View Full Version : Capitalism or Socialism?
Inspired by this thread (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?t=6850) of VA, I decided to make a poll.
I realise that there are many different forms and grades of both poles -- so please feel free to elaborate your thoughts on this.
I expect capitalism to win by a large margin in this poll, and am actually more interested in reading responding comments. I myself find merits in both, and would ideally like a balance which combines the best of both ideologies.
Public poll.
Nodens
08-09-2009, 10:30 AM
False Dichotomy - Both are ill-defined and both (as commonly understood) are manifestations of modern liberal humanism.
Karaten
08-09-2009, 10:42 AM
False Dichotomy - Both are ill-defined and both (as commonly understood) are manifestations of modern liberal humanism.
Perhaps, but if I were to choose the best of the two, it would be capitalism.
I actually have my own ideology of government that doesn't really fit this, but for now, I'll just say that capitalism is certainly better.
Brännvin
08-09-2009, 10:51 AM
A mix of Socialism and Capitalism.
Indeed, given that socialism (not communism or totalitarianism) has barely existed anywhere, if at all, neither has capitalism in the true "free market" sense. :coffee:
But current 'capitalists', rely on 'government' (politicians) to bend rules, provide subsidies, or give free resources to their corporations mainly in US :cool:, where do I find the greatest hypocrisy.
Karaten
08-09-2009, 10:58 AM
Well, true pure capitalism is ideally the market form of anarchy. I would tweak it, though Socialism is not that tweak.
SwordoftheVistula
08-09-2009, 11:33 AM
False Dichotomy - Both are ill-defined and both (as commonly understood) are manifestations of modern liberal humanism.
Liberal humanism is primarily a social concept, and capitalism and socialism are primarily economic concepts. There's obviously an amount of crossover such as otherwise 'capitalist' opponents of liberal humanism supporting restrictions or bans on 'economic' activities such as prostitution, gambling, abortion and drug/alcohol sales, but the poll is which side do you generally tend towards in the economic sphere in a default sense.
But current 'capitalists', rely on 'government' (politicians) to bend rules, provide subsidies, or give free resources to their corporations mainly in US.
Many such people are not true capitalists in the ideological sense, and others are just competing as best they can in the current mixed capitalist/socialist system to grab as much benefits as they can before their competitor does.
Ariets
08-09-2009, 11:35 AM
The thing is that only capitalism works, and only capitalism means truly fair economic system, that makes you free and that is compatible with natural laws.Socialism is a theft, and socialist are thiefs.
As a note, such statements like Loki's signature "I support free healthcare for all poor people" are extreme naive, there's nothing for free in the world, and something like free healthcare is just not free.
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" Milton Friedman.
And as it is in socialism, how your own money are yours if you are not able to administrate them? Are you happy when goverment steals up to 75% of your earnings? (like in Sweden eg., or in Poland it can have even 70% by various taxes and other nonsense).
Its also crap that I have to pay for things that I dont use, or when I use from private not state source (then I have to pay twice!). Its crap when I have to pay for people that get things for "free", like for criminals, unemployed or homeless. They shouldn't earn money for doing nothing.
Smash the welfare state!
Currently in cinema so will respond in detail later. Fascinating topic though. Wish we could have input from Skadi's Bärin's "National Communism". Hors' "National Capitalism" is equally interesting. Hors, care to elaborate?
The Lawspeaker
08-09-2009, 12:47 PM
This is a tough nut to crack because both extremes are bad. Minarchist capitalism gave us the atrocious working conditions and exploited working class of the 19th and early 20th century and hard-line socialism stifles all innovation and initiative.
If this crisis shows us one thing it is the absolute bankruptcy of the system that has plagued us for the past 50 or so years. It is the bankruptcy of a system that wasn't fair to begin with- at least not here in Europe. Not everyone got the chance of starting up it's own company because only the ones with the golden spoon in his mouth and the right connection in the circles of the financiers (government and private) could afford it. I think that this is in essence even a non-European system as both piracy capitalism and socialism are Jewish inventions (don't flare up you politically correct lot). In the cities of medieval Europe we had the guilds that were quite collective in their dealings and mindset and I believe that we should (in part) return to this system.
We will have to change our mindset again and realize that not one size fits all. We will have to teach the cooperation and the farmer to stand on their own legs again rather then to lean on the shoulder of the tax-payer. But on the other hand should we encourage small businesses and farmers to form (loose or strict depending on how they would like it) cooperatives or guilds. If farmers or entrepreneurs wish to remain independent then it is of course their prerogative. We will have to teach banks to invest in things that really matter: small loans to people willing to start up a business, our environment, human development. Micro-credits for our own kin rather then big loans for big companies and Africa.
We will have to rebuild our entire system from scratch and we better well get used to it. One thing we should definitely get rid off is globalization and free trade. It brought us nothing but misery.
But to all hard-line capitalists out here (I call them Scrooge's ): a welfare state is not socialistic. It would actually be a good capitalistic thing to do when you consider it to be an investment. You invest in people to bring them back into the labor market while you protect those that are infirm, aged or handicapped. They still buy your goods..
And when it comes to health care then my conscience says that the sick are not objects of trade. Health care is a right. Plain and simple so I am in favor of a guild-based health care system for those in guilds and a national health care system for everyone else- paid for by tax money. Sickness is not an object of trade and for those that see it that way: there is something wrong with your conscience. Back in the Middle Ages a lot of care was done by the Church (monasteries and Hôtel-Dieu's -lit. House of God) and care usually was for free or was 'repaid" in some other way). I think that the notion that someone had to pay for care- is Jewish. It's at least not European.
Æmeric
08-09-2009, 12:56 PM
Capitalism. But without globalization or 'free trade'. What most people think of as being Capitalism is actually liberalized Socialism. Capitalism means no subsidizes for business (either directly or through the taxe code) or government mandated monopolies.
Brännvin
08-09-2009, 01:30 PM
Many such people are not true capitalists in the ideological sense, and others are just competing as best they can in the current mixed capitalist/socialist system to grab as much benefits as they can before their competitor does.
True, this is the question that the capitalism (market anarchism) in the pure sense will never exist in practice.
I voted for a mixture.
Corporations should be allowed to fail when they cannot compete.
Middle class people with jobs and health insurance should not face bankruptcy over medical bills, or even lawyer bills for that matter.
The true line is between the haves and have not. The rich fund both parties simultaneously.
The free trade is so the rich can increase profits, with fewer taxes. Government monopolies are rackets. Once the corporations get so big, they take on a life of their own. I am not sure what to do about them, except to government seize them, and appoint Apricians as the CEOs.
Lulletje Rozewater
08-09-2009, 01:38 PM
"Everything for the people, nothing by the people."
Benevolent Despotism.
Socialism stinks
Capitalism in whatever form is corrupt.
Aprician CEO's are for the birds :)
Skandi
08-09-2009, 04:35 PM
I am probably more socialist than capitalist, I believe that all essential services (fuel, water, transport, communications) should be provided by the state. and that most internal domestic policy would be strongly socialist, for example there would be a welfare state, but it would be heavily monitored and only open to citizens (I have posted about this elsewhere) However I think that non essential services and food should be privately owned and open in INTERNAL competition. Internal to the country that is, all international dealings would be on a strictly capitalist and protectionist base (If such a thing is possible).
Loddfafner
08-09-2009, 04:46 PM
Capitalism needs a measure of socialism in order to work at all over the long term. If each firm cuts its labor costs, then fewer people can afford the goods they make and the whole system will come to a crashing halt. If firms compete while sharing the same level of regulation, the system will be more sustainable.
And in response to Aemeric:
Capitalism. But without globalization or 'free trade'.
Capitalism without free trade would no longer be capitalism. Socialist policies should protect populations from the full impact of globalization without weakening them from stiff external competition. No country can isolate itself from the rest of the world and the realities of what alternatives are available and how cheaply others can produce goods.
Æmeric
08-09-2009, 05:04 PM
I am probably more socialist than capitalist, I believe that all essential services (fuel, water, transport, communications) should be provided by the state.
:eek:
Fuel: We need more competition in the fuel sector. Giving the government a monopoly in fuel would be a disaster. As it is there is plenty of competition in the coal industry in the US. It is the motor vehile fuel sector were we need more competition, most areas are generally served by only a few distributors.
Water. Water is generally a government ran utility in the US but by the local towns & citites, sometimes by local water districts. It is what is known as a natural monopoly. Concentration of water at the state or national level would be a mistake, best to leave it to local governments, who compete with other local governments in providing decent services at reasonable prices. As it is I get my water from a water cooperative - owned by the customers. No local government authority (let alone a private for-profit corporation) want to built a water line in this area. Why turn it over to the government?
Transport: Do you mean trucking (the transport of private goods)? There is a fairly competitive private sector handling that function. Airlines? Thats another sector that is private in the US & should remain so. Transport is an unnatural monopoly. Urban transport? Why shouldn't there be competing lines of coach companies competing for urban commuters?
Communications: But in the olden days, this was a natural monopoly when everyone had land lines. Now with wireless, there is plenty of competition. Why give the governement a monopoly?You can also choose between landline cable TV service or satellite TV. There are 2 satellite TV providers in the US & most urban dwellers also have the choice of a land cable service. Want to let the governement decide what programming will be carried?
My landline telephone & internet is provided by a rural telephone cooperative. Why should we turn it over to the governemnt to run?
Útrám
08-09-2009, 05:05 PM
Old-school "who does not work shall not eat" socialism in harmony with a private but reasonably regulated market.
The thing is that only capitalism works, and only capitalism means truly fair economic system, that makes you free and that is compatible with natural laws.
How then do you explain Nazi Germany's astonishing economic success and prosperity, fuelled by socialist economic policies? The NSDAP was vehemently opposed to Jewish-American-style capitalism. And I'm not talking about racial policies and foreign policy now.
Socialism is a theft, and socialist are thiefs.
If it is part of a system that was voted in by the majority of the electorate, then it cannot be theft. It is voluntary then. Soviet Communism was theft, yes, but we're not talking about that.
As a note, such statements like Loki's signature "I support free healthcare for all poor people" are extreme naive, there's nothing for free in the world, and something like free healthcare is just not free.
"There's no such thing as a free lunch" Milton Friedman.
Yes I know, someone has to pay. The richest people in society should support the lower levels with a percentage of their earnings. Otherwise, you're creating a class-based and split community that will always be at great odds with each other -- leading to resentment, crime, robbery, etc.
And as it is in socialism, how your own money are yours if you are not able to administrate them? Are you happy when goverment steals up to 75% of your earnings? (like in Sweden eg., or in Poland it can have even 70% by various taxes and other nonsense).
Well, the Swedish model has worked very well. Sweden is one of the most advanced countries on earth, and their citizens are enjoying fantastic quality of life. It is only now being corrupted by massive immigration from unwanted areas of the globe.
Loddfafner
08-09-2009, 05:09 PM
My landline telephone & internet is provided by a rural telephone cooperative. Why should we turn it over to the governemnt to run?
I see cooperatives as a form of socialism. I do not equate socialism with control by a distant state, though the state is best placed for coordinating large-scale cooperative arrangements.
Kempenzoon
08-09-2009, 05:13 PM
False Dichotomy - Both are ill-defined and both (as commonly understood) are manifestations of modern liberal humanism.
Agreed.
I'd actually vote distributism.
I guess I'll select "mix of both" here.
Beorn
08-09-2009, 05:19 PM
I believe that all essential services (fuel, water, transport, communications) should be provided by the state.
Agreed. With the exception of the fuel, transport and communications (by which you mean t.v and radio, etc?) I would like to adopt the system that Northern Ireland implements.
They pay a rate towards their water and amenities of £90 a month (or there abouts taking into consideration your location) whereas in England at least, we pay minimum £100-odd towards our council bills a month plus our water bills each quarter which is inflated as and where it is allowable under a very poorly maintained and heavily rated system.
I would like to see this system adopted in England and perhaps bettered in it also incorporating transport systems.
the sole problem with caipalism is the low number of capitalists, if 80% of the population were capitalists, it would be far more beneficial.
Socialism is equally bad. Founded along with democracy, that night so long ago in athen... when the dictator was overthrown but was unwilling to step down. And so he robbed everyone to pay a few supporter.
Kempenzoon
08-09-2009, 05:20 PM
If it is part of a system that was voted in by the majority of the electorate, then it cannot be theft. It is voluntary then.
Actually no.
If you put me in a room with 10 people, and we all are forced to vote what will happen, and 9 people vote to take all my belongings, and I'm the only one voting against it ... does that mean it's no longer theft? Does that even mean it's voluntarily at all?
The masses are not always right. The masses are blind sheep who are too occupied by their tabloids to see the big lies and the manipulation.
Beorn
08-09-2009, 05:23 PM
If you put me in a room with 10 people, and we all are forced to vote what will happen, and 9 people vote to take all my belongings, and I'm the only one voting against it ... does that mean it's no longer theft? Does that even mean it's voluntarily at all?
It would depend upon what you possess and what the other nine do not possess.
Kempenzoon
08-09-2009, 05:30 PM
It would depend upon what you possess and what the other nine do not possess.
Why would that make a difference?
Beorn
08-09-2009, 05:40 PM
Why would that make a difference?
You tell me. You were the one who said:
"If you put me in a room with 10 people, and we all are forced to vote what will happen, and 9 people vote to take all my belongings, and I'm the only one voting against it ... does that mean it's no longer theft? Does that even mean it's voluntarily at all?"
You've implied you possess something which the other nine do not. What was it?
Æmeric
08-09-2009, 05:42 PM
And in response to Aemeric:
Capitalism without free trade would no longer be capitalism. Socialist policies should protect populations from the full impact of globalization without weakening them from stiff external competition. No country can isolate itself from the rest of the world and the realities of what alternatives are available and how cheaply others can produce goods.Free trade as described by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" is not what we currently have under globalization. Big corporations offshore labor & re-export finished products to their domestic markets. Free trade as advocated by Smith meant that trade should be to each nations competitive advantage, that each nation should concentrate on what it did best. England for example should import wine rather then try & develope a domestic wine industry, protected by tariffs. The English did have a competitive advantage at making pig iron. Portugal should export wine to England & import pig ron from England. The English were the major producers of pig iron at the time.
I see cooperatives as a form of socialism. I do not equate socialism with control by a distant state, though the state is best placed for coordinating large-scale cooperative arrangements.
Copperatives are voluntary & are run by the customers, who are also the owners. As opposed to a government mandated collective. Controlled by bureaucrats.
Kempenzoon
08-09-2009, 05:52 PM
You tell me. You were the one who said:
"If you put me in a room with 10 people, and we all are forced to vote what will happen, and 9 people vote to take all my belongings, and I'm the only one voting against it ... does that mean it's no longer theft? Does that even mean it's voluntarily at all?"
You've implied you possess something which the other nine do not. What was it?
Doesn't have to be something they don't have. If you give 10 people each 100 euros, it's still human nature to want 110 euros instead. So no, I didn't imply what you claim.
Beorn
08-09-2009, 06:05 PM
Doesn't have to be something they don't have. If you give 10 people each 100 euros, it's still human nature to want 110 euros instead. So no, I didn't imply what you claim.
You didn't mention any of the above or imply you were placed into a situation of the above. You simply stated you were in a room with nine others and they voted to take your belongings. The situation was therefore implied that what it was you possessed in the room was the envy of the other nine members, and they voted for your possessions accordingly.
Anyway, it was merely an observation.
Ariets
08-09-2009, 06:05 PM
How then do you explain Nazi Germany's astonishing economic success and prosperity, fuelled by socialist economic policies? The NSDAP was vehemently opposed to Jewish-American-style capitalism. And I'm not talking about racial policies and foreign policy now..lol, Im dissapointed of you (with the nazis).
Their economic succes (minimalising inflantion that was simply huge after second world war) wasn't succes of socialist economic policies, their socialism was even stricte socialism vide SPD like these days, they respected private property and even helped (which was typical for goverments like that) few factories, being less regulated by the goverment (it was actually corrupted system, and NSDAP betrayed their socialism and economical ideas of working class blabla crap), it was highly militaristic, whole issue of the Nazi Germany economical succes is debate for the other thread cause it ain't so simply as some may think.:coffee:
If it is part of a system that was voted in by the majority of the electorate, then it cannot be theft. It is voluntary then. Soviet Communism was theft, yes, but we're not talking about that.
1) Not really, eg. in Poland dominating these days party is Civic Platform (PO), they declare themself to be conservative liberals, which they aren't. They haven't dont anything to liberalise economics.
2) Secondly, I dont legitimize and dont approve democracy as a political system. Its degenerative regime of the majority, even ancients of the past knew that (eg. Plato, who was extreme statist)
3) I dont give a fuck about majority of the electorate, that they are majority doesn't mean they are right.
Its like a gang rape, lets say 10 rapist and one victime, well majority is happy then too, isnt?
4) It's NOT VOLUNTARY when Im FORCED to it. Thats quite opposite.
5) Most people don't know nothign about politics, dont even know what word capitalism or socialism stands for. And you will find that all over Europe,
Yes I know, someone has to pay. The richest people in society should support the lower levels with a percentage of their earnings. Otherwise, you're creating a class-based and split community that will always be at great odds with each other -- leading to resentment, crime, robbery, etc. Thats completly rubish and unfair treatment of the society, all are citzen equal to the law or not?
You say the richest people should, why they should even care?
And not, criminals are not product of society, we all are products of ourselves.
Well, the Swedish model has worked very well. Sweden is one of the most advanced countries on earth, and their citizens are enjoying fantastic quality of life. It is only now being corrupted by massive immigration from unwanted areas of the globe.
Actually it was allways corrupted, even Sweden isn't 100% socialistic regime, but after all it is socialist regime in most cases with regulated free market (which is even largerly free that for example market of Germany etc.).
I'll quote more less Janusz Korwin-Mikke: Socialist are a) COMPLETE MORONS, aka idealist that really belief it such slavery, and b) THIEFS that wants to get richer, by exploiting people under socialist regime.
Piparskeggr
08-09-2009, 06:12 PM
It would depend upon what you possess and what the other nine do not possess.
How about if I am Socrates, and what I possess is my life?
My greatest possession is taken away by vote within the democratic process.
No "pure" system has ever really existed, nor will any one work perfectly so long as more than one human is involved.
lol, Im dissapointed of you (with the nazis).
I'm not a supporter of Nazism, just wanted to point out the relevance of their socialism and economic success. But as you say, it's complicated and perhaps for another thread.
3) I dont give a fuck about majority of the electorate, that they are majority doesn't mean they are right.
Maybe not, but it gives them some sort of legitimacy in imposing their preferred system on the community. What is the alternative? Following a system that only a minority support, and the majority are against? I call that political oppression.
You say the richest people should, why they should even care?
And not, criminals are not product of society, we all are products of ourselves.
We don't live in individual bubbles, though. Like it or not, we have to share this planet with other people. And the denser the population becomes, the more important it is that we consider others as well, rather than just living in isolation. What is good for society as a whole, often is good for you personally too. If your neighbour is happy, he is less likely to trouble you.
Kempenzoon
08-09-2009, 07:37 PM
Maybe not, but it gives them some sort of legitimacy in imposing their preferred system on the community. What is the alternative? Following a system that only a minority support, and the majority are against? I call that political oppression..
Democracy is also political oppression of the minority. And no, there's no alternative where noone is oppressed at all, I'm aware of that. Unless everyone were to live like a hermit of course.
If your neighbour is happy, he is less likely to trouble you.
If he knows you carry a big stick, he's also less likely to trouble you, regardless of his happiness. It's very possible to live a safe and good life without caring for the masses. Some social engagement is good, but when it turns into daylight robbery, it's time to hide the purse and grab the stick.
I am probably more socialist than capitalist, I believe that all essential services (fuel, water, transport, communications) should be provided by the state. and that most internal domestic policy would be strongly socialist, for example there would be a welfare state, but it would be heavily monitored and only open to citizens (I have posted about this elsewhere) However I think that non essential services and food should be privately owned and open in INTERNAL competition. Internal to the country that is, all international dealings would be on a strictly capitalist and protectionist base (If such a thing is possible).
The differentiation between essential and non-essential services makes very sense to me , I'm inclined toward Third Position/Fascim but generally speaking I could agree with limiting the capitalism to the unessential goods/services but the rest , the basic needs of people and the State should be public and I say public instead of statal with a reason , statalism/socialism too many times are exploited by lobbies and parties , with public I mean the direct control of water , energy , television , transporation by people in the shape of cooperatives or public companies , where the people own the shares and it's only up to them deciding the policy and the business.
It's should be forbid by the law for a single person/private society tha may be located in another continent to make profit on those particular fields , it's sorta financial neo-colonialism.
True, this is the question that the capitalism (market anarchism) in the pure sense will never exist in practice.
Indeed neither the real Capitalism nor the real Communism have ever existed nor will ever exist , they're more utopies and propaganda rather than real well working systems , the sooner we get rid of them the better.
:eek:
Communications: But in the olden days, this was a natural monopoly when everyone had land lines. Now with wireless, there is plenty of competition. Why give the governement a monopoly?You can also choose between landline cable TV service or satellite TV. There are 2 satellite TV providers in the US & most urban dwellers also have the choice of a land cable service. Want to let the governement decide what programming will be carried?
My landline telephone & internet is provided by a rural telephone cooperative. Why should we turn it over to the governemnt to run?
What about television?at this point I think it's in front of our very eyes it's the most efficient system ever invented to change the mindset of people and thus a whole civilization , such immense power shoul let run by privates too?
Brännvin
08-09-2009, 08:33 PM
the sole problem with capitalism is the low number of capitalists, if 80% of the population were capitalists, it would be far more beneficial.
Could it or not, but nobody will know.
Real capitalism a.k.a market anarchism it will never exist, it is naive to someone believe on that, perhaps if it really existed was during the sixteenth century around some Dutch and Flemish cities for a short period when Europe was experiencing a turbulent era of transition.
Today, the financial crisis lays bare the weakness and hypocrisy of the liberal American “capitalist” model so talked and widespread in the 90s, looks at as the state is entering to help the banks, big corporations and the major industries, this is not the true capitalism how was designed by Adam Smith (laissez- faire), but just naked corporate welfare.
I wonder, where are their economic liberalism now? :cool:
Æmeric
08-09-2009, 08:45 PM
What about television?at this point I think it's in front of our very eyes it's the most efficient system ever invented to change the mindset of people and thus a whole civilization , such immense power shoul let run by privates too?
If government ran all television then every network would be like the BBC. Or NPR & PBS in the States. They are leftwinged enough as it is in private (and usually under predominately Jewish control) as it is.
Skandi
08-09-2009, 09:15 PM
Agreed. With the exception of the fuel, transport and communications (by which you mean t.v and radio, etc?) I would like to adopt the system that Northern Ireland implements.
They pay a rate towards their water and amenities of £90 a month (or there abouts taking into consideration your location) whereas in England at least, we pay minimum £100-odd towards our council bills a month plus our water bills each quarter which is inflated as and where it is allowable under a very poorly maintained and heavily rated system.
For communications I was thinking of the phonelines and the postal service. TV and radio are non essential and so would be private.
In Scotland the Water is included in the council tax, of course in England it depends on the band of your property, for example I live in a band B which means I pay £75pm for council tax and because we are on a water meter about 15 for water, which works out the same as your Irish example there.
Butour entire countries water system needs overhauling, something that private companies will never get round too :(.
Æmeric
08-09-2009, 09:32 PM
In America, telephone service was considered a natural monopoly (like electricity & residential gas service) & was regulated by the local governements but private owned. Ma Bell, aka American Telephone & Telegraph (AT&T) use to own a majority of the phone systems in the US. GTE was another big player. AT&T was ordered to be broken up in an anti-trust suit several years ago involving longdistance service but many of the parts have reassembled. And because of wireless there is more competition anyway.
