Wow. Just.. Ugh.

[Lightbearer]

How the fuck did I miss four pages on this?!

 

Every single post on here pissed me off to some degree or another besides Niveks, 90% of Asimov's and Hans.

 

So lets get back to the basic first post here, woodsmoke, you came across this discussion between to people who, based on my expert opinion, don't what the fuck they are talking about, and you get mad and blame capitalism and people who support it?

 

In fact, all of you seem to have this huge problem with me and yet you agree with Asimov, who, like I, support laissez-faire capitalism not anarcho-capitalism there is a huge HUGE difference there.

 

Like I said, a million-fucking-times before laissez-faire capitalism is a system of pure economic freedom. Where the government acts a silent protector of the individuals within the certain geographical area the constitutes that government/country. The government bars the use of physical force from human relationships, in doing so it hold the monopoly on force. It has three functions for doing this --

 

1) Mediation of claims and disputes via the courts, based on laws design to protect the individual citizen from harm imposed by other citizens. Rights include, your right to your life, liberty, and property and your pursuit of happiness to use these rights as you may so long as they don't infringe on someone elses.

 

2) Police force used to make arrests of citizens who have harmed or will harm (within a reasonable consideration) other citizens, people who violated the rights of citizens property and to keep general peace amongst citizens.

 

3) Military forces used to protect the individual citizens from threats from other countries and to take action against other countries if citizens of their country are harmed by another countries government in any way.

 

 

Now, when it comes to the economy, there is a wall between state and economy that functions like the wall between seperation of church and state. We all know how that one works right? The state can't ban religion, passed laws designed to promote or enforce or "respect" religion institutions either. Just protect people if the religion violates their rights (like a cult that kidnaps people and kills them in the name of their God).

 

Same thing goes for the economy. You can buy and sell at your own discertion and make your own judgements, unless you are being harmed, cheated, coerced or defrauded, then the government can't stop you from doing whatever you want or need too.

 

The government is paid for voluntarily, not coerced by taxation. Taxation represent the biggest threat to your freedom because it violates your rights to do what you want with your property.

 

Once again, i'll quote one of my favorite authors and a real "mind of a free-market capitalist."

 

Capitalism is a social system based on private ownership of the means of production. It is characterized by the pursuit of material self-interest under freedom and it rests on a foundation of the cultural influence of reason. Based on its foundations and essential nature, capitalism is further characterized by saving and capital accumulation, exchange and money, financial self-interest and the profit motive, the freedoms of economic competition and economic inequality, the price system, economic progress, and a harmony of the material self-interests of all the individuals who participate in it.

 

 

That being said, it answers Vigile's dilemma, which i've answered before and he seemed to ignore, about corporate welfare. Corporate welfare violates laissez-faire because it bridges the gap between economy and state like if the government paid money to the Vatican to keep demons out. Although some schools of economists argue the benefits of this type of spending, I oppose it and advocates of laissez-faire oppose it.

 

Also, business does not equal capitalist. Because there are corrupt businesses does not mean that is capitalism. If a business gets the government to grant them tax-payer money, it's still a violation of your rights. But the problem is that sometimes governments blackmail business so they have to "bribe" them off. Say for instance a particular politican is planning on inacting a bill that would tax a certain industry a significant amount. The industry figures might try to pay that politician to not pass that bill because it would actually hurt them. In other case, a business may pay a politician to pass a law against it's competitors, which would be a corrupt action on both their parts. But once again, the solution for both these problems is to establish a wall between state and economy.

 

I challenge everyone here to think up of solutions to the economic problem that don't involve the government taxing, regulating, or violating your rights.

 

Well, how in a pure capitalisic society could, for example, monopolies be handled? Let's say one company literally owns oil. As in, they are the only source for miles. They demand 12-hour shifts from their workers, the pay is hardly enough to feed yourself on. Their prices are outrageous, people are barely able to make it by and afford their oil. What could be done about that?

 

For starters, it would be increasing difficult for one company to own all the oil because the larger the company gets the higher costs in insues and the less profit it will make. Owning all the oil may be more of a problem then it's worth. It would be an enormous fit and even so, it doesn't violate anyones rights in achieving it. If the working conditions were bad, people would quit. A truly capitalisy society would make it possible for people to have better control over their financial situation because they are free to invest, or save their money as they want. They can save money and quit and find another job. You said the pay is lousy, but come on, realistically, oil companies pay incredibly well because the knowledge needed to run the types of machinces and such behind the entire process is not easy to come by. These workers will be hard to get, so paying them well and keeping them happy is the best option to do. Because if they quit, which they would have the option in doing so because no one is coercing or forcing them to work, then the oil company will be at a huge loss.

