been sacrifice to neighbors, god, the Nation, the proletariat, and yes, to slaves.
Now, has a single person benefited from this altruism? no.
The rational is also based on racism, as white slave-holders believed that black people were incapable of living on their own, and therefore it was the slave-holder's moral duty to provide the slaves with work and food.
Furthermore, if you asked many southern intellectuals, they would say that their slave system was much more humane than that of the industrialists up north.
Even if you ask some modern intellectuals today, you will find that they claim the slaves enjoyed such values above the northern workers such as job security and more food.
certainly no one can claim that the slave owners profited from slavery. The costs to keep the slaves enslaved did not justify the maintenance of unmotivated labor.
you can see how the feudal and agrarian south was much poorer than the industrialized and free north.
Yes I agree. The industrial and free north is a much more superior system than the backwardness of a slavery economy. If people are free they will have higher morale and work more productively.
I think we agree on many points... But if you want a free society somebody needs to pay for its institutions (such as government, courts, police, army etc) this must come from taxation, otherwise you have anarchy
But why is it a logical expectation that if people are allowed to choose whether to support their government or not, that they will not contribute? There is no reason why taxes are necessary.
People will see the value in contributing to the future improvement of the institution which protects them from theft and murder and they will do so.
high tax economys such as western europe and scandinavia have better rates of poverty, crime, health etc etc... its because we have allowed the state (whihc we control via democracy) to ensure we receive certain services... but we accept this costs money, so we echange the fruits of our labour in return for health care, security, education, welfare etc...
This iws how society should function, and the evidence proves it is the best way regardless of your philosophical positions
The reason why health coverage rates are lower in the US is because medicare and tax incentives making employer's provide health coverage drove up costs.
In other countries, quality was impaired by the attempts of the government to control costs and achieve total coverage. Because of this, many procedures such as cataract surgery are not provided.
Also extremely long wait times, such as those characteristic of the Canadian health care system, are commonplace.
Long waits are simply due to lack of investment. Evidence shows clearly that the more number put in, the lower the wait times. This is also just common sense. People like yourself are asking for less money put in, whihc will just hinder the service.
Why do Americans think they are so different from everyone else? Its obvious why the system is failing, and thats because it has no public control and is completely in the hands of profit makers. Healthcare is not a product like coca cola is.
The argument of whos system is better is just silly... its abundantly clear (and not even my opinion, its just fact) that western Europes health system is cheaper and more effective. I can only conclude this is because these systems are 100% or mainly run by the state. I have to keep reiterating (kind of boring)... a states legiticmacy is based on how democraric it is. The USSR was extremelly undemocratic, whilst modern europe is very.
It is not completely in control of the private market.
50% of the money spent in health care in the United States is spent by the government.
The regulatory situation is now so extreme that doctors spend more time doing useless paperwork and avoiding lawsuits than treating patients.
just because we don't have socialized medicine doesn't mean that we don't have a health care system which is dominated by destructive government policies.
thats because the government recognizes u cant have people literally dying in the streets, so they HAVE to pay for those who simply cannot pay for themselves. This means private companies know they can charge the state what they wish, as the money is essentially 'bottom less'... A public owned and maintained system is not after profit. Its sole aim is to keep you healthy.
A public system wants you through the doors LESS, so they focus on preventative medicine. This is best for cost, and healt
The reason why the costs started to go out of control in the first place is because there were a few people who couldn't afford to pay for a level of care which somebody considered "basic."
Now all they have to show for it is higher costs, and more people who cant afford so called "basic" care without government help.
The only thing which decides what a public system does is the majority rule.
Whenever there is this much money in government, the system will progressively deteriorate until every social pressure group has claimed their piece of the pie, and then until there is only one group, and then until there is no one left.
I disagree that the system deteriates, and I think the evidence backs me up. High and medium tax economys are very stabvle socially, economically, politically etc...
I agree the lawsuit situation is ridiculous. In New Zealand they have simply passed a law where you cannot sue a doctor.
Thisa maybe a bit extreme, but your lawmakers should think about this.. But obviously mal practise needs to be punished, but I guess its difficult to have a balance between too many lawsuits, and too little.
A tough one, and I dont really know enough about the health system to think of a soulution.. maybe someone else has an idea?
Cataract surgery is provided by the NHS by the way. Also the NHS are quite proud of themselves currently because they reduced wait times from 2 years to 3 months.. all thanks to Labours record investment when they took power from the conservatives.
You keep picking on really tiny examples to try to bolster your case. Of course a public system isnt perfect, but is a far sight better than the current US system.
It costs 8% GDP for 100% coverage, yours 16% GDP and only insures 4/5ths.
You are just blinded by an ideology telling you 'the state is evil, it should stay out of my life' but doesnt it depend on how its in your life? I have no problem with a state that ive elected who organises a system of healthcare, education, law and order solely in the interests of me. I cant organise these for myself? Are you going to build yourself a school or highway?
I dotn really think so.
You just take the system that keeps you safe for granted.
The only thing which made made slavery appear practical is the slave trade. It was basically sacrificing the lives of millions of people for the sake of producing crops. It really produced nothing. It is the same thing which happened in the soviet union, millions sacrificed to produce factories=no profit.
what do u mean? The govt is an extension of ourselves because we vote for them. Of course representation is not perfect, but its only way we can represent ourselves in a practical manner..
The reason Americans are so disillusioned with govt because you have allowed them to work for themselves and profits of corporations and not the public. This is simply a matter of changing the system slightly to make it more accountable to the public.
Markgg1, the more government control over our lives there is, the closer we are to anarchy, because when a government steps out of it's legitimate role, it becomes a thug to the extent it does so.
You need to look out for yourself no one else will, and no one else can, or at least, not sustainably, and not without damage to you.
If the government looks out for you, you are a child all your life.
I hate anarchists as well. That is why no one should vote for libertarians. Dr. Brook is not a libertarian. Ayn rand + Objectivists are not libertarians.
The government has to stop regulating the economy so that it can get around to catching people who commit actual fraud and infringe on individual rights.
Maybe if they did, they would have been able to address the reports of Madoff's fraud as it was going on, and catch Madoff sooner.
There is a proper role in government. protect rights.
As im a student, I would choose the UK as I wouldnt die due to me being poor.
Im not discrediting the US cancer health system. Im sure it is excellent, but the point is not everybody can access it.. and that in my view is a disgrace.
How does Miltion Friedman and "Ayn" explain the Nordic social democracies of Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, & Finland. We are the richest and most well run contries on the planet, yet we were ALL socialist for 40 years or more after WW2.
