It’s true that Pinochet employed some of the econ. policies Friedman had been advocating for decades, that some of Pinochet’s advisors had studied economics at the Un.of Chicago, and that Friedman subsequently cited the success of those policies. But just as Michael Moore’s endorsement of Cuba’s health care system doesn’t constitute endorsement of Castro’s dictatorial rule, so Friedman’s endorsement for Chilean tax or pension policies don’t constitute an endorsement of coups, purges, or torture.
(cont) The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk."
Milton Friedman: "While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title “The Fragility of Freedom.” (cont)
One does not have to detest political philosophies, such as socialism, or belong to any of the existing political tribes in order to see flaws in Klein's arguments. Even without getting into the arguments, consider how absurd and simplistic her metaphors are. Consider that they work solely to stir emotions in the viewer. Her use of the word "shock" is so loose and irresponsible that it's sickening. I mean surely even most left-leaning viewers can see this.
@eovid You police yourself quite fine, so do I and everyone I know when they deal with other people.. so do the local businesses and stores, so do the corporations where I buy my coffee and electronics from. They don't rob me, they dont yell at me, they don't steal from me, they don't cheat me. It's generally bad to do those things to your customers, so yes, they do police themselves.
@zdrux But you know who DOES do all the bad things I mentioned to me?.. the government. Nobody polices the government, they steal my labour and time from me, they inprison me if I don't want to go along with their taxes, they censor my radio and TV, they are not accountable to anyone, and they are the only ones with the guns, bombs, army, police, and the prisons. Now tell me who is screwing the shit out of us again?
If I were to write a book whose first chapter goes like this (similar to Klein's Ewen Cameron-liberalization juxtaposition) -- Communism is like a pedophile raping a child, destroying his humanity, forcing him/her into total submission -- every leftist would call me every nasty word in the world. Note that the abolition of private property can very easily suggest the loss of the right to self-ownership. Regardless, Klein's Shock Doctrine is very biased and very dishonest. Yes, I have read it.
Where is that video where he counters her arguements in her presence? Or is this just one more convient lie? Give me one arguement he won with her. I doubt that you can form the thought process to explain it.
Johan Norberg has no idea what he's talking about. Saying that Naomi Klein does not present any empirical proof, did he even see the pages at the end of the book, also called "references" where she lists all the sources where got the information? This guy is an idiot, I'm sorry.
@lauralino82 This guy shares a lot of Friedman's views. But let me tell you this, if Milton Friedman was alive and were to publicly debate Naomi Klein, he would absolutely destroy her. No question about it. This is what happens when you choose to listen and believe some who was an editor and columnist, instead of one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century. I'm sorry, but Klein can get nowhere with serious economists because there's so much distortion of the truth from Klein's work.
@GunsNRosesbitches in conclusion - you called Chomsky "a brilliant linguist" (forgive me for not believing you've actually familiarized yourself with his work in the field in linguistics further than Wikipedia's article).
You aren't the first or the last trying to marginalize this personality, no worries. I simply doubt that Friedman would win the argument with him. Why? Watch this: watch?v=DE1e_7rOwno&feature=related
It ain't Johan Norberg VS. Naomi Klein, it's Johan Norberg ON Naomi Klein. Put them together eye to eye and watch what remains of Norberg's "cherry-picked" (his expression) arguments. This guy pretends that there are no such bright minds as Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti or John Pilger in this work, who have on multiple occasions exposed the lies of ones like Norberg.
@pepijagarzekje And you pretend that that there are no such bright minds as Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek that have exposed the lies in of Klein's in such great detail before Klein was even born. Noam Chomsky? Excuse me, he is a brilliant man, but he specializes in linguistics. When it comes to economics, Friedman > Chomsky easily.
@GunsNRosesbitches We have totally different idea of a perfect world - you see it in harmony of numbers and theoretical ideas, I see it in peace and equality between the peoples of the world. In you, Friedman's or von Hayek's views the human aspect is reluctantly accepted as an idiom but never praised and respected. Funny that you mention Chomsky not Parenti, because, speking in your terms "Parenti would easily destroy Friedman's arguments", in fact, he has in his book "Against Empire".
@GunsNRosesbitches And honestly - I don't share your mad love towards aforementioned men. The current distribution of wealth in the world, the constant growth of poverty and inequality clearly shows that their ideas were at least flawed if not malicious. What really is "free market", we can observe in the actions of great transcontinental corporations.
@pepijagarzekje What is this constant growth of poverty and inequality you speak of? Societies that have liberalized markets have brought people out of poverty more than any other system. India boomed once abandoning central planning policies, China boomed after its economic reforms to embrace more capitalism in some sense, Brazil as well...and Chile. Chile has reduced its poverty rate by a significant amount, largely due to liberalized markets.
@pepijagarzekje Inequality may have increased, but poverty has decreased. The wealth pie has gotten larger and more of that pie goes to the wealthy, but people fail to see that many poor people are getting a slightly larger piece of the pie. Everyone is benefiting from it, but the benefit is not spread evenly. People like to think that wealth is static and that the rich can only get richer by stealing from the poor. Absolutely fallacious
@GunsNRosesbitches Don't mention India and China, I've been there and seen the 'boom". Inequality has only increased during the recent years. Since beginnings of World Bank and IMF percent of people living in absolute poverty has grown dramatically (the study of the very WB shows that 1/3 of global population lives on less than $2.50 a day and 80 % of world's people - on less than $10. You really should read Michael Parenti's book and watch Pilger's "The New Rulers of the World".
@pepijagarzekje First of all, we are ignoring governmental policies that hurt economies and citizens. China, I fear will explode because government policies there are creating serious market distortions that one day it will explode. There is a real estate bubble in China and everyone is beginning to notice that. India, while still struggling even after market reforms, has NOT gotten worse. 40 million Indians are becoming middle class per year. Overall poverty HAS been reduced in India.
@GunsNRosesbitches You are right about China exploding. It will happen in about 2030 because of its "1 child policy"-there will be way too many old people to be responsively cared after. As for India, of course, they struggle to implement reforms and 40 M might go middle class every year. BUT every year many more children are born into extremely poor families which are excluded from the governmental plans (specifically in rural areas and in lower castes).
@GunsNRosesbitches Each governmental policy is a combination of number of aspects - economy, demographics,education,health care,welfare and so on.Implementation of a certain economic plan concerns each of aforementioned.And,if introduced without full consideration of its probable and possible impact on each area,it can lead to hurting the citizens. You can call me conspiracy theorist but I don't believe national governments nowadays can effectively implement strong economic policies anymore.
All these liberals complaining about how the super rich just control everyone and capitalism is the vehicle for that control... total bull. In 1985 there were 13 billionaires in the USA today, there are more than 1000. See how anyone who works hard and innovates can make a ton of cash? Thanks capitalism
Chileans have become South America's richest people. They have the continent's lowest level of corruption, the lowest infant-mortality rate, and the lowest number of people living below the poverty line. This has all come about after Freidman's Free market reform. The facts often conflict with naive left-wing delusions. Also, Friedman gave the same advice to everyone, to the chinese, the yugoslavs, the US etc. He said politically Pinochet's Chile was 'horrible' and 'despicable'.
This comment has received too many negative votesshow
When you take the fact that CATO is an elitist organization that basically serves and supports the ultra rich, saying the liberalization policies are to the "benefit of everyone", you could almost hypothesize that Norberg has an agenda, and is acting as a shill in this case whether consciously or inadvertently.
Friedman's ideas were distorted by the elitists, who happen to be the psychopaths who control the world and subjecti humanity to the "shock doctrine". This is not just a "few bad guys" as Norberg tends to shrug off, but these are those with zero empathy and they rule the world! Friedman is the academic that the elitists use to justify their actions. Liberalization could possibly work if the psychopaths in power were not messing things up between people who fundamentally care about each other.
Klein's point is not to demonize Friedman. She makes the case that these 'free market and liberalization' ideas of Friedman were distorted. This is not Klein's "distortion" as Norberg says: Norberg is falling into the trap of interpreting Klein in such a way to make her look bad and discredit her work. He mentions 500 pages, but why doesn't Norberg focus on the solid observable points in those pages, instead of taking Klein out of context and focusing on one thing - her reference to Friedman?
Hopefully, an economist who lives in the so-called "free market" is against the idea that capitalism grows, "eating up" all around ... But suffering is a reality that we are outside Europe and USA.
Interesting that the translation of the letters USA In Spanish, can be interpreted as: using ...
It's really saddening to see the many thousands of views of Noami Klein, uneducated emotional opiner, vis a vis the videos of Hayek. I suppose she suits the ethos of the day, which is why its so tragic.
She's no less logical than Milton Friedman with his insistance on signing away the civil rights and human rights that people have fought and died for over a thousand years to merciless corporations without any accountability or oversight.
We've seen how that goes, bankers selling CDO's that they are deliberately scuppering with fake AAA ratings based on loans they know will never be paid back.
It's pathetic, and people who buy into it are pathetic.
@thetrueprometheus watch a few milton friedman videos, they're on youtube, I recommend the video 'Milton Friedman Schools Young Idealist (Stanford)', its only 5 minutes, there is a part 2. So look them up then if you're a rational thinker, not an ideologue, u'll be a supporter of Milton Friedman, don't be dogmatic, just look at it for christ sake, because at the moment, 100% of what you said is simply wrong in a factual sense. All the best.
@spader49 I have watched his videos. He's a corporate shill who thinks society should be run by unaccountable privateers.
If I'm rational I'll agree with you, if not I must be irrational? That is a gambit based on a fallacy that no rational person would entertain, so I assume you're being frivolous.
100% of what I said is in accordance with the facts established by the US Government's own inquiry into the CDO fraud that caused the GFC.
I'm sorry the facts don't suit you, but they are facts.