 

Now if the prices are outrageous and people are still paying for them it means that the product is in high demand and not easily substitutable which would attract investors to that business because it's profitable. In fact, a large group of investors could even buy out a share of this theoritical monoply and branch off from the company and create their own, thus making it competitive again. Also the high demand for energy would create high economic incentive and profit motive to meet that demand and compete with the other form of energy by offering it at a lower price.

 

Now what we were talking about is the economic concept of monopoly. Which differs from the political concept of monoply. The key distinction here is the concept of "barriers to industry" in a given industry.

 

High costs and investment capital are natural occuring economic conditions meaning that the industry has reach levels of economic production at low costs. Which is a good thing because it lowers the cost of the product. Going back to your example, the cost of oil, like the cost of all produts is determind largely by supply and demand and the costs of the input of production of the product. Companies can't just arbitrarily raise prices on a whim because raising prices would mean raising it's costs. A real world example of this is back when oil was selling for a dollar a gallon back in the 80's and 90's. The oil companies didn't raise prices on a whim for many different reasons, one being that it would be a loss to their profit if they did so and that they were operating a lower cost. Anyways, because those conditions are met it would make newcomers in the industry have a difficult time becoming established. But since it's high-profit it would attract large amounts of investment as well. In your case of a large monoply owning all the oil, what would happen if new oil was discovered? Well Super-Mega-Oil Company would probaly come and buy it right? But given their high costs of production and in the scenario you gave; a threat of a labor strike, would they have the investment capitol to spend to obtain that new oil supply? Probaly not. So along comes Mr. Joe, the entrepreneur who sees this oppurtunity and convinces Big-Ass-Financial-Firm to give him money to drill the oil. Even better, Mr. Joe comes up with a new techinque to make the oil easier to drill and less costly! He hires workers, some of which coming from Super-Mega-Oil Company because Mr. Joe promised them to pay them more, and signed a contract with them (which, pointed out early, guarantees them protection via the court system). So now Joe's Oil comes on the scene with lower costs and is able to capture market share from Super-Mega-Oil Company. In order to offset the lose Super-Mega-Oil Company sells off a portion of their company to reduce costs and gain capital. The sold portion is now run by another company, thus creating a third company and voila, you have a competitive market again and the costs of oil decrease!

 

Now let's look at the political concept of monoply. The barrier of entry into an industry under this concept is the government, through the use of force.

 

The ultimate form of monoply is socialism, the antithesis of capitalism, in which the means of production are not privately owned but rather "publicly" owned the government. Under this concept, the government can force anyone they want not to compete, thus making a monoply. If in our example, Mr. Joe wanted to start a company, the government would step in a force Mr. Joe not too. The government could break up the Super-Mega-Oil Company but that would violate their rights, even though leading to short-term positive economic results. If the government owned the means of production then they would ultimately have to own all the oil because competition would be a form of private ownership or market economy and they would lose their power over the economy (creating a type of situation you see all other the world today, of hampered market economies).

 

Which brings me out of Valgeir's question and into another comment made.

 

Socialism can work and it does work.

 

My friend, you utter pure bullshit. Socialism of the current European kind is not real socialism because, like in Sweden, the government does not own the means of production. It's severly taxed and hampered, but still privately owned. The market-economy and some shred of capitalism is still in existence there.

 

In countries where socialism was tried, bloody violence was the only result. As with Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot, Castro and numerous other monsters who have tried if have only left death and mass destruction in their wake. As Ludwig von Mises said --

 

Socialism... is not the pioneer of a better and finer world, but the spoiler of what thousands of years of civilization have created. It does not build; it destroys. For destruction is the essence of it. It produces nothing, it only consumes what the social order based on private ownership in the means of production has created.

 

[and]

 

Socialism is unrealizable as an economic system because a socialist society would not have any possibility of resorting to economic calculation. This is why it cannot be considered as a system of society's economic organization. It is a means to disintegrate social cooperation and to bring about poverty and chaos.

 

Again, if you adovate a system that has leveled entire countries, destoryed thousands of lives and killed millions more -- how is this even going to perform the simplest economic calculations? Unless their to busy oppopressing the masses to keep control of the means of production.

 

If you support socialism your effectively advocating genocide, poverty, terror, and oppression because that's all it brings.

 

 

Now on that note, I encourage people too actually read and study capitalist principles and theories before they eat and regurgitate bullshit.