We have 50% taxes or more, yet our salaries are the highest in the world. We have free health care, free education, the best food, the cleanest environment. How does Friedman and the other egotists explain it? By pretending we dont exist. retarded.
gunthaarz 1 year ago
@gunthaarz There are some advantages for you, homogeneous race & culture, protection umbrella of the US military and almost universal work ethic. There are also some cracks beginning to show for your countries with the aging population and under replacement birth rates. Young workers will not be able to sustain the welfare state. Enjoy while you can. Change is a coming.
bamatecangel7 1 year ago
@gunthaarz Freidman does answer the question for for iceland. His political views are for his own country not any other and he notes how homogenity of culture in Iceland, and by extension Scandanavia, allow for more unified social institutions. Check out the Freidmand debates in Iceland.
MrRobinMurphy 10 months ago
Liberate is just a word... it sounds very nice doesnt it. But what does it actually mean?
Well it means we should remove all regulations such as minimum wage, health and safety, consumer rights, environmental laws etc etc so a business can make as much money as possible.
Whay if we made it legal that businesses can mug people in the street?
A business will do whatever it takes to make monoey (and why not, thats the point?) so we need to set up a legal framework showing where we dram lin
markgg1 2 years ago
If it wasnt for government stimulation we would be in a depression. A very serious depression..
if the banks went under, we would have been screwed.
This recession just suggests to me we need to put banks under democratic control.
Any service that is a neccesity should not be run by private interests (health, education etc) because if they go under... we are also screwed.
The people must have control over sessential service via our elected government
markgg1 2 years ago
good thing you are not an elected official and get a vote towards the laws of this country...bad thing that people with your brain are though.
The Federal Reserve is to blame for this mess...the only logical and moral thing is to allow everything tied to the disease, the Fed, to fail with the Fed.
And as for your savings...it is paper money and not backed by anything, so in the event of a collapse, who are you going to blame when you have nothing?
helltrackrider 2 years ago
"What is your government solution to these "Informational asymmetries?"
In planned economies the solution simply is information technology and telecommunications everyone gets the information they need to know. For example if a store in Los Angles is selling a lot of product A they can search databases to see if there is a larger trend and how the world wide stock of Product A including those in transit and to where and the manufactures will also see all this information due to open databases
Psy500 2 years ago
Really the technology already exist for computers to automatically manage production to some extent, were computers automatically makes orders for production for new products and places shipment orders by looking at the demand at stores with very little human input. If more blue toothbrushes are bought, a computer could make priority for blue toothbrushes over other toothbrushes and do this in seconds thus computers could keep up with changes in consumer demand faster then any capitalists.
Psy500 2 years ago
Sounds nice. If it is so great, why haven't capitalists implemented these systems? If they have, what's the problem?
1337melee 2 years ago
That sounds expensive. Something has to update these databases. Someone has to build the software. Someone has to ensure that all claims are real. If it could be done for cheaper than advertising today, don't you think someone would have done it?
If it is too expensive, the prices of the commodities could go up.
1337melee 2 years ago
No computer has yet identified a demand for an ipod which had not been built. CEOs can handle the supply and demand. Capitalists must find the new industries and create them.
1337melee 2 years ago
"No computer has yet identified a demand for an ipod which had not been built. "
Neither has capitalists, it has always been engineers that has identified demand for new products in fact most new products have been held up by capitalists just not getting why engineers are so exited by the new product. Thus engineers find and build new industries not capitalists.
Psy500 2 years ago
It is capitalists who create the demand. That is what they do. There was NO demand for an Ipod until capitalists looked at the technology available to them through inventors, took a RISK and invested in the production, distribution and advertisement of the product. These actions are what created the product. A computer can not take the advise of experts, independently decide which experts to agree with, then figure out a way to implement the production of the product.
1337melee 2 years ago
"It is capitalists who create the demand. "
Wrong it is the state that creates new demand. The internet, computers, microwave technology, electronics, jet engines all was originally created for militaries with government money and government oversight.
Psy500 2 years ago
It was capitalists who saw the use of such technologies, took a risk, and invested in their production and distribution to the populace. The government did not see how to make a personal computer, or many of the search engines, and whatnot, which have made the internet usable.
1337melee 2 years ago
Government may create certain technologies, but it is capitalists which have to ascertain if they can make a profitable product from them. Just because the government used computers, does not mean that they foresaw the demand for ipods. Many government technologies are not marketable, and it is up to capitalists to find which ones which are, and try to market them. Some inventions come up in defense, but many are made by private inventors.
1337melee 2 years ago
Someone else invented the automobile, but Henry Ford made the great innovation in making a marketable one. No one else had done so before. There was not a demand for a cheap automobile before Ford made the first ones. Many people did not even imagine one.
1337melee 2 years ago
How do you handle the moral implications of forcing people to conform to this system?
If they can't come to such an obvious decision on their own, they will need your help for something else, then to run their whole lives.
1337melee 2 years ago
Capitalism is just a illogical system since rather then the people with the most knowledge in managing production actually planning production you have the people with the least knowledge in managing production (the capitalist). Even if smart capitalists plan production logically in capitalism due to externalizes that makes it bad side-effects of capitalist decisions are paid for the entire society while the capitalist reaps all the gains.
Psy500 2 years ago
Even if Sarbanes-Oxley dies off, you think businesses will somehow magically become "saints of God"? NO. There's a reason why Rex Tillerson is a republican and not libertarian.
keyboardcatmoon 2 years ago
Psy500, If you consider the sacrifice of millions of people in the USSR by starvation, violent expansion, and more starvation, for the purpose of constructing factories, to be an adequate definition of industrialization, at least don't refer to it as prosperity.
1337melee 2 years ago
"Defibrillator?" This fellow, no matter how well-intentioned or sincere is simply a neo-con conservative republican more of the same syncophant who is absolutely blind to the stark economic and political reality of the past 40 years. What we really need to do is change the case law that grants corporations with "personhood." That single act fundamentally liberate the people that actually breath. Google "Santa Clara Blues."
jereuter01 2 years ago
In pure economic terms, an unregulated market, for the most part, produces much more growth and wealth overall than a regulated one. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean we should eliminate things like 40-hour workweeks and workplace safety laws. But on purely economic terms, it does work. Take it for what it's worth.
whoo689 2 years ago
Historically that is not the case, the peak in the rate of profit was also the peak of Keynesianism. Also no free-market has industrialized as rapidly as those that subsidized their industrial growth (the US did so well subsidizing its industrialization the US was the model for protectionists economists like Friedrich List)
Psy500 2 years ago
this is not proven really though is it.
