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Goodbye Jesus

Capitalism!


Lightbearer

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Hi folks, I thought I'd weigh in on this chat.

 

There seem to be some pretty mercenary views regarding capitalism, which is probably why some socialists react negatively to it. Ayn Rand's intolerant views towards altruism probably went a long way to contribute to capitalism's bad image.

 

My question is this: we have, for time immemorial, had governments that operated on some combination of state pooled resources (socialism) and free market resources (capitalism). Why then, do people seem to discuss the ideas of collective resources and private resources as if they were mutually exclusive? I should think by now that we could agree that some resources, especially important ones which everyone in the population needs access to, regardless of income, can be collective, while other less essential ones can be private.

 

We've seen very successful models of socialized services in other countries (and here in the Sates). We've also seen very successful, rich, vibrant private markets. We've seen failures of collective services, and we've seen failures of private markets (notably when a monopoly or collusion occurs). Is it necessary to take a position which excludes either of these approaches to resource allocation? If so, why haven't we done it?

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

Like Taph said, and much as the fundamentalists on both sides of the fence adamantly deny it, there is good to be found in just about every economic system. It's considered not only wise but virtuous to take the good qualities from two or more disparate options and combine them into a higher-quality end product that transcends the sum of its parts. We've been doing it for millennia with crops and livestock, ever since humans in the fertile crescent began cultivating wheat and herding goats at the dawn of civilization. If it's such a good idea and works so well in other areas of human society and experience, why is it such a bad thing in respect to economics?

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The thing is, no economic system guarantees that everyone will be fat and happy. To state that any single system has that ability is wishful idealistic thinking.

I agree but Digitalquirk seemed to be implying that some type of economic utopia existed somehwere until capitalism came along and destroyed it.

 

In what part of capitalism, being a promoter of it, is it incumbent upon me to not care about my fellow human beings and follow the slogan of "the strong survive" bullshit of social darwinism? That is the mentality of sociopaths who trample on other peoples rights to make a buck. Well guess what? People like that occur in any economic system and it's not capitalism that is the problem, it's those people.

I guess I call myself a supporter of capitalism, but my my support is limited to my own experiece with the form that exists in the US, if that can be called capitalsm, vs a theoretical model of a true free market which I haven't experienced. As for social darwinism, I think the form of capitalism that exists in the US seems to reward those personality types because it's very competetive, which might be why it appeals to me personally. I am not sure I would go to the extent of diagnosing myself as sociopathic because I do have feelings and care about my fellow human beings, but at least in the US I do think that the money tends to flow towards those who tend to be smarter, stronger and faster than the next guy. But I also agree that if those are personality defects, then it must be the people that are defective, not the system.

 

Oh, and we're not talking about the US, Canada, or any country. We're talking about laissez-faire as it would exist in a hypothetical society.

I know and I apologize if I derailed the thread.... or whoever did. I can't really comment on laissez-faire since I don't know enough about it..... but I wanted to put my 2 cents in.

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I agree but Digitalquirk seemed to be implying that some type of economic utopia existed somehwere until capitalism came along and destroyed it.

 

I know, I agree with what you were saying, I was just adding onto it :)

 

Sorry if you felt I was attacking your post.

 

I guess I call myself a supporter of capitalism, but my my support is limited to my own experiece with the form that exists in the US, if that can be called capitalsm, vs a theoretical model of a true free market which I haven't experienced. As for social darwinism, I think the form of capitalism that exists in the US seems to reward those personality types because it's very competetive, which might be why it appeals to me personally. I am not sure I would go to the extent of diagnosing myself as sociopathic because I do have feelings and care about my fellow human beings, but at least in the US I do think that the money tends to flow towards those who tend to be smarter, stronger and faster than the next guy. But I also agree that if those are personality defects, then it must be the people that are defective, not the system.

In ANY economic system (nearly any, anyways), it is the stronger, faster, smarter people who do survive better. That's a given, but it's a descriptive given. To have that mentality in order to justify ones immoral actions against another isn't the point of capitalism. The point of capitalism is to give those people with their abilities the freedom to pursue their dreams without being burdened by forced payment to care for everyone else (taxes, welfare, social programs). I don't see helping people as wrong, I see being forced to help people as wrong and I'm less inclined to not help those in need if I'm forced to do it, especially people I don't know.

 

I'm certaintly not accusing you of being sociopathic, but it appears that a number of corporations and companies display that mentality where they shit on the "little guy" at any expense in order to make money.

 

I'm sure you don't do that, and it's possible to succeed without doing so.

 

I know and I apologize if I derailed the thread.... or whoever did. I can't really comment on laissez-faire since I don't know enough about it..... but I wanted to put my 2 cents in.

 

Think of it as an economical system where the government doesn't get to put it's greedy little hands into what people do or how businesses are run (with exception to violation of moral law).

 

Like Taph said, and much as the fundamentalists on both sides of the fence adamantly deny it, there is good to be found in just about every economic system.

 

There is and I don't deny that there is some good in socialism. I prefer freedom.