@thetrueprometheus The GFC was a complex crash underpinned not only by a market failure, but started out originally by government interference (look up Thomas Sowell on this) Also the free market is the most effective mechanism to erode monopoly power, most powerful companies are backed by government subsidies, which Friedman was against; lastly this 'run by unaccountable privateers' is just nonsense, the law, he constantly said holds them to account as it does every1. You are absolutely wrong
@spader49 The GFC was not complex at all and people who pretend otherwise are the biggest part of the current problem of doing nothing to ensure there will be no repeat of the GFC. When you have fake AAA rated CDO's that are in fact inevitably going to be defaulted wirth even the privateers behind the CDO's actually betting against them, a GFC is inevitable.
You can stop suggesting proganda for me to look up. I have studied both Friedman and the GFC in detail. I am not interested in Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman's personal opinions.
@spader49 If Government intervention causes monopoly and causes GFC's, then how come the Governments have to keep intervening to break up monopolies and to bail out bankers? What you're saying beggars logic.
I understand that as a capitalist privateer, you have to convince yourself that you aren't a pariah in order to sleep at night, but the fact is that you are a pariah and I have absolutely no sympathy for you. As far as I'm concerned, people like you should be put down.
@thetrueprometheus (1-2) You don't sound like you've studied it in great detail, nor read any of Sowell, but hey I guess you're too much of a genius to burden yourself. I used to think quite like you, id est, the evils of the market and so on, actually studying economics changed my mind. You sound like a religious fundamentalist, unwilling to cast aside your rosy illusions, fair enough, stay wrong and intransigent. I don't no what your philosophy is, perhaps some utopian rubbish already debunked
@thetrueprometheus There are some good videos of Sowell on youtube, he's brilliant, in my humble view, he talks in facts not 'opinions'; he has spoken a good bit on why Obama's keynesianism and third way philosophy is wrong; and on the origins fo the crash.
@spader49 I've been debating this subject for twenty years now, and I've heard just about every argument ever made for and against the various economic systems.
If capitalism safely and successfully regulated itself, there would never be any GFC's... It's that simple.
If you can't answer my questions, that's fine. Just say so. I don't want to hear what dear old Milton thinks, I want to hear your explanation. I've already listened to his.
@thetrueprometheus I gave you a video to go to which debunks the illusory notions that you're labouring under; therein was the answer to your question, so i did answer it. Moreover you said you heard every argument, but you haven't even read Sowell, nor even willing to look him up even though he's one of the most respected economists in the world, a bit of confirmation bias i suspect on your part. What is your philosophy? a keynesian or libertarian socialist?
@spader49 Well, if that video is your answer, we'll have to agree to disagree I'm afraid and I'm sorry to say that I seriously feel that your intellectual honesty is in question here.
I don't have a philosophy. If it works, I'll support it. If it causes financial chaos across the entire globe putting tens of millions out of work and causing all the major economies to stagnate and some even to collapse despite huge bailouts, then I'm against it.
@thetrueprometheus you have no understanding of what capitalism is. You, like the rest of the economic illiterates, believe your government when they tell that the problems they created were caused by capitalism, yet capitalism wouldn't even allow those conditions to exist. Central banking and free markets. Yeah, free markets would ever support that - not. Governments distort free markets causing nasty problems than blame free markets (which are nothing but free choices among participants).
@razerfish Really? Who was over regulating the bankers who were selling toxic CDO's knowing they were, in their own words, "a shit product"?
Who was over regulating the bankers who bought all these CDO's, who were equally well aware the product was shit?
Who was regulating the bankers who were selling people mortgages up to six times their income, knowing they could never be paid back, creating a house price bubble in the first place?
No sir, it's not my understanding that's in question.
I'll tell you who wasn't regulating any of this and that's the free market. The free market punishes failure and makes participants evaluate risk. A central bank that sets interest rates and acts as a cartel for member banks to collude does quite the opposite. There would have been no housing bubble without the easy money supplied by the Fed and backstopped by Govt entities. Regulations have little effect when they're written by the corps they're supposed to regulate
@razerfish Free markets always tend towards corporatism and cartels. It was true in Roman times, it's true now. The world doesn't change, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years, only the details are different.
Capitalism and corporatism cannot be seperated. Gang mentality is part of human nature. So is greed.
@thetrueprometheus corporatism is impossible without GOvernment intervention. Utterly impossible. Look at fascist Italy: governement was massively intervening in the economy.
@fadelapouit Living beyond the age of forty is virtually impossible without Government intervention. Sadly, a society has to be kept stable by a rule of law. If the murder rate in a society overtakes the birth rate, that society is, to use the modern vernacular, fucked.
Human beings are bad. Our behaviour has to be regulated.
@thetrueprometheus And you sadly still live under the government illusion. It is the SOLE responsible for the present crisis, as it was for the Depression.
I wonder why people blame unregulated capitalism, since it has never existed
Your opinion is that the unregulated selling of toxic CDO's by people who knew they were a shit product to people who also knew they were a shit product has nothing to do with the GFC? Get a grip!
The crash and depression of the 1930's was turned around by Government intervention in the form of the New Deal. Capitalism is based on unbridled greed and in it's unregulated form tends towards calamity, always. That is what is being proven for the second time in a century.
@thetrueprometheus hum, are you sure you read smith? He is totally against government-created monopolies (guilds) and mercantilism. And quote me the exact part where he praises taxes. I read the 5 books and didn't see a word on the subject.
I strongly suggest you read Frédéric Bastiat, and see how faulty your thoughts about economics are false
@fadelapouit I'm sure I've read Adam Smith as I am sure you have not.
"A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." -- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations.
@thetrueprometheus The very definition of corporatism implies government intervention. Without any government intervention, firms can't have enough power to control as they did under FDR during the Depression.
Also, you say that the governement is there to break monopolies. What about the Fed? the Post Office? mass transit? most roads? a good part of education? Medicare? the US medical association? the Bar?
@fadelapouit "Also, you say that the governement is there to break monopolies. What about the Fed? the Post Office? mass transit? most roads? a good part of education? Medicare? the US medical association? the Bar?"
I can't comment on that. These things all sound like US institutions and most of them where I live are controlled directly by the Government, as they should be. Utilities like those you listed should belong to the people and there is no place for profiteering in their use.
@razerfish "There would have been no housing bubble without the easy money supplied by the Fed and backstopped by Govt entities"
You do not know your subject.
The money for the housing bubble came from deregulating the checks on borrowing. It used to be limited to three times the borrower's annual income for a house mortgage. Then, to create the bubble, it was increased up to over six times annual income.
The money to create the housing bubble came from debt, not the Government.
@thetrueprometheus the governement, thanks to various regulations (HUD, CRA, fair lending act). And let's not forget about he CLinton administration, who made Mae and Mac buy those risky mortages.
@fadelapouit "And let's not forget about he CLinton administration, who made Mae and Mac buy those risky mortages." Interesting. I never realised that the US Government passed a law making the purchase of risky mortgages mandatory. Can you provide details of this?
@razerfish Incidentally, my Government are not trying to blame anything on Capitalism, they are still trying to blame everything on the centre left administration who were in power before, although now this is starting to get them jeered at.
Unregulated Capitalism doesn't work, because people are greedy.
again, you have no understanding of capitalism. You are blaming the failures of central economic planning and corporatism on capitalism. And your assertion that capitalism can't work because people are greedy means that socialism or whatever system you prefer also can't work because people are greedy. Do you think only angels will work in govt? Capitalism works because it is moral and let's people make free choices with their labor and property.
Nothing is going to work mate. It never has and it never will... Everyone in the world will always have someone oppressing him or her, that's just our nature. Aesop's fable. The only difference between you and I is that you are willing shill for oppression and I never will be.
Friedman's arguments are based on the assumption that the people running a capitalist system are basically doing so without conflicts of interest, that is to say that they are more or less honest.
That is the flaw. Human beings are basically a species of scheming bastards who need to be kept under constant supervision.
@thetrueprometheus (1 of 2)Jesus man, absolutely wrong. There is no way you're studied Friedman, because your synopsis of his core assumptions is absurd: he never assumed that, he emphasised that in the free market, exchanges are underpinned by voluntary cooperation, the 'invisible hand' in which both parties can benefit. The law adjudicates disputes. 'kept under constant supervision' and by whom? benevolent overlords? You show your contempt for individual liberty.
@spader49 You keep saying I'm wrong, but you have made no attempt at all at answering my questions.
The invisible hand that Milton spoke about was basically a line that a businessman should not cross. It's taken on pure faith, Adam Smith acknowledged this, that the worst society would be one run by businessmen.
If by individual liberty you mean the right to fuck anyone you want over without any accountability or even having to look them in the eye, then you're right about my contempt for it.
@spader49 Well, it didn't take you long to resort to foul tempered tirades and schoolyard name calling, did it? You're right about one thing, you don't know why my "philosophy " is.
I have not read Sowell, I am happy with the veracity of the findings of the American Government inquiry into the GFC. I deal in facts, I don't parrot Klein's, Friedman's, Sowell's or anyone elses opinions. I am just disappointed to see the flagrant media bias in this video. This is journalism at it's lowest.
@spader49 (1-2) "You don't sound like you've studied it in great detail, nor read any of Sowell..."
And you sound like you are making a desperate pitch to avoid answering the questions I posed on why capitalism requires regular intervention to prevent monopoly and bail out bankers.
@thetrueprometheus You keep on saying no accountability, where did Friedman ever advocate that? Please educate me with your decades of studying. If someone 'screws over someone', there is punishment through the law. Watch 'friedman on greed', then 'Power of the Market - Unfair Competiton' and finally 'Power of the Market - Consumer Protection'. You probably won't but maintain the facade of greatness by perhaps saying how you've seen them, not unlike how you've studied his work intensely no doubt
@spader49 "You keep on saying no accountability, where did Friedman ever advocate that? Please educate me with your decades of studying. If someone 'screws over someone', there is punishment through the law."