Surely the real measure of wealth is the GDP per capita, as well as how equal society is economically (so the moneys spread around to everyone)
Norway for example is higer than the USA per capita, aswell as a much more equal society. This means peoples quality of life is very much higher. The USA is very rich, but the money is tied up in a tiny minority. Regulation by govt is the way to control this as a market left to itself can cause huge inequalit
markgg1 2 years ago
No overregulated Western European or Communist state elsewhere can do quite as well. And it's not like the people in these more socialist states, even the democratic ones, have much social mobility either. If you start a company, it'll be much harder to make it grow there and expand. And getting rich will only be available to a select few.
whoo689 2 years ago
"No overregulated Western European or Communist state elsewhere can do quite as well."
The USA industrialized not through free-markets but through subsidizes from the state and Russia industrialized even faster then the US did. The free-market has de-industrialized both the USA and Russia so free-market currently has a worse track record then even the U.S.S.R when it comes to prosperity.
Psy500 2 years ago
Keynesianism does not create prosperity. It has long been debunked. I don't know where you idiots on the left who keep vouching for the stimulus get your numbers and 'facts' that it will "work." How about OUT YOUR ASS?
Letting the market work does work. Of course, this doesn't mean we can't have some sensible regulations. But letting regulations run amuck ruins us, esp. institutions like the Fed.
whoo689 2 years ago
Keynesianism has not been debunked, at least not in the way you think. Keynesianism borough far more rapid growth then any free-market economy, Keynesianism only stalled due to over-production which free-markets still have yet to solve as proven by the current world wide economic crisis of over production of most commodities.
Psy500 2 years ago
Companys only care about maxium profit (which is what capatalism is) and they would mug you in the street if it was legal. I dont blame them> This is obviously what business is about
therefore we need restrictions on business such as workers rights, or environmental laws. These can only be made by government and enforced by govt institutions like the police
this guy is calling for anarcho capitalism, which scares the bejeesus out of me.
markgg1 2 years ago
First of all, Markgg1, I have never heard Dr. Brook advocate for the abolition of the police. Such a force would be needed in order to make sure that some other thug besides a government did not try to regulate business or harm individual rights. Doing this is the role of govt. I can tell by the fact that you wouldn't blame people for munging, and that you support a worker's right to violate the right to free trade, or the environment's claim on human life, that you don't understand rights.
1337melee 2 years ago
The right to free trade? I think it's you that doesn't understand rights.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
I am referring to "worker's rights", as an agent to infringe individual rights. A law which institutes, for example, a minimum wage, infringes upon both a worker's right to compete with others, by offering lower prices, and a employer's right to hire such a worker at that price. It is a clear violation of a right to free trade.
1337melee 2 years ago
You misunderstand the nature of rights in the first place. Where does this right to free trade come from? Why is it a right? It isn't. There is no right to free trade.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Comment removed
1337melee 2 years ago
The justification for rights is that rights allow men to live. Force restricts a man's actions. A forced man's ability to think, act and live is shrunk. Rights protect man's ability to think, act, produce the values needed for his life, and to freely trade for the values produced by others.
Man must live by the product of his own thought, for reason is his only means of survival. The restrictions of force which rights protect man against are restrictions on life.
1337melee 2 years ago
Rights allow men to live? You're still taking rights as a given, abstract from any particular time or place. Which rights? Where are these magical rights against force?
Man must live by the product of his own thought? I don't see how someone could be alive if they were not capable of thought.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
I refer to the individual rights of life, liberty, and property.
Life, a right to live. No one can kill you unless in extreme cases when the rights of others are violated.
Liberty. Freedom of action. No one can restrict which choices you make, so long as you don't restrict the rights of others.
Property. The right to the products of your own labor and the right to use and dispose of and trade for other values with those products.
1337melee 2 years ago
This is just idealism. These rights do not exist in the way you are describing them. It's really a pointless discussion, you just don't understand the nature of rights.
The right to the products of your own labor under capitalism is inconceivable, the whole system is based on forcing the majority to give up the products of their labor in exchange for a wage covering only a fraction of what they create.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
True. Only a fraction of the price of the items goes to the workers. This is because only a fraction of the labor which went into production of the items was preformed by the laborer. The other part was produced by the inventor of the process, and the capitalist who funded it. The capitalist, mind you, who saw the value which could be created, not an easy thing, and used his own assets, which he produced by his labor, in order to fund it. Investment is not easy. It is also necessary.
1337melee 2 years ago
Funding produces no value...that funding goes towards paying for labor. All of the things the capitalist contributes are the result of the labor of workers...his factories, his raw materials, etc. Without labor you would have no value.
Investment is only necessary within your narrow framework.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
True. Without labor there would be no value. But the primary value provided by human labor is always the use of the mind.
A capitalist provides something which no other individual under any system could possibly provide. Only a capitalist has both the incentive and the ability to engage in the task of assessing whether a particular venture is likely to be successful. All that is lost if they are wrong is the money they created and the money of those who joined them.
1337melee 2 years ago
Whether a venture is likely to be profitable, you mean? But this is only socially necessary in the context of the capitalist system. You're still stuck in your circular reasoning.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
How can you say that money which pays for the labor, the most important aspect of the venture, has no value?
1337melee 2 years ago
It produces no value. If I loan a tractor company $1000, does that produce a tractor? No, the labor that the money puts into action is responsible. The capitalist doesn't contribute anything by walking to his mail box once per month to receive his dividends.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
It is true that one can not be alive as a human being without being capable of thought. But one can chose not to think, if one would prefer to live of the charity of others or to force them to provide for your needs.
To make such a choice is to choose not to live as a man.
1337melee 2 years ago
You can choose not to think? How do you do that, exactly? Become a coma patient? Since coma patients can't live by the product of their own thought, does that mean we should kill them?
The majority of society is forced by economic relations to provide for the capitalist class. Does that mean we would be justified in expropriating their property?
Seriously, these are just objectivity slogans...there really is nothing rational about her philosophy.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
A person who chooses to beg for money when he could be working is choosing to live off of the products of others' labor. He is choosing not to apply his mind to the task of keeping himself alive. He may have a mind, he may think of things, but he is not USING his mind. Because coma patients can't live by the products of their own thought, they are at the mercy of charity to provide for their needs. No one is stopping people from keeping them alive. They still have rights, so killing is wrong.
1337melee 2 years ago
So those genius bank robbers we see on tv who spent months devising the perfect plan to steal millions were not applying their minds? Charity? But charity/altruism is immoral!
This is just objectivist dogma, honestly.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Comment removed
1337melee 2 years ago
if people can go out and find some unused land to live off of, they are free to do so under capitalism. If they cant find land, they have no moral right to insist that others use their property in a way which is more beneficial to them.
1337melee 2 years ago
Rights do not spring from the minds of novel writers, they exist and are only realizable through society. If society decides that capitalists do not have a right to their property, then they will be expropriated. Your rights and morals exist only in your head, they're fiction.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
So society can decide whatever rules it wants to if it sees them as beneficial?