 

The greatest source I can point to is George Reisman. The first chapter of his book is located here in HTML. It explains the foundations of laissez-faire capitalism and the moral and economic case for it. (If your interested in the topic of monopolies I wrote, Chapter 10 of the book provides alot mor information then I can.)

 

http://www.capitalism.net/Capitalism/Econo...0Capitalism.htm

 

Here is a shorter essay written by him showing the benevolent nature of capitalism.

 

http://www.capitalism.net/articles/Some%20...Capitalism.html

 

In conclusion it's late and i'm tired. But, i'm passionate about capitalism and economics seeing as how i'm a Business/Economics Major. It's my field of study. This posts was written out of a defense I needed to make. Just like with Christians, I can't sit back and let people ridicule something I know to be true. If at least one person reads this and is moved by reason to some extent then my task is not meaningless.

 

In the end i'll live you with an excerpt from the essay above and a quote from von Mises.

 

1) Individual freedom—an essential feature of capitalism—is the foundation of security, in the sense both of personal safety and of economic security. Freedom means the absence of the initiation of physical force. When one is free, one is safe—secure—from common crime, because what one is free of or free from is precisely acts such as assault and battery, robbery, rape, and murder, all of which represent the initiation of physical force. Even more important, of course, is that when one is free, one is free from the initiation of physical force on the part of the government, which is potentially far more deadly than that of any private criminal gang. (The Gestapo and the KGB, for example, with their enslavement and murder of millions made private criminals look almost kind by comparison.)

 

The fact that freedom is the absence of the initiation of physical force also means that peace is a corollary of freedom. Where there is freedom, there is peace, because there is no use of force: insofar as force is not initiated, the use of force in defense or retaliation is not required.

 

The economic security provided by freedom derives from the fact that under freedom, everyone can choose to do whatever he judges to be most in his own interest, without fear of being stopped by the physical force of anyone else, so long as he himself does not initiate the use of physical force. This means, for example, that he can take the highest paying job he can find and buy from the most competitive suppliers he can find; at the same time, he can keep all the income he earns and save as much of it as he likes, investing his savings in the most profitable ways he can. The only thing he cannot do is use force himself. With the use of force prohibited, the way an individual increases the money he earns is by using his reason to figure out how to offer other people more or better goods and services for the same money, since this is the means of inducing them voluntarily to spend more of their funds in buying from him rather than from competitors. Thus, freedom is the basis of everyone being as economically secure as the exercise of his own reason and the reason of his suppliers can make him.

 

A man who chooses between drinking a glass of milk and a glass of a solution of potassium cyanide does not choose between two beverages; he chooses between life and death. A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems; it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society. Socialism is not an alternative to capitalism; it is an alternative to any system under which men can live as human beings.

[Valgeir]

Well, my interpretation of capitalism had less government involvement than the apparently supported system- I was thinking of a total "hands-off" scenario, where you seem to be advocating rather the non-involvement of the government with regards to ownership and production. I can support that, if you're allowing for the government to verify the claims made by the companies with regards to what they're selling. That being said I can't yet say I'm prepared to adopt the proposed system, as I don't see a tax-free system working (bear in mind, I'm not saying it wouldn't be ideal, but rather that I don't see it being practical). I also would have very serious doubts about a non-centralized education system (again, I think schools SHOULD have to compete for students- our current socialistic approach is ass backwards- but I think there needs to be a central authority to guarantee the accuracy of what is being taught).

[Ex-COG]

One thing to keep in mind...in America, corporations are recognized to have rights that formerly were designed for individuals. This is where we went wrong. I learned about this when the factory I worked for had all of us take an Introduction to Business class. I was appalled. It had always seemed to me that corporations were treated to the rights/privileges of the individual, and the individual was being treated (controlled) like the corporations should be. I agree with what woodsmoke said

I think the real issue here (for me) is actually scale. I'm willing to trust the local business owner to be honest because (s)he lives in my community. Her/His customers know her/him personally, and if (s)he undercuts her/his customers in some way, it's going to come back to bite her/him in the ass real quick and in a very real way. To the CEO of a large corporation, however, I'm nothing more than a dollar sign; and it's an unfortunate reality of the psychology of all conscious living beings that we're far more likely (willing, even) to screw over someone we don't know if it will benefit us in some way. It's along the same vein as my cynicism toward the modern nation state as a hopelessly inefficient social institution because it's just too fucking big.