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Okay, to Taph, Woodsmoke and those talking about a median between capitalism and socialism (or communism) I have to bust out the von Mises cannon to show how that's wrong, there is to middle ground because the two are complete contradictions of each other.

 

http://www.mises.org/midroad.asp

 

1. Socialism

But, of course, the practical political conclusions which people drew from this dogma were not uniform. One group declared that there is but one way to wipe out these evils, namely to abolish capitalism entirely. They advocate the substitution of public control of the means of production for private control. They aim at the establishment of what is called socialism, communism, planning, or state capitalism. All these terms signify the same thing. No longer should the consumers, by their buying and abstention from buying, determine what should be produced, in what quantity and of what quality. Henceforth a central authority alone should direct all production activities.

 

2. Interventionism, Allegedly a Middle-of-the-Road Policy

 

A second group seems to be less radical. They reject socialism no less than capitalism. They recommend a third system, which, as they say, is as far from capitalism as it is from socialism, which as a third system of society's economic organization, stands midway between the two other systems, and while retaining the advantages of both, avoids the disadvantages inherent in each. This third system is known as the system of interventionism. In the terminology of American politics it is often referred to as the middle-of-the-road policy. What makes this third system popular with many people is the particular way they choose to look upon the problems involved. As they see it, two classes, the capitalists and entrepreneurs on the one hand and the wage earners on the other hand, are arguing about the distribution of the yield of capital and entrepreneurial activities. Both parties are claiming the whole cake for themselves. Now, suggest these mediators, let us make peace by splitting the disputed value equally between the two classes. The State as an impartial arbiter should interfere, and should curb the greed of the capitalists and assign a part of the profits to the working classes. Thus it will be possible to dethrone the moloch capitalism without enthroning the moloch of totalitarian socialism.

 

Yet this mode of judging the issue is entirely fallacious. The antagonism between capitalism and socialism is not a dispute about the distribution of booty. It is a controversy about which two schemes for society's economic organization, capitalism or socialism, is conducive to the better attainment of those ends which all people consider as the ultimate aim of activities commonly called economic, viz., the best possible supply of useful commodities and services. Capitalism wants to attain these ends by private enterprise and initiative, subject to the supremacy of the public's buying and abstention from buying on the market. The socialists want to substitute the unique plan of a central authority for the plans of the various individuals. They want to put in place of what Marx called the "anarchy of production" the exclusive monopoly of the government. The antagonism does not refer to the mode of distributing a fixed amount of amenities. It refers to the mode of producing all those goods which people want to enjoy.

 

The conflict of the two principles is irreconcilable and does not allow for any compromise. Control is indivisible. Either the consumers' demand as manifested on the market decides for what purposes and how the factors of production should be employed, or the government takes care of these matters. There is nothing that could mitigate the opposition between these two contradictory principles. They preclude each other. Interventionism is not a golden mean between capitalism and socialism. It is the design of a third system of society's economic organization and must be appreciated as such.

 

3. How Interventionism Works

 

It is not the task of today's discussion to raise any questions about the merits either of capitalism or of socialism. I am dealing today with interventionism alone. And I do not intend to enter into an arbitrary evaluation of interventionism from any preconceived point of view. My only concern is to show how interventionism works and whether or not it can be considered as a pattern of a permanent system for society's economic organization.

 

The interventionists emphasize that they plan to retain private ownership of the means of production, entrepreneurship and market exchange. But, they go on to say, it is peremptory to prevent these capitalist institutions from spreading havoc and unfairly exploiting the majority of people. It is the duty of government to restrain, by orders and prohibitions, the greed of the propertied classes lest their acquisitiveness harm the poorer classes. Unhampered or laissez-faire capitalism is an evil. But in order to eliminate its evils, there is no need to abolish capitalism entirely. It is possible to improve the capitalist system by government interference with the actions of the capitalists and entrepreneurs. Such government regulation and regimentation of business is the only method to keep off totalitarian socialism and to salvage those features of capitalism which are worth preserving. On the ground of this philosophy, the interventionists advocate a galaxy of various measures. Let us pick out one of them, the very popular scheme of price control.

 

4. How Price Control Leads to Socialism

 

The government believes that the price of a definite commodity, e.g., milk, is too high. It wants to make it possible for the poor to give their children more milk. Thus it resorts to a price ceiling and fixes the price of milk at a lower rate than that prevailing on the free market. The result is that the marginal producers of milk, those producing at the highest cost, now incur losses. As no individual farmer or businessman can go on producing at a loss, these marginal producers stop producing and selling milk on the market. They will use their cows and their skill for other more profitable purposes. They will, for example, produce butter, cheese or meat. There will be less milk available for the consumers, not more. This, or course, is contrary to the intentions of the government. It wanted to make it easier for some people to buy more milk. But, as an outcome of its interference, the supply available drops. The measure proves abortive from the very point of view of the government and the groups it was eager to favor. It brings about a state of affairs, which—again from the point of view of the government—is even less desirable than the previous state of affairs which it was designed to improve.