How do you imagine anyone else could possibly have the incentive to work hard enough to work out such complex and difficult calculations involved in risk assessment?
1337melee 2 years ago
It doesn't matter if you think it can, that's what happens. Rights and morality are an outgrowth of society and they change with history.
Difficult calculations involved in risk assessment?
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Immensely difficult calculations. In today's market there is so much uncertainty, that only those who fully immerse themselves in it have even a chance of figuring out what ventures will be successful.
Again, I would ask what the basis of those decisions of what rights are should be.
This is essentially to ask what the needs of the individuals in the society are, since a society as a whole, can not make a decision in the sense that a person can.
1337melee 2 years ago
"Immensely difficult calculations. In today's market there is so much uncertainty, "
If that is the case the capitalists can't really plan production since if the calculations are too difficult for a computer then the calculations would be impossible for a human to do.
Psy500 2 years ago
What you need to understand is that computers, as they stand today, can not think. It is true, they do "calculations" but I was referring to is choosing the advise of one expert in the field, or another. A computer can not do that. A capitalist has the motivation to understand the risk he is undertaking. If he can, he is successful, if he can't, he takes losses.
1337melee 2 years ago
I think the question here is:
On what basis should a society choose it's rules. What do you think the basis should be?
1337melee 2 years ago
There is no justification for the expropriation of property on the basis of "economic relations"
The fact is that the workers are not "forced" they are perfectly free to attempt to engage in any trades which they want to. When factories first popped up, people preferred to live in those conditions than to work in the fields. They were even able to provide for more children, resulting in an increased population.
The job opportunity offered by the them was beneficial to the workers and still is.
1337melee 2 years ago
As opposed to starving or living in poverty, sure. That's the point, it's economic coercion. You're forced by need to labor for the wants of others. Working for a capitalist is obviously beneficial as opposed to starving, but worker and capitalist do not equally benefit, and it certainly is beneficial as opposed to a system where workers have full control over the value they produce instead of most of it being siphoned off by capitalists.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Because you have a choice, it is not force. If I said that I would give you a million dollars if you invented the light bulb, and you did, and I paid you, would that be coercion?
1337melee 2 years ago
Am I going to starve if I don't invent the light bulb? If so, then sure it's coercion.
I'm not going to waste my time debating on the internet for hours...I suppose a good starting point would be looking up "economic coercion" on wiki or something.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
The peasants working in the field were starving. But they had lived for hundreds of years, until a capitalist came along and gave them a job. If the job is beneficial to them, who is to say what terms the employer sets are not in the best interests of the employee.
1337melee 2 years ago
"The peasants working in the field were starving..."
Learn history, the peasants and artisans were not looking for a job thus the Luddite revolts, artisans were already self-sufficient thus revolted against capitalists for taking away their Independence and peasants also revolted against capitalists as they wanted land to be independent not to be a wage slave in the sweatshops of Britain.
Psy500 2 years ago
Ok, Mr history, I would claim that it was improvements in the agriculture industry which ALLOWED the population shift from rural to the urban. The factory jobs were beneficial to the first, starving peasants, and then, when they were in place, the artisans went out of business. Would you have suggested a government bail-out of the artisan industry?
1337melee 2 years ago
"The factory jobs were beneficial to the first,"
Nope it was not beneficial at first, peasants only starved during times of famine it was not a normal condition of Feudalism, it only become "beneficial" with the enclosures of the commons were government took land that was suppose to be owned by God (and simply entrusted to the crown to manage) was privatized thus peasants no longer had access to this land thus their ability to production food fell that created starvation.
Psy500 2 years ago
As for the Artistians they problem was capitalists were using horrid conditions and low wages to undercut them. Artistans through their guilds were able to ban capitalists from the major cities of Europe through pressuring mayors but capitalists circumvented democracy by going to small towns instead were workers was far less organized and used the ignorant town folks against skilled urban workers to undermined their collective bargaining.
Psy500 2 years ago
So what you are saying is that the capitalists should have just let the people who had land stolen from them starve to death?
"peasants only starved in times of famine"
Are you kidding me? Find one peasant in the past or present who wasn't in a constant state of starvation.
Death by starvation was always the number one cause of death. In places which haven't developed, it still is today.
The vast majority of people died of either starvation or disease before 10 yrs old.
1337melee 2 years ago
Peasants were self sufficient. They were self sufficient in that they could produce enough food to prevent their population from dwindling to nothing. Peasants always prefer to work in factories. Look at the poorest countries in the world. The peasant farmers always rush to the factories for a better life.
1337melee 2 years ago
Well, if the peasants lost their land, because improvements in agriculture pushed them out of the farming business, and they don't want to work in the factories, I don't know what to tell you. All I can say is that they do not have a right to their old jobs, because just because you had a job one day does not mean you can't lose it tomorrow. To impose such a restriction is to make the people who pay for the inferior products the slaves of the producers.
1337melee 2 years ago
So no one is allowed to make any kind of trade with a person who is starving....I think you are just tired that makes no sense. If I cant give a person a million dollars, for doing something, than I certainly cant employ him for anything close to what even you consider his work to be worth.
1337melee 2 years ago
The worker and the capitalist do not produce equal values in their lives. If a company had a hundred loaves of bread, and giving up one was not of great significance, and you were starving, but only paid a few dollars for the bread, which saved you, you could say that you benefited too much from the transaction, and you owe the shop which saved you all of your money.
1337melee 2 years ago
So you wouldn't have a problem with a company selling a starving man a loaf of bread in exchange for his entires lifes savings? If that isn't economic coercion, then I don't know what is.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
No what I am saying is that if in any transaction, both parties must benefit equally, if you were starving and you absolutely needed the bread, it would be wrong to offer anything less than all that you have.
I do not agree with this. This is based on your claim that workers and capitalists should benefit equally.
1337melee 2 years ago
I have figured out where exactly I went wrong here. I accepted your idea that the capitalist gets more in the transaction between a capitalist and a worker. The worker receives a greater benefit by far, because the capitalist is not in such dire need of employment. The worker gains much more than the capitalist in this.
1337melee 2 years ago
"The worker receives a greater benefit by far, because the capitalist is not in such dire need of employment".
The worker is in dire need of employment because they have been made dependent on the capitalists by capitalists driving artisans out of business.
Psy500 2 years ago
So you are saying that if someone has a job one day they should have a guarantee, no matter how much better the products of others are, to keep that job forever? This is ludicrous.
Why did the first workers go to the capitalists? Do you deny the tremendous value the capitalists provided to the starving field workers of the pre-industrial age?