The US Postal Service get a lot of competition from FedEx & UPS. But only the Postal Service is allowed to put anything in your mailbox. Even though individual homeowners have to purchase & put up the mailboxes themselves.
Ariets
08-09-2009, 09:32 PM
Maybe not, but it gives them some sort of legitimacy in imposing their preferred system on the community. What is the alternative? Following a system that only a minority support, and the majority are against? I call that political oppression..Well there are two rational options, monarchism with market anarchism or simply anarchocapitalism, but what can I say? People are to stupid to see it:D
We don't live in individual bubbles, though. Like it or not, we have to share this planet with other people. And the denser the population becomes, the more important it is that we consider others as well, rather than just living in isolation. What is good for society as a whole, often is good for you personally too. If your neighbour is happy, he is less likely to trouble you.
Damn you, you sound like hippie :D (no offence)
Indeed neither the real Capitalism nor the real Communism have ever existed nor will ever exist , they're more utopies and propaganda rather than real well working systems , the sooner we get rid of them the better.Only fool without any knowledge or imagination can say something like that. Look at past, when there was no state (no state = no interventionism = no statism, thats logical), or state wasn't regulating life's of the people (eg. ancient Scythian kingdom or even Iceland of the middle ages).
Ariets
08-09-2009, 09:34 PM
The US Postal Service get a lot of competition from FedEx & UPS. But only the Postal Service is allowed to put anything in your mailbox. Even though individual homeowners have to purchase & put up the mailboxes themselves.
http://www.lysanderspooner.org/STAMP3.htm
Hrolf Kraki
08-09-2009, 09:45 PM
That´s a tough one. Although traditionally I´ve always said that I was against capitalism, I´m vehemently against this new socialist regime we have here in America. But really, the problem isn´t the form of government, but the people themselves.
I don´t like capitalism because it promotes greed and getting what you want by stepping on the backs of others. It puts money and profit above all else and fails to acknowledge that money isn´t always the most important thing in life. If everyone acted fairly and honourably, capitalism would be a fine system. But most don´t and people are constantly being taken advantage of and down-right wronged.
But what of socialism? I like the idea that everyone works for a common cause. As a matter of fact, I LOVE that idea. It makes sense. Instead of having one person looking out for me (myself), I´ve got an entire nation looking out for me. Everyone looking out for everyone else and pooling resources together for the common good. What´s not to like?
My biggest problem with socialism (at least in my country) is the fact that only a percentage of people are working towards the common good of a much larger population, while we have another percentage (smaller, albeit growing) who rely soley on the efforts of those who work. They don´t contribute, but only take. These people are a drain on society and the economy and are the sole reason, IMO, that socialism doesn´t work in modern society.
I believe strong socialist governments can be created and can be beneficial to everyone, but before this can happen, all the moochers need to be dealt with one way or another...
sturmwalkure
08-09-2009, 10:13 PM
The only instance of me supporting anything resembling Socialism would be in a racially homogenous state with a eugenics program in place. If there were no Arabs, Negroes etc possibly benefiting from it but only my racial kin benefiting from it I would consider it. If that sounds like National Socialism it is, that's the only kind of Socialist state I'd support. And remember National Socialism isn't just the Third Reich (which was more Imperialist than Nationalist) but it is an ideology.
Nodens
08-10-2009, 12:07 AM
Liberal humanism is primarily a social concept, and capitalism and socialism are primarily economic concepts.
True, but both systems arose from a humanist background.
There's obviously an amount of crossover such as otherwise 'capitalist' opponents of liberal humanism supporting restrictions or bans on 'economic' activities such as prostitution, gambling, abortion and drug/alcohol sales, but the poll is which side do you generally tend towards in the economic sphere in a default sense.
The single largest problem with the question is the ambiguity of the terms in question, resulting from the misapplication of these terms. Third Positionism is often regarded as intermediary between the two, but in reality has very little philosophical basis in either, having more background in Enlightened Absolutism than in Marx or Smith (hence my reluctance to vote mixture of the two).
Piparskeggr
08-10-2009, 12:37 AM
"Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance, and barbarianism must ultimately triumph" - Robert E. Howard
"I think the real reason so many youngsters are clamoring for freedom of some vague sort, is because of unrest and dissatisfaction with present conditions; I don't believe this machine age gives full satisfaction in a spiritual way, if the term may be allowed." - Robert E. Howard
Tabiti
08-10-2009, 06:36 AM
None!
But I think they are kind of similar. Huge private concerns or state ones. All the same for the ordinary people.
If government ran all television then every network would be like the BBC. Or NPR & PBS in the States. They are leftwinged enough as it is in private (and usually under predominately Jewish control) as it is.
Not by the government , whose members are mere delegates of people (thou much more theoretically than practically) but directly by the people , instead of having private owned CBS CNN ABC Foc HBO and stuff imagine as they would be public companies , where you're called to vote the official policy , it's hard to figure it right now but imho should be the best way , television is a too powerful tool to let it be run by privates , it feeds on the worst low instincts of people.
Only fool without any knowledge or imagination can say something like that. Look at past, when there was no state (no state = no interventionism = no statism, thats logical), or state wasn't regulating life's of the people (eg. ancient Scythian kingdom or even Iceland of the middle ages).
Yeah , what about those pigmies down there in Africa , no statal intervention at all , and they're thriving yeah :rolleyes:
I suspect you don't know that much of history nor the exact meanings of capitalism and socialism , just because there ain't no statal intervention that doesn't mean a society can be qualified as capitalistic , capitalism imply a social class of people who posess the property of that means that can make profit on the expense of those who don't have them (the property of machinery for fisrt) and that rely to survive only on their labor , means also a moving society , where prices are on the rise in the long run , where new needs and goods are created each year in order to enrich the capitalists themselves , not a rural stable one.
Freomæg
08-10-2009, 08:01 AM
We have, in a way, seen a mixture of capitalism and socialism and it has proven extremely tyrannical. When the economic system collapsed (through capitalist greed) banks were bailed out with our money. That was socialism. When the going was good and the bankers were raking it in, there was no sharing of the wealth. We've had capitalism when the going was good and socialism when the going was bad. I can't think of anything more wrong than that. It almost seems as though capitalism went so far that it came out socialist at the other end.
My response would be near-identical to Hrolf Kraki's. Capitalism rewards greed and materialism, but socialism rewards weakness and dependency. I'm not sure either are for me. Though if I had to choose, I'd be leaning towards capitalism because it represents greater liberty, and socialism usually ends up benefitting the greedy anyway (when the system becomes corrupted).
We have, in a way, seen a mixture of capitalism and socialism and it has proven extremely tyrannical. When the economic system collapsed (through capitalist greed) banks were bailed out with our money. That was socialism. When the going was good and the bankers were raking it in, there was no sharing of the wealth. We've had capitalism when the going was good and socialism when the going was bad. I can't think of anything more wrong than that. It almost seems as though capitalism went so far that it came out socialist at the other end.
Privatizing the profits and socializing the losses , when the rich get too rich it always end that way , too much power in a few hands.
Æmeric
08-10-2009, 01:38 PM
@Tony: I think television is going to go the way of the worldwideweb in the next decade. It will become highly decentralize, unlike the current situation where a few media conglomerates seem to own everything. Youtube must one of the most watch networks, though it is not counted as such. The networks as they now stand are primarily the means of distributing content. There are a limited number of distributors. TV, PC & the internet are converging. By 2020, independent producers will be able to secure a server, register a URL & broadcast their programming without the interference of the current broadcasters as middlemen. There will be an infinite number of possible programming sources. There is no point putting TV under governemnt control when it is on the verge of becoming decentralize beyond what was imaginable a generation ago.
Despite Internet I somewhat suspect television will still retain a lot of influence , everytime a new media has came into reality the old media didn't really disappear , look at the newspapers , photography , cinema , radio and television , Internet will grow much bigger and likely any censorship policy won't be able to shut it down but still TV won't see its power disappearig.
Brännvin
08-11-2009, 12:42 PM
Wow I'm surprised with the result, I would expect capitalism to be the winning shot of the poll. :eek:
Wow I'm surprised with the result, I would expect capitalism to be the winning shot of the poll. :eek:
I'm impressed, seems I underestimated many around here. :)
SwordoftheVistula
08-11-2009, 01:25 PM
Old-school "who does not work shall not eat" socialism
How is that a 'socialist' concept? That's what capitalism is, and the primary argument for socialism seems to be 'it is morally wrong that someone shall not eat'
It would depend upon what you possess and what the other nine do not possess.
You tell me. You were the one who said:
"If you put me in a room with 10 people, and we all are forced to vote what will happen, and 9 people vote to take all my belongings, and I'm the only one voting against it ... does that mean it's no longer theft? Does that even mean it's voluntarily at all?"
You've implied you possess something which the other nine do not. What was it?
Democracy is also political oppression of the minority. And no, there's no alternative where noone is oppressed at all, I'm aware of that. Unless everyone were to live like a hermit of course.
If he knows you carry a big stick, he's also less likely to trouble you, regardless of his happiness. It's very possible to live a safe and good life without caring for the masses. Some social engagement is good, but when it turns into daylight robbery, it's time to hide the purse and grab the stick.
And that's why certain elements want to ban 'sticks', so that only the government enforcers will have them.
We don't live in individual bubbles, though. Like it or not, we have to share this planet with other people. And the denser the population becomes, the more important it is that we consider others as well, rather than just living in isolation. What is good for society as a whole, often is good for you personally too. If your neighbour is happy, he is less likely to trouble you.
That's why urbanization and a 6 billion plus and growing population is a bad thing, it forces everyone to conform their behavior more to others' whims.
What about television?at this point I think it's in front of our very eyes it's the most efficient system ever invented to change the mindset of people and thus a whole civilization , such immense power shoul let run by privates too?
Then the government would just use it for propaganda to brainwash everyone, and ensure itself permanent rule. At least with multiple different commercial stations, they compete against eachother to some degree, so there is a chance for this which appeal to natural innate human nature and advantage.
For communications I was thinking of the phonelines and the postal service. TV and radio are non essential and so would be private.
A lot more people would go nuts if you took their radio and TV away for a week than if you took their phone and mail away for a week.
I don´t like capitalism because it promotes greed
'Greed' is the natural human instinct, 'try to get things you need or want'. In capitalism, you have to voluntarily convince people to give you stuff, so you have to create things to trade or do useful things for other people in order to convince them to give you stuff. In socialism, stuff is distributed by the government, usually on the basis of 'need', so to get stuff you have to represent yourself to the government by appearing as 'needy' as possible. The government of course has to get stuff from somewhere, so it demands people give them this stuff, usually on the basis of 'the most able to give should give the most'. This results in everyone trying to appear 'less able' in order that the government take less stuff from them.
Æmeric
08-11-2009, 01:32 PM
Despite Internet I somewhat suspect television will still retain a lot of influence , everytime a new media has came into reality the old media didn't really disappear , look at the newspapers , photography , cinema , radio and television , Internet will grow much bigger and likely any censorship policy won't be able to shut it down but still TV won't see its power disappearig.
In the US some newspapers are disappearing because of competition from the web. What I'm saying about TV is that it will merge with the technology of the internet. It will still be TV but instead of a limited number of channels there will be an infinite number of channels. The power (in broadcasting) that is currently concentrated in a few large corporations will be dispersed among an infinite number of independent producers. In the same way that people are now getting their news from an infinite number of websites. Which is putting newspapers out of business.
Greed/selfishness/excessive captalism is in direct opposition to ethnic preservationism -- it is collectivist socialism which cares about community.
Take the US for example. Its consumerist attitudes, driven by a capitalist system, has caused an entire nation to disregard family values and ethnic ideals.
Amarantine
08-11-2009, 02:01 PM
Both systems sucks.
The Lawspeaker
08-11-2009, 03:29 PM
Greed/selfishness/excessive captalism is in direct opposition to ethnic preservationism -- it is collectivist socialism which cares about community.
Take the US for example. Its consumerist attitudes, driven by a capitalist system, has caused an entire nation to disregard family values and ethnic ideals.
While socialism caused the disintegration of societies in the Eastern Bloc, South Africa (the ANC), North Korea and also in Western Europe: the decline of our societies started during the 1960s and the height of West European social democracy.
"Different" systems- same shit.
"Different" systems- same shit.
Or: same shit, different depth. ;)
The Lawspeaker
08-11-2009, 03:48 PM
Or: same shit, different depth. ;)
It's still the same shit. ;)
Brännvin
08-11-2009, 07:03 PM
While socialism caused the disintegration of societies in the Eastern Bloc, South Africa (the ANC), North Korea and also in Western Europe: the decline of our societies started during the 1960s and the height of West European social democracy.
"Different" systems- same shit.
Really? In my country in 90's, Neoliberalism and Europe Union(Globalization) :wink
Skandi
08-11-2009, 07:19 PM
We have, in a way, seen a mixture of capitalism and socialism and it has proven extremely tyrannical. When the economic system collapsed (through capitalist greed) banks were bailed out with our money. That was socialism. When the going was good and the bankers were raking it in, there was no sharing of the wealth. We've had capitalism when the going was good and socialism when the going was bad. I can't think of anything more wrong than that. It almost seems as though capitalism went so far that it came out socialist at the other end.
Yes we have the worst bit's of both, however a mix of the better bits would be good!
Lahtari
08-11-2009, 07:41 PM
And when it comes to health care then my conscience says that the sick are not objects of trade. Health care is a right. Plain and simple so I am in favor of a guild-based health care system for those in guilds and a national health care system for everyone else- paid for by tax money. Sickness is not an object of trade and for those that see it that way: there is something wrong with your conscience.
Really? One could as well claim that "eating is a right" and demand food distribution to be nationalized.
To become a doctor you have to spend years in Med school, and development of medicine takes armies of researchers. When nobody wants to become a doctor any more because they don't get decent pay, this kind of "right" simply ceases to exist. This is the liberal-leftist concept of "positive rights" that demand active enforcement and infringement of the rights of others - in contrast to "negative rights" like right of ownership or freedom of expression that are in effect simply when they're not infringed.
Health care as a right is as meaningful as owning a speedboat as a right, plain and simple. A whole another thing is if you support free healthcare for poor people, but a fundamental right of any kind it is not.
Free trade as described by Adam Smith in "The Wealth of Nations" is not what we currently have under globalization. Big corporations offshore labor & re-export finished products to their domestic markets. Free trade as advocated by Smith meant that trade should be to each nations competitive advantage, that each nation should concentrate on what it did best. England for example should import wine rather then try & develope a domestic wine industry, protected by tariffs. The English did have a competitive advantage at making pig iron. Portugal should export wine to England & import pig ron from England. The English were the major producers of pig iron at the time.
In the era when men were made of iron and ships made of wood that was a valid doctrine, but today China has a competitive advantage virtually in everything, just for having basically an unlimited supply of cheap labour and transport being too cheap and effective. Though I'm not that much in favour of protectionism either, since that works both ways: Europe is too dependent on raw materials imported from elsewhere.
Lahtari
08-11-2009, 07:51 PM
Maybe not, but it gives them some sort of legitimacy in imposing their preferred system on the community. What is the alternative? Following a system that only a minority support, and the majority are against? I call that political oppression.
The alternative to tyranny of minority or tyranny of majority is that there will be a pre-defined set of (negative) rights that cannot be infringed by the majority-elected government. Respecting the right of ownership is problematic because the state needs at least a tax-funded justice system, but taking it to the point where someone has to give most of the products of their work to the state can definitely be avoided.
The alternative to tyranny of minority or tyranny of majority is that there will be a pre-defined set of (negative) rights that cannot be infringed by the majority-elected government. Respecting the right of ownership is problematic because the state needs at least a tax-funded justice system, but taking it to the point where someone has to give most of the products of their work to the state can definitely be avoided.
Ok but who will define what these rights will be? You will never have complete agreement on that. So what gives? We're back to square one.
The Lawspeaker
08-11-2009, 08:08 PM
Really? In my country in 90's, Neoliberalism and Europe Union(Globalization) :wink
That's because it is essentially the same shit. The "nationalizations" and increasing "government" control during the 50s and 60s had nothing to do with public ownership and had everything to do with centralizing power. What you are seeing now is merely whitewashing. It goes from the same interest group falsely labeled "public ownership" to the people that were actually always in charge but now they call it privatization and the ownership just gets more visible. . It's basically the same deal with just the opposite label.
Ever noticed how big wigs in government always get commissions at the companies who profit the most from those privatizations and acquisitions and how the majority always came from businesses that already had ties with the companies they work for in their post-political life?
And Globalization is essentially the same thing again: concentrating more power in fewer hands.
Lahtari
08-11-2009, 09:09 PM
Ok but who will define what these rights will be? You will never have complete agreement on that. So what gives? We're back to square one.
No we're not: the discussion was about general principles. I'm not asking you how the majority vote should be calculated to guarantee representation or what color the voting booths should be in order not to influence people.
The one relevant to this discussion is the right of ownership. Currently there's not mechanism to prevent the 9 poor people in the room for robbing the 10th. What I'm suggesting is a constitutional limit to taxation, or to things that can be funded with taxpayers money, most notably subsidies of any kind.
Psychonaut
08-11-2009, 10:13 PM
Socialism is a theft
Damn straight!
As far as I see it, taxation that takes money from my wallet and puts it in the hands of other private citizens/corporations/non-citizens/etc. is pure thievery. The same is true of foreign aid of all types, be it military, economic, etc.
EDIT: Also, I think that Friedrich Hayek is correct about the inevitable totalitarianism that arises from socialism (http://mises.org/books/TRTS/).
Brännvin
08-12-2009, 12:00 AM
And Globalization is essentially the same thing again: concentrating more power in fewer hands.
It is the first serious consequences of the global spread of capitalism, after as luggage come the multiculturalism, environmental destruction, resource allocation and more. I grew up in the 90's and half of early this decade watching the beginning of the degeneration of my nation with the adoption of that wild system (global capitalism) in my country.
If the power is concentrated in few hands I would prefer with people of my ethnic kin.
Loki is fully right. How a true ethno-nationalist could support such economic system? It
sounds contradictory to me.
Brännvin
08-12-2009, 12:42 AM
Respecting the right of ownership is problematic because the state needs at least a tax-funded justice system, but taking it to the point where someone has to give most of the products of their work to the state can definitely be avoided.
That's right. This is one reason as I see how naive are some members here claiming to be anti government and anti taxes as if it were that simple in practice. :cool: ;)
SwordoftheVistula
08-12-2009, 11:46 AM
Take the US for example. Its consumerist attitudes, driven by a capitalist system, has caused an entire nation to disregard family values and ethnic ideals.
The US white birthrate (1.9) is still higher than any other white country aside from capitalist Iceland (2.05) and Ireland (1.96). Belarus, the most socialist European country (not much change from the old Soviet system), has the lowest birthrate in Europe (1.2):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rat e
Really? In my country in 90's, Neoliberalism and Europe Union(Globalization) :wink
According to this graph, the biggest drop in birth rate since WWII was around the 1960s:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Demographic_change_in_Sweden_1735-2000.gif
How a true ethno-nationalist could support such economic system? It
sounds contradictory to me.
It's the opposite: once people were able to depend on the state instead of family for support, family became much less important.
The alternative to tyranny of minority or tyranny of majority is that there will be a pre-defined set of (negative) rights that cannot be infringed by the majority-elected government. Respecting the right of ownership is problematic because the state needs at least a tax-funded justice system, but taking it to the point where someone has to give most of the products of their work to the state can definitely be avoided.
That's right. This is one reason as I see how naive are some members here claiming to be anti government and anti taxes as if it were that simple in practice. :cool: ;)
Prisons and police forces didn't exist for the most part before the mid-late 1800s. Without a police force, citizens would just band together as a 'militia' or 'posse' to find, catch, and punish what few criminals there were.
A modern advanced urban society could function better with an organized justice system, but this is a fraction of government expenditures, and could be greatly reduced.
This is just speaking for the US, but applies also to many other western countries I am sure:
Commercial litigation (contract enforcement, etc) is a tiny portion of the 'justice system' and can be supplanted by mediators, arbitrators, etc.
Most of the money is spent on police and prisons, which could be cut a lot.
In addition A large portion of the people in the criminal justice system are there for drug related offenses, either production/distribution/sale or violent acts between rival gangs for control of the distribution chain for drugs. Legalize drugs, and this whole problem goes away. Same goes for prostitution, gambling, alcohol, etc.
Many people in the criminal justice system are repeat offenders. Increase punishments, and this problem will be greatly reduced. Mandatory life sentences for repeat offenders cut down on police and court processing costs (as well as making society in general a much better place).
The amount spent per year per prisoner is about the same as the average person's income, which is absurd. I highly doubt countries like China spend this much per prisoner, so get rid of all the PC 'human rights' crap and this could probably be brought down a lot, and some of the worst offenders (murderers, rapists, repeat offenders) can be executed. The high cost associated with executions in the US comes from court litigation costs, so streamline the process so that they don't spend 20 years on assorted appeals, and this problem goes away.
Police are mainly used for overzealous enforcement of traffic laws and other BS laws, so eliminate the 'speed trap' type of enforcement and most of the other BS.
Most tax evasion, benefit fraud, and corruption investigations and enforcement would be unnecessary in a pure or near pure capitalist country, since there wouldn't be any benefits available to collect illegally in the first place, and very few taxes to evade or government contracts to obtain by corrupt means.
If we got rid of most laws except those against murder, rape, assault, theft, and vandalism and increased the punishments for those crimes; this would drastically reduce the size and cost of the criminal justice system.
The US white birthrate (1.9) is still higher than any other white country aside from capitalist Iceland (2.05) and Ireland (1.96). Belarus, the most socialist European country (not much change from the old Soviet system), has the lowest birthrate in Europe (1.2):
And what percentage of that birthrate can be considered "quality acquisition"?
Brännvin
08-12-2009, 01:13 PM
According to this graph, the biggest drop in birth rate since WWII was around the 1960s:
First all, you can not compare in any immigration to Sweden between 1735 - 1970 as indicates the your chart, many of those people came from other Nordic countries and North Germany, many part of those areas until 1809 were part of the Swedish empire and Norway was part of Sweden until 1905, its graph is total non-sense and make me laugh.
That immigration can not even be compared to today immigration many from eastern, southern Europe and third world countries, not only by numbers by ethnic make up too.
70% of all immigrants legal or illegal in Sweden came after the country entered to the EU in 94/95 followed by the adoption of extreme neo liberal policies, this is actually below at the official figures, it does not lie.
From official date;
Finansdepartementet – Invandring, sysselsättning och ekonomiska effekter (http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/108/a/36209)
Migrationsverket, Uppehållstillstånd och uppehållsrätter 2008 (Anhörigstatistik 2005-2008) (http://migrationsverket.se/index.jsp?swedish/statistik/tillstand.html)
Migrationsverket, Uppehållstillstånd till nära anhöriga 1986-2008 (http://migrationsverket.se/pdffiler/statistik/tabs4.pdf)
Migrationsverket, Beviljade uppehållstillstånd 1980-2008 (http://migrationsverket.se/pdffiler/statistik/tabs1.pdf)
It's the opposite: once people were able to depend on the state instead of family for support, family became much less important.
This is impossible look at racial and social reality of their own country, ethnic degeneration is reported with the extreme individualism where people lose their total sense of community and identity.
Brännvin
08-12-2009, 02:20 PM
A modern advanced urban society could function better with an organized justice system, but this is a fraction of government expenditures, and could be greatly reduced.
How the state will defend the right to private property without a justice system where it is necessary to be founded by taxpayer? The idea of anti government and anti taxes is utopian and inconsistent even in an ultra capitalist system, that was my criticism against members who advocate the total abolition of taxes.