 

Now, the government is faced with an alternative. It can abrogate its decree and refrain from any further endeavors to control the price of milk. But if it insists upon its intention to keep the price of milk below the rate the unhampered market would have determined and wants nonetheless to avoid a drop in the supply of milk, it must try to eliminate the causes that render the marginal producers' business unremunerative. It must add to the first decree concerning only the price of milk a second decree fixing the prices of the factors of production necessary for the production of milk at such a low rate that the marginal producers of milk will no longer suffer losses and will therefore abstain from restricting output. But then the same story repeats itself on a remoter plane. The supply of the factors of production required for the production of milk drops, and again the government is back where it started. If it does not want to admit defeat and to abstain from any meddling with prices, it must push further and fix the prices of those factors of production which are needed for the production of the factors necessary for the production of milk. Thus the government is forced to go further and further, fixing step by step the prices of all consumers' goods and of all factors of production—both human, i.e., labor, and material—and to order every entrepreneur and every worker to continue work at these prices and wages. No branch of industry can be omitted from this all-round fixing of prices and wages and from this obligation to produce those quantities which the government wants to see produced. If some branches were to be left free out of regard for the fact that they produce only goods qualified as non-vital or even as luxuries, capital and labor would tend to flow into them and the result would be a drop in the supply of those goods, the prices of which government has fixed precisely because it considers them as indispensable for the satisfaction of the needs of the masses.

 

But when this state of all-round control of business is attained, there can no longer be any question of a market economy. No longer do the citizens by their buying and abstention from buying determine what should be produced and how. The power to decide these matters has devolved upon the government. This is no longer capitalism; it is all-round planning by the government, it is socialism.

 

 

5. The Zwangswirtschaft Type of Socialism

 

It is, of course, true that this type of socialism preserves some of the labels and the outward appearance of capitalism. It maintains, seemingly and nominally, private ownership of the means of production, prices, wages, interest rates and profits. In fact, however, nothing counts but the government's unrestricted autocracy. The government tells the entrepreneurs and capitalists what to produce and in what quantity and quality, at what prices to buy and from whom, at what prices to sell and to whom. It decrees at what wages and where the workers must work. Market exchange is but a sham. All the prices, wages, and interest rates are determined by the authority. They are prices, wages, and interest rates in appearance only; in fact they are merely quantity relations in the government's orders. The government, not the consumers, directs production. The government determines, directs production. The government determines each citizen's income, it assigns to everybody the position in which he has to work. This is socialism in the outward guise of capitalism. It is the Zwangswirtschaft of Hitler's German Reich and the planned economy of Great Britain.

 

 

6. German and British Experience

 

For the scheme of social transformation which I have depicted is not merely a theoretical construction. It is a realistic portrayal of the succession of events that brought about socialism in Germany, in Great Britain and in some other countries.

 

The Germans, in the first World War, began with price ceilings for a small group of consumers' goods considered as vital necessities. It was the inevitable failure of these measures that impelled them to go further and further until, in the second period of the war, they designed the Hindenburg plan. In the context of the Hindenburg plan no room whatever was left for a free choice on the part of the consumers and for initiative action on the part of business. All economic activities were unconditionally subordinated to the exclusive jurisdiction of the authorities. The total defeat of the Kaiser swept the whole imperial apparatus of administration away and with it went also the grandiose plan. But when in 1931 Chancellor Brüning embarked anew on a policy of price control and his successors, first of all Hitler, obstinately clung to it, the same story repeated itself.

 

Great Britain and all the other countries which in the first World War adopted measures of price control, had to experience the same failure. They too were pushed further and further in their attempts to make the initial decrees work. But they were still at a rudimentary stage of this development when the victory and the opposition of the public brushed away all schemes for controlling prices.

 

It was different in the second World War. Then Great Britain again resorted to price ceilings for a few vital commodities and had to run the whole gamut proceeding further and further until it had substituted all-round planning of the country's whole economy for economic freedom. When the war came to an end, Great Britain was a socialist commonwealth.

 

It is noteworthy to remember that British socialism was not an achievement of Mr. Attlee's Labor Government, but of the war cabinet of Mr. Winston Churchill. What the Labor Party did was not the establishment of socialism in a free country, but retaining socialism as it had developed during the war and in the post-war period. The fact has been obscured by the great sensation made about the nationalization of the Bank of England, the coal mines and other branches of business. However, Great Britain is to be called a socialist country not because certain enterprises have been formally expropriated and nationalized, but because all the economic activities of all citizens are subject to full control of the government and its agencies. The authorities direct the allocation of capital and of manpower to the various branches of business. They determine what should be produced. Supremacy in all business activities is exclusively vested in the government. The people are reduced to the status of wards, unconditionally bound to obey orders. To the businessmen, the former entrepreneurs, merely ancillary functions are left. All that they are free to do is to carry into effect, within a nearly circumscribed narrow field, the decisions of the government departments.