When Friedman said that, he expanded on it by saying that he meant you could sue people that fuck you over, not in the context of regulatory laws.
So great, if you can afford a team of lawyers and can wait for years to drag a case through court, you can hold somone to account.
@thetrueprometheus Buffy, really? If you like that, u'll probably like the swedish film 'let the right one in', its very good. I found the perfect video for you, and then im gonna leave it at that. This youtube video is just for you, 'Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2' pretty much a terse rebuke of your well intentioned yet erroneous views. I understand you dont want to be a 'shill' but with economics you only a choice between being informed or being uninformed
@thetrueprometheus 'As far as I'm concerned, people like you should be put down', well done, good on you, show me the calibre of your personality as well as the overwhelming rigours of your intellectual prowess all in one day. Seriously, first of all you start trolling, then move on to wishing death on people after losing the conversation. You have some mental issues, don't bother me again with your pseudo-intellectual quixotic delusions you weirdo.
@chapaev36 The function of Government is to democratically represent the people who vote for or against them. It is not to facilitate the desires of finance capitalists nor to to facilitiate the requirements of corporations. It never was and it never will be.
The interviewer is making it far too obvious that he's baised towards Norberg and Norberg fails to explain why just about every free market reform has been accompanied by protests and riots and why every market regulation has to be fought for tooth and claw.
"Why just about every free market reform has been accompanied by protests and riots"
2 reasons.
1) People don't understand economics. Seriously, they don't.
2) Many free market reforms end the entitled positions of some group of people who will fight to keep their entitlements. Should I also point to the riots and protests against public school integration and claim that's proof that segregation was right?
1) I must say, I don't understand why we need to cut benefits for the poor but still create twenty new billionaires in the UK in a year when record borrowing has been announced, I really don't. I defy anyone to explain that except in the context of rampant cronyism and regressive Government by a pathetic coalition.
2) You've just demonstrated that free market reforms are not for the pro bono. Kudos to you.
Quite. The utilities in the UK used to belong to the people until the Thatcher Government sold them off for half their value to pay for tax cuts to the rich. They were never Thatcher's to dispose of, and now to add insult to injury we have to pay through the nose for them to finance an externality in the form of third party shareholders who do nothing to work for our money and who's part in the transaction is kept secret from the end user. It stinks to high heaven.
@thetrueprometheus Yes. What most people dont understand about the privatisation issue is the argument put forward by the privateers that nationalilsation is an inherited failure from old times is actually a misnomer. Most things were privately owned in the past but it was such a failure that they were nationalised.
Put when Pavlov rings his bell the fools will dribble.
@sugarraygras I agree and I suspect that the energy suppliers will have to be nationalized again within the next few years if the politicians want to avoid having their heads impaled on pikes.
With energy price inflation at 20% and wage inflation almost stagnant for the last three years, the time is going to come soon when the have nots will be angry enough to start destroying the property of the rich.
@thetrueprometheus They already have been if you factor in that the public purse has been raided by private banks to cover the money thet never was. We live in a quasi capitalist socialised shitshake, where the poor are subject to Capitalism and the rich are claiming unlimited welfare handouts with our taxes. So I assert that the utilities are nationally owned but the profits are not. The tolpuddle martyrs have never been more relevant.
@sugarraygras I've noticed that. If a banker wants a blank cheque to replace other people's money that he's lost playing Russian Roulette with it, or if a politician wants fifty grand to have the moat and the bell tower reburbished on their "second" home, it's not a problem.
If, on the other hand, someone on the pittance handed out to the unemployed is caught getting a tenner for painting his neighbours fence, he's a dastardly criminal. If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.
@thetrueprometheus You mean the benefit of being entirely dependent upon the government to provide them with everything they need? Why did the slaves every want freedom, they had their overseer to provided for them as long as they didnt object.
@JokkerrN What a preposterous way to characterize my argument, and what a preposterous appeal to emotion trying to characterize a modern electoral system as slavery.
If privatization is so desirable, how come the Tories never had a referendum before they sold off the property of the British people? I'll tell you why. Everyone knew it would be a disaster and the referendum would have been lost.
If private corporations are to rule the land, then we must be given the power to vote them out.
@thegillotine09 Like I said, this isn't an interview, it's just two cronies patting each other on the back. It's bad, unbalanced journalism, which is not legal on UK television.
Incidentally, if Friedman had ever come to a sudden halt, he'd have needed surgery to remove Norberg's head from his arse.
@MsSexySocialist "Bushie and Ahnuld don't know anything about the world at large" by what authority do you determine that. "- ergo, they are unfit for positions of power" why? how do you determine an objective level of intellect at which one is fit for a position of power?
btw im pretty confident he was referring to ragen.
(bush at least had the intellect to accomplish something only 15 Americans have accomplished before him- being voted in for a 2nd term.)
@ememes1234 I don't think I'd be far wrong in saying aren't the brightest stars in the quadrant and never will be. Technically I disagree with positions of power even existing in the first place, but as long as they do, I'd like to have someone who actually knows how to pronounce the word "nuclear".
The fact he got elected 2 times says nothing other than he has very good spin doctors and that the corporate-dominated media is good at convincing the public to buy into his kind of garbage.
@MsSexySocialist on your first point- 1)unless you have studied them you would be far wrong
2)if you believe in democracy you most definitely do believe in power (e.g. the right of the collective to stop me from exerting full ownership of a piece of land is a position of power)
3)i have yet to find a study pairing intellect with verbal ability (as oppose to the ability to convey an idea verbally or not)
(2) I don't believe in ownership of any land that isn't being lived on. Any other form of land ownership can be used to coerce others.
Belief in participatory democracy is the negation of the belief in power. No majority should impose it's will on a minority unless to stop that minority from engaging in acts of coercion against others.
(3) What exactly are you saying? That sentence makes no sense.
@MsSexySocialist 1) those people who you claim are not the brightest star. you are far wrong to state anything about peoples ability if you have not studied them.
2) the right to define coercion is a position of power. (i could consider free speech or laws limiting speech as an "act of coercion against others")
3) my inability to write correct sentences is not in any way indicative of my intellectual ability or lack thereof (same holds true with regards to pronunciation)
@ememes1234 1) What's to study? I had to put up with both Bush as my president and Schwarzenegger as my governor for eight years each. I know what they did and what actions they took.
2) No, that's a check and balance on power to prevent some individuals from coercing others and thus allowing for the most liberty for the most people.
3) With them, I think it shows an outward manifestation of greater internal ignorance - further backed up by both their policies and their lack of basic knowledge
@ememes1234 "3)i have yet to find a study pairing intellect with verbal ability (as oppose to the ability to convey an idea verbally or not)"
It's not just a matter of verbal ability. Bush was an absolute ignoramous. The trouble with the French is that they don't have their own word for Entrepreneur? They don't have their own word for "idiot" either then?
He was also up to his neck in dodgy dealings with Salem Bin Laden. He was not a fit and proper person to be in any position of power.
@MsSexySocialist on your 2nd point-1)it does not matter how he got elected at the end of the day he accomplished something (even if that something is being a "very good spin doctors and that the corporate-dominated media is good at convincing the public to buy into his kind of garbage" it is still an accomplishment)
that 99.9999999 % of huans that ever lived could not, and he did it without open aggression.
@MsSexySocialist how is that relevant to his election. those who put him in power did so with any open act of aggression towards them. the fact is they voted for him (regardless of the reason why) and his ability to make that happen is what puts him in that exclusive group i referred to.
If an istitution or figure of authority exists the onus is on them to justify their possession of that authority. Authority can be, social, religiois, economic, political, or intellectual.
In the case of the authority Naomi Klein possesses (intellection) the question is whether or not her opinions stand up to emperical scruntiny.
And and about 85% of the Shock Doctrine does.
The ideas are what's important not the individuals espousing them.
@ColbertNutHugger you seem to be engaging in an oversimplification of the ides expressed in this video. everyone involved with making your comment should be embarassed
The chock doctrine in Sweden worked this way. They used Freidmans idea that inflation could be controlled by the amount of money in the market, that has failed in US and UK. That triggered a crisis with a half million lost jobs and a debt of 100 % gnp in four years that forced the socialdemocratic party to agre on cutbacks. The total amount of jobs in sweden is still lower than 1991.
Why have you "reason tv" titled this clipp Johan VERSUS Naomi? I can't see Naomi defend herself. I would rather say neo-liberal-propaganda-TV. Those who glorifie the impact of the free-market are fat white men who just have seen one side of this economie. Just look at the discursive advantages the liberals have. "FREE-market" sounds good, but the adequat name would be "Slave-market" or maybe "Master and server-market".
Producers and appropriators. The appropriators own and control the means of production, and get the actual producers to work for them using the means of production (because they can't do it themselves).
If you're not entitled to the fruits of your own labor, this system of dominating hierarchy persists - whether under a private company or the state.
Producers and appropriators. The appropriators own and control the means of production, and get the actual producers to work for them using the means of production (because they can't do it themselves).
If you're not entitled to the fruits of your own labor, this system of dominating hierarchy persists - whether under a private company or the state.
scale-at some point along the chain a product of capital (anything used to make a product e.g. hammer) must be created in scale (e.g. you must cut down the whole tree to make the hammer's handle) the cost of which must be paid by an investor
knowledge-who pays the price for the 1999 ways not to make a light bulb and if the product is unsuccessful who pays for the price of failure if not the investor
time-who would pay wages before the product is sold if not investor
These are big questions so I'd like to tackle each one by one.
And keep in mind that I'm coming from the perspective of a future post-statist and post-privatist paradigm.