As for your comment; the contradiction is if the state does not prioritize the justice system anymore
reducing taxes then you have the risk of crime increase, don't you think?
SwordoftheVistula
08-14-2009, 08:37 AM
How the state will defend the right to private property without a justice system where it is necessary to be founded by taxpayer? The idea of anti government and anti taxes is utopian and inconsistent even in an ultra capitalist system, that was my criticism against members who advocate the total abolition of taxes.
As for your comment; the contradiction is if the state does not prioritize the justice system anymore
reducing taxes then you have the risk of crime increase, don't you think?
It doesn't always have to be the state which defends private property. If weapons restrictions were removed as well as laws which punish people for defending their property, there would not be as much of a need for state action.
Some businesses in the US & Canada in areas where they feel the police are not adequately protecting them from cooperatives to hire private security firms, and this could be expanded.
Anyways the main argument of capitalism vs socialism is not over things which are normally provided by the government (courts, police, prisons, military, roads) but government intervention regulation of businesses operating in the free market, and government provision of services traditionally done by private individuals/companies (cell phones, automobile maintenance, food, health care, housing, spending money, etc).
Also, while not strictly a 'capitalist' argument but generally linked as part of the 'right wing' and 'libertarian' belief systems is the concept that any services provided by a government should be provided at the most local level possible. A bank robber in a particular city should be pursued by local police, not federal police. If a particular city desires a school, road, bridge or even a mass transit system, the people of that city should pay for it; the money should not come from a federal government which taxes people all over the country to pay for that school, road, bridge or transit system.
...immigration...
What does immigration have to do with a lower birthrate that started well before Sweden experienced immigration mass immigration, as that graph shows (biggest decline in the modern era is in the post WWII years and the 1965-1975 time period)?
many part of those areas until 1809 were part of the Swedish empire and Norway was part of Sweden until 1905
The graph measures the birth rate, which is a per person average, it measures 'children per woman', not 'total children born', so it wouldn't matter if a large section of Swedish empire left and was no longer included.
Also what explains the post WWII drop in birthrates? No sections of Sweden left after that point in time.
This is impossible look at racial and social reality of their own country, ethnic degeneration is reported with the extreme individualism where people lose their total sense of community and identity.
Which do you think is more likely to cause people to lose their 'lose their total sense of community and identity'?
Working parents leaving their children with grandma, or leaving their children with a government run or funded daycare?
People in need of food getting it from their local church/charity, or from government run and funded food vouchers?
People in need of a place to stay moving back in with parents or other relatives, or moving in need of a place to stay going to a government run housing project or getting a government funded housing voucher?
Elderly people getting help from their children and grandchildren, or getting help from the government?
If you have children and an annoying spouse which you are financially dependent on, are you more likely or less likely to get a divorce if you live in a country which provides a generous 'social safety net'?
Brännvin
08-14-2009, 10:59 AM
First, I have no idea where that graphic come from in first place (I will not comment on your “graphic” anymore), I just gave you links of official statistical references made by the government on entry and exit of people according to nationality in this country since the 80s.
Sorry if it is in Swedish but I think you would not have difficulty in seeing the numbers and date, the hardcore massive immigration at least here it is a product of the 90s and 2000s.
Finansdepartementet – Invandring, sysselsättning och ekonomiska effekter (http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/108/a/36209)
Furthermore, currently low birthrates aren’t exclusive of Sweden, it is common in all western Europeans countries and the countries of Eastern Europe too, even aren't exclusive of to westerners there. The developed East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore have very low birthrates as well.
So I think it has to do more with being rich (developed capitalist societies ), having easy access to birth control pills, abortion and mainly the female participation in the workforce (a necessity in our current system), this allied with not many help for them to raise their children, like childcare, husband's support and motherhood license, it is consequence of post modern capitalist societies where the U.S. are no exception rather they are the epicenter.
Second, we cannot ban taxes, a government could not function without them. By the way, why is it wrong to let the stronger carry the largest burden? Why do they feel that they are punished because they are taxed more, because in my opinion an increase in tax will not harm their lifestyle, as they have the necessary income and wealth already to sustain it, otherwise we could not describe them as rich or wealthy.
SwordoftheVistula
08-16-2009, 08:05 AM
So I think it has to do more with being rich (developed capitalist societies )
Isn't this a more likely explanation for the immigration? The advantage socialist countries have over capitalist countries in this regard is that they are so poor that nobody wants to move there. Surely there must be some other solution than to impoverish ourselves to the point that nobody wants to move here.
having easy access to birth control pills, abortion and mainly the female participation in the workforce (a necessity in our current system) this allied with not many help for them to raise their children, like childcare, husband's support and motherhood license, it is consequence of post modern capitalist societies where the U.S. are no exception rather they are the epicenter.
Yes, we have had that since the 1960s, and yet our white birthrate is higher than or about equal to all other white countries (which also include the immigrant birthrate in their birthrates).
The reason female participation in the workforce is a 'necessity in our current system' is for socialist reasons, high taxes (taking 1/3 or more of middle to upper class incomes), and the high expense of housing prices which are not in a 'diverse' area or out in the middle of nowhere. Under the old purer capitalist (pre 1960s) system, a developer could write into all the property deeds that only whites could live there and landlords could choose to only rent to white people, this is no longer allowed, plus the government's constant attempts to increase housing prices combined with a government program housing voucher program which allows low income people (mostly minorities, even the whites on this are usually involved in drugs and other unpleasantness) to move into private housing in (soon to be formerly) 'nice' neighborhoods. Now, the only way to live in an all/mostly white area is to either live out in the middle of nowhere, or in a high priced urban/suburban area where the scum can't afford to live in even with their housing vouchers. Up through the 80s some urban neighborhoods were able to keep themselves 'clean' by using non-governmental community efforts to keep minorities out, but now that brings a pile of federal 'hate crimes' charges even if the intruding minority survives.
Second, we cannot ban taxes, a government could not function without them
How much do they really need? Get rid of all the social programs, regulations and enforcement bodies, and stupid laws like the 'war on drugs' and it won't be much.
In 1900, US government spending was 7% of GDP, and that was at a time of high military spending due to a desire to match the Europeans in 'geopolitics on the world stage' and imperialism. Now it's 40% and growing. Did the government not function in 1900? Were people living in fear of criminals running loose all over the place? In Sweden it is 58%, does the government need 58% of the nations wealth to operate courts, a necessary level of police, and fire departments?
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/usgs_line.php?title=US%20Government%20Spending%20A s%20Percent%20Of%20GDP&year=1903_2010&sname=US&units=p&bar=0&stack=1&size=m&col=c&spending0=6.80_7.28_6.89_6.81_6.61_7.90_7.84_8.03_ 8.31_8.09_8.22_9.55_9.80_8.22_9.49_22.12_29.38_12. 81_14.31_12.67_11.27_11.49_11.44_11.12_11.75_11.75 _11.27_13.07_15.92_21.19_22.38_19.40_20.17_20.00_1 8.74_20.53_20.66_20.14_19.22_28.15_46.68_50.02_52. 97_35.86_23.64_20.46_23.46_23.94_22.38_27.88_29.01 _29.27_26.69_26.47_27.21_28.84_28.77_28.74_30.26_2 8.94_28.71_28.50_26.96_27.45_29.79_30.46_30.07_30. 99_31.48_31.35_29.77_30.22_33.60_33.98_32.90_32.01 _31.57_33.71_33.62_36.23_36.29_34.42_35.46_35.69_3 5.07_34.71_34.92_36.00_37.20_37.07_36.36_35.45_35. 62_34.79_33.88_33.42_32.95_33.01_33.91_35.32_35.86 _35.32_35.44_35.69_35.49_37.04_45.19_41.90&legend=
By the way, why is it wrong to let the stronger carry the largest burden? Why do they feel that they are punished
What kind of society are you going to get when you punish strength and reward weakness?
Psychonaut
08-16-2009, 08:22 AM
What kind of society are you going to get when you punish strength and reward weakness?
Indeed. Socialism is in direct opposition to the kind of social darwinism that allowed our nation to thrive initially. Coddling failures does nothing but encourage failure.
whathappen
08-16-2009, 12:55 PM
No unvirtuous wealthfare, no unvirtous taxes, no voting or laws except in purpose-made clubs of voluntary members with contractual agreements (And a kind of go'ds law to govern what is acceptable in contracts and how to claim land and so forth).
Like a kind of feudal system, where there isn't a government as such, but rather a set of non-arbitrary rules that set the traditions in stone so that they can be referenced when ever needed. A kind of gentlemen's nation? The rules would have to cover the way to "lawfully" (as in god's law) claim land, assert the fundamental property rights, and say that deals made under reasonable duress are non-binding and so on. And perhaps include a system of complaint escalation that is more fine-grained than heated-argument, duel, war. And then hope that the majority of people involved with any particular thing are good-hearted.
People would be free to form organizations with their chosen board, and ask for donations and publish their progress as news and so on. Build rocket ships and send them to the moon. If people considered that the squandering of wealth or productivity for purposes other than interesting advancement is sinful, it would be great. A low population - land area ratio is what I have in mind. One can dream.
[EDIT] Perhaps there should be a kind of aristocracy, only not a hereditary thing, but more like chosen stalwarts of "the way" that have no particular authority as such, but whose duty it is to bring to light any perceived infractions of "the way" so that if the issue is serious, then popular support could force the change, lynch-mob style if necessary. Only to prevent the religious problems of the past, "the way" should be mapped out in one of those decision trees which tell you the options at each step with arrows. Something that is logically thought out like that would be very stable. Only the subjective predicates would be up for debate / argument, and that would be conducted via a trial of his/her peers.
Indeed. Socialism is in direct opposition to the kind of social darwinism that allowed our nation to thrive initially.
You mean thrive multiculturally -- greed encouraged the importation and keeping of slaves, which resulted in today's vast black population in the US. It is also greed that is prompting millions of Mexicans and other non-Europeans to swarm to the US, in order to benefit from this system.
whathappen
08-16-2009, 02:00 PM
You mean thrive multiculturally -- greed encouraged the importation and keeping of slaves, which resulted in today's vast black population in the US. It is also greed that is prompting millions of Mexicans and other non-Europeans to swarm to the US, in order to benefit from this system.
Indeed, immigration distorts the labor market by artificially filling the places even when they are not offered at suitable rates. I think that only natural population growth should be permitted. And iff some foreign people realize the superiority of the system, then rather than emigrate, they should practice it in parallel where they are.
If only it were possible to take over a big block of land somewhere...
I choose both. Capitalism allows for cheap alcohol and socialism allows for a cheap liver transplant, which allows me to indulge in my favorite -ism; alcoholism!
Psychonaut
08-16-2009, 10:14 PM
You mean thrive multiculturally
Uh...what?
greed encouraged the importation and keeping of slaves, which resulted in today's vast black population in the US.
Slavery can, and has, come about in both free economies and command economies. It's presence in early American history is less a remark on capitalism and more on the spirit of imperialism that ruled the West during that time.
It is also greed that is prompting millions of Mexicans and other non-Europeans to swarm to the US, in order to benefit from this system.
I'm sorry, but are you familiar at all with the situation in California? Mexicans come here not looking for honest work (which would be a manifestation of some capitalist spirit), but in the hopes of leeching off the massive welfare system that they can slip into. The socialist policies already in place in California are largely responsible for that state being the nexus of Mexican immigration.
Liffrea
08-17-2009, 11:55 AM
In my opinion reality shows that any economic system (and taking the UK as a fine example the boundary of capitalism and socialism is hard to find) is about empowering a small percentage of the population, wealth monopolisation. I figure this is generally the reality whether we consider the former Soviet Union or the current “Free World”. The Soviet elite were just as “capitalist” if we take that to mean controlling wealth and the means of production as any Western elite.
Perhaps the distinction is far more grey than would seem apparent?
In my opinion reality shows that any economic system (and taking the UK as a fine example the boundary of capitalism and socialism is hard to find) is about empowering a small percentage of the population, wealth monopolisation. I figure this is generally the reality whether we consider the former Soviet Union or the current “Free World”. The Soviet elite were just as “capitalist” if we take that to mean controlling wealth and the means of production as any Western elite.
Perhaps the distinction is far more grey than would seem apparent?
Yes, and it is not fair to hold the Soviet Union up as the perfect socialist model. Sweden is very much a socialist country, yet its people have some of the highest standards of living in the world, and are generally happy and content. Swedes also live close to nature and do not have this rush for cash that Americans or Londoners have.
Æmeric
08-17-2009, 01:36 PM
it is not fair to hold the Soviet Union up as the perfect socialist model. Perfect + socialist is an oxymoron.
The Soviet Union is a good example of a socialist state. It's collapse is due to the extent that socialism had on the country. East Germany is another. Eventually all socialist states will meet the same fate as the USSR &the DDR.
Sweden is very much a socialist country.., ...and it will become more collectivist to maintain the cradle-to-grave welfare policies the populace is use to receiving. Eventually it will collapse under the weight of its own generosity. Those who produce will want out.. unless Sweden in the future resorts to the same bans on immigration (armed border guards with shot-to-kill orders on those attemptong to get out) as the DDR.
yet its people have some of the highest standards of living in the world, and are generally happy and content.
A lifetime of indoctrination & alcohol. Like everywhere else most people will tune out & ignore the mess around them.:icon_cheers:
Swedes also live close to nature Of course they live closer to nature, Sweden is a relatively low (population) density country. People in Idaho will be closer to nature, on average, then those living in New Jersey
and do not have this rush for cash that Americans or Londoners have. What's the point if the government is going to confiscate way over 50% of it. Let someone else earn the big bucks needed to support the welfare state.:coffee:
I find it curious that you look down on the rush-for-cash lifestyle & yet you live it. Why don't you just move to the north of Sweden & become a lumberjack or something?
I find it curious that you look down on the rush-for-cash lifestyle & yet you live it. Why don't you just move to the north of Sweden & become a lumberjack or something?
A tu quoque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.
Berrocscir
08-17-2009, 02:08 PM
Socialism usually means State Capitalism. I think both are two sides of the same coin. Maybe we should give Distributism a go. But its horses for courses. If you like capitalism build a capitalist society. Likewise if you're a raving Red, build a Socialist community.
Æmeric
08-17-2009, 03:39 PM
A tu quoque (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque) argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.
:rolleyes:
It sounds as though the tu quoque analogy was created by a person (probably a loony lefty) who was more of a "Do as I say, not as I do!" sort of individual. Actions are more important then words & pointing out individuals inability or even outright avoidance is a legitimate argument. If a person advocates high progressive taxes & then hire a tax attorney to help him avoid those same progressive tax rates he advocated, that is a valid point. It is possible to discredit the messenger without resorting to ad hominen. It is not the same as saying "Your harddrive is overflowing with interracial porn Loki!" which would be an ad hominen because that would be irrelevant to the Capitalism vs. Socialism debate. Pointing out that Loki is very much a part of the Capitalism sytem he criticizes (and he could make changes to make his personal life more consistant with his sociualist beliefs) is a valid point as his actions countradict what he preaches.
Liffrea
08-17-2009, 03:40 PM
Originally Posted by Loki
Yes, and it is not fair to hold the Soviet Union up as the perfect socialist model.
In truth the Soviet Union was a bad example on my part given that it wasn’t socialist, it was communist, and the two aren’t exactly the same creature. You could argue that socialism as defined by men like Robert Owen is unrecognisable in many ways to either the Communism envisaged by Marxist Leninism or Stalinism.
In the same way you could argue that the economic theory of Adam Smith is quite a bit different from the “free market” capitalism that the likes of Gordon Brown espouse. In the same light a Liberal Democrat would be firmly put in his place by a true champion of classical liberalism, J.S. Mill.
This is why I tend to view economic and political theory as an argument in irrationality since the reality of both is often different when it comes to practise.
Æmeric
08-17-2009, 03:49 PM
New Harmony, which was Owen's socialist utopia, is only about an hour away from where I live. It was a failure. Because it was a voluntary socialism. Socialism has to be compulsatory to function - how else to get productive people to support it. And long term it will fail anyway because it will drive out the productive elements of the populace & subsidize the procreation of the unproductive.
:rolleyes:
It sounds as though the tu quoque analogy was created by a person (probably a loony lefty) who was more of a "Do as I say, not as I do!" sort of individual. Actions are more important then words & pointing out individuals inability or even outright avoidance is a legitimate argument. If a person advocates high progressive taxes & then hire a tax attorney to help him avoid those same progressive tax rates he advocated, that is a valid point. It is possible to discredit the messenger without resorting to ad hominen. It is not the same as saying "Your harddrive is overflowing with interracial porn Loki!" which would be an ad hominen because that would be irrelevant to the Capitalism vs. Socialism debate. Pointing out that Loki is very much a part of the Capitalism sytem he criticizes (and he could make changes to make his personal life more consistant with his sociualist beliefs) is a valid point as his actions countradict what he preaches.
I was just thinking this:
I find it curious that you look down on the rush-for-cash lifestyle & yet you live it. Why don't you just move to the north of Sweden & become a lumberjack or something?
sounded a lot like the "If you love it so much why don't you marry it!" that kids used to say, only I was trying to find something that sounded a bit more verbose.
Oh well. :coffee:
Psychonaut
08-17-2009, 09:32 PM
I was just thinking this:
sounded a lot like the "If you love it so much why don't you marry it!" that kids used to say, only I was trying to find something that sounded a bit more verbose.
Tu quoque is only technically a fallacy if the idea itself is attempted to be discredited by attacking the arguer's closeness to the position he's railing against.
Example: A says X is bad. A is guilty of X. B dismisses A's argument against X.
However, a tu quoque can certainly be used to attack the degree to which the arguer really believes his own position.
Example: A says that X is bad. A is guilty of X. B questions whether A is honestly advocating an anti-X.
Brännvin
08-17-2009, 11:39 PM
Isn't this a more likely explanation for the immigration? The advantage socialist countries have over capitalist countries in this regard is that they are so poor that nobody wants to move there. Surely there must be some other solution than to impoverish ourselves to the point that nobody wants to move here.
No I am not in favor of Socialism, as an ethno nationalist I advocate for a democratic welfare state, I do not believe exist the most perfect system but it is the best for those who desire live with their own people in a state’s community.
Yes, we have had that since the 1960s, and yet our white birthrate is higher than or about equal to all other white countries (which also include the immigrant birthrate in their birthrates). All the industrialized nations today as I have mentioned anteriorly have low birth rate.
List of countries and territories by fertility rate;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rat e
It’s fairly well known that Western’s birth rate has declined drastically in the past fifteen years or so. Explanations for this phenomenon vary, but a general premise suggests that the pressures of modern life render having large families as an unnecessary burden, contradiction caused by our own materialist (capitalist) system where men and women currently put personal interests above anything. In turn, materialism is closely connected with individualism. The political expression of individualism is egoism. Materialism is the world view of egoism (liberal capitalism not survive without it). Where such contradiction turned the desire to construct large families to decrease.
The reason female participation in the workforce is a 'necessity in our current system' is for socialist reasons, high taxes (taking 1/3 or more of middle to upper class incomes), and the high expense of housing prices which are not in a 'diverse' area or out in the middle of nowhere.
No, it not true at all, female participation in the workforce competing with men comes from since the industrial revolution and the process accelerated itself after the 60s of XX century.
In the pre-industrial societies there was a strict separation of the occupations and activities allowed for male and female persons, before the revolution most men worked from their homes (artisan, farmers, peasants, small farmers etc), or very near their homes. With the onslaught of new and different ways to make a living, more men left the home all day, thus disrupting completely the normal balance of life both men and women had experienced.
And I have so much difficulty to see where this has to do with socialism (I am not defending this system) per se, it has more to do with the industrialization and urbanization of western societies in addition with the contradictions and irrationality of liberal modern capitalist values that need more and more workforce for the production of wealth interdependent of gender.
Under the old purer capitalist (pre 1960s) system, a developer could write into all the property deeds that only whites could live there and landlords could choose to only rent to white people, this is no longer allowed, plus the government's constant attempts to increase housing prices combined with a government program housing voucher program which allows low income people (mostly minorities, even the whites on this are usually involved in drugs and other unpleasantness) to move into private housing in (soon to be formerly) 'nice' neighborhoods. Now, the only way to live in an all/mostly white area is to either live out in the middle of nowhere, or in a high priced urban/suburban area where the scum can't afford to live in even with their housing vouchers. Up through the 80s some urban neighborhoods were able to keep themselves 'clean' by using non-governmental community efforts to keep minorities out, but now that brings a pile of federal 'hate crimes' charges even if the intruding minority survives.
Since when the US was old purer capitalist (pre 1960s) system? Hasn’t between 30s to 70s the US adoted the Keynesian economic system?
Although I have great doubt whether the U.S. currently are really a pure capitalist society (in a free market sense according to Adam Smith) or if some day was it. The US currently is just a corporate welfare system (http://www.welfareinfo.org/corporate/), where there is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor .
What kind of society are you going to get when you punish strength and reward weakness?
A just society :coffee: ;)
By the way, do you think that cutting taxes for the wealthy is good for stimulating the economy and encouraging investment, or just a good way to run up large deficits?
Those are just current questions whose answers vary. Indeed, cutting taxes sometimes improves revenues, it also sometimes reduces them. It depends on the state of the economy that it is being done to. A booming economy requires more taxes, since investment is already high, a floundering economy requires less taxes so there is more investment, it is relative, you can not compare apple with oranges, at the end of the day we cannot ban taxes a government could not function without them, then hardly any world government (mainly the US government) will adopt its proposals such as banning taxes since that's idealistic.
SwordoftheVistula
08-18-2009, 05:08 AM
In truth the Soviet Union was a bad example on my part given that it wasn’t socialist, it was communist, and the two aren’t exactly the same creature. You could argue that socialism as defined by men like Robert Owen is unrecognisable in many ways to either the Communism envisaged by Marxist Leninism or Stalinism.
In the same way you could argue that the economic theory of Adam Smith is quite a bit different from the “free market” capitalism that the likes of Gordon Brown espouse. In the same light a Liberal Democrat would be firmly put in his place by a true champion of classical liberalism, J.S. Mill.
Since when the US was old purer capitalist (pre 1960s) system? Hasn’t between 30s to 70s the US adoted the Keynesian economic system?
Although I have great doubt whether the U.S. currently are really a pure capitalist society (in a free market sense according to Adam Smith) or if some day was it. The US currently is just a corporate welfare system (http://www.welfareinfo.org/corporate/), where there is socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor .
It's a matter of degrees. I don't think any of us would disagree that the US of today is more capitalist than Sweden but less capitalist than the US of the 1790s-1920s, or that Sweden is more socialist than the US but less socialist than Cuba, Venezuela, or the old USSR
All the industrialized nations today as I have mentioned anteriorly have low birth rate.
List of countries and territories by fertility rate;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_by_fertility_rat e
Again, a matter of degrees. The three of the four nations (Ireland, New Zealand, United States) which are at the top of the list for 'birthrates in white countries' also rank as three of the four most 'capitalist countries' (excluding the Asian city-states of Singapore and Hong Kong).
http://www.heritage.org/Index/Ranking.aspx
It’s fairly well known that Western’s birth rate has declined drastically in the past fifteen years or so.
Well then, the people who 'know' that are wrong. As I pointed out in this post, birthrates have remained steady over the past 15 years, all the drastic declines occurred prior to 1975:
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showpost.php?p=80605&postcount=70
No, it not true at all, female participation in the workforce competing with men comes from since the industrial revolution and the process accelerated itself after the 60s of XX century.
In the pre-industrial societies there was a strict separation of the occupations and activities allowed for male and female persons, before the revolution most men worked from their homes (artisan, farmers, peasants, small farmers etc), or very near their homes. With the onslaught of new and different ways to make a living, more men left the home all day, thus disrupting completely the normal balance of life both men and women had experienced.