1337melee 2 years ago
Saying that the capitalists were wrong to drive the artisans out of buisness is crazy. It was the individuals who bought the products of industry over the artisans who caused that.
Also, saying the capitalists were wrong in this way is as bad as saying that Edison should not have invented the light bulb, because he put the old candle and oil lamp industry out of business. It is in complete disregard for the benefit which superior products offer to human life.
1337melee 2 years ago
So the capitalist who gets millions receives less than the worker who gets an insignificant wage? Yeah, alright. If you want to live your life working for the benefit of someone else and telling your coworkers that they're ripping off the capitalist because they benefit more than him, then that's fine. I don't want to make someone else a billionaire while I can barely afford my car payments. I want control over what I produce and I want a standard of living corresponding to my contribution.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
I am trying to show the contradictions in your view.
Just because I think that what the worker gets in return for his work is worth more to him than the work is to the capitalist, doesn't mean that either are being exploited.
As long as people engage in voluntary trade, no one should get in the way of that. Your primary concern as a person engaging in a trade is, "is this trade beneficial to me?"
To take any other consideration would be to commit self-sacrifice.
Both for worker and capitalist
1337melee 2 years ago
A person who engages in trade is not, however, "Is he getting more from this than I am?" That should not be your concern.
1337melee 2 years ago
There is no contradiction, just your little philosophical crap that is at contradiction with your own philosophy. Rand deals only with increasing your technical means of life while disregarding anything psychological. I don't care about your romanticism of trade. I want to be payed according to what I contribute, not have half of what I produce go to some capitalist who contributed nothing. What don't you understand?
ZakeD3 2 years ago
"capitalist who contributed nothing"
Are you serious? Are you saying that the profits a farmer gets back from paying for his raw materials should not accounted in the price? Capital has value. Prudent investment of capital is an incredible contribution. Should the farmer just be able to get the seed for free and just charge less for his crop? that is stealing. Who pays for the raw materials? Someone has to. We have a division of labor, so the capitalist pays for the venture.
1337melee 2 years ago
Would you say it would be morally wrong for a worker to accept a wage below what you seem to arbitrarily set as what he deserves?
What if the capitalist, or whatever organizer you suggest, decides that their job is not beneficial to them, and just decides to do something else?
1337melee 2 years ago
Morally wrong? I'm sorry, I'm not religious.
I don't think there should be a parasitic class that contributes nothing and yet receives most of the wealth produced by other people simply because they own property. It's not hard to understand. I don't accept your morality or your rights. I want a world conductive to my happiness and standard of living. If you don't understand that then any claim of egoism on your part is bullshit.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
It is not just because they own the capital. If you have money, and don't know how to invest it, you lose it. That is why it is so difficult to remain successful in the investment market, because it is hard. Prudent investment of capital is necessary if you want any of the ventures a society to profit the society. The only way to incentivise prudent investment of capital is to make the capitalists take on the risk they are taking.
1337melee 2 years ago
Ok... If you don't have any ethics or morality, on what basis do you make decisions? How do you determine which choices are "good" and which ones are "bad." No one can function with out some kind of moral principles. It is a physical impossibility.
I form a value hierarchy from my moral principles and attempt to take actions to achieve my values. Do you not have any values? how do you determine your actions?
1337melee 2 years ago
Are you going to try to make an argument against applying a moral principle?
What gives any man any ideas about what he should do, if it is not the moral principles he has accepted.
You can not seriously suggest that you have no ideas about what is right, or wrong, or good or bad.
1337melee 2 years ago
In farming for example, it is common for the farmer to perform labor, own the land, and pay for his raw materials(seeding). I would claim that the money he gets comes from wages, rent, and the profits of stock.
sometimes, however, in other industries, someone else is needed to fulfill the role of finance, and thus, they get the profits of the stock. This is justice, because the venture can not succeed as well without it, otherwise, that further division of labor would be unnecessary.
1337melee 2 years ago
And your claim would be completely idiotic.
This is not justice because you are still being a narrow-minded randroid. Capitalists are no more necessary now than slave owners were. Sure, slaves performed an important function during slavery...the point was to get rid of slavery itself, not just slaves!
ZakeD3 2 years ago
First of all, that was from Adam Smith...
How would a farmer pay for his raw materials, under the system you suggest?
1337melee 2 years ago
I don't work for the benefit of someone else. I work for the benefit of myself. I don't mind if others also benefit from my actions. Such is the beneficial nature of trade.
1337melee 2 years ago
Such is your silly rhetoric. The majority of the people owns less than 3% of the wealth and yet they are mainly responsible for it's creation, and the top 5% who contribute little to it's creation own half of it. You are working for the benefit of others. Half of your day is unpaid labor. Of course you benefit from the half of your labor you are compensated for, but if you have no problem with working half your day directly to satisfy someone else, then could you come help me clean my house?
ZakeD3 2 years ago
So... You just gave some facts about the capitalist system, and you claim that capitalists produce no value.
Let's start from the beginning.. Would you agree with me if I said that long term investment success is rare and difficult?
How about this? "when a venture produces value for society, the capitalist also gains values, but when it fails, the capitalist loses money"
We are now working in the capitalist system, supposedly to show that capitalists are unnecessary. You started it.
1337melee 2 years ago
From my perspective, a common laborer gets unimaginably more than their contribution. A common laborer gets all the advantages of the most ingenious innovators in the form of technological products he can afford. He gets values he would never be able to produce on his own. The capitalist does not care that he gets more than his contribution, because both benefit from the transaction, and it is not the capitalist's concern that the worker is taking advantage of such wonders.
1337melee 2 years ago
From your perspective? What is your perspective, exactly? Do you work? I can't see how someone can be so brainwashed as to be entirely satisfied with their own wage slavery. How many capitalists do you actually think come up with these innovations? What about slaves using cotton gins, was that fine? Slaves in the middle of the 19th century were actually paid more than wage workers, mind you.
You realize that it was workers who produced these physical machines as well, right?
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Capitalists generally do not invent things. This is true. What the do tend to invent, are methods of risk assessment. This is necessary for anyone to actually see their inventions produced on a practical scale. Some inventions have a tremendous cost to produce before they even see any returns. Who are you to say weather or not it should be tried unless you are taking on the risk?
1337melee 2 years ago
What capitalists tend to do is pay people to do their risk assessment and inventing for them while they sit in their house and wait to receive their dividends.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Ok, but who do they get to do their risk assessment? in making such a decision, they are taking a risk. I don't understand how you can characterize capitalists as rich people who got lucky with who they lent out their investments to.