(1) I'm guessing your referring to the means of production (productive property) which I would hold should be owned in common (ie: by everyone and no-one) with power of ownership vested in the body politic as a whole in directly democratic confederal assemblies without a state as a center.
Items for individual use are "personal property". The have direct use-value to the person possessing them, and hence are not coercive. "Private property" however, involes absentee ownership and can be used to control and coerce others either directly (politically) or indirectly (economically through say, wage labor).
"why are these "democratic confederal assemblies" not states? they impose the will of the majority on the individual just like the state."
A state is a "monopoly on the use of coercision"; you can't have that if a polity is decentralized and participatory. Where decision-making is consensus-based, not "majority-rule" based. A "one person veto" applies except in manifestly trivial matters. Even if a decision is made with which you disagree, you can choose to opt out.
(1+) Productive property is then leased out on long-term contract to any group or individual wishing to engage in production of goods and services. This would theoretically include: cooperatives (both small and large scale), self-employed individuals, and some small private businesses and family-run businesses (restaurants for example).
(2) In terms of "price" as you referred to it; no-one, as there is no longer private ownership of productive property and . . . (continued)
. . . I would advocate an economy where money (in it's current form) no longer exist, to be replaced with a personal voucher system of remuneration for labor contributed - based on effort and sacrifice as a measure.
Allocation of vital resources is done via participatory planning by the aforementioned confederal assemblies. With non-vital (commercial) goods and services allocated via an artificial market based on what people consume with vouchers . . . (continued)
@MsSexySocialist 1) how do you value labor if there is no price system
2) whats the practical difference between vouchers and federal reserve notes they can both be traded for goods and if not why ? (if i can trade my bread voucher for your meat voucher why not for your hammer)
"how do you value labor if there is no price system?"
Through a messure of effort and sacrifice. A job that is more difficult, more dangerous, or that requires more training should naturally remunerate more than an occupation that is easy or unstressful. Although if you're referring to labor markets I disagree with the concept.
I don't feel human beings should be mere commodities to be bought/rented. Each individual should have a right to economic self-determination.
"whats the practical difference between vouchers and federal reserve notes they can both be traded for goods and if not why?"
Fiat currency? No. Vochers are not transferable between individuals (this would incidentally make monetary theft impossible) and are not specific to items. One voucher/dollar could be used to pay for any commercial good or service.
They would also cease to exist upon purchase - like loyalty points
@ememes1234 (2+) With regard to "investors" such a thing wouldn't come into the equation as productive property belongs to the commons and is leased out according to the principle of usufruct of the commons. Though I suppose you could call the confederal assemblies the "investor" in this context.
(3) Money no longer exists, but as I said there is still remuneration for labor contributed, and these vouchers awarded for work are more akin to a bookeeping system or loyalty points than money.
"ownership of wood is an investment it is only after this investment that one can make the hammer's handle"
A statement, not an inquiry.
This only applies to the current privatist market paradigm and such a concept as "investment" wouldn't come into play for the cultivation of vital resources - as I explained when I mentioned common ownership and production based on usufruct of the commons granted via confederated democratic decision-making
@MsSexySocialist to your question. i don't believe in the right to ones self (and by extension ones property) i also don't believe in the right to self defense so on that basis no. but on the other hand i am completely and absolutely against any notion that a multitude of individuals have any right over my actions coercive or not.
what i believe is the "right to personal survival" which give me every right to do whatever i consider necessary for my survival.
@ememes1234 technically you could claim the same right for yourself and kill me and that would be moral.
if you attack me i may kill you to protect myself. the difference between that and the right to self defense is only noticed by a third party. if you believe in self defense the defender is in the right if you believe in the "personal right to personal survival" the defender is just as immoral as the murderer.
Sorry, didn't label part 4. But anyway, to conclude:
This is kept track of through a decentralized computer network organized through economic facilitation boards (more about this can be found on searches re: participatory economics and inclusive democracy).
I get the sense you thought I was coming from a statist perspective. I'm not and at the same time I feel we need to most past the idea that a good economy requires a hierarchical separation of producers and appropriators
@MsSexySocialist 1) if you believe in democracy then you are a statist
2) to have an economy that can produce complex goods like your laptop or youtube and the like it is necessary to have producers of worthless goods (most individual parts of a laptop would be worthless without the other parts being invented) those who buy/trade for vouchers those worthless products are investors without whom those products could not be produced therefor without investors there can not be complex products
I hardly think she waited for him to die then decided to cash in on his death by writing a tract about him - and the book isn't even about him exclusively; it's about the whole neoliberal clique he was a part of and the misery they've all caused in the latter 20th and early 21st century.
What I know is that the title of the book is based on a complete misunderstanding of an out-of-context quote by Milton Friedman. "Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change". What he was saying is that people don't engage in economic reform until the economy doesn't get *really* bad, a la Soviet Union 1980's. She then takes this and says that Friedman is advocating "Shocking people into obedience" through natural disasters and war, and compares him to torturers.
The difference between them is that Friedman uses logic and economics to make an argument for freedom, and Klein uses propaganda and lies (yes, lies) to make an argument against freedom.
So yeah, when the cover page of a book is based on a lie, I don't bother reading the rest.
So you haven't read the book, yet you feel fully able to spout untruths about its contents despite not actually knowing what those contents actually are?
"The Shock Doctrine" - as Klein explains in the book - has got nothing to do with what you described, nor is it directly related to Friedman, it has to do with individuals in positions of power taking advantage of disasters to push through policies that would be otherwise blocked by the public due to unpopularity.
You claim Klein uses "lies" to get her position across yet are not able to cite any other than a supposed lie based on a misinterpretation of her meaning of the term "shock doctrine" - nothing to do with "shocking people into obedience"
Why is it you think you don't have to actually read a book to have a fully formed opinion on it and on Klein?
I can't stand Milton Friedman or Von Mises, but I slugged through most of their work because I want to know what they actually feel
It’s true that Pinochet employed some of the econ. policies Friedman had been advocating for decades, that some of Pinochet’s advisors had studied economics at the Un.of Chicago, and that Friedman subsequently cited the success of those policies. But just as Michael Moore’s endorsement of Cuba’s health care system doesn’t constitute endorsement of Castro’s dictatorial rule, so Friedman’s endorsement for Chilean tax or pension policies don’t constitute an endorsement of coups, purges, or torture.
janc71 1 week ago
(cont) The essence of the talk was that freedom was a very fragile thing and that what destroyed it more than anything else was central control; that in order to maintain freedom, you had to have free markets, and that free markets would work best if you had political freedom. So it was essentially an anti-totalitarian talk."
janc71 1 week ago
Milton Friedman: "While I was in Santiago, Chile, I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile. Now, I should explain that the University of Chicago had had an arrangement for years with the Catholic University of Chile, whereby they send students to us and we send people down there to help them reorganize their economics department. And I gave a talk at the Catholic University of Chile under the title “The Fragility of Freedom.” (cont)
janc71 1 week ago
One does not have to detest political philosophies, such as socialism, or belong to any of the existing political tribes in order to see flaws in Klein's arguments. Even without getting into the arguments, consider how absurd and simplistic her metaphors are. Consider that they work solely to stir emotions in the viewer. Her use of the word "shock" is so loose and irresponsible that it's sickening. I mean surely even most left-leaning viewers can see this.
chapaev36 1 month ago
neo liberalism has screwed us all it was a pipe dream of the wacky right wing. private concerns making a killing are going to police themselves? Huh
eovid 2 months ago
@eovid You police yourself quite fine, so do I and everyone I know when they deal with other people.. so do the local businesses and stores, so do the corporations where I buy my coffee and electronics from. They don't rob me, they dont yell at me, they don't steal from me, they don't cheat me. It's generally bad to do those things to your customers, so yes, they do police themselves.
zdrux 1 month ago
@zdrux But you know who DOES do all the bad things I mentioned to me?.. the government. Nobody polices the government, they steal my labour and time from me, they inprison me if I don't want to go along with their taxes, they censor my radio and TV, they are not accountable to anyone, and they are the only ones with the guns, bombs, army, police, and the prisons. Now tell me who is screwing the shit out of us again?
zdrux 1 month ago
Spot on.
trapedd 2 months ago
If I were to write a book whose first chapter goes like this (similar to Klein's Ewen Cameron-liberalization juxtaposition) -- Communism is like a pedophile raping a child, destroying his humanity, forcing him/her into total submission -- every leftist would call me every nasty word in the world. Note that the abolition of private property can very easily suggest the loss of the right to self-ownership. Regardless, Klein's Shock Doctrine is very biased and very dishonest. Yes, I have read it.
amamerc 2 months ago
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Where is that video where he counters her arguements in her presence? Or is this just one more convient lie? Give me one arguement he won with her. I doubt that you can form the thought process to explain it.
glenna1949 2 months ago
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glenna1949 2 months ago
NAOMI DUMB.
bluediablo9 3 months ago
When you start by misrepresenting your oponet who isn't even there it's called a straw man arguement.
glenna1949 3 months ago
@glenna1949 - no, it isn't dear...he is quite well equipped to, and has, I believe, countered, her commentary, in her presence...
I'm sorry, she is just another liberal, progressive socialist...it's wrong and godless, though, she doesn't know it.
L.
Layna8 2 months ago
One word that can explain this shit: TIMBRO.
Teadon86 3 months ago
Johan Norberg has no idea what he's talking about. Saying that Naomi Klein does not present any empirical proof, did he even see the pages at the end of the book, also called "references" where she lists all the sources where got the information? This guy is an idiot, I'm sorry.
lauralino82 3 months ago
@lauralino82 This guy shares a lot of Friedman's views. But let me tell you this, if Milton Friedman was alive and were to publicly debate Naomi Klein, he would absolutely destroy her. No question about it. This is what happens when you choose to listen and believe some who was an editor and columnist, instead of one of the most brilliant minds of the 20th Century. I'm sorry, but Klein can get nowhere with serious economists because there's so much distortion of the truth from Klein's work.