And I have so much difficulty to see where this has to do with socialism (I am not defending this system) per se, it has more to do with the industrialization and urbanization of western societies in addition with the contradictions and irrationality of liberal modern capitalist values that need more and more workforce for the production of wealth interdependent of gender.
All this is true, it is part of the ongoing increase in specialization of labor, but it would have occurred regardless of the economic system in place at the time.
Female labor force participation has remained essentially the same in the last 15 years since the pro-capitalist changes you talk about, from 77.2% in 1995 to 77.1% in the most recent year available:
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/employment/gems/eeo/download/sweden.pdf
There is no correlation amongst 'western' (Celtic/Germanic) countries between capitalism and female labor participation, somewhat the opposite in fact:
http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:-o1nrW4qr0YJ:www.census.gov/compendia/statab/tables/09s1322.xls+female+labor+force+participation+by+co untry&cd=6&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Capitalist Ireland has the lowest rate at 62.1%, and it is 71.7% in the US and 69.8% in Australia whereas Sweden has the highest rate in the world with 78.7% in the most recent year of the study.
It is no longer disputed that capitalist societies have a larger overall combined wealth if you add everyone in the country together, but it was argued that capitalism somehow destroys family/communal ties and damages the race. Clearly, it does neither, with capitalist countries consistently showing higher birthrates and lower female labor force participation rates.
By the way, do you think that cutting taxes for the wealthy is good for stimulating the economy and encouraging investment, or just a good way to run up large deficits?
It does both. The real problem is government spending, which generates the need for either taxes, deficits, or inflation.
Indeed, cutting taxes sometimes improves revenues, it also sometimes reduces them.
Maximizing government revenues shouldn't be the goal of the economic policy, it should be able to grow the total economy of all the country combined together.
It depends on the state of the economy that it is being done to. A booming economy requires more taxes, since investment is already high
Why would that require more taxes? Wouldn't it be better to just let the economy continue to grow?
Also, booming economies require less spending, since there is less crime and fewer people out of work and on social benefits systems.
then hardly any world government (mainly the US government) will adopt its proposals such as banning taxes since that's idealistic.
Of course it's not possible to have a 100% system either way, but a 95% capitalist system will perform far better than a 95% socialist system.
In my opinion reality shows that any economic system (and taking the UK as a fine example the boundary of capitalism and socialism is hard to find) is about empowering a small percentage of the population, wealth monopolisation. I figure this is generally the reality whether we consider the former Soviet Union or the current “Free World”. The Soviet elite were just as “capitalist” if we take that to mean controlling wealth and the means of production as any Western elite.
It's natural for this to happen, it happens in every economic system by nature. The difference is the degree, who has the economic power, and how they are chosen. In socialism, it is those with political power who run the economy, in a capitalist system, it is those who provide the most efficient distribution of goods. If the Minister for Consumer Products Distribution sucks, there's not much you can do. If the CEO of KMart sucks, everyone goes to WalMart instead, and the KMart CEO gets fired.
Liffrea
08-18-2009, 11:19 AM
Originally Posted by SwordoftheVistulaThe difference is the degree, who has the economic power, and how they are chosen. In socialism, it is those with political power who run the economy, in a capitalist system, it is those who provide the most efficient distribution of goods.
You could argue they are one and the same, in the US and In Britain the boundary between political and economic power is practically none existent. It’s no accident that many ex-Presidents and Ministers (in fact many current ones) have positions on boards, the same that it is no accident that the bulk of party funds come from the private sector, particularly at election time. Can we really envisage a Presidential candidate, or a political party as it is in the UK, campaigning with any realistic sense of success without the nod from business interests?
I believe this is why capitalism and socialism are really relative and not necessarily mutually exclusive. Labour campaigned on the premise of the “Third Way”, which tended to mean an unholy alliance, if you like, between traditional state socialism and the capitalist model for business.
I tend to take the somewaht cynical view that we are looking at the colour of the shirt not the person wearing it, who remains the same.
Psychonaut
08-18-2009, 10:09 PM
You could argue they are one and the same
I believe this is why capitalism and socialism are really relative and not necessarily mutually exclusive.
Would you mind expanding on this, because I'm not seeing how you come to this conclusion. The way I see it, the difference is quite stark. Take HUD housing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Department_of_Housing_and_Urban_Deve lopment) as an example. Under a socialist system, like HUD, the goods in question (homes in this case) are owned and controlled by the government. This couldn't be further from a private citizen owning and renting out a piece of property.
Germanicus
08-18-2009, 10:14 PM
Capitalism under the Tory Party changes weekly under Cameron, whilst New Labour has adopted Capitalism with gusto.....
Murphy
08-18-2009, 10:33 PM
You should have given an 'Other' option ;)! Otherwise we disciples of great thinkers like Chesterton and Belloc are shunted to the side.
Regards,
Eóin.
Liffrea
08-19-2009, 08:49 AM
Originally Posted by Psychonaut
Would you mind expanding on this, because I'm not seeing how you come to this conclusion. The way I see it, the difference is quite stark. Take HUD housing as an example. Under a socialist system, like HUD, the goods in question (homes in this case) are owned and controlled by the government. This couldn't be further from a private citizen owning and renting out a piece of property.
Sure, My point was, though, that the real distinction between both is blurry and, in reality, at least in the UK, been operating side by side for some time. The example of housing you cite is one such example, in the UK we have council (state owned) housing, we also have the right to buy and sell property, although government holds the right to compulsary purchase. Nationalised industries have been operating alonside private concerns. As of January 2009 the UK government has been reported to own some 70% of economic output in some regions of the UK, so we seem to be swinging back the other way from the Thatcher era of privatisation, but given that many government Ministers are on corporate boards, and corporations fund many parties and acts as advisors to government are we in fact seeing the line between private and state becoming largely irrelevant?
Personally I think we are, the actual modes of production and generation of wealth seem to be concentrating in the same hands, government/business, one and the same?
Ariets
08-19-2009, 09:44 AM
You should have given an 'Other' option ;)! Otherwise we disciples of great thinkers like Chesterton and Belloc are shunted to the side.
Regards,
Eóin.
Distributionism is gay. (Same for corporationism).
Murphy
08-19-2009, 11:04 AM
Distributionism is gay. (Same for corporationism).
Well, that put me in my place :rolleyes:..
Regards,
Eóin.
Psychonaut
08-19-2009, 10:16 PM
Personally I think we are, the actual modes of production and generation of wealth seem to be concentrating in the same hands, government/business, one and the same?
I see what you mean, but can't help but wonder if your views are a product of the fact that the UK has never really been a capitalist economy. You guys just made a transition from one command economy (monarchism) into another quasi-socialist one. :shrug:
Distributionism is gay.
There is but one good distributist policy that I can think of. Back when the US was mostly uninhabited, Lincoln signed into law the Homestead Act (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_act), which allowed people to claim 160-640 acres for the purpose of setting up a homestead. Things like that can work in a situation of national expansion into wilderness like that, but I can't really think of many other situations where distributism is superior to capitalism.
Lahtari
08-20-2009, 02:43 AM
Second, we cannot ban taxes, a government could not function without them. By the way, why is it wrong to let the stronger carry the largest burden? Why do they feel that they are punished because they are taxed more, because in my opinion an increase in tax will not harm their lifestyle, as they have the necessary income and wealth already to sustain it, otherwise we could not describe them as rich or wealthy.
Lifestyle? Are you aware that - besides sniffing coke in their luxury yachts with chicks in bikini's - the "rich pigs" are those who provide people with jobs and invest in companies and the economy. Sure, the tax money eventually comes back into circulation, but it is disproportionately spent in unnecessary things like for funding large, ineffective bureaucracies that often do not produce anything. Taxing the rich is the fastest way to mass-unemployment.
Brännvin
08-20-2009, 10:57 AM
Taxing the rich is the fastest way to mass-unemployment.
False, it dependents on the state of the economy to what happening in a given period (cutting taxes sometimes improves revenues, it also sometimes reduces them).
If you did notice during the administration of Bush, cutting taxes on riches did not resolve the situation the U.S., only worse, where there was accumulation of wealthy but the economy remained stagnant with recession.
The Lawspeaker
08-20-2009, 12:28 PM
False, it dependents on the state of the economy to what happening in a given period (cutting taxes sometimes improves revenues, it also sometimes reduces them).
If you did notice during the administration of Bush, cutting taxes on riches did not resolve the situation the U.S., only worse, where there was accumulation of wealthy but the economy remained stagnant with recession.
That's because the middle class and the lower class got footed the bill. Less taxation over the whole line is the answer. I can remember that an American bridge collapsed and the only thing an onlooker said was "that's the republicans- because they didn't make people pay taxes". That's ludicrous as the middle class and lower class still get the bill but the money goes into cooperate welfare, asylum seekers and Iraq/Afghanistan (and other corrupt regimes and foreign adventures).
Less taxes, less government- more market. That's the answer. Why ? Because people can finally work for themselves without an overbearing taxload and government that stifles all initiative.
Æmeric
08-20-2009, 01:48 PM
I see what you mean, but can't help but wonder if your views are a product of the fact that the UK has never really been a capitalist economy. You guys just made a transition from one command economy (monarchism) into another quasi-socialist one. :shrug:
England did have a Laissez-faire economy prior to WWII. They even practiced freetrade for much of the 19th century. I don't think the industrial revoilution would have started in England if they had a command economy. It was because of the laissez-faire system in England that there was a shift in political power from the landed aristocracy & gentry, through the repeal of "Corn Laws" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corn_Laws) which eventually brought about a rent collapse for landowners in the later 19th century. Power shifted to the capitalist classes, the mill owners, bankers & traders. England was more capitalistic then America in the late 19th century, the US using high tariffs to protect American industries (and ensuring huge profits for certtain sectors like iron & steel). There was also outright subsidies to the railroads in America, including landgrants. There were tens of millions of acres given to the railroad companies. And American railroads were constantly going bankrupt in the 19th century, most of the money to be made on them came from their construction (the subsidies) or from reorganizing them while they were in bankruptcy. Unlike England where the railroad were generally much more healthier financially.
Brännvin
08-20-2009, 10:58 PM
Less taxes, less government- more market. That's the answer. Why ? Because people can finally work for themselves without an overbearing taxload and government that stifles all initiative.
You can cut taxes on businesses all you want, but that doesn't create jobs and does not stimulate the economy, maybe rarely. If I own a business, the only reason I will hire people is because there is sufficient demand for my products that I must increase supply.
While lower taxes will certainly make it easier for me to hire someone, it is meaningless if consumers do not want to purchase my goods and/or services. Put money in a business, and that business will put it in the bank, it mean recession.
Put money in the hands of consumers, and they will consume, and in doing so drive the demand for the goods and services the businesses wish to sell.
This is one of the reasons why I support the welfare state and rational taxation, because its distribution of wealth stimulates economy. ;)
Birka
08-20-2009, 11:21 PM
This is one of the reasons why I support the welfare state and rational taxation, because its distribution of wealth stimulates economy. ;)
Then why isn't Cuba the richest country in the world?
It's actually one of the poorest. They still drive around the old 1950's US cars left over because they cannot afford any new cars, or the gas.
Brännvin
08-20-2009, 11:25 PM
Then why isn't Cuba the richest country in the world?
It's actually one of the poorest. They still drive around the old 1950's US cars left over because they cannot afford any new cars, or the gas.
What has actually Cuba to do with my comment? Are they a welfare society? :confused: :D
Welfare state =/= Socialism ;)
Lahtari
08-21-2009, 02:10 AM
While lower taxes will certainly make it easier for me to hire someone, it is meaningless if consumers do not want to purchase my goods and/or services.
Lower tax on businesses enables them to compete for the workers with high salaries.
If I own a business, the only reason I will hire people is because there is sufficient demand for my products that I must increase supply.
If people cannot afford much more than food and other necessities, there will be less demand for a wide variety of products.
Put money in a business, and that business will put it in the bank, it mean recession.
And the bank will loan them for someone who needs them.
Put money in the hands of consumers, and they will consume, and in doing so drive the demand for the goods and services the businesses wish to sell.
The welfare state does exactly the opposite - it takes money from people (and companies) and gives them services with low productivity.
Brännvin
08-21-2009, 01:22 PM
Lower tax on businesses enables them to compete for the workers with high salaries.
But it (low taxes) will not be guarantee that, example, my business will prosper if I had not stable consumers for my products and services.
If people cannot afford much more than food and other necessities, there will be less demand for a wide variety of products.
Well my point was it, low taxes would not be sufficient for my business to thriving (such consumers to purchase my goods and/or services) , in real world of macroeconomics it needs more than simply low taxes, it needs money circulating but with balanced accumulation more money in the hands of many, better.
And the bank will loan them for someone who needs them.
Or for someone who just can not pay their debts? What difference? :cool:
Example, in early of 2000s the american middle class and working class was filled with debt borrowing money from banks and after failing to pay its debts as being one (not the only though, there were accumulation of other factors) of the reasons the current recession.
Money does not grow on trees. The government can’t just print up more on a whim. At any given time, there is a relative limit to the wealth within any economy of any size. So when too much wealth accumulates at the top, the middle class slip further into debt and the lower class further into poverty.
Believing that the free market will regulate itself that is non-sense.
The welfare state does exactly the opposite - it takes money from people (and companies) and gives them services with low productivity.
You know this is not true. This also depends on governments that are elected and where they have directed public investment. Indeed, real welfare state was created as an essential complement to industrial development: social policy helps the economy to grow by serving the workforce, providing services to industry and offering a secure basis for development. This has been the dominant model as far as I know until the current global neo-liberalism begin to destroy it.
Or would you prefer a current corporate welfare as the U.S., who fills the big corporations and banks with public money leaving laissez faire for the middle class and working class?
SwordoftheVistula
08-22-2009, 10:11 AM
with balanced accumulation more money in the hands of many, better.
Not really, because you could just sell high end stuff to rich people. Also, someone has to have large amounts of money to make things happen, such as building factories. In socialist systems this is the government, in capitalist systems this is private individuals.
Or for someone who just can not pay their debts? What difference? :cool:
Why would you loan money in a free economy to someone who can't pay it back?
Example, in early of 2000s the american middle class and working class was filled with debt borrowing money from banks and after failing to pay its debts as being one (not the only though, there were accumulation of other factors) of the reasons the current recession.
Yes, and that was a socialist program to increase home ownership amongst the poor and minorities. The Democrats supported this program because they always want stuff given to the poor and minorities, and the Republicans supported it because their pollsters told them home owners are more likely to vote conservative than renters.
At any given time, there is a relative limit to the wealth within any economy of any size. So when too much wealth accumulates at the top, the middle class slip further into debt and the lower class further into poverty.
Wealth is constantly being created and destroyed, so the goal is to create more wealth. If a factory puts out a bag of doritos, that creates wealth. If a dude sitting on a couch consumes bags of doritos, that destroys wealth. Factory owners and managers create wealth because a factory can produce far more doritos then if all those people stayed home, grew their own corn and spices, and cooked their own doritos.
Believing that the free market will regulate itself that is non-sense.
What do you mean by 'regulate'? If someone rips you off, you don't buy from them again, and tell everyone you know that you got ripped off. If the govt rips you off, not much you can do about it.
You know this is not true. This also depends on governments that are elected and where they have directed public investment. Indeed, real welfare state was created as an essential complement to industrial development: social policy helps the economy to grow by serving the workforce, providing services to industry and offering a secure basis for development. This has been the dominant model as far as I know
This is the same as, or leads to:
Or would you prefer a current corporate welfare as the U.S., who fills the big corporations and banks with public money leaving laissez faire for the middle class and working class?
The government directed public investment to the banking, automotive, and real estate/home building industries. The government provided services to these industries etc etc. It is the same exact model, only somewhat different industries, aimed at creating a more 'educated'/'wealthy' society to have people as bankers and computer programmers instead of assembly line workers.
Brännvin
08-22-2009, 06:38 PM
Not really, because you could just sell high end stuff to rich people. Also, someone has to have large amounts of money to make things happen, such as building factories. In socialist systems this is the government, in capitalist systems this is private individuals.
First all, I don’t advocate socialism. Where it comes from? :confused:
I am not even part of some socialist society to begin with.
Why would you loan money in a free economy to someone who can't pay it back?
But, in early of 2000s the American banks lent it (credits, money, etc) to millions of Americans who could not pay, it went bankrupt and then recently were saved by public money.
Now the U.S. has a heavy deficit (12.3 trillion dollar) which in many cases it seems impossible to be paid and with the Chinese having the largest foreign holdings of U.S. treasury debt, more than $801 billion. The Chinese are subsidizing the American way of life.
Only a delusional American in some internet forum will think that the its government will cut taxes in coming decades with such astronomical deficit.
Yes, and that was a socialist program to increase home ownership amongst the poor and minorities. The Democrats supported this program because they always want stuff given to the poor and minorities, and the Republicans supported it because their pollsters told them home owners are more likely to vote conservative than renters.
Or were just wrong policies of the Bush administration that while it cut taxes favored corporate welfare with wars and deliberately bolstered banks to lend money to the middle and working class to heat consumption and economy?
But we all know what happened.
Wealth is constantly being created and destroyed, so the goal is to create more wealth. If a factory puts out a bag of doritos, that creates wealth. If a dude sitting on a couch consumes bags of doritos, that destroys wealth. Factory owners and managers create wealth because a factory can produce far more doritos then if all those people stayed home, grew their own corn and spices, and cooked their own doritos.
But it has its limit, it is not infinite. Never heard of environmental issues?
The Death of Industrial Civilization: The Limits to Economic Growth and the Repoliticization of Advanced Industrial Society (http://books.google.com.br/books?id=Uq9dhoToOygC&dq=The+death+of+industrial+civilization:+the+limit s+to+economic+growth+and+the&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=352kPBbj25&sig=y5-5MBtpEYkSIBW3uVNr6qbOIBc&hl=pt-BR&ei=GjSQSoaMC8aglAfkm8mYDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2#v=onepage&q=&f=false)
Economics is all about incentives and who advocates low taxes will talk constantly about the disincentives that high taxes create, but indeed they seem to be blind to the entire world of other incentives that exist out there.
Good policy comes from understanding all incentives and weighing them carefully just like good economics comes from understanding opportunity costs, not just explicit costs.
What do you mean by 'regulate'? If someone rips you off, you don't buy from them again, and tell everyone you know that you got ripped off. If the govt rips you off, not much you can do about it.
Or perhaps it's just more awareness that a pure 'free market' simply does not exist and will never exist.
The government directed public investment to the banking, automotive, and real estate/home building industries. The government provided services to these industries etc etc. It is the same exact model, only somewhat different industries, aimed at creating a more 'educated'/'wealthy' society to have people as bankers and computer programmers instead of assembly line workers.
So I think this is the case. US don't have a free market system. :P
Anyway, taxpayers are forced to pay the bailout of a failing business and I think that is wrong even if taxpayers are paid back, it is still stealing. ;)
SwordoftheVistula
08-25-2009, 04:12 AM
So I think this is the case. US don't have a free market system.
No, not entirely, and much less of a free market system than up through the 1920s, which is the problem.
But, in early of 2000s the American banks lent it (credits, money, etc) to millions of Americans who could not pay
Yes, because of a law that required them to do so called the 'Community Reinvestment Act'
http://www.forbes.com/2008/07/18/fannie-freddie-regulation-oped-cx_yb_0718brook.html
There has been no free market in housing or finance. Government has long exercised massive control over the housing and financial markets--including its creation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (which have now amassed $5 trillion in liabilities)--leading to many of the problems being blamed on the free market today.
Consider the low lending standards that were a significant component of the mortgage crisis. Lenders made millions of loans to borrowers who, under normal market conditions, weren't able to pay them off. These decisions have cost lenders, especially leading financial institutions, tens of billions of dollars.
It is popular to take low lending standards as proof that the free market has failed, that the system that is supposed to reward productive behavior and punish unproductive behavior has failed to do so. Yet this claim ignores that for years irrational lending standards have been forced on lenders by the federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) and rewarded (at taxpayers' expense) by multiple government bodies.
The CRA forces banks to make loans in poor communities, loans that banks may otherwise reject as financially unsound. Under the CRA, banks must convince a set of bureaucracies that they are not engaging in discrimination, a charge that the act encourages any CRA-recognized community group to bring forward. Otherwise, any merger or expansion the banks attempt will likely be denied. But what counts as discrimination?
According to one enforcement agency, "discrimination exists when a lender's underwriting policies contain arbitrary or outdated criteria that effectively disqualify many urban or lower-income minority applicants." Note that these "arbitrary or outdated criteria" include most of the essentials of responsible lending: income level, income verification, credit history and savings history--the very factors lenders are now being criticized for ignoring.
The government has promoted bad loans not just through the stick of the CRA but through the carrot of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which purchase, securitize and guarantee loans made by lenders and whose debt is itself implicitly guaranteed by the federal government. This setup created an easy, artificial profit opportunity for lenders to wrap up bundles of subprime loans and sell them to a government-backed buyer whose primary mandate was to "promote homeownership," not to apply sound lending standards.
Of course, lenders not only sold billions of dollars in suspect loans to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, contributing to their present debacle, they also retained some subprime loans themselves and sold others to Wall Street--leading to the huge banking losses we have been witnessing for months. Is this, then, a free market failure? Again, no.
In a free market, lending large amounts of money to low-income, low-credit borrowers with no down payment would quickly prove disastrous. But the Federal Reserve Board's inflationary policy of artificially low interest rates made investing in subprime loans extraordinarily profitable. Subprime borrowers who would normally not be able to pay off their expensive houses could do so, thanks to payments that plummeted along with Fed rates. And the inflationary housing boom meant homeowners rarely defaulted; so long as housing prices went up, even the worst-credit borrowers could always sell or refinance.
Thus, Fed policy turned dubious investments into fabulous successes. Bankers who made the deals lured investors and were showered with bonuses. Concerns about the possibility of mass defaults and foreclosures were assuaged by an administration whose president declared: "We want everybody in America to own their own home."
Further promoting a sense of security, every major financial institution in America--both commercial banks and investment banks--was implicitly protected by the quasi-official policy of "too big to fail." The "too big to fail" doctrine holds that, when they risk insolvency, large financial institutions (like Countrywide or Bear Stearns) must be bailed out through a network of government bodies including the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Home Loan Banks and the Federal Reserve.
All of these government factors contributed to creating a situation in which millions of people were buying homes they could not afford, in which the participants experienced the illusion of prosperity, in which billions upon billions of dollars were going into bad investments. Eventually the bubble burst; the rest is history.
it went bankrupt and then recently were saved by public money.
...favored corporate welfare with wars and deliberately bolstered banks to lend money to the middle and working class to heat consumption and economy
Never heard of environmental issues?
Yes, these are the current guise used to enact socialism, now that it has been shown that the claimed economic benefits of socialism never materialize in the long term.
Economics is all about incentives and who advocates low taxes will talk constantly about the disincentives that high taxes create, but indeed they seem to be blind to the entire world of other incentives that exist out there.
Yes, taxes are one of the main one, but having a huge amount of regulations also acts as a disincentive to economic activity.
Good policy comes from understanding all incentives and weighing them carefully just like good economics comes from understanding opportunity costs, not just explicit costs.
And who is the best to do that, to have the government attempt to do this for everyone and everything in the entire country, or to allow individuals and businesses the chance to do this for their own little part of the world?
Anyway, taxpayers are forced to pay the bailout of a failing business and I think that is wrong even if taxpayers are paid back, it is still stealing. ;)
True, any forcible transfer of wealth is stealing :thumb001:
Nationalitist
08-25-2009, 10:34 PM
I support feudalism.