 

What we have to realize is that price ceilings affecting only a few commodities fail to attain the ends sought. On the contrary. They produce effects which from the point of view of the government are even worse than the previous state of affairs which the government wanted to alter. If the government, in order to eliminate these inevitable but unwelcome consequences, pursues its course further and further, it finally transforms the system of capitalism and free enterprise into socialism of the Hindenburg pattern.

 

 

7. Crises and Unemployment

 

The same is true of all other types of meddling with the market phenomena. Minimum wage rates, whether decreed and enforced by the government or by labor union pressure and violence, result in mass unemployment prolonged year after year as soon as they try to raise wage rates above the height of the unhampered market. The attempts to lower interest rates by credit expansion generate, it is true, a period of booming business. But the prosperity thus created is only an artificial hot-house product and must inexorably lead to the slump and to the depression. People must pay heavily for the easy-money orgy of a few years of credit expansion and inflation.

 

The recurrence of periods of depression and mass unemployment has discredited capitalism in the opinion of injudicious people. Yet these events are not the outcome of the operation of the free market. They are on the contrary the result of well-intentioned but ill-advised government interference with the market. There are no means by which the height of wage rates and the general standard of living can be raised other than by accelerating the increase of capital as compared with population. The only means to raise wage rates permanently for all those seeking jobs and eager to earn wages is to raise the productivity of the industrial effort by increasing the per-head quota of capital invested. What makes American wage rates by far exceed the wage rates of Europe and Asia is the fact that the American worker's toil and trouble is aided by more and better tools. All that good government can do to improve the material well-being of the people is to establish and to preserve an institutional order in which there are no obstacles to the progressing accumulation of new capital required for the improvement of technological methods of production. This is what capitalism did achieve in the past and will achieve in the future too if not sabotaged by a bad policy.

 

8. Two Roads to Socialism

 

Interventionism cannot be considered as an economic system destined to stay. It is a method for the transformation of capitalism into socialism by a series of successive steps. It is as such different from the endeavors of the communists to bring about socialism at one stroke. The difference does not refer to the ultimate end of the political movement; it refers mainly to the tactics to be resorted to for the attainment of an end that both groups are aiming at.

 

Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels recommended successively each of these two ways for the realization of socialism. In 1848, in the Communist Manifesto, they outlined a plan for the step-by-step transformation of capitalism into socialism. The proletariat should be raised to the position of the ruling class and use its political supremacy "to wrest, by degrees, all capital from the bourgeoisie." This, they declare, "cannot be effected except by means of despotic inroads on the rights of property and on the conditions of bourgeois production; by means of measures, therefore, which appear economically insufficient and untenable, but which in the course of the movement outstrip themselves, necessitate further inroads upon the old social order, and are unavoidable as a means of entirely revolutionizing the mode of production." In this vein they enumerate by way of example ten measures.

 

In later years Marx and Engels changed their minds. In his main treatise, Das Capital, first published in 1867, Marx saw things in a different way. Socialism is bound to come "with the inexorability of a law of nature." But it cannot appear before capitalism has reached its full maturity. There is but one road to the collapse of capitalism, namely the progressive evolution of capitalism itself. Then only will the great final revolt of the working class give it the finishing stroke and inaugurate the everlasting age of abundance.

 

From the point of view of this later doctrine Marx and the school of orthodox Marxism reject all policies that pretend to restrain, to regulate and to improve capitalism. Such policies, they declare, are not only futile, but outright harmful. For they rather delay the coming of age of capitalism, its maturity, and thereby also its collapse. They are therefore not progressive, but reactionary. It was this idea that led the German Social Democratic party to vote against Bismarck's social security legislation and to frustrate Bismarck's plan to nationalize the German tobacco industry. From the point of view of the same doctrine, the communists branded the American New Deal as a reactionary plot extremely detrimental to the true interests of the working people.

 

What we must realize is that the antagonism between the interventionists and the communists is a manifestation of the conflict between the two doctrines of the early Marxism and of the late Marxism. It is the conflict between the Marx of 1848, the author of the Communist Manifesto, and the Marx of 1867, the author of Das Capital. And it is paradoxical indeed that the document in which Marx endorsed the policies of the present-day self-styled anti-communists is called the Communist Manifesto.

 

There are two methods available for the transformation of capitalism into socialism. One is to expropriate all farms, plants, and shops and to operate them by a bureaucratic apparatus as departments of the government. The whole of society, says Lenin, becomes "one office and one factory, with equal work and equal pay,"[1] the whole economy will be organized "like the postal sytem."[2] The second method is the method of the Hindenburg plan, the originally German pattern of the welfare state and of planning. It forces every firm and every individual to comply strictly with the orders issued by the government's central board of production management. Such was the intention of the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933 which the resistance of business frustrated and the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional. Such is the idea implied in the endeavors to substitute planning for private enterprise.

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[1] Cf. Lenin, State and Revolution (Little Lenin Library No. 14, New York, 1932) p. 84.

 

[2] Ibidem p. 44.