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches in conclusion - you called Chomsky "a brilliant linguist" (forgive me for not believing you've actually familiarized yourself with his work in the field in linguistics further than Wikipedia's article).
You aren't the first or the last trying to marginalize this personality, no worries. I simply doubt that Friedman would win the argument with him. Why? Watch this: watch?v=DE1e_7rOwno&feature=related
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@lauralino82 Just because she cites references does not mean that she does a good job of supporting her claims.
chapaev36 1 month ago
It ain't Johan Norberg VS. Naomi Klein, it's Johan Norberg ON Naomi Klein. Put them together eye to eye and watch what remains of Norberg's "cherry-picked" (his expression) arguments. This guy pretends that there are no such bright minds as Noam Chomsky, Michael Parenti or John Pilger in this work, who have on multiple occasions exposed the lies of ones like Norberg.
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@pepijagarzekje And you pretend that that there are no such bright minds as Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich von Hayek that have exposed the lies in of Klein's in such great detail before Klein was even born. Noam Chomsky? Excuse me, he is a brilliant man, but he specializes in linguistics. When it comes to economics, Friedman > Chomsky easily.
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches We have totally different idea of a perfect world - you see it in harmony of numbers and theoretical ideas, I see it in peace and equality between the peoples of the world. In you, Friedman's or von Hayek's views the human aspect is reluctantly accepted as an idiom but never praised and respected. Funny that you mention Chomsky not Parenti, because, speking in your terms "Parenti would easily destroy Friedman's arguments", in fact, he has in his book "Against Empire".
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches And honestly - I don't share your mad love towards aforementioned men. The current distribution of wealth in the world, the constant growth of poverty and inequality clearly shows that their ideas were at least flawed if not malicious. What really is "free market", we can observe in the actions of great transcontinental corporations.
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@pepijagarzekje What is this constant growth of poverty and inequality you speak of? Societies that have liberalized markets have brought people out of poverty more than any other system. India boomed once abandoning central planning policies, China boomed after its economic reforms to embrace more capitalism in some sense, Brazil as well...and Chile. Chile has reduced its poverty rate by a significant amount, largely due to liberalized markets.
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
@pepijagarzekje Inequality may have increased, but poverty has decreased. The wealth pie has gotten larger and more of that pie goes to the wealthy, but people fail to see that many poor people are getting a slightly larger piece of the pie. Everyone is benefiting from it, but the benefit is not spread evenly. People like to think that wealth is static and that the rich can only get richer by stealing from the poor. Absolutely fallacious
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches Don't mention India and China, I've been there and seen the 'boom". Inequality has only increased during the recent years. Since beginnings of World Bank and IMF percent of people living in absolute poverty has grown dramatically (the study of the very WB shows that 1/3 of global population lives on less than $2.50 a day and 80 % of world's people - on less than $10. You really should read Michael Parenti's book and watch Pilger's "The New Rulers of the World".
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@pepijagarzekje First of all, we are ignoring governmental policies that hurt economies and citizens. China, I fear will explode because government policies there are creating serious market distortions that one day it will explode. There is a real estate bubble in China and everyone is beginning to notice that. India, while still struggling even after market reforms, has NOT gotten worse. 40 million Indians are becoming middle class per year. Overall poverty HAS been reduced in India.
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches You are right about China exploding. It will happen in about 2030 because of its "1 child policy"-there will be way too many old people to be responsively cared after. As for India, of course, they struggle to implement reforms and 40 M might go middle class every year. BUT every year many more children are born into extremely poor families which are excluded from the governmental plans (specifically in rural areas and in lower castes).
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@GunsNRosesbitches Each governmental policy is a combination of number of aspects - economy, demographics,education,health care,welfare and so on.Implementation of a certain economic plan concerns each of aforementioned.And,if introduced without full consideration of its probable and possible impact on each area,it can lead to hurting the citizens. You can call me conspiracy theorist but I don't believe national governments nowadays can effectively implement strong economic policies anymore.
pepijagarzekje 3 months ago
@pepijagarzekje ^I agree.
GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
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GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
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GunsNRosesbitches 3 months ago
This guy is lying in the China part!
trees1 3 months ago
your punctuation sucks, btw. kinda hard to get your point, at first.
jaukko 4 months ago
just got the impression that you know what you're talking about. thought that you're the one with the facts.
jaukko 4 months ago
How many poor people was there in 1985, and how many are they today?
jaukko 4 months ago
All these liberals complaining about how the super rich just control everyone and capitalism is the vehicle for that control... total bull. In 1985 there were 13 billionaires in the USA today, there are more than 1000. See how anyone who works hard and innovates can make a ton of cash? Thanks capitalism
ecuadmail 4 months ago
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Chileans have become South America's richest people. They have the continent's lowest level of corruption, the lowest infant-mortality rate, and the lowest number of people living below the poverty line. This has all come about after Freidman's Free market reform. The facts often conflict with naive left-wing delusions. Also, Friedman gave the same advice to everyone, to the chinese, the yugoslavs, the US etc. He said politically Pinochet's Chile was 'horrible' and 'despicable'.
spader49 4 months ago
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When you take the fact that CATO is an elitist organization that basically serves and supports the ultra rich, saying the liberalization policies are to the "benefit of everyone", you could almost hypothesize that Norberg has an agenda, and is acting as a shill in this case whether consciously or inadvertently.
tothian99 5 months ago
@tothian99 And I suppose you can back up this claim?
occz6 4 months ago
Friedman's ideas were distorted by the elitists, who happen to be the psychopaths who control the world and subjecti humanity to the "shock doctrine". This is not just a "few bad guys" as Norberg tends to shrug off, but these are those with zero empathy and they rule the world! Friedman is the academic that the elitists use to justify their actions. Liberalization could possibly work if the psychopaths in power were not messing things up between people who fundamentally care about each other.
tothian99 5 months ago
Klein's point is not to demonize Friedman. She makes the case that these 'free market and liberalization' ideas of Friedman were distorted. This is not Klein's "distortion" as Norberg says: Norberg is falling into the trap of interpreting Klein in such a way to make her look bad and discredit her work. He mentions 500 pages, but why doesn't Norberg focus on the solid observable points in those pages, instead of taking Klein out of context and focusing on one thing - her reference to Friedman?
tothian99 5 months ago
Hopefully, an economist who lives in the so-called "free market" is against the idea that capitalism grows, "eating up" all around ... But suffering is a reality that we are outside Europe and USA.
Interesting that the translation of the letters USA In Spanish, can be interpreted as: using ...
ssoko 6 months ago
It's really saddening to see the many thousands of views of Noami Klein, uneducated emotional opiner, vis a vis the videos of Hayek. I suppose she suits the ethos of the day, which is why its so tragic.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49
She's no less logical than Milton Friedman with his insistance on signing away the civil rights and human rights that people have fought and died for over a thousand years to merciless corporations without any accountability or oversight.
We've seen how that goes, bankers selling CDO's that they are deliberately scuppering with fake AAA ratings based on loans they know will never be paid back.
It's pathetic, and people who buy into it are pathetic.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus watch a few milton friedman videos, they're on youtube, I recommend the video 'Milton Friedman Schools Young Idealist (Stanford)', its only 5 minutes, there is a part 2. So look them up then if you're a rational thinker, not an ideologue, u'll be a supporter of Milton Friedman, don't be dogmatic, just look at it for christ sake, because at the moment, 100% of what you said is simply wrong in a factual sense. All the best.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 I have watched his videos. He's a corporate shill who thinks society should be run by unaccountable privateers.
If I'm rational I'll agree with you, if not I must be irrational? That is a gambit based on a fallacy that no rational person would entertain, so I assume you're being frivolous.
100% of what I said is in accordance with the facts established by the US Government's own inquiry into the CDO fraud that caused the GFC.
I'm sorry the facts don't suit you, but they are facts.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus The GFC was a complex crash underpinned not only by a market failure, but started out originally by government interference (look up Thomas Sowell on this) Also the free market is the most effective mechanism to erode monopoly power, most powerful companies are backed by government subsidies, which Friedman was against; lastly this 'run by unaccountable privateers' is just nonsense, the law, he constantly said holds them to account as it does every1. You are absolutely wrong
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 The GFC was not complex at all and people who pretend otherwise are the biggest part of the current problem of doing nothing to ensure there will be no repeat of the GFC. When you have fake AAA rated CDO's that are in fact inevitably going to be defaulted wirth even the privateers behind the CDO's actually betting against them, a GFC is inevitable.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@spader49 One more thing.
You can stop suggesting proganda for me to look up. I have studied both Friedman and the GFC in detail. I am not interested in Thomas Sowell or Milton Friedman's personal opinions.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@spader49 If Government intervention causes monopoly and causes GFC's, then how come the Governments have to keep intervening to break up monopolies and to bail out bankers? What you're saying beggars logic.
I understand that as a capitalist privateer, you have to convince yourself that you aren't a pariah in order to sleep at night, but the fact is that you are a pariah and I have absolutely no sympathy for you. As far as I'm concerned, people like you should be put down.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus (1-2) You don't sound like you've studied it in great detail, nor read any of Sowell, but hey I guess you're too much of a genius to burden yourself. I used to think quite like you, id est, the evils of the market and so on, actually studying economics changed my mind. You sound like a religious fundamentalist, unwilling to cast aside your rosy illusions, fair enough, stay wrong and intransigent. I don't no what your philosophy is, perhaps some utopian rubbish already debunked
spader49 6 months ago
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thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus There are some good videos of Sowell on youtube, he's brilliant, in my humble view, he talks in facts not 'opinions'; he has spoken a good bit on why Obama's keynesianism and third way philosophy is wrong; and on the origins fo the crash.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 Wonderful. I hope you enjoy them.