Birka
08-25-2009, 11:59 PM
What has actually Cuba to do with my comment? Are they a welfare society? :confused: :D
Welfare state =/= Socialism ;)
Cuba's communist government took over all the private industry and wealth. So, that was the purist form of wealth distribution, taking money and all the industry from private citizens, and using the government to redistribute it.
Cuba is an economic cesspool today. All its citizens are on government welfare.
What a great socialistic paradise.
Brännvin
08-26-2009, 12:10 AM
My post had nothing to do with Cuba and not my arguments here have to do something with Cuba. I do not understand yet, what is the your point? :confused:
I unlike you, do know the difference between both systems.
Brännvin
08-26-2009, 12:13 AM
I support feudalism.
The environment will love for it as well. :eek:
lei.talk
12-18-2013, 11:09 AM
"Leave me alone."
"Too late, Petey. Ever read Faust (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faust)?
"What do you want?"
"Howard Roark's neck."
"He's not my friend. He's never been. You know what I think of him."
"I know, you God-damned fool! I know you've worshiped him all your life. You've knelt and worshiped, while stabbing him in the back. You didn't even have the courage of you own malice. You couldn't go one way or the other. You hated me - oh, don't you suppose I knew it? - and you followed me. You loved him and you've destroyed him. Oh, you've destroyed him all right, Petey, and now there's no place to run, and you'll have to go through with it!"
"What's he to you? What difference does it make to you?"
"You should have asked that long ago. But you didn't. Which means that you knew it. You've always known it. That's what's making you shake. Why should I help you lie to your self? I've done that for ten years. That's what you came to me for. That's what they all come to me for. But you can't get some thing for nothing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_ain%27t_no_such_thing_as_a_free_lunch). Ever. My socialistic theories (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_socialism) to the contrary notwithstanding. You got what you wanted from me. It's my turn now."
"I won't talk about Howard. You can't make me talk about Howard."
"No? Why don't you throw me out of here? Why don't you take me by the throat and choke me? You're much stronger than I am. But you won't. You can't. Do you see the nature of power, Petey? Physical power? Muscle or guns or money? You and Gail Wynand (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/the-fountainhead/character-analysis/gail-wynand) should get together. You have a lot to tell him."
"Why do you want to kill Howard?
"I don't want to kill him. I want him in jail. You understand? In Jail. In a cell. Behind bars. Locked, stopped, strapped - and alive. He'll get up when they tell him to. He'll eat what they give him. He'll move when he's told to move and stop when he's told. He'll walk to the jute-mill, when he's told, and he'll work as he's told. They'll push him, if he doesn't move fast enough, and they'll slap his face when they feel like it, and they'll beat him with rubber hose if he doesn't obey. And he'll obey. He'll take orders. He'll take orders!"
"Ellsworth?" Keating screamed "Ellsworth!"
"You make me sick. Can't you take the truth? No, you want your sugar-coating."
http://youtu.be/ppgg_vF3Z-0
Keating got up. He dragged his feet to the dresser, opened a drawer, took out a crumpled piece of paper and handed it to Toohey. It was his contract with Roark.
Toohey read it and chuckled once, a dry snap of sound. Then he looked at Keating.
"You're a complete success, Peter, as far as I'm concerned. But at times I want to turn away from the sight of my successes."
Keating stood by the dresser, his shoulders slumped, his eyes empty.
"I didn't expect you to have it in writing like that, with his signature. So that's what he's done for you - and this is what you do in return...No, I take back the insults, Peter. You had to do it. Who are you to reverse the laws of history? Do you know what this paper is? The impossible perfect, the dream of centuries, the aim of all of mankinds great schools of thought. You harnessed him. You made him work for you. You took his achievement, his reward, his money, his glory, his name. We only thought and wrote about it. You gave a practical demonstration. Every philosopher from Plato up (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platonism#Christianity_and_Platonism) should thank you. Here it is, the philosopher's stone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosopher%27s_stone) - for turning gold in to lead. I should be pleased, but I guess I'm human and I can't help it, I'm not pleased, I'm just sick. The others, Plato and all the rest, they really thought it would turn lead in to gold. I knew the truth from the first. I've been honest with my self, Peter, and that's the hardest form of honesty. The one you all run from at any price. And right now I don't blame you, it is the hardest one, Peter.
He sat down wearily and held the paper by the corners in both hands. He said:
"If you want to know how hard it is, I'll tell you: right now I want to burn this paper. Make what you wish of that. I don't claim too great a credit, because, I know that tomorrow I'll send this to the district attorney. Roark will never know it - and it would make no difference to him if he knew - but in the truth of things, there was one moment when I wanted to burn this paper."
He folded the paper cautiously and slipped it in to his pocket. Keating followed his gestures, moving his whole head, like a kitten watching a ball on a string.
"You make me sick," said Toohey. "God, how you make me sick, all of you hypocritical sentimentalists! You go along with me, you spout what I teach you, you profit by it - but you haven't the grace to admit to your self what you're doing. You turn green when you see the truth. I suppose that's in the nature of your natures and that's precisely my chief weapon - but God! I get tired of it. I must allow my self a moment free of you. That's what I have to put on an act for all my life - for mean little mediocrities like you. To protect your sensibilities, your posturings, your conscience and the peace of the mind you haven't got. That's the price I pay for what I want - but at least I know that I've got to pay it. And I have no illusions about the price or the purchase.
"What do you want Ellsworth ?"
"Power, Petey."
"You...always said..." Keating began thickly, and stopped.
"I've always said just that. Clearly, precisely and openly. It's not my fault if you couldn't hear. You could, of course. You didn't want to. Which was safer than deafness - for me. I said I intended to rule. Like all of my spiritual predecessors. But I’m luckier than they were. I inherited the fruit of their efforts and I shall be the one who’ll see the great dream made real. I see it all around me today. I recognise it. I don’t like it. I didn’t expect to like it. Enjoyment is not my destiny. I shall find such satisfaction as my capacity permits. I shall rule."
"Whom...?"
"You. The world. It’s only a matter of discovering the lever. If you learn how to rule one single man’s soul, you can get the rest of mankind. It’s the soul, Peter, the soul. Not whips or swords or fire or guns. That’s why the Caesars, the Attilas, the Napoleons were fools and did not last. We will. The soul, Peter, is that which can’t be ruled. It must be broken. Drive a wedge in, get your fingers on it – and the man is yours. You won’t need a whip – he’ll bring it to you and ask to be whipped. Set him in reverse – and his own mechanism will do your work for you. Use him against himself. Want to know how it’s done? See if I ever lied to you. See if you haven’t heard all this for years, but didn’t want to hear, and the fault is yours, not mine.
There are many ways. Here’s one. Make man feel small. Make him feel guilty. Kill his aspiration and his integrity. That’s difficult. The worst among you gropes for an ideal in his own twisted way. Kill integrity by internal corruption. Use it against itself. Direct it towards a goal destructive of all integrity. Preach selflessness. Tell man that altruism is the ideal. Not a single one has ever reached it and not a single one ever will. His every living instinct screams against it. But don’t you see what you accomplish ? Man realises that he’s incapable of what he’s accepted as the noblest virtue - and it gives him a sense of guilt, of sin, of his own basic unworthiness. Since the supreme ideal is beyond his grasp, he gives up eventually all ideals, all aspiration, all sense of his personal value. He feels himself obliged to preach what he can’t practice. But one can’t be good halfway or honest approximately. To preserve one’s integrity is a hard battle. Why preserve that which one knows to be corrupt already? His soul gives up its self respect. You’ve got him. He’ll obey. He’ll be glad to obey – because he can’t trust himself, he feels uncertain, he feels unclean. That’s one way.
Here’s another. Kill man’s sense of values. Kill his capacity to recognise greatness or to achieve it. Great men can’t be ruled. We don’t want any great men. Don’t deny conception of greatness. Destroy it from within. The great is the rare, the difficult, the exceptional. Set up standards of achievement open to all, to the least, to the most inept – and you stop the impetus to effort in all men, great or small. You stop all incentive to improvement, to excellence, to perfection. Laugh at Roark and hold Peter Keating (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/the-fountainhead/character-analysis/peter-keating) as a great architect. You’ve destroyed architecture. Build up Lois Cook and you’ve destroyed literature. Hail Ike and you’ve destroyed the theatre. Glorify Lancelot Clokey and you’ve destroyed the press. Don’t set out to raze all shrines – you’ll frighten men. Enshrine mediocrity - and the shrines are razed.
Then there’s another way. Kill by laughter. Laughter is an instrument of human joy. Learn to use it as a weapon of destruction. Turn it into a sneer. It’s simple. Tell them to laugh at everything. Tell them that a sense of humour is an unlimited virtue. Don't let anything remain sacred in a man’s soul – and his soul won’t be sacred to him. Kill reverence and you’ve killed the hero in man. One doesn’t reverence with a giggle. He’ll obey and he’ll set no limits to obedience – anything goes – nothing is too serious.
Here’s another way. This is most important. Don't allow men to be happy. Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. So kill their joy in living. Take away from them what they want. Make them think that the mere thought of a personal desire is evil. Bring them to a state where saying ‘I want’ is no longer a natural right, but a shameful admission. Altruism is of great help in this. Unhappy men will come to you. They’ll need you. They’ll come for consolation, for support, for escape. Nature allows no vacuum. Empty man’s soul – and the space is yours to fill.
I don’t see why you should look so shocked, Peter. This is the oldest one of all. Look back at history. Look at any great system of ethics, from the Orient up. Didn’t they all preach the sacrifice of personal joy ? Under all the complications of verbiage, haven’t they all had a single leitmotif: sacrifice, renunciation, self-denial ? Haven’t you been able to catch their theme song – ‘Give up, give up, give up, give up’ ? Look at the moral atmosphere of today. Everything enjoyable, from cigarettes to sex to ambition to the profit motive, is considered depraved or sinful. Just prove that a thing makes men happy and you’ve damned it. That’s how far we’ve come. We’ve tied happiness to guilt. And we’ve got mankind by the throat.
Throw your first born into a sacrificial furnace – lie on a bed of nails – go into the desert to mortify the flesh – don’t dance – don't go to the movies on Sunday – don't try to get rich – don’t smoke – don’t drink. It’s all the same line. The great line. Fools don’t think that taboos of this nature are just nonsense. Something left over, old-fashioned. But there’s always a purpose in nonsense. Don’t bother to examine a folly – ask yourself only what it accomplishes. Every system of ethics that preached sacrifice grew into a world power and ruled millions of men.
Of course, you must dress it up. You must tell people they’ll achieve a superior kind of happiness by giving up everything that makes them happy. You don't have to be too clear about it. Use big vague words. ‘Universal Harmony’ – ‘Eternal Spirit’ – ‘Divine Purpose’ – ‘Nirvana’ - ‘Paradise’ – ‘Racial Supremacy’ – ‘the Dictatorship of the Proletariat’. Internal corruption, Peter. That’s the oldest one of all. The farce has been going on for centuries and men still fall for it.
Yet the test should be so simple: just listen to any prophet and if you hear him speak of sacrifice – run. Run faster than from a plague. It stands to reason that where there’s sacrifice, there’s someone collecting sacrificial offerings. Where there’s service, there’s someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice, speaks of slaves and masters. And intends to be the master. But if you ever hear a man telling you that you must be happy, that it’s your natural right, that your first duty is to yourself – that will be the man who has nothing to gain from you. But let him come and you’ll scream your empty heads off, howling that he’s a selfish monster. So the racket is safe for many, many centuries.
But here you might have noticed something. I said, ‘It stands to reason’. Do you see ? Men have a weapon against you. Reason. So you must be very sure to take it away from them. Cut the props from under it. But be careful. Don’t deny outright. Never deny anything outright, you give your hand away. Don’t say reason is evil – though some have gone that far and with astonishing success. Just say that reason is limited. That there’s something above it. What ? You don’t have to be too clear about it either. The field’s inexhaustible. ‘Instinct’ – ‘Feeling’ – ‘Revelation’ – ‘Divine Intuition’ – ‘Dialectic Materialism’. If you get caught at some crucial point and somebody tells you that your doctrine doesn’t make sense – you’re ready for him. You tell him there’s something above sense. That here he must not try to think, he must feel. He must believe. Suspend reason and you play it deuces wild. Anything goes in any manner you wish whenever you need it. You’ve got him. Can you rule a thinking man ? We don’t want any thinking men."
Keating had sat down on the floor, by the side of the dresser. He did not want to abandon the dresser; he felt safer, leaning against it.
"Peter, you’ve heard all this. You’ve seen me practising it for ten years. You see it being practised all over the world. Why are you disgusted ? You have no right to sit there and stare at me with the virtuous superiority of being shocked. You’re in on it. You’ve taken your share and you’ve got to go along. You’re afraid to see where it’s leading. I’m not. I’ll tell you.
The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbour who’ll have no thought – and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbour who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbour, who’ll have no desires – around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster – prestige. The approval of his fellows – their good opinion – the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain.
Judgement, Peter ! Not judgement, but public polls. An average drawn upon zeroes – since no individuality will be permitted. A world with its motor cut off and a single heart, pumped by hand. My hand – and the hands of a few, a very few other men like me. Those who know what makes you tick – you great, wonderful average, you who have not risen in fury when we called you the average, the little, the common, you who’ve liked and accepted those names. You’ll sit enthroned and enshrined, you, the little people, the absolute ruler to make all past rulers squirm with envy, the absolute, the unlimited, God and Prophet and King combined. Vox populi. The average, the common, the general.
Do you know the proper antonym for Ego ? Bromide, Peter. The rule of the bromide. But even the trite has to be organised by someone at some time. We’ll do the organising. Vox dei. We’ll enjoy unlimited submission – from men who’ve learned nothing except to submit. We’ll call it ‘to serve’. We’ll give out medals for service. You’ll fall over one another in a scramble to see who can submit better and more. There will be no other distinction to seek. No other form of personal achievement.
Can you see Howard Roark (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/the-fountainhead/character-analysis/howard-roark) in this picture ? No ? Then don’t waste time on foolish questions. Everything that can’t be ruled, must go. And if freaks persist in being born occasionally, they will not survive beyond their twelfth year. When their brain begins to function, it will feel the pressure and it will explode. The pressure gauged to a vacuum. Do you know the fate of deep-sea creatures brought out to sunlight? So much for future Roarks. The rest of you will smile and obey. Have you noticed that the imbecile always smiles? Man’s first frown is the first touch of God on his forehead. The touch of thought. But we’ll have neither God nor thought. Only voting by smiles. Automatic levers – all saying yes...
Now if you were a little more intelligent, you’d ask: What of us, the rulers ? What of me, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/f/the-fountainhead/character-analysis/ellsworth-toohey) ? And I’d say, Yes, you’re right. I’ll achieve no more than you will. I’ll have no purpose save to keep you contended. To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches about the people and the common good. Peter, my poor old friend, I’m the most selfless man you’ve ever known. I have less independence than you, whom I just forced to sell your soul. You’ve used people at least for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It’s my only function and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery – without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle – and a total equality. The world of the future."
"Ellsworth... you’re..."
"Insane ? Afraid to say it ? There you sit and the world’s written all over you, your last hope. Insane ? Look around you. Pick up any newspaper and read the headlines. Isn’t it coming ? Isn’t it here ? Every single thing I told you ? Isn’t Europe swallowed already and we’re stumbling on to follow ? Everything I said is contained in a single word – collectivism. And isn’t that the god of our century. To act together. To think – together. To feel – together. To unite, to agree, to obey. To obey, to serve, to sacrifice. Divide and conquer – first. But then, unite and rule. We’ve discovered that one at last. Remember the Roman Emperor who said he wished humanity had a single neck so he could cut it ? People have laughed at him for centuries. But we’ll have the last laugh. We’ve accomplished what he couldn’t accomplish. We’ve taught men to unite. This makes one neck ready for one leash. We found the magic word. Collectivism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collectivism#Criticisms).
Look at Europe, you fool. Can’t you see past the guff and recognise the essence ? One country is dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the collective is all. The individual held as evil, the mass – as God. No motive and no virtue permitted – except that of service to the proletariat.
That’s one version. Here’s another. A country dedicated to the proposition that man has no rights, that the State is all. The individual held as evil, the race – as God. No motive and no virtue permitted – except that of service to the race. Am I raving or is this the harsh reality of two continents already ? If you’re sick of one version, we push you in the other. We’ve fixed the coin. Heads – collectivism. Tails – collectivism. Give up your soul to a council – or give it up to a leader. But give it up, give it up, give it up. Offer poison as food and poison as antidote. Go fancy on the trimmings, but hang on to the main objective. Give the fools a choice, let them have their fun – but don’t forget the only purpose you have to accomplish. Kill the individual. Kill man’s soul. The rest will follow automatically."
http://www.merlinpress.co.uk/acatalog/harold_laski.gif (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Harold_Laski&oldid=575281372#Criticism)
the false alternative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma):
muscle (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/mystics_of_spirit_and_of_muscle.html) or spirit (http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/mysticism.html)
there is a third choice (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?260&p=220556&viewfull=1#post220556)
*
Geminus
01-04-2014, 03:05 PM
What do you prefer?
SobieskisavedEurope
01-04-2014, 03:08 PM
Most successful nations today are a strong mix of Capitalism & Socialism.
Jackson
01-04-2014, 03:34 PM
Mainly capitalism, with some elements of socialism (although not too much).
Tooting Carmen
01-04-2014, 03:41 PM
Most successful nations today are a strong mix of Capitalism & Socialism.
I agree. Also, this is yet another example of binary, rigid, absolutist thinking, much like when people try to make a rigid distinction between 'looking European' and 'looking Middle Eastern' (something I've discussed elsewhere).
lei.talk
01-04-2014, 03:44 PM
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858-Capitalism-or-Socialism (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858)
Proctor
01-04-2014, 03:48 PM
Laissez-faire Capitalism.
Herr Abubu
01-04-2014, 03:51 PM
Free markets in everything, including law. So-called anarcho-capitalism.
Caismeachd
01-04-2014, 04:25 PM
Capitalism causes extreme wealth divide and is also responsible for the recessions we've been having. The federal reserve bank in the US was a really bad idea. If it could be done properly socialism would be better but humans aren't sophisticated enough for it to work without corruption.
Rojava
01-04-2014, 04:26 PM
Fuck Capitalism.
http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs70/i/2010/345/8/9/communist_revolution_by_antiracistfaction-d34pggf.jpg
Geminus
01-04-2014, 05:35 PM
http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858-Capitalism-or-Socialism (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858)
Oops I didn't see it.
I merged the threads, everyone please vote again ;)
lei.talk
01-10-2014, 11:52 AM
a surprising number of persons
think those who produce more than they consume (http://www.capitalism.net/)
should be forced
to support those persons that do not satisfy their own needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_socialism).
sweden's middle way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet) is the frequent exemplar
of a success utilising this approach.
a forgotten integral element
in building the peace-full, productive, homogenous sweden
of the twentieth century
was the deletion from the societal body
of those that might become a burden to "the family": tvångssterilisering i sverige (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden)
to reduce anti-social behavior, crime and expenses
they decided it was necessary to edit-out "nonviable individuals” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics#Sweden) -
"the jukes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jukes_family) and the kallikaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kallikak_Family)", the "useless eaters (http://www.regent.edu/acad/schedu/uselesseaters/intro.html)" -
that might impede the progress of "the people's home".
nazi germany did not invent negative eugenics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics).
they copied it. nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism) was an amalgam
of the most popular ideas of that time.
even their salute was unoriginal (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?16588&p=309734&viewfull=1#post309734).
karl diebitsch's creations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_and_insignia_of_the_Schutzstaffel#SS_blac k_uniforms_.281932.E2.80.931934.29)
may be the only original element of the nazis.
http://youtu.be/z2huGsLN-9k
http://campus.aynrand.org/static/images/logo.png (http://campus.aynrand.org/classroom/16/?ref=rev)
http://i41.tinypic.com/29djsk7.png (http://capitalism.org/)
*
Herr Abubu
01-10-2014, 04:41 PM
a surprising number of persons
think those who produce more than they consume (http://www.capitalism.net/)
should be forced
to support those persons that do not satisfy their own needs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticisms_of_socialism).
sweden's middle way (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folkhemmet) is the frequent exemplar
of a success utilizing this approach.
a forgotten integral element
in building the peace-full, productive, homogenous sweden
of the twentieth century
was the deletion from the societal body
of those that might become a burden to "the family": tvångssterilisering i sverige (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilisation_in_Sweden)
to reduce anti-social behavior, crime and expenses
they decided it was necessary to edit-out "nonviable individuals” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_eugenics#Sweden) -
"the jukes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Jukes_family) and the kallikaks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kallikak_Family)", the "useless eaters (http://www.regent.edu/acad/schedu/uselesseaters/intro.html)" -
that might impede the progress of "the people's home".
nazi germany did not invent negative eugenics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics).
they copied it. nazism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism) was an amalgam
of the most popular ideas of that time.
even their salute was unoriginal (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?16588&p=309734&viewfull=1#post309734).
karl diebitsch's creations (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniforms_and_insignia_of_the_Schutzstaffel#SS_blac k_uniforms_.281932.E2.80.931934.29)
may be the only original element of the nazis.
http://youtu.be/z2huGsLN-9k
http://campus.aynrand.org/static/images/logo.png (http://campus.aynrand.org/classroom/16/?ref=rev)
http://i41.tinypic.com/29djsk7.png (http://capitalism.org/)
When talking about Sweden, or any Scandinavian country, for that matter, one should always point out that Sweden at one point in time enjoyed a laissez-faire economic system, which is responsible for Sweden's wealth today. To quote the Swedish economist Johan Norberg (http://www.africanliberty.org/files/Essay%20on%20Sweden%20-%20IO%20edit%20-%20clean%20version%20_1_.pdf), who is simply stating what many other - politically incorrect though factually correct instead - economists have:
"Then, over the course of a century, everything changed. Sweden had the fastest economic and social development that its people had ever experienced, and one of the fastest the world had ever seen. Between 1850 and 1950 the average Swede’s income multiplied eightfold, despite a doubling of population. Infant mortality fell from 15 to 2 per cent, and average life expectancy rose by an incredible 28 years. A poor peasant nation had become one of the world’s richest countries.", and, "Many people abroad credit this triumph to the Swedish Social Democratic party, which somehow found the perfect middle way – wisely taxing, spending and regulating in a way that did not hurt the country’s productivity but only made the results more equitable. And so Sweden – a small country of 9 million inhabitants in northern Europe – became a source of inspiration for people around the world who believe in state-led development and government distribution.
But something is amiss in this explanation. In 1950, when Sweden was known worldwide as the great success story, taxes in Sweden were lower and the public sector was smaller than in the rest of Europe and the United States. It was not until that point that Swedish politicians started levying taxes and disbursing handouts on a larger scale, redistributing the wealth businesses and workers had already created. Widely distributed wealth preceded the welfare state. Sweden’s biggest social and economic successes took place at the time when Sweden had a laissez-faire economy."
It's very, very easy to triumphantly declare yourself to be the closest to truth, everlasting prosperity and so on when you have climbed on the shoulders of giants and unjustly claimed their successes as their own while ignoring, rejecting and belittling them and their teachings.
Kazimiera
01-10-2014, 04:45 PM
Definitely socialism. BUT a little capitalism is good to keep it in check. NOT capitalism on its own because I see it as a destructive force.