1337melee 2 years ago
I do not consider that most workers are enslaved. Slavery is wrong. It is wrong because if forces a man's actions. A forced man can not use his mind, because whatever conclusion he comes to, his actions will not differ. Thoughts for actions are necessary in order to produce any human values. A slave is entirely dependent on his master to live. His decisions have no bearing on weather his life will be prolonged. He is not alive as a man. (cont.)
1337melee 2 years ago
And the working class is dependent on the capitalist class to live. The working class is forced to work for capitalists or starve. Their ability to live - to exist - is dependant upon their willingness to labor for the benefits of others. They are only allowed to live as long as they are able to produce a surplus for non-laboring property owners. How you can be a wage labor and have any claim towards being a man of self-esteem or whatever objectivist crap you say is beyond me.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
"It was workers who produced these physical machines"'
Ok, I would give a significant amount of credit for production. The majority of credit goes to those who produced more values. For example, the Inventor who invented the machines. The CEO who figured out how many factories and who to hire in his company. The employees who figured out which workers to hire. The capitalist who figured out that the technologies existed to make the venture productive and beneficial to, among other ppl, society.
1337melee 2 years ago
Let me be clear on this. The capitalist does act primarily in his own interest and for his own benefit. This does not mean, however, that others do not benefit from his actions.
All the people I mentioned (workers, inventors, CEOs, Capitalists) deserve credit for the production of machines. They get it in the form of money, in proportion to the values they provided.
1337melee 2 years ago
Hitler also acted primarily in his own interest, but this does not mean that others did not benefit from his actions.
They do not get it in proportion to the value they create, that's the basis of capitalism. Where do you think profit comes from? Magic? No, it comes from paying workers for less than what they produce. It's a system that does not benefit me, is not conductive to my happiness, and as such I want to get rid of it. Your dogmatic rantings about morals aren't going to change that.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
I see. So you understand how inefficient the slave system was. That workers cost more to keep alive, as it was not the responsibility of slaves to care for themselves, and they produced less values.
Yet, you would prefer people be enslaved completely, than be "exploited"
The cost it takes to keep someone alive is not a measure of their standard of living.
1337melee 2 years ago
Think of what would happen if an inventor took your view. "well, I could get a lot of money from producing this invention, and I could live well for the rest of my life, but, all those people who will buy my invention, could have their lives extended greatly, and they could support more children and live a better and more fulfilling life. I couldn't even imagine the benefit all those people would be getting, but it is clearly greater than a billion dollars. I'd be exploited if I invented it."
1337melee 2 years ago
But that's not what happens. The inventor usually becomes a millionaire and will receive most of the value they produce, while they receive barely anything.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
There is no way that a single person can receive the enough values to compensate Edison for inventing the light bulb. There is not enough money in the world. From your perspective, an inventor would be more exploited by society than anyone else could be.
I don't have a problem with Edison only becoming enormously rich. He did not need to justify the returns he got on the basis of how much his labor benefited others. A worker should not either. Only consider if a trade is beneficial to you.
1337melee 2 years ago
There were plenty of people who invented light bulbs before Edison and many creating improved versions at the same time, and someone else would have made one just as good as he did. Science is never the product of one person, we are always building on the inventions and discovery of others. Edison may not have invented his without the work of others.
I have no problem with society deciding to highly reward inventors, but there is no doubt that the money he made was the product of his laborers.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
I'm sure you are familiar with Rand's critique of man as a sacrificial animal, yes? How is this reconciled with capitalism?
In capitalism the majority of society is forced to labor for the profits of the capitalists if they wish to survive. Their ability to live - to exist - is dependant upon their willingness to labor for the benefits of others. If they can not find a buyer for their labor in a free market, then they face starvation.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
If they resist being forced to work for a wage, they can be replaced. If there is a downturn in the market, they will be fired. They are only allowed to live as long as they are able to produce a surplus for non-laboring property owners. Does this not sound like a sacrificial animal?
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Ok just one minute. Under ANY system, if a venture is taken, and it is not practical, the standard of living goes down. If it is an enormous investment, people often starve. This is under any system. You can't produce values in any system without investing some values. (raw materials, machine and structure constriction)
How would you propose to incentivize productive and valuable ventures in society?
1337melee 2 years ago
The main problem you have with capitalism seems to be that you don't think capitalists produce any values. The workers labor for their own benefit. Not for the capitalists. They would not engage in a trade which was not beneficial.
1337melee 2 years ago
Of course it's beneficial, because if they don't do it they'll starve or be in poverty. It would also be beneficial for me to give up my house in exchange for a cup of water if some person somehow came to control all of the water in society. What exactly is your point? Would you justify that situation in the same way? My point is that I want to avoid these situations entirely and actually receive the majority of what I produce.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
There you go, you said it. Capitalism helps people out of poverty. This happens all around the world every day. I take the increase in population as evidence of the improvement of conditions in the poorest countries. In the past, all those people would have died of disease or starvation.
The only alternative to capitalism is the capitalists sit back and watch people starve, or they provide for the barest needs of all starving people. (cont.)
1337melee 2 years ago
Humanities productive forces have been increasing for hundreds of years, under all systems. The same thing happened in Stalinist Russia. While peoples real standard of living goes up in capitalism, their relative standard of living goes down. Workers used to receive half of this countries income in the 60s, they now receive a quarter. This is constantly decreasing.
Lower standards of living lead to higher birth raters, Malthus was disproved long ago.
The alternative is economic democracy.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Without capitalism, you would have no home, and no clean water. All values which have ever been produced have been produced to the extent the producers were free to produce and trade. You should get a contract that says that you will get a certain price for water from the tap. Or, buy a water filter, and filter water from your gutters when it rains. ( I would suggest the first)
1337melee 2 years ago
There are plenty of people in existence today who live without capitalists or anyone who benefits from their work other than them and their families. They live in the poorest countries, and they live in the wilderness, as savages. If people would rather live like that, on the barest of subsistence, the opportunity still exists.
1337melee 2 years ago
Under slavery, some people were peasants and grew their own food. Under feudalism, many people were independent traders and artisans. When we look at systematic phenomena, we make generalizations. One is that the working class would starve to death if they decided to stop working for capitalists. Work or die, this is no different than slavery. Where you see "freedom" I see economic coercion.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
So. Let's imagine that a person were given the choice to truly live by their own labor, and live as a savage in the wilderness. Who among the population of any country which has even the slightest bit of development, would accept the opportunity?
1337melee 2 years ago
Every man who has ever lived has been under the "work or die" "coercion"
Even a capitalist must feed himself, or pay someone to remind him to eat. He then must choose a responsible person to entrust with this job. So down the line for every value he requires.
The desire for life without work of some kind is impossible to fulfill.
You could say people are under the coercion "eat food or die" and thus people are forced to pay money for food, and thus the price of food is forcibly extorted.