Now, how come Governments have to intervene in capitalist systems to prevent monopolies and to bail out bankers?
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus look up on youtueb 'Friedman monopoly' .The answer is there. Friedman's the man.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 I've been debating this subject for twenty years now, and I've heard just about every argument ever made for and against the various economic systems.
If capitalism safely and successfully regulated itself, there would never be any GFC's... It's that simple.
If you can't answer my questions, that's fine. Just say so. I don't want to hear what dear old Milton thinks, I want to hear your explanation. I've already listened to his.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus I gave you a video to go to which debunks the illusory notions that you're labouring under; therein was the answer to your question, so i did answer it. Moreover you said you heard every argument, but you haven't even read Sowell, nor even willing to look him up even though he's one of the most respected economists in the world, a bit of confirmation bias i suspect on your part. What is your philosophy? a keynesian or libertarian socialist?
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 Well, if that video is your answer, we'll have to agree to disagree I'm afraid and I'm sorry to say that I seriously feel that your intellectual honesty is in question here.
I don't have a philosophy. If it works, I'll support it. If it causes financial chaos across the entire globe putting tens of millions out of work and causing all the major economies to stagnate and some even to collapse despite huge bailouts, then I'm against it.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@spader49 If you look at my video channel, you'll see that it's pretty much apolitical. I'm a shill for no politicians or economists.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus you have no understanding of what capitalism is. You, like the rest of the economic illiterates, believe your government when they tell that the problems they created were caused by capitalism, yet capitalism wouldn't even allow those conditions to exist. Central banking and free markets. Yeah, free markets would ever support that - not. Governments distort free markets causing nasty problems than blame free markets (which are nothing but free choices among participants).
razerfish 5 months ago
@razerfish Really? Who was over regulating the bankers who were selling toxic CDO's knowing they were, in their own words, "a shit product"?
Who was over regulating the bankers who bought all these CDO's, who were equally well aware the product was shit?
Who was regulating the bankers who were selling people mortgages up to six times their income, knowing they could never be paid back, creating a house price bubble in the first place?
No sir, it's not my understanding that's in question.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus
I'll tell you who wasn't regulating any of this and that's the free market. The free market punishes failure and makes participants evaluate risk. A central bank that sets interest rates and acts as a cartel for member banks to collude does quite the opposite. There would have been no housing bubble without the easy money supplied by the Fed and backstopped by Govt entities. Regulations have little effect when they're written by the corps they're supposed to regulate
razerfish 5 months ago
@razerfish Free markets always tend towards corporatism and cartels. It was true in Roman times, it's true now. The world doesn't change, not in a hundred years, not in a thousand years, only the details are different.
Capitalism and corporatism cannot be seperated. Gang mentality is part of human nature. So is greed.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus corporatism is impossible without GOvernment intervention. Utterly impossible. Look at fascist Italy: governement was massively intervening in the economy.
fadelapouit 5 months ago
@fadelapouit Living beyond the age of forty is virtually impossible without Government intervention. Sadly, a society has to be kept stable by a rule of law. If the murder rate in a society overtakes the birth rate, that society is, to use the modern vernacular, fucked.
Human beings are bad. Our behaviour has to be regulated.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus And you sadly still live under the government illusion. It is the SOLE responsible for the present crisis, as it was for the Depression.
I wonder why people blame unregulated capitalism, since it has never existed
fadelapouit 5 months ago
@fadelapouit
Your opinion is that the unregulated selling of toxic CDO's by people who knew they were a shit product to people who also knew they were a shit product has nothing to do with the GFC? Get a grip!
The crash and depression of the 1930's was turned around by Government intervention in the form of the New Deal. Capitalism is based on unbridled greed and in it's unregulated form tends towards calamity, always. That is what is being proven for the second time in a century.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@fadelapouit "I wonder why people blame unregulated capitalism, since it has never existed"
Even Adam Smith, the inventor of modern capitalism, agreed that it should be regulated and subject to wealth redistribution.
You should read some history my friend. If you don't know the history of your subject, you're just a dilettante. An amateur.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus hum, are you sure you read smith? He is totally against government-created monopolies (guilds) and mercantilism. And quote me the exact part where he praises taxes. I read the 5 books and didn't see a word on the subject.
I strongly suggest you read Frédéric Bastiat, and see how faulty your thoughts about economics are false
fadelapouit 5 months ago
@fadelapouit I'm sure I've read Adam Smith as I am sure you have not.
"A tax upon house-rents, therefore, would in general fall heaviest upon the rich; and in this sort of inequality there would not, perhaps, be anything very unreasonable. It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion." -- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
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thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@fadelapouit "I strongly suggest you read Frédéric Bastiat, and see how faulty your thoughts about economics are false"
And I strongly suggest that you save your propaganda for someone who hadn't made his mind up while you were probably still in diapers.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@fadelapouit Corporatism is inevitable without Government intervention. The majority if Government intervention is to break up monopolies.
We don't have choice, but we must have the illusion of choice. When it comes to the things that really matter, we can choose between Coke and Pepsi.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus The very definition of corporatism implies government intervention. Without any government intervention, firms can't have enough power to control as they did under FDR during the Depression.
Also, you say that the governement is there to break monopolies. What about the Fed? the Post Office? mass transit? most roads? a good part of education? Medicare? the US medical association? the Bar?
fadelapouit 5 months ago
@fadelapouit "Also, you say that the governement is there to break monopolies. What about the Fed? the Post Office? mass transit? most roads? a good part of education? Medicare? the US medical association? the Bar?"
I can't comment on that. These things all sound like US institutions and most of them where I live are controlled directly by the Government, as they should be. Utilities like those you listed should belong to the people and there is no place for profiteering in their use.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@razerfish "There would have been no housing bubble without the easy money supplied by the Fed and backstopped by Govt entities"
You do not know your subject.
The money for the housing bubble came from deregulating the checks on borrowing. It used to be limited to three times the borrower's annual income for a house mortgage. Then, to create the bubble, it was increased up to over six times annual income.
The money to create the housing bubble came from debt, not the Government.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus the governement, thanks to various regulations (HUD, CRA, fair lending act). And let's not forget about he CLinton administration, who made Mae and Mac buy those risky mortages.
fadelapouit 5 months ago
@fadelapouit "And let's not forget about he CLinton administration, who made Mae and Mac buy those risky mortages." Interesting. I never realised that the US Government passed a law making the purchase of risky mortgages mandatory. Can you provide details of this?
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@razerfish Incidentally, my Government are not trying to blame anything on Capitalism, they are still trying to blame everything on the centre left administration who were in power before, although now this is starting to get them jeered at.
Unregulated Capitalism doesn't work, because people are greedy.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@thetrueprometheus
again, you have no understanding of capitalism. You are blaming the failures of central economic planning and corporatism on capitalism. And your assertion that capitalism can't work because people are greedy means that socialism or whatever system you prefer also can't work because people are greedy. Do you think only angels will work in govt? Capitalism works because it is moral and let's people make free choices with their labor and property.
razerfish 5 months ago
@razerfish
Nothing is going to work mate. It never has and it never will... Everyone in the world will always have someone oppressing him or her, that's just our nature. Aesop's fable. The only difference between you and I is that you are willing shill for oppression and I never will be.
thetrueprometheus 5 months ago
@spader49 "Friedman's the man."
Friedman's arguments are based on the assumption that the people running a capitalist system are basically doing so without conflicts of interest, that is to say that they are more or less honest.
That is the flaw. Human beings are basically a species of scheming bastards who need to be kept under constant supervision.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus (1 of 2)Jesus man, absolutely wrong. There is no way you're studied Friedman, because your synopsis of his core assumptions is absurd: he never assumed that, he emphasised that in the free market, exchanges are underpinned by voluntary cooperation, the 'invisible hand' in which both parties can benefit. The law adjudicates disputes. 'kept under constant supervision' and by whom? benevolent overlords? You show your contempt for individual liberty.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 You keep saying I'm wrong, but you have made no attempt at all at answering my questions.
The invisible hand that Milton spoke about was basically a line that a businessman should not cross. It's taken on pure faith, Adam Smith acknowledged this, that the worst society would be one run by businessmen.
If by individual liberty you mean the right to fuck anyone you want over without any accountability or even having to look them in the eye, then you're right about my contempt for it.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus Good lord. No, Friedman never ever made such an assumption. I can't imagine where you got this.
chapaev36 1 month ago
@spader49 Well, it didn't take you long to resort to foul tempered tirades and schoolyard name calling, did it? You're right about one thing, you don't know why my "philosophy " is.
I have not read Sowell, I am happy with the veracity of the findings of the American Government inquiry into the GFC. I deal in facts, I don't parrot Klein's, Friedman's, Sowell's or anyone elses opinions. I am just disappointed to see the flagrant media bias in this video. This is journalism at it's lowest.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@spader49 (1-2) "You don't sound like you've studied it in great detail, nor read any of Sowell..."
And you sound like you are making a desperate pitch to avoid answering the questions I posed on why capitalism requires regular intervention to prevent monopoly and bail out bankers.
Can you explain this my friend?
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@spader49 I fully recognise that Milton did believe what he was prozelytizing and that he was genuine in his beliefs, but he was a very naive man.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus You keep on saying no accountability, where did Friedman ever advocate that? Please educate me with your decades of studying. If someone 'screws over someone', there is punishment through the law. Watch 'friedman on greed', then 'Power of the Market - Unfair Competiton' and finally 'Power of the Market - Consumer Protection'. You probably won't but maintain the facade of greatness by perhaps saying how you've seen them, not unlike how you've studied his work intensely no doubt
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 "You keep on saying no accountability, where did Friedman ever advocate that? Please educate me with your decades of studying. If someone 'screws over someone', there is punishment through the law."