The problem is size. Both the state and the corporation needs to be trimmed down. Small and local is the way to think. Unfortunately, the state and the corporation are in bed together, screwing the individuals under them (this goes for whether they call themselves Capitalist or Socialist). I don't know what it will take to shake them up enough to put the power back into the hands of people at the local level. Depression? Total economic collapse? Maybe, but I think corps. and gov. will dig their fingers in deeper, trying to hang on; and if things do fall apart it will end up that the common man/woman will get the worst of it (as always).

 

It seems everybody is looking to the past for an economic and/or government model. I think we need a new concept for a new world. Things are not going to change or improve if we follow the protests of the sixties, the rough individualism of the early American frontier, the era of the Robber Barons, or the 20th century near-socialist programs of Sweden and other European countries. Whatever form it takes, the most important thing for me is the individual, personal rights of each and every living, breathing person--not the "rights" of the corporation, government, the state, race, tribe, etc. If these personal rights are guaranteed, respected and enforced, I don't care exactly what type of economic system is in place. And don't ask me what system it is that I support...as of yet, I haven't found anything that I am totally satisfied with. All of them, even if they start out with good intentions, end up in some kind of authoritarian control of the people. Whoever said that power corrupts sure knew what they were talking about.

[woodsmoke]

I can't really think of a way to ask this that doesn't sound sarcastic, so let me just preface it with the disclaimer that I'm not being facetious. You mean, then, that with regards to ensuring a company is delivering what it advertises, the government may be involved?

 

Of course, any aspect of policing and protection. I just don't support the government itself owning businesses, or regulating the market itself.

 

That would include

 

1) Owning any services that are government owned.

2) Imposing taxation on the importation and exportation of goods.

3) Limiting the importation and exportation of goods.

4) Banning goods or prohibiting the sale of goods.

 

I'm with Valgier. What you present here is something I may very well come to agree with.

 

Of course, I also agree with the points of contention he raised, but I imagine those are more relative to Lighteaded's post than your own.

 

How the fuck did I miss four pages on this?!

 

I don't know, but would you please keep doing it?

 

I've been enjoying and learning a lot from this discussion, and I'd hate for your opaque, rose-lacquered diving goggles to ruin that.

[KenneyVTX]

I've been reading this thread with some interest. I have a question: Should infrastructure industries be for profit? By infrastructure I'm talking about energy, medcine, etc... I've observed some solutions to the medical quandry, I think the best I've seen for public health is Canada. Energy, the UK used to be completely nationalized, ergo British Petroleum, but Maggie took care of that. I've seen very anti-nationlization replies but I just don't see why. Unless you accept that all the world must bow at the alter of profit.

[Asimov]

I've been reading this thread with some interest. I have a question: Should infrastructure industries be for profit? By infrastructure I'm talking about energy, medcine, etc... I've observed some solutions to the medical quandry, I think the best I've seen for public health is Canada. Energy, the UK used to be completely nationalized, ergo British Petroleum, but Maggie took care of that. I've seen very anti-nationlization replies but I just don't see why. Unless you accept that all the world must bow at the alter of profit.

 

All things are "for" profit. Essentially, operating on the principle that everything we do uses manpower (or personpower if you're a hippy), and that someone who specializes in a certain area (energy, medical) must be recompensed in some way in order to survive and keep doing what his specialty is (for our benefit) then I don't see how it is "bowing at the altar of profit".

 

I would consider it people being paid for the services they provide.

 

In my viewpoint, the purpose of a society is the interdependent relationships built upon mutual benefit. Whether that benefit is emotional or in the business sense is dependent upon the operating parties. Mutually beneficial relationships by definition cannot be coercive or involuntary.

 

The public health care system in Canada is bloated and overdone. They can't justify it anymore because it costs so much to run.

It's going to collapse at some point.

[Asimov]

I'm with Valgier. What you present here is something I may very well come to agree with.

 

Of course, I also agree with the points of contention he raised, but I imagine those are more relative to Lighteaded's post than your own.

 

Considering both Light and I are Objectivists and we generally agree on nearly all economic points I find it surprising that you disagree with him and not me...

[woodsmoke]

It's more a matter of manner than talking points.

 

You know how to disagree without being disagreeable. LB has yet to learn the difference between "I don't think that's right" and "You're a fucking moron."

[Asimov]

It's more a matter of manner than talking points.

 

You know how to disagree without being disagreeable. LB has yet to learn the difference between "I don't think that's right" and "You're a fucking moron."

 

I think the only difference is I think it. Hehehe

[woodsmoke]

Well, yeah, but everyone thinks it.