Capitalism. Inequality is good for progress, it allows one state to combine relatively cheap workforce with a class of people who have money and time to spend on science and art. That's why all grand empires that achieved amazing stuff relied on a highly stratified population (Rome, British Empire, US etc).
armenianbodyhair
01-10-2014, 04:58 PM
I voted capitalism, obviously a mix is what is realistic but I'd rather it tend much more towards capitalism.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 06:53 PM
Inequality is good for progress
If you were a peasant you wouldn't be saying this.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 06:55 PM
http://www.quotehd.com/imagequotes/authors1/karl-marx-philosopher-workers-of-the-world-unite-you-have-nothing-to.jpg
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 06:55 PM
If you were a peasant you wouldn't be saying this.
So you are saying that you want to earn equal as someone hard working for not doing anything
Rojava
01-10-2014, 06:58 PM
So you are saying that you want to earn equal as someone hard working for not doing anything
In a Communist economy, money would be abolished, money and power is the root of all evil.
If you were a peasant you wouldn't be saying this.
Well, luckily, I'm not. An argument for what would I say or think if I was somebody else is without merit, as I'm expressing my own views that stem from the same character/personal/intellectual traits that made me what I am.
I am not very interested in the well-being of individual humans, I am however interested (as in it being interesting, not as in having a vested interest - though that would partially true as well) in the progress and achievement of the humanity. And/or our possibly non-human creations/progeny.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:04 PM
In a Communist economy, money would be abolished, money and power is the root of all evil.
So what would be incentive, why should I work?
Leo Iscariot
01-10-2014, 07:05 PM
Social democracy.
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." -F.D.R.
So what would be incentive, why should I work?
That's the problem with marxism, their proposed society would only work in an ideal world inhabited by perfectly altruistic human automatons with no ambition or competitiveness. It's just not going to happen unless you somehow re-engineer human psychology via genetic experiments or something.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:08 PM
Well, luckily, I'm not. An argument for what would I say or think if I was somebody else is without merit, as I'm expressing my own views that stem from the same character/personal/intellectual traits that made me what I am.
I am not very interested in the well-being of individual humans, I am however interested (as in it being interesting, not as in having a vested interest - though that would partially true as well) in progress and achievement of the humanity (and/or our possibly non-human creations/progeny).
Well of course bro, every individual would want to live a life of luxury. My family has a quite a lot of money, I can easily ignore the working class. But I find that immoral, so I focus on humanity achieving as one.
Either we all advance as one, or no one does.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:09 PM
That's the problem with marxism, their proposed society would only work in an ideal world inhabited by perfectly altruistic human automatons with no ambition or competitiveness. It's just not going to happen unless you somehow re-engineer human psychology via genetic experiments or something.
Its not going to work ever. No one wants to work. Everyone wants to enjoy. If everything is free why should I spend any time working and not enjoying?
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:11 PM
So what would be incentive, why should I work?
We should be rewarded for our abilities, not for our laziness.
That's the problem with marxism, their proposed society would only work in a ideal world inhabited by perfectly altruistic human automatons with no ambition or competitiveness. It's just not going to happen unless you somehow re-engineer human psychology via genetic experiments or something.
It can work, just look at how society has changed from a couple hundred years ago till now.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:12 PM
We should be rewarded for our abilities, not for our laziness.
It can work, just look at how society has changed from a couple hundred years ago till now.
How? You abolished all the money and way of payment.
SO HOW?
Well of course bro, every individual would want to live a life of luxury. My family has a quite a lot of money, I can easily ignore the working class. But I find that immoral
Morality is relative.
, so I focus on humanity achieving as one.
Achieving as one does not mean or require equality. A very crude example (purely to demonstrate the logic, not to imply any equivalence) would be ants or bees - do they achieve as one? Certainly. But are they all equal? Certainly not - there are numerous castes and stratas with different functions, different fates and different value to the hive as a whole.
Either we all advance as one, or no one does.
Again, logically incorrect. Advancing, evolution, be it biological or social, has always been driven by competition. It is our nature.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:15 PM
Its not going to work ever. No one wants to work. Everyone wants to enjoy. If everything is free why should I spend any time working and not enjoying?
So why should someone such as the Queen enjoy a life of luxury, who really does nothing, while a farmer working all day shouldn't? We thank God for our food, but it's the farmers that make the effort to get it on our plates.
I don't see why someone like you and me should be living a life with at least 3 meals a day while some poor boy in the ME can't even get 1. You've seen what has happened to the Palestinians right? I blame party's greed for their suffering.
Its not going to work ever. No one wants to work. Everyone wants to enjoy. If everything is free why should I spend any time working and not enjoying?
That is basically what I've said (a part of it).
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:19 PM
So why should someone such as the Queen enjoy a life of luxury, who really does nothing, while a farmer working all day shouldn't? We thank God for our food, but it's the farmers that make the effort to get it on our plates.
I don't see why someone like you and me should be living a life with at least 3 meals a day while some poor boy in the ME can't even get 1. You've seen what has happened to the Palestinians right? I blame party's greed for their suffering.
Why? For no particula reason, but a quen is still one. How exactly will you offer the same to everyone?
And how will you create those goods?
Why should I work a farm entire year to get 500$ and someone else works the same as a doctor?
Or why should I as a doctor get 500$ just like someone cleaning streets
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:21 PM
How? You abolished all the money and way of payment.
SO HOW?
We shouldn't work for money, we should work for the good of humanity. Isn't that what your own religion teaches?
Achieving as one does not mean or require equality. A very crude example (purely to demonstrate the logic, not to imply any equivalence) would be ants or bees - do they achieve as one? Certainly. But are they all equal? Certainly not - there are numerous castes and stratas with different functions, different fates and different value to the hive as a whole.
Right, but the queen works hard for the survival of the hive no? We need to have leaders (or in this case I believe in a vanguard), but those leaders need to work and help society too. A leader should work for the people, it shouldn't be the other way around.
Again, logically incorrect. Advancing, evolution, be it biological or social, has always been driven by competition. It is our nature.
Money isn't natural, it's just paper with a given value. Do other species on Earth pay to live? No, many of them suffer for our greed. And I don't mean that in the way of eating animals, but war and cutting down more trees is always a species killer.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:23 PM
We shouldn't work for money, we should work for the good of humanity. Isn't that what your own religion teaches?
Right, but the queen works hard for the survival of the hive no? We need to have leaders (or in this case I believe in a vanguard), but those leaders need to work and help society too. A leader should work for the people, it shouldn't be the other way around.
Money isn't natural, it's just paper with a given value. Do other species on Earth pay to live? No, many of them suffer for our greed. And I don't mean that in the way of eating animals, but war and cutting down more trees is always a species killer.
Why dont you refuse pay and work for good of humanity?
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:23 PM
Why? For no particula reason, but a quen is still one. How exactly will you offer the same to everyone?
And how will you create those goods?
Why should I work a farm entire year to get 500$ and someone else works the same as a doctor?
Or why should I as a doctor get 500$ just like someone cleaning streets
Well for the following:
1. I'd rather be treated by someone than wants to treat me, rather than is just doing it for the money.
2. All jobs are important. I don't think you would clean our streets. If we just left our streets to be dirty, that would cause serious health issues.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:24 PM
Well for the following:
1. I'd rather be treated by someone than wants to treat me, rather than is just doing it for the money.
2. All jobs are important. I don't think you would clean our streets. If we just left our streets to be dirty, that would cause serious health issues.
If all jobs are equal pay why should I go to college and spend 30 years educating myself when I can use that time to earn money
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:28 PM
Why dont you refuse pay and work for good of humanity?
Because then I would end up with no house and with nothing to eat. At the moment we live in a society where money is one of the most important things to survive. In a country like Britain, where I live, this will not work unless a Socialist/Communist party came into power, got rid of the Queen and ruled that money must be abolished. But then again that wouldn't work either because the rest of the non Socialist world will not follow this so Britain would be cut of from the rest of the world and will be isolated.
It is working at the moment for socialist groups in Syria such as the YPG, where the militants are doing it because they believe it is right.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:30 PM
Because then I would end up with no house and with nothing to eat. At the moment we live in a society where money is one of the most important things to survive. In a country like Britain, where I live, this will not work unless a Socialist/Communist party came into power, got rid of the Queen and ruled that money must be abolished. But then again that wouldn't work either because the rest of the non Socialist world will not follow this so Britain would be cut of from the rest of the world and will be isolated.
It is working at the moment for socialist groups in Syria such as the YPG, where the militants are doing it because they believe it is right.
What do you have against the money?
If you work a lot you earn more.
Thus you only want to enjoy without having to work
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:31 PM
If all jobs are equal pay why should I go to college and spend 30 years educating myself when I can use that time to earn money
That's your own choice, if you want to have a job which you do not like and will regret doing for the rest of your life then that will not be anyone else's problem.
Your proffession should be something that you want to do in life. I was taught that money should not be a deciding factor when choosing what I want to work as when I'm older.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:32 PM
That's your own choice, if you want to have a job which you do not like and will regret doing for the rest of your life then that will not be anyone else's problem.
Your proffession should be something that you want to do in life. I was taught that money should not be a deciding factor when choosing what I want to work as when I'm older.
Still why should I invest in my education to earn same as someone without it.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:34 PM
What do you have against the money?
If you work a lot you earn more.
Thus you only want to enjoy without having to work
That would be a great system, but it wouldn't work especially when Government's get involved or when people just don't have the opportunity to get a job.
It doesn't work for people, or should I say slaves, working in sweatshops throughout the world. They work so hard, just for $2 a day.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:35 PM
That would be a great system, but it wouldn't work especially when Government's get involved or when people just don't have the opportunity to get a job.
It doesn't work for people, or should I say slaves, working in sweatshops throughout the world. They work so hard, just for $2 a day.
Not my problem. If they dont want those 2$ they are free to leave. They arent slaves
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:43 PM
Still why should I invest in my education to earn same as someone without it.
It's a good question. However if you think that money should rule your life then I really can't answer that question. But, as usual, I would say because you want to.
I have a teacher that used to be an ex xbox game designer with a lot of pay. He told me he became a teacher because he wanted to teach what he has learned, even though the pay is very crap compared to being an xbox game designer.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:44 PM
It's a good question. However if you think that money should rule your life then I really can't answer that question. But, as usual, I would say because you want to.
I have a teacher that used to be an ex xbox game designer with a lot of pay. He told me he became a teacher because he wanted to teach what he has learned, even though the pay is very crap compared to being an xbox game designer.
Still doesnt provide an incentive.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:46 PM
Not my problem. If they dont want those 2$ they are free to leave. They arent slaves
They are slaves because they are forced to do it, and are treated quite badly. They may very well leave if they wish. But then they will earn nothing at all, unless they steal. They don't have opportunites to succeed like we do.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:48 PM
They are slaves because they are forced to do it, and are treated quite badly. They may very well leave if they wish. But then they will earn nothing at all, unless they steal. They don't have opportunites to succeed like we do.
False. No one forces them. They can refuse the work.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:54 PM
Still doesnt provide an incentive.
I don't see why it requires one, but here is a simple one:
For humanity as one.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 07:55 PM
False. No one forces them. They can refuse the work.
Not in the sense that they are actually forced by the hands of the Capitalists, but in the way that if they don't do it then they die. So for them it's either live a shit life, or don't live one at all.
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 07:57 PM
I don't see why it requires one, but here is a simple one:
For humanity as one.
LOL. Why should I do that for humanity and why not take the easy way?
Not in the sense that they are actually forced by the hands of the Capitalists, but in the way that if they don't do it then they die. So for them it's either live a shit life, or don't live one at all.
Oh so they arent slaves.
Well still they arent forced, if they dont want to work they dont have to.
Rojava
01-10-2014, 08:02 PM
LOL. Why should I do that for humanity and why not take the easy way?
That is too an option and it's called being greedy.
Oh so they arent slaves.
Well still they arent forced, if they dont want to work they dont have to.
There will be a day when people have had enough with people like you, and decide to raise a weapon. There's a Kurdish adage which goes "Enough is enough".
RandoBloom
01-10-2014, 08:29 PM
That is too an option and it's called being greedy.
There will be a day when people have had enough with people like you, and decide to raise a weapon. There's a Kurdish adage which goes "Enough is enough".
And what then? How will you eat and how will you do anything if people have no incentive to work?
Rojava
01-11-2014, 07:53 AM
And what then? How will you eat and how will you do anything if people have no incentive to work?
But they will, as they do now.
RandoBloom
01-11-2014, 08:21 AM
But they will, as they do now.
They have an incentive to work now. If they are slaves which work just to work and for no other reason the job is never well done, there is no inovation and humanity stagnates
Rojava
01-11-2014, 08:51 AM
They have an incentive to work now. If they are slaves which work just to work and for no other reason the job is never well done, there is no inovation and humanity stagnates
Slaves? The only slaves today are controlled by Capitalist pigs. And talking of slaves, aren't all Muslims slaves of God? Slaves do not exist in Socialism. You are letting a piece of paper take control of your life. Your own religion has taught you nothing.
"Allah will deprive usury of all blessing, but will give increase for deeds of charity" (Quran 2: 276).
"Let not their wealth nor their sons dazzle you or excite your admiration (Muhammad, Quran 9:55)."
“When you see a person who has been given more than you in money and beauty, then look to those who have been given less.”
― Hadith
“Ka'b ibn Malik reported that the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, "Two hungry wolves loose among sheep do not cause as much damage as that caused to a man's deen by his greed for money and reputation.”
RandoBloom
01-11-2014, 08:55 AM
Slaves? The only slaves today are controlled by Capitalist pigs. And talking of slaves, aren't all Muslims slaves of God? Slaves do not exist in Socialism. You are letting a piece of paper take control of your life. Your own religion has taught you nothing.
Capitalist slaves still earn their wage
Muslim slaves of Allah earn a place in paradise
What do comunists earn?
Rojava
01-11-2014, 08:57 AM
Capitalist slaves still earn their wage
Muslim slaves of Allah earn a place in paradise
What do comunists earn?
I see you ignored the quotes from Quran, clearly since it doesn't fit your agenda.
Communists earn respect. Capitalist slaves earn a beating by the Capitalists.
RandoBloom
01-11-2014, 09:03 AM
I see you ignored the quotes from Quran, clearly since it doesn't fit your agenda.
Communists earn respect. Capitalist slaves earn a beating by the Capitalists.
Earn beatings? Is that why you dont want to quit your job ;)
So they earn nothing. Thanks for clariffying that
Rojava
01-11-2014, 09:14 AM
Earn beatings? Is that why you dont want to quit your job ;)
So they earn nothing. Thanks for clariffying that
I'm a student. Instead the school makes me hungry and traps me inside their piece of shit, which they call a building, with a bunch of retards.
Earning respect is earning nothing? It seems you are going against your own religion. No, this is earning something:
Stealing a car because you couldn't afford one, then asking God for forgiveness. :picard1:
Jackson
01-11-2014, 12:12 PM
In a Communist economy, money would be abolished, money and power is the root of all evil.
How would you motivate people to progress and to develop things and to strive to achieve? With guns i guess, that's usually how you guys do it, i see you've got one in your avatar. Kill your way to equality, everyone can have what everyone else hasn't got because they don't want to make it.
rhiannon
01-11-2014, 12:33 PM
Whichever is most beneficial for the Family.....especially children.
Graham
01-11-2014, 12:41 PM
Capitalism when there's competition in any field.
Socialism, when theirs no competition in Capitalism & a monopoly on resources and infrastructure.
Both together should steady inflation.
Graham
01-11-2014, 12:44 PM
Whichever is most beneficial for the Family.....especially children.
If you're working class, Socialism, if you're rich Capitalism. For your children.
rhiannon
01-11-2014, 12:46 PM
If you're working class, Socialism, if you're rich Capitalism. For your children.
True....but I think children should all have an equal chance at life.....so this is more socialism than anything.
Graham
01-11-2014, 12:57 PM
True....but I think children should all have an equal chance at life.....so this is more socialism than anything.
Well a full private system, it would be unfair on parents of a child with special needs. Don't think you should pay a fortune to get a level education.
Also the smartest people should always have access to further education through Universities. Money shouldn't stop ambition to learn and further themselves.
Jackson
01-11-2014, 01:04 PM
Well a full private system, it would be unfair on parents of a child with special needs. Don't think you should pay a fortune to get a level education.
Also the smartest people should always have access to further education through Universities. Money shouldn't stop ambition to learn and further themselves.
Thing is, equal opportunities in a broad sense and capitalism in a broad sense can work well together. Problem is when you get everyone lowered to the same level, it stifles the development of people who could achieve a lot, and when you let those people have uncontrolled reign over the situation, others who could be like them don't get the opportunity because they are often competitors, and of course everyone else often gets too raw a deal. But the high-income need the low-income and the low-income need the high-income. Unless everything works off of the state, which to me is the only way a socialist system could achieve it's full potential, but it'd have to be tightly controlled, as everyone has to support everyone else but maintain the momentum to improve.
meAyin-sixteen
01-11-2014, 01:18 PM
If you're working class, Socialism, if you're rich Capitalism. For your children.
Dead men can´t see but they can talk really loudly :wink
Once again, the same words, the same post;
"...It is therefore necessary to create a multitude of homeless people so that they become the majority in the country.
Therefore, we must burn. We must shoot and retreat. Our enemies will not find us, but they will take revenge on the villages and burn them. Then the villagers who are left without a roof over their heads, will join us of their own accord, so we will have the nation behind us and we will become the masters of the situation. Those who have neither a house, nor land nor livestock, will quickly join us, as we will promise them great robbery.
It will be much harder with those who have possessions of their own. Those we will woo with lectures, theater performances and other propaganda ... In this way we will gradually conquer all provinces. A villager who has a house, land and livestock, or a worker in receipt of salary who has bread, are both worthless to us. We have to make them homeless, proletarians ... Only those who have failed become communists/socialists, so we have to create misfortune, force the masses into despair. We are mortal enemies of all prosperity, order and peace"
M.P. (1943)
Rojava
01-11-2014, 01:24 PM
I can't believe how spoiled some people are on here.
Put yourself in the shoes of a a poor person, and you will understand how Socialists feel.
lei.talk
01-11-2014, 04:51 PM
http://youtu.be/0n8xDv23cCQ
Pope Francis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pope_Francis), in his apostolic exhortation, levied charges against free market capitalism, denying that “economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world” and concluding that “this opinion … has never been confirmed by the facts.” He went on to label unfettered capitalism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laissez-faire) as “a new tyranny.” Let’s look at the pope’s tragic vision.
First, I acknowledge that capitalism fails miserably when compared with heaven or a utopia. Any earthly system is going to come up short in such a comparison. However, mankind must make choices among alternative economic systems that actually exist on earth. For the common man, capitalism is superior to any system yet devised to deal with his everyday needs and desires.
Capitalism is relatively new in human history. Prior to capitalism, the way people amassed great wealth was by looting, plundering and enslaving their fellow man. With the rise of capitalism, it became possible to amass great wealth by serving and pleasing your fellow man. Capitalists seek to discover what people want and produce and market it as efficiently as possible as a means to profit. A couple of examples would be J.D. Rockefeller (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Rockefeller#Pre-Standard_Oil_career), whose successful marketing drove kerosene prices down from 58 cents a gallon in 1865 to 7 cents in 1900. Henry Ford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Ford#Career) became rich by producing cars for the common man. Both Ford’s and Rockefeller’s personal benefits pale in comparison with that received by the common man by having cheaper kerosene and cheaper transportation. There are literally thousands of examples of how mankind’s life has been made better by those in the pursuit of profits. Here’s my question to you: Are people who, by their actions, created unprecedented convenience, longer life expectancy and a more pleasant life for the ordinary person — and became wealthy in the process — deserving of all the scorn and ridicule heaped upon them by intellectuals, politicians and now the pope?
Let’s examine the role of profits but first put it in perspective in terms of magnitude. Between 1960 and 2012, after-tax corporate profit averaged a bit over 6 percent of the gross domestic product, while wages averaged 47 percent of the GDP. Far more important than simple statistics about the magnitude of profits is its role in guiding resources to their highest-valued uses and satisfying people. Try polling people with a few questions. Ask them what services they are more satisfied with and what they are less satisfied with. On the “more satisfied” list would be profit-making enterprises, such as supermarkets, theaters, clothing stores and computer stores. They’d find less satisfaction with services provided by nonprofit government organizations, such as public schools, post offices and departments of motor vehicles.
Profits force entrepreneurs to find ways to please people in the most efficient ways or go out of business (http://www.capitalism.net/). Of course, they can mess up and stay in business if they can get government to bail them out or give them protection against competition. Nonprofits have an easier time of it. Public schools, for example, continue to operate whether they do a good job or not and whether they please parents or not. That’s because politicians provide their compensation through coercive property taxes. I’m sure that we’d be less satisfied with supermarkets if they, too, had the power to take our money through taxes, as opposed to being forced to find ways to get us to voluntarily give them our earnings.
Arthur C. Brooks, president at the American Enterprise Institute and author of “Who Really Cares,” shows that Americans are the most generous people on the face of the earth (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?20659&p=1171663&viewfull=1#post1171663). In fact, if you look for generosity around the world, you find virtually all of it in countries that are closer to the free market end of the economic spectrum than they are to the socialist or communist end. Seeing as Pope Francis sees charity as a key part of godliness, he ought to stop demonizing capitalism.
Born in Philadelphia in 1936,
Walter E. Williams (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_E._Williams) holds a bachelor's degree in economics
from California State University (1965)
and a master's degree (1967)
and doctorate (1972) in economics
from the University of California at Los Angeles.
Please contact your local newspaper editor
if you want to read the WALTER WILLIAMS column (http://www.creators.com/opinion/walter-williams.html) in your hometown paper.
http://i41.tinypic.com/29djsk7.png (http://capitalismmagazine.com/author/WalterWilliams/)
*
Prisoner Of Ice
01-11-2014, 04:59 PM
I can't believe how spoiled some people are on here.
Put yourself in the shoes of a a poor person, and you will understand how Socialists feel.
Socialism will put you in shoes of poor person.
Hard to imagine but there's only so much stuff, and infinite supply of people. When no one can get ahead by being better then it becomes even worse for everyone, as well.
Neanderthal
01-11-2014, 05:22 PM
Whatever makes me very rich writing shitty books.
Rojava
01-11-2014, 06:10 PM
Socialism will put you in shoes of poor person.
Hard to imagine but there's only so much stuff, and infinite supply of people. When no one can get ahead by being better then it becomes even worse for everyone, as well.
No it won't because in Socialism there is no social hierarchy, nor will there be any money to make you poor. It's further proof Capitalism doesn't work. We are buying so much stuff and throwing most of it away. Food, clothes, accessories and so much other stuff. But you don't see the working class throwing this stuff away.
The Queen is socially superior than me, but I'm more intelligent, stronger and I can contribute to society more. Given that, why should I be poor and financially disabled compared to her?
We pay £40,000,000 in tax for the Queen and her guards which in return does nothing for the people that shape who we are. That money can go to charity instead.
Brighton
01-11-2014, 06:14 PM
Capitalism.
Not in its pure form but a mix clearly leaning capitalism is okay.
--
Mix leaning Capitalism: Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, Canada, Australia.
50% Socialism - 50% Capitalism: Spain, France, Greece, Italy.
Still wondering which one is better?
Graham
01-11-2014, 07:22 PM
Put less people in Public jobs and spend more on services. :cool:
General government expenditure by country as a percentage of GDP, 2011
http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/statistics_explained/images/e/e9/General_government_expenditure_by_country_as_a_per centage_of_GDP%2C_2011.png
Public Sector Employment:
http://realestate.doingbusiness.ro/en/upload/articles_photos/en_10425.jpg
meAyin-sixteen
01-11-2014, 09:26 PM
I can't believe how spoiled some people are on here.
Put yourself in the shoes of a a poor person, and you will understand how Socialists feel.
More that you could ever imagine!
-But l am poor (if you´re referring to me?) and stripped of (almost) eeverything that makes life worth living. And me really do understand how a true socialist feel and what his bloodthirsty needs are.