1337melee 2 years ago
Many capitalists do not have to work. Going to the fridge is not work in the same sense that we are dealing with.
No, but the desire to work with the knowledge that your labor is not being used to enrich some parasite while you can barely pay your rent is possible to fullfill.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
The necessity to eat is not the result of a type of economic or social system, it is natural, it can not be escaped. There is nothing natural about capitalism, it is one economic system among many that has existed and can be replaced by a system where people are not forced to work for the benefit of a parasitic class.
NOW STOP COMMENTING.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Think of your favorite book, if you have read any good books. Now think of the price you paid for that book. Under your system. How could you even begin to justify to yourself, paying such an insignificant price for it.
The fact is that there is nothing which can give an artist or a revolutionary inventor a value equal to that of all the benefit which they provide for society. It would be a physical impossibility. However, it is OK because they freely trade their work.
1337melee 2 years ago
More philosobabble. I don't buy books anyway, I download them on the internet.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
"philosobabble"
Think of the person who wrote a great book, an other work of art, or, made a revolutionary invention. What do you think their compensation should be?
1337melee 2 years ago
I have no problem with the compensation that most researchers and developers receive. They should receive a compensation in line with how much the community is valuing their skills. I support democratic control of the economy. Now honestly, please stop commenting, I do not have this much time to waste on an argument I have no interest in. CAPITALISM IS SIMPLY NOT CONDUCTIVE TO MY HAPPINESS, AND THAT IS ALL THAT MATTERS, NOT SOME SOCIALLY PRODUCED MORALITY OR RELIGION.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Yeah tons of people in Cuba or who survived in East Germany or the USSR or North Korea I'm sure would agree with you. I wonder how dumb you'd sound to someone who has actually lived with the practical result of socialism...no basic freedoms etc.
mccronej 2 years ago
I suggest you look over Spencers def of slavery:
"What is essential to the idea of a slave? We primarily think of him as one owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slaves action -- a control which is habitually to the benefit of the controller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labors under coercion to satisfy anothers desires."
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Are you talking about Herbert Spencer? he was just a collectivist. I do not agree with Social Darwinism...
What is your point? Are you saying that workers are slaves?
I would not agree that slavery was beneficial to either party. Many slave owners regarded their slaves altruistically, in that their actions were justified because the slaves were incapable of living properly on their own. That is how they justified it to themselves anyway, Socialism is justified in a similar fashion.
1337melee 2 years ago
He was a free market libertarian.
An objectivist not agreeing with Social Darwinism? lololol
By your logic the slaves benefitted just as much, and likely more, than the slave master, because they received food which they most likely valued greatly due to hunger.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
NO OBJECTIVIST AGREES WITH SOCIAL DARWINISM. I cite Ayn Rand on the behaviorist school:
"This is Social Darwinism of a kind that Herbert Spencer would not dream of."
Pretty clear there...
Spencer justified the capitalist system on the basis that it produced the greatest benefit for the evolution of the species. THIS IS COMPLETE COLLECTIVISM.
1337melee 2 years ago
[Citation]
Ayn Rand. Philosophy: Who Needs It.
Chapter 13 "The Stimulus and the Response: A Critique of B. F. Skinner"
1337melee 2 years ago
I do not consider a relationship initiated by the use of force and requiring physical force to maintain, to be a beneficial relationship to anyone. Let's see. The slave gets food. Well that is a great value. They luse their whole lives. You did not get slave revolts to get more food. You got slave revolts for freedom.
1337melee 2 years ago
By your logic we can just as easily justify slavery, because slaves receive far more "psychic value" or whatever philosophical crap you want to get into than they create for the slave owner, because they receive food which they value more since they probably aren't very well fed.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
What are you talking about? My entire previous comment was a refutation of the justification of slavery. It is altruistic--it is evil. It destroys human values. It forces man to act for the sake of another. It imposes a claim on the slave owner to provide for the needs of his slave. The whole relationship is perverse. The worker should look out for himself, and the employer should look after himself. (cont.)
1337melee 2 years ago
The slave did not benefit from their altruism. The point of altruism is not the benefit of the recipient of values. It is the sacrifice of values which is emphasized. A slave has no freedom of action. He is forced to work, he is forced to talk only when spoken to. He is forced to have his children with whoever his master decides he will. He is forced to leave his children when his master sells him away, or sells them away. He owns nothing, not even himself. They even try to make him christian.
1337melee 2 years ago
At least the slave was guaranteed an existence. Slaves were such a large investment that the master had to guarantee their health. Workers on the other hand must rent themselves daily if they wish to live, they are replaceable, and ended up with. They live there lives as a means to the ends of others. As long as capitalism exists workers interests will be subordinates to the interests of the capitalist class.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
No, it was not, and if it was you are simply refuting your own logic, which wouldn't matter because I was trying to show how flawed it is. Saying that slavery is altruistic is the STUPIDEST thing I have ever heard.
If the worker should look out for himself then why do you have a problem with workers establishing democratic control over society? Oh, right, that would contradict your objectivist religion and capitalist Gods.
ZakeD3 2 years ago
Ok explain why the slave system was anything but altruistic.
Explain why all systems which have taken altruism's ultimate logical implications have reduced to slavery. It has been sacrifice to neighbors, god, the Nation, the proletariat, and yes, to slaves.
Now, has a single person benefited from this altruism? no.
1337melee 2 years ago
PLease explain how you link altruism with slavery.
I am totally confused by this logic.
markgg1 2 years ago
Ok.
The rational is also based on racism, as white slave-holders believed that black people were incapable of living on their own, and therefore it was the slave-holder's moral duty to provide the slaves with work and food.
1337melee 2 years ago
Furthermore, if you asked many southern intellectuals, they would say that their slave system was much more humane than that of the industrialists up north.
Even if you ask some modern intellectuals today, you will find that they claim the slaves enjoyed such values above the northern workers such as job security and more food.
1337melee 2 years ago
Well these southern intellectuals would simply be wrong. Anybody can see that.
markgg1 2 years ago
certainly no one can claim that the slave owners profited from slavery. The costs to keep the slaves enslaved did not justify the maintenance of unmotivated labor.
you can see how the feudal and agrarian south was much poorer than the industrialized and free north.
1337melee 2 years ago
Yes I agree. The industrial and free north is a much more superior system than the backwardness of a slavery economy. If people are free they will have higher morale and work more productively.
I think we agree on many points... But if you want a free society somebody needs to pay for its institutions (such as government, courts, police, army etc) this must come from taxation, otherwise you have anarchy
markgg1 2 years ago
But why is it a logical expectation that if people are allowed to choose whether to support their government or not, that they will not contribute? There is no reason why taxes are necessary.