When Friedman said that, he expanded on it by saying that he meant you could sue people that fuck you over, not in the context of regulatory laws.
So great, if you can afford a team of lawyers and can wait for years to drag a case through court, you can hold somone to account.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus Buffy, really? If you like that, u'll probably like the swedish film 'let the right one in', its very good. I found the perfect video for you, and then im gonna leave it at that. This youtube video is just for you, 'Milton Friedman on Self-Interest and the Profit Motive 2of2' pretty much a terse rebuke of your well intentioned yet erroneous views. I understand you dont want to be a 'shill' but with economics you only a choice between being informed or being uninformed
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49 I'll look out for that film...
All the best mate.
For what it's worth I don't hold your good intentions in question either.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus 'As far as I'm concerned, people like you should be put down', well done, good on you, show me the calibre of your personality as well as the overwhelming rigours of your intellectual prowess all in one day. Seriously, first of all you start trolling, then move on to wishing death on people after losing the conversation. You have some mental issues, don't bother me again with your pseudo-intellectual quixotic delusions you weirdo.
spader49 6 months ago
@spader49
Calm down. I meant put down in a metaphorical way, not in the way you deal with a dying family pet.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus Governments intervene to clean up their own messes.
chapaev36 1 month ago
@chapaev36 The function of Government is to democratically represent the people who vote for or against them. It is not to facilitate the desires of finance capitalists nor to to facilitiate the requirements of corporations. It never was and it never will be.
I wonder why that is all they ever do?
thetrueprometheus 1 month ago
@thetrueprometheus I think we're in agreement here. At least in theory. It reality, this is what governments tend to do much of the time.
chapaev36 1 month ago
Jesus Christ!
This isn't an interview, it's just two men patting each other on the back.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
The interviewer is making it far too obvious that he's baised towards Norberg and Norberg fails to explain why just about every free market reform has been accompanied by protests and riots and why every market regulation has to be fought for tooth and claw.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus
"Why just about every free market reform has been accompanied by protests and riots"
2 reasons.
1) People don't understand economics. Seriously, they don't.
2) Many free market reforms end the entitled positions of some group of people who will fight to keep their entitlements. Should I also point to the riots and protests against public school integration and claim that's proof that segregation was right?
thegillotine09 6 months ago
@thegillotine09
1) I must say, I don't understand why we need to cut benefits for the poor but still create twenty new billionaires in the UK in a year when record borrowing has been announced, I really don't. I defy anyone to explain that except in the context of rampant cronyism and regressive Government by a pathetic coalition.
2) You've just demonstrated that free market reforms are not for the pro bono. Kudos to you.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus Privatisation of profit and the nationalisation of losses.
sugarraygras 6 months ago
@sugarraygras
Quite. The utilities in the UK used to belong to the people until the Thatcher Government sold them off for half their value to pay for tax cuts to the rich. They were never Thatcher's to dispose of, and now to add insult to injury we have to pay through the nose for them to finance an externality in the form of third party shareholders who do nothing to work for our money and who's part in the transaction is kept secret from the end user. It stinks to high heaven.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus Yes. What most people dont understand about the privatisation issue is the argument put forward by the privateers that nationalilsation is an inherited failure from old times is actually a misnomer. Most things were privately owned in the past but it was such a failure that they were nationalised.
Put when Pavlov rings his bell the fools will dribble.
sugarraygras 6 months ago
@sugarraygras I agree and I suspect that the energy suppliers will have to be nationalized again within the next few years if the politicians want to avoid having their heads impaled on pikes.
With energy price inflation at 20% and wage inflation almost stagnant for the last three years, the time is going to come soon when the have nots will be angry enough to start destroying the property of the rich.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus They already have been if you factor in that the public purse has been raided by private banks to cover the money thet never was. We live in a quasi capitalist socialised shitshake, where the poor are subject to Capitalism and the rich are claiming unlimited welfare handouts with our taxes. So I assert that the utilities are nationally owned but the profits are not. The tolpuddle martyrs have never been more relevant.
sugarraygras 6 months ago
@sugarraygras I've noticed that. If a banker wants a blank cheque to replace other people's money that he's lost playing Russian Roulette with it, or if a politician wants fifty grand to have the moat and the bell tower reburbished on their "second" home, it's not a problem.
If, on the other hand, someone on the pittance handed out to the unemployed is caught getting a tenner for painting his neighbours fence, he's a dastardly criminal. If it wasn't so serious, it would be hilarious.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thetrueprometheus You mean the benefit of being entirely dependent upon the government to provide them with everything they need? Why did the slaves every want freedom, they had their overseer to provided for them as long as they didnt object.
JokkerrN 6 months ago
@JokkerrN What a preposterous way to characterize my argument, and what a preposterous appeal to emotion trying to characterize a modern electoral system as slavery.
If privatization is so desirable, how come the Tories never had a referendum before they sold off the property of the British people? I'll tell you why. Everyone knew it would be a disaster and the referendum would have been lost.
If private corporations are to rule the land, then we must be given the power to vote them out.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
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thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
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@thetrueprometheus "Comment removed"
The truth hurts, doesn't it?
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@thegillotine09 Like I said, this isn't an interview, it's just two cronies patting each other on the back. It's bad, unbalanced journalism, which is not legal on UK television.
Incidentally, if Friedman had ever come to a sudden halt, he'd have needed surgery to remove Norberg's head from his arse.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@imyy4upeople1 "If *the* stay quiet?
Those weren't "basic points" about anything. Those were just nonsensical ramblings with no actual substance.
Get back to me if you've actually got something of value to say. Otherwise don't waste my time.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@imyy4upeople1
I'm not exactly sure what point you're trying to make.
You just seem to be spouting off at public intellectualism.
Being dumb doesn't make you a "man of the people" when you achieve a position of power, it just makes you a moron with public credibility.
Bushie and Ahnuld don't know anything about the world at large - ergo, they are unfit for positions of power.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist "Bushie and Ahnuld don't know anything about the world at large" by what authority do you determine that. "- ergo, they are unfit for positions of power" why? how do you determine an objective level of intellect at which one is fit for a position of power?
btw im pretty confident he was referring to ragen.
(bush at least had the intellect to accomplish something only 15 Americans have accomplished before him- being voted in for a 2nd term.)
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 I don't think I'd be far wrong in saying aren't the brightest stars in the quadrant and never will be. Technically I disagree with positions of power even existing in the first place, but as long as they do, I'd like to have someone who actually knows how to pronounce the word "nuclear".
The fact he got elected 2 times says nothing other than he has very good spin doctors and that the corporate-dominated media is good at convincing the public to buy into his kind of garbage.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist on your first point- 1)unless you have studied them you would be far wrong
2)if you believe in democracy you most definitely do believe in power (e.g. the right of the collective to stop me from exerting full ownership of a piece of land is a position of power)
3)i have yet to find a study pairing intellect with verbal ability (as oppose to the ability to convey an idea verbally or not)
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234
(1) What's "them"? and what am I far wrong about?
(2) I don't believe in ownership of any land that isn't being lived on. Any other form of land ownership can be used to coerce others.
Belief in participatory democracy is the negation of the belief in power. No majority should impose it's will on a minority unless to stop that minority from engaging in acts of coercion against others.
(3) What exactly are you saying? That sentence makes no sense.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist 1) those people who you claim are not the brightest star. you are far wrong to state anything about peoples ability if you have not studied them.
2) the right to define coercion is a position of power. (i could consider free speech or laws limiting speech as an "act of coercion against others")
3) my inability to write correct sentences is not in any way indicative of my intellectual ability or lack thereof (same holds true with regards to pronunciation)
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 1) What's to study? I had to put up with both Bush as my president and Schwarzenegger as my governor for eight years each. I know what they did and what actions they took.
2) No, that's a check and balance on power to prevent some individuals from coercing others and thus allowing for the most liberty for the most people.
3) With them, I think it shows an outward manifestation of greater internal ignorance - further backed up by both their policies and their lack of basic knowledge
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234 "3)i have yet to find a study pairing intellect with verbal ability (as oppose to the ability to convey an idea verbally or not)"
It's not just a matter of verbal ability. Bush was an absolute ignoramous. The trouble with the French is that they don't have their own word for Entrepreneur? They don't have their own word for "idiot" either then?
He was also up to his neck in dodgy dealings with Salem Bin Laden. He was not a fit and proper person to be in any position of power.
thetrueprometheus 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist on your 2nd point-1)it does not matter how he got elected at the end of the day he accomplished something (even if that something is being a "very good spin doctors and that the corporate-dominated media is good at convincing the public to buy into his kind of garbage" it is still an accomplishment)
that 99.9999999 % of huans that ever lived could not, and he did it without open aggression.
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234
that 99.9999999 % of huans that ever lived could not, and he did it without open aggression."
Unless you count 100,000 dead Iraqis.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist to the best of my knowledge iraqis do not have the ability to vote for the united states president....
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234
I meant that Bush engaged in aggression by creating a situation in which 100,000 citizens of Iraq are now dead since 2003
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist how is that relevant to his election. those who put him in power did so with any open act of aggression towards them. the fact is they voted for him (regardless of the reason why) and his ability to make that happen is what puts him in that exclusive group i referred to.
ememes1234 6 months ago
@imyy4upeople1
I ? everything.
If an istitution or figure of authority exists the onus is on them to justify their possession of that authority. Authority can be, social, religiois, economic, political, or intellectual.
In the case of the authority Naomi Klein possesses (intellection) the question is whether or not her opinions stand up to emperical scruntiny.
And and about 85% of the Shock Doctrine does.