 

 

9. Foreign Exchange Control

 

The foremost vehicle for the realization of this second type of socialism in industrial countries like Germany and Great Britain is foreign exchange control. These countries cannot feed and clothe their people out of domestic resources. They must import large quantities of food and raw materials. In order to pay for these badly needed imports, they must export manufactures, most of them produced out of imported raw material. In such countries almost every business transaction directly or indirectly is conditioned either by exporting or importing or by both exporting and importing. Hence the government's monopoly of buying and selling foreign exchange makes every kind of business activity depend on the discretion of the agency entrusted with foreign exchange control. In this country matters are different. The volume of foreign trade is rather small when compared with the total volume of the nation's trade. Foreign exchange control would only slightly affect the much greater part of American business. This is the reason why in the schemes of our planners there is hardly any question of foreign exchange control. Their pursuits are directed toward the control of prices, wages, and interest rates, toward the control of investment and the limitation of profits and incomes.

 

10. Progressive Taxation

 

Looking backward on the evolution of income tax rates from the beginning of the Federal income tax in 1913 until the present day, one can hardly expect that the tax will not one day absorb 100 percent of all surplus above the income of the average voter. It is this that Marx and Engels had in mind when in the Communist Manifesto they recommended "a heavy progressive or graduated income tax."

 

Another of the suggestions of the Communist Manifesto was "abolition of all right of inheritance." Now, neither in Great Britain nor in this country have the laws gone up to this point. But again, looking backward upon the past history of the estate taxes, we have to realize that they more and more have approached the goal set by Marx. Estate taxes of the height they have already attained for the upper brackets are no longer to be qualified as taxes. They are measures of expropriation. The philosophy underlying the system of progressive taxation is that the income and the wealth of the well-to-do classes can be freely tapped. What the advocates of these tax rates fail to realize is that the greater part of the income taxes away would not have been consumed but saved and invested. In fact, this fiscal policy does not only prevent the further accumulation of new capital. It brings about capital decumulation. This is certainly today the state of affairs in Great Britain.

 

11. The Trend Toward Socialism

 

The course of events in the past thirty years shows a continuous, although sometimes interrupted progress toward the establishment in this country of socialism of the British and German pattern. The United States embarked later than these two other countries upon this decline and is today still farther away from its end. But if the trend of this policy will not change, the final result will only in accidental and negligible points differ from what happened in the England of Attlee and in the Germany of Hitler. The middle-of-the-road policy is not an economic system that can last. It is a method for the realization of socialism by installments.

 

12. Loopholes Capitalism

 

Many people object. They stress the fact that most of the laws which aim at planning or at expropriation by means of progressive taxation have left some loopholes which offer to private enterprise a margin within which it can go on. That such loopholes still exist and that thanks to them this country is still a free country is certainly true. But this loopholes capitalism is not a lasting system. It is a respite. Powerful forces are at work to close these loopholes. From day to day the field in which private enterprise is free to operate is narrowed down.

 

 

13. The Coming of Socialism is Not Inevitable

 

Of course, this outcome is not inevitable. The trend can be reversed as was the case with many other trends in history. The Marxian dogma according to which socialism is bound to come "with the inexorability of a law of nature" is just an arbitrary surmise devoid of any proof. But the prestige which this vain prognostic enjoys not only with the Marxians, but with many self-styled non-Marxians, is the main instrument of the progress of socialism. It spreads defeatism among those who otherwise would gallantly fight the socialist menace. The most powerful ally of Soviet Russia is the doctrine that the "wave of the future" carries us toward socialism and that it is therefore "progressive" to sympathize with all measures that restrict more and more the operation of the market economy.

 

Even in this country which owes to a century of "rugged individualism" the highest standard of living ever attained by any nation, public opinion condemns laissez-faire. In the last fifty years thousands of books have been published to indict capitalism and to advocate radical interventionism, the welfare state and socialism. The few books which tried to explain adequately the working of the free market economy were hardly noticed by the public. Their authors remained obscure, while such authors as Veblen, Commons, John Dewey and Laski were exuberantly praised. It is a well-known fact that the legitimate stage as well as the Hollywood industry are no less radically critical of free enterprise than are many novels. There are in this country many periodicals which in every issue furiously attack economic freedom. There is hardly any magazine of opinion that would plead for the system that supplied the immense majority of the people with good food and shelter, with cars, refrigerators, radio sets and other things which the subjects of other countries call luxuries.

 

The impact of this state of affairs is that practically very little is done to preserve the system of private enterprise. There are only middle-of-the-roaders who think they have been successful when they have delayed for some time an especially ruinous measure. They are always in retreat. They put up today with measures which only ten or twenty years ago they would have considered as undiscussable. They will in a few years acquiesce in other measures which they today consider as simply out of the question. What can prevent the coming of totalitarian socialism is only a thorough change in ideologies. What we need is neither anti-socialism nor anti-communism but an open positive endorsement of that system to which we owe all the wealth that distinguishes our age from the comparatively straitened conditions of ages gone by.