People will see the value in contributing to the future improvement of the institution which protects them from theft and murder and they will do so.
1337melee 2 years ago
high tax economys such as western europe and scandinavia have better rates of poverty, crime, health etc etc... its because we have allowed the state (whihc we control via democracy) to ensure we receive certain services... but we accept this costs money, so we echange the fruits of our labour in return for health care, security, education, welfare etc...
This iws how society should function, and the evidence proves it is the best way regardless of your philosophical positions
markgg1 2 years ago
The reason why health coverage rates are lower in the US is because medicare and tax incentives making employer's provide health coverage drove up costs.
In other countries, quality was impaired by the attempts of the government to control costs and achieve total coverage. Because of this, many procedures such as cataract surgery are not provided.
Also extremely long wait times, such as those characteristic of the Canadian health care system, are commonplace.
1337melee 2 years ago
Long waits are simply due to lack of investment. Evidence shows clearly that the more number put in, the lower the wait times. This is also just common sense. People like yourself are asking for less money put in, whihc will just hinder the service.
Why do Americans think they are so different from everyone else? Its obvious why the system is failing, and thats because it has no public control and is completely in the hands of profit makers. Healthcare is not a product like coca cola is.
markgg1 2 years ago
The argument of whos system is better is just silly... its abundantly clear (and not even my opinion, its just fact) that western Europes health system is cheaper and more effective. I can only conclude this is because these systems are 100% or mainly run by the state. I have to keep reiterating (kind of boring)... a states legiticmacy is based on how democraric it is. The USSR was extremelly undemocratic, whilst modern europe is very.
markgg1 2 years ago
It is not completely in control of the private market.
50% of the money spent in health care in the United States is spent by the government.
The regulatory situation is now so extreme that doctors spend more time doing useless paperwork and avoiding lawsuits than treating patients.
just because we don't have socialized medicine doesn't mean that we don't have a health care system which is dominated by destructive government policies.
1337melee 2 years ago
thats because the government recognizes u cant have people literally dying in the streets, so they HAVE to pay for those who simply cannot pay for themselves. This means private companies know they can charge the state what they wish, as the money is essentially 'bottom less'... A public owned and maintained system is not after profit. Its sole aim is to keep you healthy.
A public system wants you through the doors LESS, so they focus on preventative medicine. This is best for cost, and healt
markgg1 2 years ago
The reason why the costs started to go out of control in the first place is because there were a few people who couldn't afford to pay for a level of care which somebody considered "basic."
Now all they have to show for it is higher costs, and more people who cant afford so called "basic" care without government help.
1337melee 2 years ago
The only thing which decides what a public system does is the majority rule.
Whenever there is this much money in government, the system will progressively deteriorate until every social pressure group has claimed their piece of the pie, and then until there is only one group, and then until there is no one left.
1337melee 2 years ago
I disagree that the system deteriates, and I think the evidence backs me up. High and medium tax economys are very stabvle socially, economically, politically etc...
markgg1 2 years ago
I agree the lawsuit situation is ridiculous. In New Zealand they have simply passed a law where you cannot sue a doctor.
Thisa maybe a bit extreme, but your lawmakers should think about this.. But obviously mal practise needs to be punished, but I guess its difficult to have a balance between too many lawsuits, and too little.
A tough one, and I dont really know enough about the health system to think of a soulution.. maybe someone else has an idea?
markgg1 2 years ago
Cataract surgery is provided by the NHS by the way. Also the NHS are quite proud of themselves currently because they reduced wait times from 2 years to 3 months.. all thanks to Labours record investment when they took power from the conservatives.
You keep picking on really tiny examples to try to bolster your case. Of course a public system isnt perfect, but is a far sight better than the current US system.
It costs 8% GDP for 100% coverage, yours 16% GDP and only insures 4/5ths.
markgg1 2 years ago
You are just blinded by an ideology telling you 'the state is evil, it should stay out of my life' but doesnt it depend on how its in your life? I have no problem with a state that ive elected who organises a system of healthcare, education, law and order solely in the interests of me. I cant organise these for myself? Are you going to build yourself a school or highway?
I dotn really think so.
You just take the system that keeps you safe for granted.
markgg1 2 years ago
I don't have a problem with the state so long as it focuses on protecting me from thugs, rather than setting up its own system of theft and coercion.
what right does any majority have to steal the wealth of other people?
1337melee 2 years ago
The only thing which made made slavery appear practical is the slave trade. It was basically sacrificing the lives of millions of people for the sake of producing crops. It really produced nothing. It is the same thing which happened in the soviet union, millions sacrificed to produce factories=no profit.
1337melee 2 years ago
The USA has the higest poverty, worst health, biggest enequlaites.
This is because the government is the only organization that focuses solely whats in the public interest, and it has no power in USA
Look at scandinavian society where the government provides many ervices. Their society are so much more functional.
The weaker the government, the more closer we are to anarchy.
We need government to look out for us, and noone else will
markgg1 2 years ago
No, we need gov't to stop treating us like children.
whoo689 2 years ago
what do u mean? The govt is an extension of ourselves because we vote for them. Of course representation is not perfect, but its only way we can represent ourselves in a practical manner..
The reason Americans are so disillusioned with govt because you have allowed them to work for themselves and profits of corporations and not the public. This is simply a matter of changing the system slightly to make it more accountable to the public.
markgg1 2 years ago
Markgg1, the more government control over our lives there is, the closer we are to anarchy, because when a government steps out of it's legitimate role, it becomes a thug to the extent it does so.
You need to look out for yourself no one else will, and no one else can, or at least, not sustainably, and not without damage to you.
If the government looks out for you, you are a child all your life.
1337melee 2 years ago
You have to understand that it was anarchists who tried to kill Henry Clay Frick.
Government needs to play a bigger role...unless you want more Bernie Madoffs.
keyboardcatmoon 2 years ago
I hate anarchists as well. That is why no one should vote for libertarians. Dr. Brook is not a libertarian. Ayn rand + Objectivists are not libertarians.
The government has to stop regulating the economy so that it can get around to catching people who commit actual fraud and infringe on individual rights.
Maybe if they did, they would have been able to address the reports of Madoff's fraud as it was going on, and catch Madoff sooner.
There is a proper role in government. protect rights.
1337melee 2 years ago
If you have cancer, and you could choose any country to get your health care, Where would you go?
The answer is the United States. We have the best health care, the only issue is one of costs.
1337melee 2 years ago
As im a student, I would choose the UK as I wouldnt die due to me being poor.
Im not discrediting the US cancer health system. Im sure it is excellent, but the point is not everybody can access it.. and that in my view is a disgrace.
markgg1 2 years ago