...Anywayy, this socialist, capitalist whatnot crap... is a false dillema.
As the old saying goes; ln the land of the blind... There is always dark.
l suppose so :confused3:
lei.talk
01-15-2014, 05:07 AM
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/bd/Milton_friedman_signature.svg/500px-Milton_friedman_signature.svg.png (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milton_Friedman)
http://youtu.be/RWsx1X8PV_A
http://i41.tinypic.com/29djsk7.png (http://capitalismmagazine.com/author/WalterWilliams/)
*
Herr Abubu
01-15-2014, 03:55 PM
Self-interest alone is not an explanation of why socialism is worse than capitalism. If the New Socialist Man were to arise, would this mean that socialism suddenly would be a better alternative than capitalism? No. This owes itself to the lack of mechanisms in centrally planned economies where resources are rationally allocated based on demand. This causes surpluses and shortages in socialist economies, among other economic ills. In capitalism, you have prices. Prices are an information mechanism through which demand can be met by supply, which is the essential function any economic system must be able to perform.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FVsGsTl_m74
Cleitus
01-15-2014, 04:04 PM
Nationalize all banks, no chance more for Masonic Highfinance.
Rojava
01-15-2014, 04:05 PM
In capitalism, you have prices. Prices are an information mechanism through which demand can be met by supply, which is the essential function an economic system must perform.
Pure Socialism is great if all or most countries of the world follow it. In Socialism there is no such thing as price, but people will be rewarded on their abilities and what they contribute to society. It's a great opportunity for hard working people to get what they deserve.
Furthermore, a pure Socialist economy has never been tried out by any country including the self proclaimed "Communist" states. Because if it did, then it would be isolated to the rest of the world unless the the rest of the world followed the same system.
Mix leaning Capitalism: Singapore, Hong Kong, United States, Canada, Australia.
50% Socialism - 50% Capitalism: Spain, France, Greece, Italy.
Still wondering which one is better?
Where did you get this from?
Prisoner Of Ice
01-15-2014, 04:08 PM
Nationalist capitalist. International companies strictly controlled so they don't become tail that wags the dog.
Tomorr
01-15-2014, 04:17 PM
A mix of socialism and capitalism seems to be working very well in Scandinavia.
Herr Abubu
01-15-2014, 04:22 PM
Pure Socialism is great if all or most countries of the world follow it. In Socialism there is no such thing as price, but people will be rewarded on their abilities and what they contribute to society. It's a great opportunity for hard working people to get what they deserve.
That isn't an answer to what I said, it's a non sequitur.
Furthermore, a pure Socialist economy has never been tried out by any country including the self proclaimed "Communist" states. Because if it did, then it would be isolated to the rest of the world unless the the rest of the world followed the same system.
What an absurd argument.
KeinMitleid
06-14-2014, 03:22 AM
Socialism in the context of one nation.
Neon Knight
06-22-2014, 06:29 PM
A free market as the basic engine of the economy with some profit-sharing and worker and consumer protection laws. Also, a minimum wage linked to wage-inflation.
Breedingvariety
06-22-2014, 06:42 PM
Free market, no taxation.
Minesweeper
06-22-2014, 07:00 PM
Pure Socialism is great if all or most countries of the world follow it. In Socialism there is no such thing as price, but people will be rewarded on their abilities and what they contribute to society. It's a great opportunity for hard working people to get what they deserve.
Furthermore, a pure Socialist economy has never been tried out by any country including the self proclaimed "Communist" states. Because if it did, then it would be isolated to the rest of the world unless the the rest of the world followed the same system.
Where did you get this from?
When you say people will be rewarded according to their abilities and contributions, you forget that people posses different psychical and mental abilities. We have mentally ill and homeless people who contribute nothing and whose abilities are rather limited. On the other hand, we have very talented, educated and above all, ambitious people who expect high rewards for their contributions. In the middle, we have ''average people'' how to make them equal if we reward them according to their abilities and contributions? We know that socialist society is egalitarian society.
Rewarding people according to their abilities and contributions is actually a libertarian principle, I am surprised that you share it. Marx would say something different, people works as much as they can and their needs have to be satisfied. Which is a principle that is impossible to implement in reality in it's raw form but still a principle whose essence should be accepted by every self declared communist.
Herr Abubu
06-22-2014, 07:13 PM
When you say people will be rewarded according to their abilities and contributions, you forget that people posses different psychical and mental abilities. We have mentally ill and homeless people who contribute nothing and whose abilities are rather limited. On the other hand, we have very talented, educated and above all, ambitious people who expect high rewards for their contributions. In the middle, we have ''average people'' how to make them equal if we reward them according to their abilities and contributions? We know that socialist society is egalitarian society.
Rewarding people according to their abilities and contributions is actually a libertarian principle, I am surprised that you share it. Marx would say something different, people works as much as they can and their needs have to be satisfied. Which is a principle that is impossible to implement in reality in it's raw form but still a principle whose essence should be accepted by every self declared communist.
When you talk to a communist always remember that the communist will say certain things that seem contrary to their actual position because he defines word to mean something else than what they actually do. When this guy says people will be rewarded according to their ability, he defines reward and ability differently, what he really is saying "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Everything's a word game with these people and one should not expect them to be rational about anything.
Xanthias
06-22-2014, 07:14 PM
None.
Diërker
06-22-2014, 07:15 PM
NATIONAL SOCIALISM.
Minesweeper
06-22-2014, 07:26 PM
When you talk to a communist always remember that the communist will say certain things that seem contrary to their actual position because he defines word to mean something else than what they actually do. When this guy says people will be rewarded according to their ability, he defines reward and ability differently, what he really is saying "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need." Everything's a game with words with these people and one should not expect them to be rational about anything.
People who follow certain ideology do not have to be rational, that is where the power of ideology lies. Theoretical debates are left to philosophers.
Neon Knight
06-24-2014, 05:40 PM
NATIONAL SOCIALISM.The two work well together. Unregulated capitalsim will weaken national unity by creating large financial divisions between people. But the communist extreme is no good either. Hitler understood these things, at least.
Übermensch
06-24-2014, 05:59 PM
Free market economy (mostly) with state intervention and nationalized economic key sector, as well as welfare state.
Yaroslav
06-24-2014, 06:02 PM
Neither. Feudalism with regulated economy, with no compulsory re-distribution unless the rich abuse their money.
Hithaeglir
06-24-2014, 06:08 PM
A mix.
Linebacker
06-24-2014, 06:16 PM
I am a democrat and a liberal.I choose Capitalism.
Fedex
06-24-2014, 06:36 PM
Capitalism, but with the ilegalization of monopolies. Also no welfare, let the poor lazy people starve to death.
Neanderthal
06-24-2014, 07:10 PM
Capitalism, but with the ilegalization of monopolies. Also no welfare, let the poor lazy people starve to death.
Or commit crimes. I say just temporarily sterilize people with no income and criminal records, and don't reverse the surgery until they get a job.
armenianbodyhair
06-24-2014, 07:15 PM
Capitalism is a good thing, it drives progress, but I am not a fan of predator multinationals and corporatism. I think everyone should be given a chance to do well, and should either succeed or fail on their own merits, not an accident of birth.
Fedex
06-25-2014, 09:41 PM
Or commit crimes. I say just temporarily sterilize people with no income and criminal records, and don't reverse the surgery until they get a job.
That has a cost that no one wants to pay.
The only way to fight crime is to have strong punishment laws and a good police.
Atlantique
07-17-2014, 08:44 PM
Regulated capitalism:
Policies against free trade and the free movement of capital and labour which both hurt local workers.
Policies encouraging small businesses and discouraging monopolies.
Environmental regulation.
Policies protecting and encouraging local industry.
A basic safety net only for those truly in need; any applicants for welfare will have their credentials examined thoroughly. Welfare barred from immigrants.
Key industries to be partially owned by the state and under the state's supervision.
Hàkon
03-17-2015, 11:12 PM
Oppression through misery for the masses is its prerequisite and ultimate goal, packaged as the promise to give you all the sweet stuff others have - it's the greatest joke ever on the indigent.
By providing scapegoats and further excuses to aid people in the avoidance of responsibility - the very cause of poverty -, while simultaneously besmirching the ones in the know, socialism traps its masses in a state of mindless jealousy where the tools for actual success and satisfaction are made all the more unavailable and unappealing via taxes, regulations and social insurances.
The only two ways of reaching prosperity in the state of socialism is to reject it completely, or make a career within the nomenklatura which enforces it.
Therefore, among other things, capitalism.
Graham
03-17-2015, 11:55 PM
The only two ways of reaching prosperity in the state of socialism is to reject it completely.
Full on Capitalism would mean monopolies for big business, McDonald's on every corner. Small local shops beaten by the bigger national or international company.
Though I can see from a Swedish perspective of being irritated by high VAT on certain goods.
Prefer to have a little bit of both.
Breedingvariety
03-18-2015, 02:33 AM
Free market is good for small business. That's why we don't have free market.
Raphacam
03-18-2015, 11:09 PM
The perfect country would have a lot to learn with socialist experiences, but they had countless mistakes, many of which could have been avoided with the mere usage of socialism as a system, not as ideology.
Jackson
03-19-2015, 12:17 AM
Probably some sort of hybrid would be best.
In my mind having a more socialist system effectively puts both a floor and a cap on ability, the least able will be supported at the expense of the most able. Whereas in a more capitalist system the most able do extremely well and the least able have little support.
It's difficult to say, as i'm not really a fan of globalism or extreme capitalism, but extreme socialism isn't appealing for other reasons.
It's nice to have a structure and order to something. For example i'd be a lot better in a situation where there are clear goals, limits and specifications for many things that you do - but i'm just not a very entrepreneurial person overall. Having the prospect of say, doing x in y way for z amount of time in order to advance your position is much more appealing to me than being given a sum of money and going out to make more with it, but my dad is the opposite. I'd make an awful merchant.
Carignan
03-19-2015, 12:34 AM
Consumerism which is the base of Capitalism, needs to disappear. It only profits big corporations. It favours quantity over quality, which results in the unnecessary exploitation of the resources. I'm all in favour of artisanal handicraft production in which quality and unique goods are created. It also lets the worker appreciate his work and have a feeling of satisfaction. Free entreprise is an idea I totally agree to. The government should also prevent companies from having a monopoly which can lead to abuse if there is no competitions. I support small and local businesses which are part of the community and have human to human contact with the consumers. Big Corporations do not care about the people, they want the money because money is power.
Kabul
03-19-2015, 12:36 AM
socialist economic system + theocratic government or monarchy w/ state religion
Jackson
03-19-2015, 12:39 AM
Consumerism which is the base of Capitalism, needs to disappear. It only profits big corporations. It favours quantity over quality, which results in the unnecessary exploitation of the resources. I'm all in favour of artisanal handicraft production in which quality and unique goods are created. It also lets the worker appreciate his work and have a feeling of satisfaction. Free entreprise is an idea I totally to. The government should also prevent companies from having a monopoly which can lead to abuse if there is no competitions. I support small and local businesses which are part of the community and have human to human contact with the consumers. Big Corporations do not care about the people, they want the money because money is power.
Fair point, my family still use some tools that are probably over a century old - still work well. Half the stuff you buy now breaks within a few years.
Neon Knight
03-19-2015, 12:43 AM
There needs to be a good balance between the benefits of the profit motive and fair rewards and conditions for workers - but let the rules there be decided by the electorate as a whole and not trade unions or politicians. Natural monopolies like energy and water should be state owned but everything else should be free market with restricitions on advertisng, marketing and lending to prevent the kind of excessive consumerism we have now.
Carignan
03-19-2015, 12:44 AM
Fair point, my family still use some tools that are probably over a century old - still work well. Half the stuff you buy now breaks within a few years.
It is called planned obsolescence. Goods are made to break within a certain amount of time or have short life expectancy. It forces the consumer to buy again the same product many times and results in more profit for the company.
Jackson
03-19-2015, 12:46 AM
It is called planned obsolescence. Goods are made to break within a certain amount of time or have short life expectancy. It forces the consumer to buy again the same product many times and results in more profit for the company.
Yeah, it's clever but sad. Add on top of that the obsession with having the newest thing, even though it's barely different from the previous one that they had, which is still working.
Carignan
03-19-2015, 12:48 AM
There needs to be a good balance between the benefits of the profit motive and fair rewards and conditions for workers - but let the rules there be decided by the electorate as a whole and not trade unions or politicians. Natural monopolies like energy and water should be state owned but everything else should be free market with restricitions on advertisng, marketing and lending to prevent the kind of excessive consumerism we have now.
Yes, the state should own what is vital to its survival. You cannot let a country be dependent on companies for certain things as you mentioned: energy, water and the main natural resources. The state could decide to manage themselves those sectors or have a company do it under the supervision of the state to prevent abuse
Neon Knight
03-19-2015, 12:49 AM
If it serves its purpose then I'll keep a thing until it breaks. A lot of 'improvements' to consumer goods are just marketing ploys anyway.
Carignan
03-19-2015, 12:51 AM
Yeah, it's clever but sad. Add on top of that the obsession with having the newest thing, even though it's barely different from the previous one that they had, which is still working.
You are right, as a student I have noticed the same phenomenon, almost every year, new editions with small edits in school manuals are released only to force the student to buy full priced books instead of using the same, but 2 year older ''used'' book he got cheaper from an older student.
RandoBloom
03-19-2015, 01:02 AM
Yes, the state should own what is vital to its survival. You cannot let a country be dependent on companies for certain things as you mentioned: energy, water and the main natural resources. The state could decide to manage themselves those sectors or have a company do it under the supervision of the state to prevent abuse
The state shouldnt own anything. Everything should be privately own and free market would need to manage it on its own. From trash collecting to police, and from hay to uranium
Anthony PV
03-19-2015, 01:05 AM
Meh, capitalism and socialism are not two opposite ideologies, there are just the two opposite sides of the same coin. Like I wrote before, the REAL reason why Marxism became popular during the late 19th century and the early 20th century was because of all the social upheavals caused by the Industrial Revolution and the industrialization that followed... When people stopped being farmers in the rural countryside to become factory workers in the big city, they left behind not only their homes, their farms, their villages, their lands, their regions, their countries, etc., they also left behind their families, their friends, their relatives, their clans, their tribes, their races, etc. The only 'social glue' that binded people who are now complete strangers to one another became 'money'...
In other words, the current opposition between capitalism and socialism is not the cause of the current social disintegration... It's just part of the aftermath...
You are right, as a student I have noticed the same phenomenon, almost every year, new editions with small edits in school manuals are released only to force the student to buy full priced books instead of using the same, but 2 year older ''used'' book he got cheaper from an older student.
Meh, blame the Ministry of Education of Québec for that! :p
Carignan
03-19-2015, 01:09 AM
Meh, blame the Ministry of Education of Québec for that! :p
Pour une fois, non :P! Je crois que c'est de la faute des maisons d'éditions. Mélanger l'ordre des chapitres pour faire chier les étudiants et vendre une nouvelle édition quasiment obligatoire afin de faire plus de profit.
Pour une fois, non :P! Je crois que c'est de la faute des maisons d'éditions. Mélanger l'ordre des chapitres pour faire chier les étudiants et vendre une nouvelle édition quasiment obligatoire afin de faire plus de profit.
In NY I had to do the same thing, I had to buy the book new because the CD for the new edition had some "updates". Even though the book was exactly the same :rolleyes:
Carignan
03-19-2015, 01:26 AM
In NY I had to do the same thing, I had to buy the book new because the CD for the new edition had some "updates". Even though the book was exactly the same :rolleyes:
It seems like the schools are working with the publishers, to make it mandatory to buy the new editions. Cutting down trees to print identical books with minor changes and making the old editions useless is pretty lame. We are in the Age of Consumerism after all.
Anthony PV
03-19-2015, 01:31 AM
Pour une fois, non :P! Je crois que c'est de la faute des maisons d'éditions. Mélanger l'ordre des chapitres pour faire chier les étudiants et vendre une nouvelle édition quasiment obligatoire afin de faire plus de profit.
Bah, faut bien que les rédacteurs et les éditeurs canadiens-français fassent de l'argent pour se nourrir... :p Si ils ne faisaient qu'une édition complète qui n'a jamais besoin d'être mise à jour pour tous les bouquins qu'ils vendent, bin, ils se retrouveraient bin vite sur la paille... :p J'ai lu quelque part que les éditions « La Courte Échelle » ont fait faillite... :(
Carignan
03-19-2015, 01:35 AM
Bah, faut bien que les rédacteurs et les éditeurs canadiens-français fassent de l'argent pour se nourrir... :p Si ils ne faisaient qu'une édition complète qui n'a jamais besoin d'être mise à jour pour tous les bouquins qu'ils vendent, bin, ils se retrouveraient bin vite sur la paille... :p J'ai lu quelque part que les éditions « La Courte Échelle » ont fait faillite... :(
Oui, je comprends que les maisons d'éditions sont beaucoup dépendantes de leurs ventes, mais il ne faut pas aussi abuser les consommateurs. Je ne pense pas que les petites maisons d'édition fassent leur argent sur les manuels scolaires, plutôt sur les romans et le reste des livres.
lei.talk
03-21-2015, 09:13 PM
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a9/1988_CPA_6017.jpg/178px-1988_CPA_6017.jpg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Soviet_man#The_New_Man)https://i.imgur.com/u7leimb.pnghttps://i.imgur.com/yRsbqDB.jpg (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_Sovieticus)
"What?"
"It might have been me who started it. Me or about six thousand others. We might have. I think we did. I hope we're wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, there was something that happened at that plant where I worked for twenty years. It was when the old man died and his heirs took over. There were three of them, two sons and a daughter, and they brought a new plan to run the factory. They let us vote on it, too, and everybody—almost everybody—voted for it. We didn't know. We thought it was good. No, that's not true, either. We thought that we were supposed to think it was good. The plan was that everybody in the factory would work according to his ability, but would be paid according to his need (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858-Capitalism-or-Socialism). We—what's the matter, ma'am? Why do you look like that?"
"What was the name of the factory?" she asked, her voice barely audible.
"The Twentieth Century Motor Company, ma'am, of Starnesville, Wisconsin."
"Go on."
"We voted for that plan at a big meeting, with all of us present, six thousand of us, everybody that worked in the factory. The Starnes heirs made long speeches about it, and it wasn't too clear, but nobody asked any questions. None of us knew just how the plan would work, but every one of us thought that the next fellow knew it. And if anybody had doubts, he felt guilty and kept his mouth shut—because they made it sound like anyone who'd oppose the plan was a child killer at heart and less than a human being. They told us that this plan would achieve a noble ideal. Well, how were we to know otherwise? Hadn't we heard it all our lives—from our parents and our schoolteachers and our ministers, and in every newspaper we ever read and every movie and every public speech? Hadn't we always been told that this was righteous and just (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?6858-Capitalism-or-Socialism&p=2207620&viewfull=1#post2207620)? Well, maybe there's some excuse for what we did at that meeting. Still, we voted for the plan—and what we got, we had it coming to us. You know, ma'am, we are marked men, in a way, those of us who lived through the four years of that plan in the Twentieth Century factory. What is it that hell is supposed to be?
Evil—plain, naked, smirking evil, isn't it? Well, that's what we saw and helped to make—and I think we're damned, every one of us, and maybe we'll never be forgiven. . . .
Do you know how it worked, that plan, and what it did to people?
Try pouring water into a tank where there's a pipe at the bottom draining it out faster than you pour it, and each bucket you bring breaks that pipe an inch wider, and the harder you work the more is demanded of you, and you stand slinging buckets forty hours a week, then forty-eight, then fifty-six—for your neighbor's supper—for his wife's operation—for his child's measles—for his mother's wheel chair —for his uncle's shirt—for his nephew's schooling—for the baby next door—for the baby to be born—for anyone anywhere around you—it's theirs to receive, from diapers to dentures—and yours to work, from sunup to sundown, month after month, year after year, with nothing to show for it but your sweat, with nothing in sight for you but their pleasure, for the whole of your life, without rest, without hope, without end. . . . From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. . . .
We're all one big family, they told us, we're all in this together.
But you don't all stand working an acetylene torch ten hours a day—together, and you don't all get a bellyache—together. What's whose ability and which of whose needs comes first? When it's all one pot, you can't let any man decide what his own needs are, can you? If you did, he might claim that he needs a yacht—and if his feelings is all you have to go by, he might prove it, too. Why not? If it's not right for me to own a car until I've worked myself into a hospital ward, earning a car for every loafer and every naked savage on earth—why can't he demand a yacht from me, too, if I still have the ability not to have collapsed? No? He can't? Then why can he demand that I go without cream for my coffee until he's replastered his living room?
. . . Oh well . . . Well, anyway, it was decided that nobody had the right to judge his own need or ability. We voted on it. Yes, ma'am, we voted on it in a public meeting twice a year. How else could it be done? Do you care to think what would happen at such a meeting? It took us just one meeting to discover that we had become beggars—rotten, whining, sniveling beggars, all of us, because no man could claim his pay as his rightful earning, he had no rights and no earnings, his work didn't belong to him, it belonged to 'the family,' and they owed him nothing in return, and the only claim he had on them was his 'need'—so he had to beg in public for relief from his needs, like any lousy moocher, listing all his troubles and miseries, down to his patched drawers and his wife's head colds, hoping that 'the family' would throw him the alms. He had to claim miseries, because it's miseries, not work, that had become the coin of the realm—so it turned into a contest among six thousand panhandlers, each claiming that his need was worse than his brother's. How else could it be done? Do you care to guess what happened, what sort of men kept quiet, feeling shame, and what sort got away with the jackpot?
But that wasn't all. There was something else that we discovered at the same meeting. The factory's production had fallen by forty per cent, in that first half-year, so it was decided that somebody hadn't delivered 'according to his ability’ Who? How would you tell it? 'The family' voted on that, too. They voted which men were the best, and these men were sentenced to work overtime each night for the next six months. Overtime without pay—because you weren't paid by tune and you weren't paid by work, only by need.
Do I have to tell you what happened after that—and into what sort of creatures we all started turning, we who had once been human?
We began to hide whatever ability we had, to slow down and watch like hawks that we never worked any faster or better than the next fellow. What else could we do, when we knew that if we did our best for 'the family,' it's not thanks or rewards that we'd get, but punishment? We knew that for every stinker who'd ruin a batch of motors and cost the company money—either through his sloppiness, because he didn't have to care, or through plain incompetence—it's we who'd have to pay with our nights and our Sundays. So we did our best to be no good.
There was one young boy who started out, full of fire for the noble ideal, a bright kid without any schooling, but with a wonderful head on his shoulders. The first year, he figured out a work process that saved us thousands of man-hours. He gave it to 'the family,' didn't ask anything for it, either, couldn't ask, but that was all right with him. It was for the ideal, he said. But when he found himself voted as one of our ablest and sentenced to night work, because we hadn't gotten enough from him, he shut his mouth and his brain. You can bet he didn't come up with any ideas, the second year.
What was it they'd always told us about the vicious competition of the profit system, where men had to compete for who'd do a better job than his fellows? Vicious, wasn't it? Well, they should have seen what it was like when we all had to compete with one another for who'd do the worst job possible. There's no surer way to destroy a man than to force him into a spot where he has to aim at not doing his best, where he has to struggle to do a bad job, day after day. That will finish him quicker than drink or idleness or pulling stick-ups for a living. But there was nothing else for us to do except to fake unfitness.
The one accusation we feared was to be suspected of ability. Ability was like a mortgage on you that you could never pay off. And what was there to work for? You knew that your basic pittance would be given to you anyway, whether you worked or not—your 'housing and feeding allowance,' it was called—and above that pittance, you had no chance to get anything, no matter how hard you tried. You couldn't count on buying a new suit of clothes next year—they might give you a 'clothing allowance' or they might not, according to whether nobody broke a leg, needed an operation or gave birth to more babies. And if there wasn't enough money for new suits for everybody, then you couldn't get yours, either.