 

More later, but that's the essay by von Mises explaining why there is no "midpoint" between capitalism and socialism. I have to go crash now because i've been doing math all day and my brain is fried.

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Within larger communities.

 

Yes, but does that not describe the entire world? For instance, isn't the United States of America just another community within a larger, global one? The thing is, nobody goes hungry or does without in the Amish culture. The people seem to be quite content.

 

You are again assuming that we're talking about capitalism as it exists in the form in Canada/US. We are speaking theoretically, and not descriptively. Canada is not laissez-faire capitalistic.

 

In theory, we could live on the moon. We do not. There's a good reason why your theoretical laissez-faire capitalistic society doesn't exist; because it is flawed. Horribly. Looks good on paper, though. Living on the moon may be more sustainable.

 

And how did the government procure that land? How did the government end up "owning" it. The government has no right to dictate who owns what land based on monetary compensation for themselves.

 

Military force. The people with the money have the power to buy a military and force their will, because capitalism gives them that power. Capitalism isn't concerned with whether someone is "Entitled" to land as a birthright, or if they "Earn" the right to that land with their hard work.

 

No, I'm not suggesting a plutocracy, you misread me.

 

I know very well you didn't; however, that is the inevitable result of capitalism. It has been demonstrated. It is happening today in the good old U.S. of A. How many senators have their campaign funded by some big corporation so they can appoint the "Right" people? It's a flawed system where the rich and powerful continue to get richer and more powerful, as has been demonstrated over and over again.

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The reality is, Capitalism introduces hunger, malnutrition, and strife where once none existed or was rare.

It does? What country are you from?

 

I'm from Canada, where hunger and poverty exists in spite of our abundance of natural resources and trade surpluses.

 

And that has everything to do with capitalism. :shrug:

 

As a matter of fact, it does. Only a capitalistic society can let people go hungry. It's the socialists who take measures to prevent this with various welfare programs; however, the capitalist element continues to ensure that people still go hungry in spite of the socialist behaviour.

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Is Canada a capitalist country? Or where are you getting your information? I guess I am asking, in what countries did you see everyone "fat and happy" until capitalism was introducted - at which time hunger, malnutrition and strife took over? When I think of hunger malnutrition and strife I think of sub-Saharan Africa, not Canada.

 

This is to be expected, considering you most likely get your information from big corporate media. It is in there best interest that the flaws in our society are mostly hidden from public view, because they, as corporations, benefit from a society that is less socialist and more capitalist. Socialism means they'll need to share a little more of their wealth to ensure everybody gets fed, something no pure capitalist wants to do. They point to other countries to make you think, "We're right, they're wrong." Nobody who reads what they print considers why, in a country with surplus, hunger still exists.

 

Here's some information from the Ontario Association of Food Banks. Bear in mind that Ontario is one of the richer provinces in Canada. A food bank is a socialist program that's necessary to balance out the blatant flaws that exist in capitalism.

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Only a capitalistic society can let people go hungry.

 

Would you mind backing that up please? Last I recall, there are millions of starving people in the world, many of which do not live in a capitalistic society.

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Think of it as an economical system where the government doesn't get to put it's greedy little hands into what people do or how businesses are run (with exception to violation of moral law).

It sounds like what i've read about libertarianism, and last year I re-registered myself as a libertarian instead of a republican because that totally appeals to me. Basically without knowing all the details of laissez-faire it sounds like I pretty much agree with it.

 

The one thing i've learned is that the more money I make, the more it becomes apparent how much I hate taxes. I am now in the highest tax bracket in the US (called the alternative minimum tax which is over 30% I believe) and we're talking about a lot of money, my effective tax rate is well over 40%. I take all the risk by investing my capital, yet the government comes along and takes a huge portion of my capital gains. Basically, the government is my silent business partner who doesn't do shit or take any risk, but yet it takes a large piece of my profits and redistributes them to someone else, who for all I know is sitting on their ass on the couch eating bon-bons watching Jerry Springer. Nice. :Wendywhatever:

 

Anyway I know what you are talking about probably goes deeper than that, as far as corporate regulation and all that, but as an individual that's how I feel about it.

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This is to be expected, considering you most likely get your information from big corporate media. It is in there best interest that the flaws in our society are mostly hidden from public view, because they, as corporations, benefit from a society that is less socialist and more capitalist. Socialism means they'll need to share a little more of their wealth to ensure everybody gets fed, something no pure capitalist wants to do. They point to other countries to make you think, "We're right, they're wrong." Nobody who reads what they print considers why, in a country with surplus, hunger still exists.

I get my information from multiple sources, and what does this have to do with my question? I know how corporations work, I am an investor and a shareholder.

 

Here's some information from the Ontario Association of Food Banks. Bear in mind that Ontario is one of the richer provinces in Canada. A food bank is a socialist program that's necessary to balance out the blatant flaws that exist in capitalism.

The issue I have with this is that a food bank doesn't have to be funded by the government it can be funded privately. And in the US many of them are. And, you still never answered my question. You made a claim that in a given society everything is fine and dandy until capitalism comes along and leaves a path of starvation, malnutrition and strife in it's wake. In what society has this occured?