The ideas are what's important not the individuals espousing them.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
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@ColbertNutHugger you seem to be engaging in an oversimplification of the ides expressed in this video. everyone involved with making your comment should be embarassed
ememes1234 6 months ago
@imyy4upeople1
You know those lunatics with the "end is nigh" signs and the "Obama = socialist, communist, nazi, muslim, anti-christ" banner around the corner?
They're wondering where you ran off to.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
The chock doctrine in Sweden worked this way. They used Freidmans idea that inflation could be controlled by the amount of money in the market, that has failed in US and UK. That triggered a crisis with a half million lost jobs and a debt of 100 % gnp in four years that forced the socialdemocratic party to agre on cutbacks. The total amount of jobs in sweden is still lower than 1991.
And they denies this. Read your statistics.
aon10003 7 months ago
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Free markets do not exist in reality.
Markets are nothing but political constructs.
For more info pls read: 23 Things They Don't Tell You About Capitalism by Ha-Joon Chang
KanchoKomancho 7 months ago
Why have you "reason tv" titled this clipp Johan VERSUS Naomi? I can't see Naomi defend herself. I would rather say neo-liberal-propaganda-TV. Those who glorifie the impact of the free-market are fat white men who just have seen one side of this economie. Just look at the discursive advantages the liberals have. "FREE-market" sounds good, but the adequat name would be "Slave-market" or maybe "Master and server-market".
hanneshognert 7 months ago
"Social Justice" is just code for taking from the makers and giving it to the takers.
9971explorer 7 months ago
@9971explorer
No, that's capitalism.
Producers and appropriators. The appropriators own and control the means of production, and get the actual producers to work for them using the means of production (because they can't do it themselves).
If you're not entitled to the fruits of your own labor, this system of dominating hierarchy persists - whether under a private company or the state.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@9971explorer
No, that's capitalism.
Producers and appropriators. The appropriators own and control the means of production, and get the actual producers to work for them using the means of production (because they can't do it themselves).
If you're not entitled to the fruits of your own labor, this system of dominating hierarchy persists - whether under a private company or the state.
MsSexySocialist 7 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
dear ms. socialist
how do you account for the price of scale, knowledge and time?
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234
Could you be more specific?
I don't want to find myself prey to a strawman attack.
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
scale-at some point along the chain a product of capital (anything used to make a product e.g. hammer) must be created in scale (e.g. you must cut down the whole tree to make the hammer's handle) the cost of which must be paid by an investor
knowledge-who pays the price for the 1999 ways not to make a light bulb and if the product is unsuccessful who pays for the price of failure if not the investor
time-who would pay wages before the product is sold if not investor
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part 1)
These are big questions so I'd like to tackle each one by one.
And keep in mind that I'm coming from the perspective of a future post-statist and post-privatist paradigm.
(1) I'm guessing your referring to the means of production (productive property) which I would hold should be owned in common (ie: by everyone and no-one) with power of ownership vested in the body politic as a whole in directly democratic confederal assemblies without a state as a center.
(continued)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist 1) who owns the hammer
2 ) why are these "democratic confederal assemblies" not states. they impose the will of the majority on the individual just like the state.
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part A)
"who owns the hammer?"
Items for individual use are "personal property". The have direct use-value to the person possessing them, and hence are not coercive. "Private property" however, involes absentee ownership and can be used to control and coerce others either directly (politically) or indirectly (economically through say, wage labor).
(continued)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part B)
"why are these "democratic confederal assemblies" not states? they impose the will of the majority on the individual just like the state."
A state is a "monopoly on the use of coercision"; you can't have that if a polity is decentralized and participatory. Where decision-making is consensus-based, not "majority-rule" based. A "one person veto" applies except in manifestly trivial matters. Even if a decision is made with which you disagree, you can choose to opt out.
(cont)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part 2)
(1+) Productive property is then leased out on long-term contract to any group or individual wishing to engage in production of goods and services. This would theoretically include: cooperatives (both small and large scale), self-employed individuals, and some small private businesses and family-run businesses (restaurants for example).
(2) In terms of "price" as you referred to it; no-one, as there is no longer private ownership of productive property and . . . (continued)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part 3)
. . . I would advocate an economy where money (in it's current form) no longer exist, to be replaced with a personal voucher system of remuneration for labor contributed - based on effort and sacrifice as a measure.
Allocation of vital resources is done via participatory planning by the aforementioned confederal assemblies. With non-vital (commercial) goods and services allocated via an artificial market based on what people consume with vouchers . . . (continued)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist 1) how do you value labor if there is no price system
2) whats the practical difference between vouchers and federal reserve notes they can both be traded for goods and if not why ? (if i can trade my bread voucher for your meat voucher why not for your hammer)
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part C)
"how do you value labor if there is no price system?"
Through a messure of effort and sacrifice. A job that is more difficult, more dangerous, or that requires more training should naturally remunerate more than an occupation that is easy or unstressful. Although if you're referring to labor markets I disagree with the concept.
I don't feel human beings should be mere commodities to be bought/rented. Each individual should have a right to economic self-determination.
(cont)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234(Part D)
"whats the practical difference between vouchers and federal reserve notes they can both be traded for goods and if not why?"
Fiat currency? No. Vochers are not transferable between individuals (this would incidentally make monetary theft impossible) and are not specific to items. One voucher/dollar could be used to pay for any commercial good or service.
They would also cease to exist upon purchase - like loyalty points
Meaning the economy would in theory be moneyless
(cont)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (2+) With regard to "investors" such a thing wouldn't come into the equation as productive property belongs to the commons and is leased out according to the principle of usufruct of the commons. Though I suppose you could call the confederal assemblies the "investor" in this context.
(3) Money no longer exists, but as I said there is still remuneration for labor contributed, and these vouchers awarded for work are more akin to a bookeeping system or loyalty points than money.
(cont)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist ownership of wood is an investment it is only after this investment that one can make the hammer's handle
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part E)
"ownership of wood is an investment it is only after this investment that one can make the hammer's handle"
A statement, not an inquiry.
This only applies to the current privatist market paradigm and such a concept as "investment" wouldn't come into play for the cultivation of vital resources - as I explained when I mentioned common ownership and production based on usufruct of the commons granted via confederated democratic decision-making
(Q)Are you an anarcho-capitalist?
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist to your question. i don't believe in the right to ones self (and by extension ones property) i also don't believe in the right to self defense so on that basis no. but on the other hand i am completely and absolutely against any notion that a multitude of individuals have any right over my actions coercive or not.
what i believe is the "right to personal survival" which give me every right to do whatever i consider necessary for my survival.
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 technically you could claim the same right for yourself and kill me and that would be moral.
if you attack me i may kill you to protect myself. the difference between that and the right to self defense is only noticed by a third party. if you believe in self defense the defender is in the right if you believe in the "personal right to personal survival" the defender is just as immoral as the murderer.
ememes1234 6 months ago
@ememes1234 (Part 5)
Sorry, didn't label part 4. But anyway, to conclude:
This is kept track of through a decentralized computer network organized through economic facilitation boards (more about this can be found on searches re: participatory economics and inclusive democracy).
I get the sense you thought I was coming from a statist perspective. I'm not and at the same time I feel we need to most past the idea that a good economy requires a hierarchical separation of producers and appropriators
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
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ememes1234 6 months ago
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@MsSexySocialist 1) if you believe in democracy then you are a statist
2) to have an economy that can produce complex goods like your laptop or youtube and the like it is necessary to have producers of worthless goods (most individual parts of a laptop would be worthless without the other parts being invented) those who buy/trade for vouchers those worthless products are investors without whom those products could not be produced therefor without investors there can not be complex products
ememes1234 6 months ago
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@MsSexySocialist btw have you bothered to read any of the works of mises
ememes1234 6 months ago
That wasn't her thesis... :/
radomu1 8 months ago
There's no debate when you don't have anybody to disagree with you. This program is a shame.
Madmacks10 8 months ago
Friedman was dead less than a year when Klein came out with her smear campaign. Pretty friggin pathetic.
thegillotine09 9 months ago 14
@thegillotine09
She started writing it back in 2004.
I hardly think she waited for him to die then decided to cash in on his death by writing a tract about him - and the book isn't even about him exclusively; it's about the whole neoliberal clique he was a part of and the misery they've all caused in the latter 20th and early 21st century.
Do you even bother to read the book?
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
What I know is that the title of the book is based on a complete misunderstanding of an out-of-context quote by Milton Friedman. "Only a crisis, real or perceived, produces real change". What he was saying is that people don't engage in economic reform until the economy doesn't get *really* bad, a la Soviet Union 1980's. She then takes this and says that Friedman is advocating "Shocking people into obedience" through natural disasters and war, and compares him to torturers.
thegillotine09 6 months ago
@MsSexySocialist
The difference between them is that Friedman uses logic and economics to make an argument for freedom, and Klein uses propaganda and lies (yes, lies) to make an argument against freedom.
So yeah, when the cover page of a book is based on a lie, I don't bother reading the rest.
thegillotine09 6 months ago
@thegillotine09 (1/2)
So you haven't read the book, yet you feel fully able to spout untruths about its contents despite not actually knowing what those contents actually are?
"The Shock Doctrine" - as Klein explains in the book - has got nothing to do with what you described, nor is it directly related to Friedman, it has to do with individuals in positions of power taking advantage of disasters to push through policies that would be otherwise blocked by the public due to unpopularity.
(cont)
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago
@thegillotine09 (2/2)
You claim Klein uses "lies" to get her position across yet are not able to cite any other than a supposed lie based on a misinterpretation of her meaning of the term "shock doctrine" - nothing to do with "shocking people into obedience"
Why is it you think you don't have to actually read a book to have a fully formed opinion on it and on Klein?
I can't stand Milton Friedman or Von Mises, but I slugged through most of their work because I want to know what they actually feel
MsSexySocialist 6 months ago