There was one man who'd worked hard all his life, because he'd always wanted to send his son through college. Well, the boy graduated from high school in the second year of the plan—but 'the family' wouldn't give the father any 'allowance’ for the college. They said his son couldn't go to college, until we had enough to send everybody's sons to college—and that we first had to send everybody's children through high school, and we didn't even have enough for that. The father died the following year, in a knife fight with somebody in a saloon, a fight over nothing in particular—such fights were beginning to happen among us all the time.
Then there was an old guy, a widower with no family, who had one hobby: phonograph records. I guess that was all he ever got out of life. In the old days, he used to skip meals just to buy himself some new recording of classical music. Well, they didn't give him any 'allowance' for records—'personal luxury,' they called it. But at that same meeting, Millie Bush, somebody's daughter, a mean, ugly little eight-year-old, was voted a pair of gold braces for her buck teeth—this was 'medical need,' because the staff psychologist had said that the poor girl would get an inferiority complex if her teeth weren't straightened out. The old guy' who loved music, turned to drink, instead. He got so you never saw him fully conscious any more. But it seems like there was one tiling he couldn't forget. One night, he came staggering down the street, saw Millie Bush, swung his fist and knocked all her teeth out. Every one of them.
Drink, of course, was what we all turned to, some more, some less.
Don't ask how we got the money for it. When all the decent pleasures are forbidden, there's always ways to get the rotten ones. You don't break into grocery stores after dark and you don't pick your fellow's pockets to buy classical symphonies or fishing tackle, but if it's to get stinking drunk and forget—you do. Fishing tackle? Hunting guns?
Snapshot cameras? Hobbies? There wasn't any 'amusement allowance' for anybody. 'Amusement' was the first thing they dropped. Aren't you always supposed to be ashamed to object when anybody asks you to give up anything, if it's something that gave you pleasure? Even our 'tobacco allowance' was cut to where we got two packs of cigarettes a month—and this, they told us, was because the money had to go into the babies' milk fund. Babies was the only item of production that didn't fall, but rose and kept on rising—because people had nothing else to do, I guess, and because they didn't have to care, the baby wasn't their burden, it was 'the family's.' In fact, the best chance you had of getting a raise and breathing easier for a while was a 'baby allowance.' Either that, or a major disease.
It didn't take us long to see how it all worked out. Any man who tried to play straight, had to refuse himself everything. He lost his taste for any pleasure, he hated to smoke a nickel's worth of tobacco or chew a stick of gum, worrying whether somebody had more need for that nickel. He felt ashamed of every mouthful of food he swallowed, wondering whose weary nights of overtime had paid for it, knowing that his food was not his by right, miserably wishing to be cheated rather than to cheat, to be a sucker, but not a blood-sucker.
He wouldn't marry, he wouldn't help his folks back home, he wouldn't put an extra burden on 'the family.' Besides, if he still had some sort of sense of responsibility, he couldn't marry or bring children into the world, when he could plan nothing, promise nothing, count on nothing.
But the shiftless and the irresponsible had a field day of it. They bred babies, they got girls into trouble, they dragged in every worthless relative they had from all over the country, every unmarried pregnant sister, for an extra 'disability allowance,' they got more sicknesses than any doctor could disprove, they ruined their clothing, their furniture, their homes—what the hell, 'the family' was paying for it! They found more ways of getting in 'need' than the rest of us could ever imagine —they developed a special skill for it, which was the only ability they showed.
God help us, ma'am! Do you see what we saw? We saw that we'd been given a law to live by, a moral law, they called it, which punished those who observed it—for observing it. The more you tried to live up to it, the more you suffered; the more you cheated it, the bigger reward you got. Your honesty was like a tool left at the mercy of the next man's dishonesty. The honest ones paid, the dishonest collected.
The honest lost, the dishonest won. How long could men stay good under this sort of a law of goodness? We were a pretty decent bunch of fellows when we started. There weren't many chiselers among us.
We knew our jobs and we were proud of it and we worked for the best factory in the country, where old man Starnes hired nothing but the pick of the country's labor. Within one year under the new plan, there wasn't an honest man left among us. That was the evil, the sort of hell-horror evil that preachers used to scare you with, but you never thought to see alive. Not that the plan encouraged a few bastards, but that it turned decent people into bastards, and there was nothing else that it could do—and it was called a moral ideal!
What was it we were supposed to want to work for? For the love of our brothers? What brothers? For the bums, the loafers, the moochers we saw all around us? And whether they were cheating or plain incompetent, whether they were unwilling or unable—what difference did that make to us? If we were tied for life to the level of their unfitness, faked or real, how long could we care to go on? We had no way of knowing their ability, we had no way of controlling their needs—all we knew was that we were beasts of burden struggling blindly in some sort of place that was half-hospital, half-stockyards—a place geared to nothing but disability, disaster, disease—beasts put there for the relief of whatever whoever chose to say was whichever's need.
Love of our brothers? That's when we learned to hate our brothers for the first time in our lives. We began to hate them for every meal they swallowed, for every small pleasure they enjoyed, for one man's new shirt, for another's wife's hat, for an outing with their family, for a paint job on their house—it was taken from us, it was paid for by our privations, our denials, our hunger. We began to spy on one another, each hoping to catch the others lying about their needs, so as to cut their 'allowance' at the next meeting. We began to have stool pigeons who informed on people, who reported that somebody had bootlegged a turkey to his family on some Sunday—which he'd paid for by gambling, most likely. We began to meddle into one another's lives. We provoked family quarrels, to get somebody's relatives thrown out. Any time we saw a man starting to go steady with a girl, we made life miserable for him. We broke up many engagements.
We didn't want anyone to marry, we didn't want any more dependents to feed.
In the old days, we used to celebrate if somebody had a baby, we used to chip in and help him out with the hospital bills, if he happened to be hard-pressed for the moment. Now, if a baby was born, we didn't speak to the parents for weeks. Babies, to us, had become what locusts were to farmers. In the old days, we used to help a man if he had a bad illness in the family. Now—well, I’ll tell you about just one case. It was the mother of a man who had been with us for fifteen years. She was a kindly old lady, cheerful and wise, she knew us all by our first names and we all liked her—we used to like her. One day, she slipped on the cellar stairs and fell and broke her hip. We knew what that meant at her age. The staff doctor said that she'd have to be sent to a hospital in town, for expensive treatments that would take a long time. The old lady died the night before she was to leave for town. They never established the cause of death. No, I don't know whether she was murdered. Nobody said that. Nobody would talk about it at all. All I know is that I—and that's what I can't forget!—I, too, had caught myself wishing that she would die. This—may God forgive us!—was the brotherhood, the security, the abundance that the plan was supposed to achieve for us!
Was there any reason why this sort of horror would ever be preached by anybody? Was there anybody who got any profit from it? There was. The Starnes heirs. I hope you're not going to remind me that they'd sacrificed a fortune and turned the factory over to us as a gift. We were fooled by that one, too. Yes, they gave up the factory. But profit, ma'am, depends on what it is you're after. And what the Starnes heirs were after, no money on earth could buy.
Money is too clean and innocent for that.
Eric Starnes, the youngest—he was a jellyfish that didn't have the guts to be after anything in particular. He got himself voted as Director of our Public Relations Department, which didn't do anything, except that he had a staff for the not doing of anything, so he didn't have to bother sticking around the office. The pay he got—well, I shouldn't call it 'pay,' none of us was 'paid'—the alms voted to him was fairly modest, about ten times what I got, but that wasn't riches.
Eric didn't care for money—he wouldn't have known what to do with it. He spent his time hanging around among us, showing how chummy he was and democratic. He wanted to be loved, it seems. The way he went about it was to keep reminding us that he had given us the factory. We couldn't stand him.
Gerald Starnes was our Director of Production. We never learned just what the size of his rake-off—his alms—had been. It would have taken a staff of accountants to figure that out, and a staff of engineers to trace the way it was piped, directly or indirectly, into his office.
None of it was supposed to be for him—it was all for company expenses. Gerald had three cars, four secretaries, five telephones, and he used to throw champagne and caviar parties that no tax-paying tycoon in the country could have afforded. He spent more money in one year than his father had earned in profits in the last two years of his life. We saw a hundred-pound stack—a hundred pounds, we weighed them—of magazines in Gerald's office, full of stories about our factory and our noble plan, with big pictures of Gerald Starnes, calling him a great social crusader. Gerald liked to come into the shops at night, dressed in his formal clothes, flashing diamond cuff links the size of a nickel and shaking cigar ashes all over. Any cheap show-off who's got nothing to parade but his cash, is bad enough—except that he makes no bones about the cash being his, and you're free to gape at him or not, as you wish, and mostly you don't. But when a bastard like Gerald Starnes puts on an act and keeps spouting that he doesn't care for material wealth, that he's only serving 'the family,' that all the lushness is not for himself, but for our sake and for the common good, because it's necessary to keep up the prestige of the company and of the noble plan in the eyes of the public—then that's when you learn to hate the creature as you've never hated anything human.
But his sister Ivy was worse. She really did not care for material wealth. The alms she got was no bigger than ours, and she went about in scuffed, flat-heeled shoes and shirtwaists—just to show how selfless she was. She was our Director of Distribution. She was the lady in charge of our needs. She was the one who held us by the throat. Of course, distribution was supposed to be decided by voting—by the voice of the people. But when the people are six thousand howling voices, trying to decide without yardstick, rhyme or reason, when there are no rules to the game and each can demand anything, but has a right to nothing, when everybody holds power over everybody's life except his own—then it turns out, as it did, that the voice of the people is Ivy Starnes. By the end of the second year, we dropped the pretense of the 'family meetings'—in the name of 'production efficiency and time economy,' one meeting used to take ten days—and all the petitions of need were simply sent to Miss Starnes' office. No, not sent. They had to be recited to her in person by every petitioner.
Then she made up a distribution list, which she read to us for our vote of approval at a meeting that lasted three-quarters of an hour.
We voted approval. There was a ten-minute period on the agenda for discussion and objections. We made no objections. We knew better by that time. Nobody can divide a factory's income among thousands of people, without some sort of a gauge to measure people's value. Her gauge was bootlicking. Selfless? In her father's time, all of his money wouldn't have given him a chance to speak to his lousiest wiper and get away with it, as she spoke to our best skilled workers and their wives. She had pale eyes that looked fishy, cold and dead. And if you ever want to see pure evil, you should have seen the way her eyes glinted when she watched some man who'd talked back to her once and who'd just heard his name on the list of those getting nothing above basic pittance. And when you saw it, you saw the real motive of any person who's ever preached the slogan: 'From each according to his ability, to each according to his need,'
This was the whole secret of it. At first, I kept wondering how it could be possible that the educated, the cultured, the famous men of the world could make a mistake of this size and preach, as righteousness, this sort of abomination—when five minutes of thought should have told them what would happen if somebody tried to practice what they preached. Now I know that they didn't do it by any kind of mistake. Mistakes of this size are never made innocently.
If men fall for some vicious piece of insanity, when they have no way to make it work and no possible reason to explain their choice—it's because they have a reason that they do not wish to tell. And we weren't so innocent either, when we voted for that plan at the first meeting. We didn't do it just because we believed that the drippy old guff they spewed was good. We had another reason, but the guff helped us to hide it from our neighbors and from ourselves. The guff gave us a chance to pass off as virtue something that we'd be ashamed to admit otherwise. There wasn't a man voting for it who didn't think that under a setup of this kind he'd muscle in on the profits of the men abler than himself. There wasn't a man rich and smart enough but that he didn't think that somebody was richer and smarter, and this plan would give him a share of his better's wealth and brain. But while he was thinking that he'd get unearned benefits from the men above, he forgot about the men below who'd get unearned benefits, too. He forgot about all his inferiors who'd rush to drain him just as he hoped to drain his superiors. The worker who liked the idea that his need entitled him to a limousine like his boss's, forgot that every bum and beggar on earth would come howling that their need entitled them to an icebox like his own. That was our real motive when we voted—that was the truth of it—but we didn't like to think it, so the less we liked it, the louder we yelled about our love for the common good.
Well, we got what we asked for. By the time we saw what it was that we'd asked for, it was too late. We were trapped, with no place to go. The best men among us left the factory in the first week of the plan. We lost our best engineers, superintendents, foremen and highest skilled workers. A man of self-respect doesn't turn into a milch cow for anybody. Some able fellows tried to stick it out, but they couldn't take it for long. We kept losing our men, they kept escaping from the factory like from a pesthole—till we had nothing left except the men of need, but none of the men of ability.
And the few of us who were still any good, but stayed on, were only those who had been there too long. In the old days, nobody ever quit the Twentieth Century—and, somehow, we couldn't make ourselves believe that it was gone. After a while, we couldn't quit, because no other employer would have us—for which I can't blame him.
Nobody would deal with us in any way, no respectable person or firm.
All the small shops, where we traded, started moving out of Starnesville fast—till we had nothing left but saloons, gambling joints and crooks who sold us trash at gouging prices. The alms we got kept falling, but the cost of our living went up. The list of the factory's needy kept stretching, but the list of its customers shrank. There was less and less income to divide among more and more people. In the old days, it used to be said that the Twentieth Century Motor trademark was as good as the karat mark on gold. I don't know what it was that the Starnes heirs thought, if they thought at all, but I suppose that like all social planners and like savages, they thought that this trademark was a magic stamp which did the trick by some sort of voodoo power and that it would keep them rich, as it had kept their father. Well, when our customers began to see that we never delivered an order on time and never put out a motor that didn't have something wrong with it—the magic stamp began to work the other way around: people wouldn't take a motor as a gift, if it was marked Twentieth Century, And it came to where our only customers were men who never paid and never meant to pay their bills. But Gerald Starnes, doped by his own publicity, got huffy and went around, with an air of moral superiority, demanding that businessmen place orders with us, not because our motors were good, but because we needed the orders so badly.
By that time, a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice. What good would our need do to a power plant when its generators stopped because of our defective engines? What good would it do to a man caught on an operating table when the electric light went out? What good would it do to the passengers of a plane when its motor failed in mid-air?
And if they bought our product, not because of its merit, but because of our need, would that be the good, the right, the moral thing to do for the owner of that power plant, the surgeon in that hospital, the maker of that plane?
Yet this was the moral law that the professors and leaders and thinkers had wanted to establish all over the earth. If this is what it did in a single small town where we all knew one another, do you care to think what it would do on a world scale? Do you care to imagine what it would be like, if you had to live and to work, when you're tied to all the disasters and all the malingering of the globe? To work —and whenever any men failed anywhere, it's you who would have to make up for it. To work—with no chance to rise, with your meals and your clothes and your home and your pleasure depending on any swindle, any famine, any pestilence anywhere on earth. To work—with no chance for an extra ration, till the Cambodians have been fed and the Patagonians have been sent through college. To work—on a blank check held by every creature born, by men whom you'll never see, whose needs you'll never know, whose ability or laziness or sloppiness or fraud you have no way to learn and no right to question —just to work and work and work—and leave it up to the Ivys and the Geralds of the world to decide whose stomach will consume the effort, the dreams and the days of your life. And this is the moral law to accept? This—a moral ideal?
Well, we tried it—and we learned. Our agony took four years, from our first meeting to our last, and it ended the only way it could end: in bankruptcy. At our last meeting, Ivy Starnes was the one who tried to brazen it out. She made a short, nasty, snippy little speech in which she said that the plan had failed because the rest of the country had not accepted it, that a single community could not succeed in the midst of a selfish, greedy world—and that the plan was a noble ideal, but human nature was not good enough for it. A young boy—the one who had been punished for giving us a useful idea in our first year—got up, as we all sat silent, and walked straight to Ivy Starnes on the platform. He said nothing. He spat in her face. That was the end of the noble plan and of the Twentieth Century."
The man had spoken as if the burden of his years of silence had slipped suddenly out of his grasp. She knew that this was his tribute to her: he had shown no reaction to her kindness, he had seemed numbed to human value or human hope, but something within him had been reached and his response was this confession, this long, desperate cry of rebellion against injustice, held back for years, but breaking out in recognition of the first person he had met in whose hearing an appeal for justice would not be hopeless. It was as if the life he had been about to renounce were given back to him by the two essentials he needed: by his food and by the presence of a rational being."
"But what about John Galt (http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/atlasshrugged/canalysis.html#John-Galt)?" she asked.
"Oh . . ." he said, remembering. "Oh, yes . . ."
"You were going to tell me why people started asking that question."
"Yes . . ." He was looking off, as if at some sight which he had studied for years, but which remained unchanged and unsolved; his face had an odd, questioning look of terror.
"You were going to tell me who was the John Galt (http://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/a/atlas-shrugged/character-analysis/john-galt) they mean—if there ever was such a person."
"I hope there wasn't, ma'am. I mean, I hope that it's just a coincidence, just a sentence that hasn't any meaning."
"You had something in mind. What?"
"It was . . . it was something that happened at that first meeting at the Twentieth Century factory. Maybe that was the start of it, maybe not. I don't know . . . The meeting was held on a spring night, twelve years ago. The six thousand of us were crowded on bleachers built way up to the rafters of the plant's largest hangar. We had just voted for the new plan and we were in an edgy sort of mood, making too much noise, cheering the people's victory, threatening some kind of unknown enemies and spoiling for a fight, like bullies with an uneasy conscience. There were white arclights beating down on us and we felt kind of touchy and raw, and we were an ugly, dangerous mob in that moment. Gerald Starnes, who was chairman, kept hammering his gavel for order, and we quieted down some, but not much, and you could see the whole place moving restlessly from side to side, like water in a pan that's being rocked. 'This is a crucial moment in the history of mankind!' Gerald Starnes yelled through the noise. 'Remember that none of us may now leave this place, for each of us belongs to all the others by the moral law which we all accept!' 'I don't," said one man and stood up. He was one of the young engineers. Nobody knew much about him. He'd always kept mostly by himself. When he stood up, we suddenly turned dead-still. It was the way he held his head. He was tall and slim—and I remember thinking that any two of us could have broken his neck without trouble—but what we all felt was fear. He stood like a man who knew that he was right. 'I will put an end to this, once and for all,' he said. His voice was clear and without any feeling. That was all he said and started to walk out. He walked down the length of the place, in the white light, not hurrying and not noticing any of us. Nobody moved to stop him. Gerald Starnes cried suddenly after him, 'How?' He turned and answered, 'I will stop the motor of the world. Then he walked out. We never saw him again.
We never heard what became of him. But years later, when we saw the lights going out, one after another, in the great factories that had stood solid like mountains for generations, when we saw the gates closing and the conveyor belts turning still, when we saw the roads growing empty and the stream of cars draining off, when it began to look as if some silent power were stopping the generators of the world and the world was crumbling quietly, like a body when its spirit is gone—then we began to wonder and to ask questions about him. We began to ask it of one another, those of us who had heard him say it.
We began to think that he had kept his word, that he, who had seen and known the truth we refused to know, was the retribution we had called upon our heads, the avenger, the man of that justice which we had defied. We began to think that he had damned us and there was no escape from his verdict and we would never be able to get away from him—and this was the more terrible because he was not pursuing us, it was we who were suddenly looking for him and he had merely gone without a trace. We found no answer about him anywhere. We wondered by what sort of impossible power he could have done what he had promised to do. There was no answer to that. We began to think of him whenever we saw another collapse in the world, which nobody could explain, whenever we took another blow, whenever we lost another hope, whenever we felt caught in this dead, gray fog that's descending all over the earth. Perhaps people heard us crying that question and they did not know what we meant, but they knew too well the feeling that made us cry it. They, too, felt that something had gone from the world. Perhaps this was why they began to say it, whenever they felt that there was no hope. I'd like to think that I am wrong, that those words mean nothing, that there's no conscious intention and no avenger behind the ending of the human race. But when I hear them repeating that question, I feel afraid. I think of the man who said that he would stop the motor of the world. You see, his name was John Galt (http://www.shmoop.com/atlas-shrugged/john-galt.html)."
https://i.imgur.com/TjFkpd6.jpg (https://www.google.com/search?q=starnesville)
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0e/Sign_Ayn_Rand.png/120px-Sign_Ayn_Rand.png (http://www.theapricity.com/forum/showthread.php?260-And-your-favourite-Philosopher-is&p=3029872&viewfull=1#post3029872)
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ius semper
03-21-2015, 09:14 PM
Capitalism controlled by the gouvernment ( I mean a real and useful gouvernment)
Sideritis
03-21-2015, 10:01 PM
In theory or in practice?
Darth Revan
03-21-2015, 10:02 PM
False Dichotomy - Both are ill-defined and both (as commonly understood) are manifestations of modern liberal humanism.
Cool. First post already gave the answer.
Can only +1 it.
sethreign
03-30-2015, 08:54 AM
Definitely socialism. BUT a little capitalism is good to keep it in check. NOT capitalism on its own because I see it as a destructive force.
SardiniaAtlantis
06-08-2017, 08:50 PM
You can't have just one, without a balance everything goes to crap.
wvwvw
06-08-2017, 08:53 PM
Capitalism is about working less to earn more
If working is the price we pay to obtain things we want, then economic progress means decreasing this price thanks to continued productivity growth. Ferghane Azihari explains: https://mises.org/blog/capitalism-about-working-less-earn-more
In 1800, you had to work, on average, one hour to obtain ten minutes of artificial light. Today, this same hour allows you to buy 300 days of light. In 1900, one kilowatt-hour of electricity cost one hour of work. This costs five minutes of our time now. Buying one cheeseburger in McDonald’s required 30 minutes of hard labor in 1950. This same sandwich now costs about three minutes of your life.
According to British intellectual Matt Ridley, this evolution is the ultimate illustration of wealth in modern societies. In his book The Rational Optimist published in 2010, he evaluates our prosperity by outlining the goods and services we can purchase for the same amount of work. Thus, the main objective of economic development is to reduce the amount of time we have to work in order to produce what we need to live.
This discourse may sound surprising in a world where it is often said that “job creation” is the most important goal of economic policy. But a job is not an end in itself. It is just a means to live better. As Milton Friedman reminds us in this conference dedicated to free trade, we don’t want jobs per se but productive jobs: jobs which enable us to consume goods and services we produce at a minimum expenditure of efforts.
In other words, if working is the price we pay to obtain things we want, then economic progress has always consisted of decreasing this price thanks to perpetual productivity growth. This explains our ability to create more wealth with less and less labor, in order to save time for more valuable activities.
SardiniaAtlantis
06-08-2017, 08:55 PM
Capitalism is about working less to earn more
If working is the price we pay to obtain things we want, then economic progress means decreasing this price thanks to continued productivity growth. Ferghane Azihari explains: https://mises.org/blog/capitalism-about-working-less-earn-more
CapitLism cannot run rampant as corporations have no care whatsoever for human beings and are not fit to be what laws are centered around.
Óttar
06-08-2017, 09:00 PM
Social Democracy with a sensible immigration policy, private enterprise, and government funded public works projects. I get tired of these extreme capitalists complaining that they are oppressed because they have to pay taxes, but they're extravagantly wealthy compared to everyone else. Let's face it, it is the very nature of business that not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur, the market would be saturated.
SardiniaAtlantis
06-08-2017, 09:08 PM
Social Democracy with a sensible immigration policy, private enterprise, and government funded public works projects. I get tired of these extreme capitalists complaining that they are oppressed because they have to pay taxes, but they're extravagantly wealthy compared to everyone else. Let's face it, it is the very nature of business that not everyone can be a successful entrepreneur, the market would be saturated.
Exactly why I wanted Bernie for President as did most of the American people.
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