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Only a capitalistic society can let people go hungry.

 

Would you mind backing that up please? Last I recall, there are millions of starving people in the world, many of which do not live in a capitalistic society.

I've been trying to ask the same thing, but he won't answer.

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Only a capitalistic society can let people go hungry.

 

Would you mind backing that up please? Last I recall, there are millions of starving people in the world, many of which do not live in a capitalistic society.

I've been trying to ask the same thing, but he won't answer.

 

A truely communist society (there has never been a real one), shares everything so unless the entire populous is starving, no-one will. If you can only get food through money then you can starve. I don't think communism works, but I think that's what the guy means.

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A truely communist society (there has never been a real one), shares everything so unless the entire populous is starving, no-one will. If you can only get food through money then you can starve. I don't think communism works, but I think that's what the guy means.

So in a truely communistic society if I decide to be a hobo and not work, or if I am simply not productive, i'll still get fed? Or in a truely communistic society is everyone forced to work, and forced to work to a certain level of productivity, whether they want to or not?

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You're making the same fallacious assumption with me as you did with Chef, LightBearer. I deliberately avoided making specific reference to any particular economic system in my post, knowing full well that doing so would lead to exactly such a response as you gave.

 

I don't claim to have all or even any answers. Economics is a damn complicated topic about which I know very little, so it would be foolish of me to do so.

 

What I do know, from both education and experience, is that pure capitalism in any large, modern society simply will not last. It may work for a while, but will ultimately break down just as communism did in Russia, just as fascism did in Germany, just as socialism is doing in other places, and just as capitalism has here in the U.S. Just as any "pure" system will ultimately fail in any society.

 

Socialism and communism lend themselves to laziness. Capitalism lends itself to greed. Fascism and monarchy to pride, fear and hatred. Feudalism to pride and greed. There exists not a single economic system known to humanity that doesn't identify with at least one of our "base" traits.

 

The reason behind this is the simplest thing in the world: human nature. We are chaotic, passionate creatures who far too often forego logic in favor of the more instinctive emotional reaction. We do things that make no sense for no good reason, reasons we forget or no reason at all. There is no structured system in existence which can accomodate for the sheer unpredictability of human behavior. There will never be a system we can't find a way to break, and once we find one you can rest assured some people will take it upon themselves to do exactly that--again, whether for a good reason, a bad reason, or no reason at all. That's just how we humans work.

 

That is why I advocate a hybrid approach, regardless of which systems one chooses to draw from for inspiration. Of course, even a mixed system is doomed to come up short in the face of human factors, but I would rather operate within a blended system which has the advantages of two or three with a minimum of the problems than a "pure" system which has all the advantages and disadvantages of one.

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A truely communist society (there has never been a real one), shares everything so unless the entire populous is starving, no-one will. If you can only get food through money then you can starve. I don't think communism works, but I think that's what the guy means.

So in a truely communistic society if I decide to be a hobo and not work, or if I am simply not productive, i'll still get fed? Or in a truely communistic society is everyone forced to work, and forced to work to a certain level of productivity, whether they want to or not?

 

Apparently in Digital Quirks eyes, it doesn't matter what happens with the productive people as long as everyone is being fed. Of course, this is socialism at its best...sacrifice of the individual to the whole.

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Yes, but does that not describe the entire world? For instance, isn't the United States of America just another community within a larger, global one? The thing is, nobody goes hungry or does without in the Amish culture. The people seem to be quite content.

 

That's why no Amish ever leaves the fold, eh? You seem to have an interesting way of defining "does without", since there is no freedom in Amish culture.

 

In theory, we could live on the moon. We do not. There's a good reason why your theoretical laissez-faire capitalistic society doesn't exist; because it is flawed. Horribly. Looks good on paper, though. Living on the moon may be more sustainable.

It's not flawed, it doesn't exist because people think they should get something they aren't entitled to from other people.

 

Military force. The people with the money have the power to buy a military and force their will, because capitalism gives them that power. Capitalism isn't concerned with whether someone is "Entitled" to land as a birthright, or if they "Earn" the right to that land with their hard work.

 

Another strawman. Capitalism gives no one power. Socialism isn't concerned with ownership or if they earn the right to their property (not necessarily land) with hard work, they just take it and give it to other people who need it. How is that any different?

 

I know very well you didn't; however, that is the inevitable result of capitalism. It has been demonstrated. It is happening today in the good old U.S. of A. How many senators have their campaign funded by some big corporation so they can appoint the "Right" people? It's a flawed system where the rich and powerful continue to get richer and more powerful, as has been demonstrated over and over again.

 

Except that the US isn't a free system, and never was.

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A truely communist society (there has never been a real one), shares everything so unless the entire populous is starving, no-one will. If you can only get food through money then you can starve. I don't think communism works, but I think that's what the guy means.

So in a truely communistic society if I decide to be a hobo and not work, or if I am simply not productive, i'll still get fed? Or in a truely communistic society is everyone forced to work, and forced to work to a certain level of productivity, whether they want to or not?

 

Apparently in Digital Quirks eyes, it doesn't matter what happens with the productive people as long as everyone is being fed. Of course, this is socialism at its best...sacrifice of the individual to the whole.

 

That is how I see it too... By god, if we all can't be wealthy then no one is going to be, everyone will be equally BROKE.

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Apparently in Digital Quirks eyes, it doesn't matter what happens with the productive people as long as everyone is being fed. Of course, this is socialism at its best...sacrifice of the individual to the whole.

I think DigitalQuirk might be missing that lots of the productive people would probably be less productive (why work harder than everyone else if you don't feel like it?) which could actually lead to not everyone being fed. Which I guess is why you might need forced work camps so that the level of productivity is sufficient to provide the minimum of food, supplies, etc. needed for the entire group. Which just creates slaves. And who decides the definition of "minimum" in regards to productivity and output?

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Apparently in Digital Quirks eyes, it doesn't matter what happens with the productive people as long as everyone is being fed. Of course, this is socialism at its best...sacrifice of the individual to the whole.

I think DigitalQuirk might be missing that lots of the productive people would probably be less productive (why work harder than everyone else if you don't feel like it?) which could actually lead to not everyone being fed. Which I guess is why you might need forced work camps so that the level of productivity is sufficient to provide the minimum of food, supplies, etc. needed for the entire group. Which just creates slaves. And who decides the definition of "minimum" in regards to productivity and output?

Okay...don't yell at me, I just want to ask something. If this is what happens when people are given free rides so-to-speak, then what makes us think that the people that are working for their money are actually going open food banks on their own in order to take care of the ones that can't? Are people with more money more caring about others? I mean, why would the wealthier people give if they didn't fell like it?

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Okay...don't yell at me, I just want to ask something. If this is what happens when people are given free rides so-to-speak, then what makes us think that the people that are working for their money are actually going open food banks on their own in order to take care of the ones that can't? Are people with more money more caring about others? I mean, why would the wealthier people give if they didn't fell like it?

I would never yell at you NBB :)

 

There's really no guarantee that wealthy people are going to open food banks or do anything else, in fact some won't. Philanthropy is one of those things that appeals to some people and doesn't appeal to others. But, I think it also depends on the people who you say "can't" work. Why can't they? Is it because they don't want to, or because they have some disability? I think wealthy people are much more likely to give to people who truely can't work, vs someone who has, due to their own bad choices, ended up in that position. For example, if someone habitually uses drugs and alchohol or makes some other bad lifestyle choices and ends up disabled because of it, should I or anyone else feel obligated to support that person? I am not sure....

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Okay...don't yell at me, I just want to ask something. If this is what happens when people are given free rides so-to-speak, then what makes us think that the people that are working for their money are actually going open food banks on their own in order to take care of the ones that can't? Are people with more money more caring about others? I mean, why would the wealthier people give if they didn't fell like it?

 

There is no guarantee, but that's not the point. Some people want to give, and others don't. But let's look at one of the richest women in the world...Oprah.

 

She has ridiculous amounts of money and does MORE good for people who are in need than any ten social programs set up by the government with taxation, and she wants to do it.

 

It's a simple principle that the more you invest in the people, the more you get back. She's popular, well-liked, rich, and happy. She makes other people feel good about themselves and helps everyone.

 

In a socialist society, her wealth would be redistributed equally among everyone so that everyone would be equal...nobody's different, nobody gets ahead, nobody strives to achieve because there's no reason to do so.

 

There's always exceptions to the rule, though. Personally, I would prefer to choose my own way of life than have a government dictate how I should live.

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But let's look at one of the richest women in the world...Oprah.

Bill Gates and Warren Buffet is another good example. The richest man in the world, and the 2nd richest man in the world both recently teamed up after Warren buffet gave almost his entire fortune to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, which is 100% allocated to philanthropy. Just Warren Buffet's share is close to $40 billion...

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There's always exceptions to the rule, though. Personally, I would prefer to choose my own way of life than have a government dictate how I should live.

 

Damn straight. Part of the reason people who favor Capitalism do so is because it keeps the government out of people's lives.

 

Humans are capable of deciding their own lives without the government dictating policies down to how much of one's money one is allowed to keep.

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Damn straight. Part of the reason people who favor Capitalism do so is because it keeps the government out of people's lives.

Well this is really only partially true. One thing I learned from being a Republican is while they support capitalism and want the government out of their lives on fiscal matters, they have no problem at all using the government to get in our lives when it comes to dictating morality, which as we all know is usually "Christian" morality. The reason I re-registered as a libertarian is that while I really don't want the government in my life when it comes to my money I certainly don't want them regulating my life when it comes to social issues. As a libertarian I can support capitalism without having to support religious kookism at the same time.

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I agree, and I also learned that in my time as a member of God's Party™, but that's not a Capitalistic notion, but a modern Republican one.

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