The following is a letter to the editor of the Seattle Times. And no, I did not write it, despite the God crack. The letter appears in the 10/25 edition, and I think it speaks an excellent point. Commentary, considerations, &c., are encouraged:
Robert Toomey of Dain Rauscher is quoted as saying anger at Boeing for its proposed 30,000 layoffs is misplaced ("Earnings: Numbers reflect new Boeing emphasis on bottom line," Times, Oct. 19).

"The company is there to maximize return to shareholders, and that's the only thing it's there for... It's not there for us to feel good, or to give us jobs... That's unfortunate, but it's a hard truth of capitalism."

Rauscher's definition of capitalism is virtually indistinguishable from my dictionary's definition of greed ("an excessive desire to acquire or possess") and selfish ("concerned chiefly or only with oneself without regard for the well-being of others").

Makes one wonder why our nation is always so sure God is on our side. It made me chuckle.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

That's certainly an interesting definition of capitalism.
I'm suprised there isn't anything added about kicking puppies ;)

Strictly speaking, companies are interested in only one thing: making money. I've never expected a company to do anything else. Suprisingly enough, I've checked, and companies aren't a person. When layoffs occur, it's because there simply isn't enough work for the people because of a lower demand for their product, which results in a lower amount of money available to pay people.
In other words, 30,000 people lost their jobs so that 1 million could keep theirs. These people don't just work for Boeing. If boeing collapses because they can no longer afford to pay their employees, then their suppliers have a lessened demand, and then the suppliers' suppliers-a ripple effect.
This doesn't excuse the fact that CEO's with the awareness of a potted plant still make 5 million dollars even though they dropped the value of their company's stock 30 points *cough* P&G *cough*
Capitalism, however, is the reason why we have the sort of innovation that we have. Competition is why computers have gotten faster, better, cheaper and more stylish. But lack of real competition is why Microsoft Software has more bugs than a chinese restaraunt.
With the exception of military innovation-every economic system values new and creative ways of killing other people-there has never been such rapid growth of personal wealth, comfort and leisure time as we have now.
That being said, there is no reason why we, living in a capitalistic economic structure, have to persue money and only money. I daresay that's even foolish. It's not likely that we will live in a capitalistic society forever. Eventually we will reach the population limits which capitalism will support, and our society will either crumble slowly, or we will revolt into a new system, possibly corporate feudalism.

Tiassa,

You seem to be very well-read and quite intelligent. I wonder if you've read The Fountainhead or Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. For a deeper understanding of just what Capitalism and "Rational Selfishness" actually mean, these would be two good places to start. If you have read them, then nevermind, of course. You've been there, done that.

In my view, however, and in and of themselves, Capitalism and Rational Selfishness make a lot of sense. What people DO with these ideas however is something altogether different. People are greedy; people take inappropriate actions. People interpret things however they please with little regard for truth or for what is rational.

We humans tend to walk a fine line in this world. Always trying to steer clear of too far to the right or left. I am fortunate that I live in America and that I have the choice--and so I choose anything that steers away from Communism, Socialism, Fascism, etc... away from anything that demands I live my life and direct all of my efforts toward the good of anything other than myself. You'll find there isn't much difference between the world's religious philosophies and that of the "mystics of muscle" -- the mystics of 'people power' in its most negative light.

I highly recommend Rand's books to anyone. You don't have to agree with everything she's proposed in order to gain a wealth of insight into the value of Capitalism.


~~~

Riomacleod,

You brought up some excellent points.

~~~

Counterbalance

Counterbalance

I tried reading Rand during my Satanic days because she was included on a reading list alongside Twain and others whose alleged commonsense contained points of value for consideration. I was 15 or 16, and utterly failed to understand it. I'm aware of its value, but in the intervening 12 years, my mind has been elsewhere.
What people DO with these ideas however is something altogether different. I believe you've hit the nail on the head. I might be exploiting that point elsewhere, though various forms of it haven't had the desired effect I would hope. Thank you for your insights, of course, and do keep them coming.

Riomacleod
That's certainly an interesting definition of capitalism.Yeah, it's odd to say the least, but it does reflect certain truths. To its oddness, I'll note that the letter's author was responding to a quote from a guy at Dain Rauscher, an investment firm. The quote to which the letter's author responds invokes the old capitalist/communist argument of labor v. management. From the leftist standpoint, I do scratch my head at the suggestion that management would have anything to manage without the labor. Why cut 30,000 labor jobs when management is responsible for the problem? Why, in other words, get rid of the people busting their humps to do it right? (And here we'll note, Because the company can't afford them ... and this is fair. But to suggest that the company owes these employees nothing is shortsighted on the part of the Dain representative. Without them, there is no company.)
These people don't just work for Boeing. If boeing collapses because they can no longer afford to pay their employees, then their suppliers have a lessened demand, and then the suppliers' suppliers-a ripple effect.Given how much companies like Boeing spend trying to get the law to allow them to occupy their current positions (there are antitrust issues at stake whenever Boeing makes an acquisition), if the company collapses, we might wonder at why the company owes its employees who make it great nothing, yet the decision-making management walks out with a phat golden parachute. Boeing management, for instance, is responsible for this situation. Its dedication to the shareholders, as noted by the Dain representative, is part of its problem.

Investors don't care about jobs, they care about profit. This sounds wonderful in its capitalist sense. But why are they investing? Is the whole result of human suffering from unstable economy and stress about working conditions ... imagine all of those considerations that go into politics and law and commerce, or into any company like Boeing ....

Is it all really about the abstraction of a piece of paper? A dollar is only worth a dollar because you choose to spend it and I, as a proprietor, choose to accept it. Stoners frequently joke amongst themselves about the "pot standard", in which America's 30 million stoners stop using cash and start trading quantities of the sweet leaf. Can you imagine walking into a store and having your five-dollar bill rejected because it wasn't valid currency?

My company, an insurance company, talks a lot about commitment, community, strength of solidarity, and so forth, when recruiting employees or undertaking important projects. Yet when you get right down to it, all of that psychology they bestow onto their employees becomes an empty promise--a lie--whenever the managers screw up. We're a family? Crap. We're a community? Crap. Sure, we got rid of the executives in order to justify the workforce layoffs, but we mustn't forget that it's the investors who still run the company, and all they're looking for is more of the same.

Boeing is like that, too. I have friends at Boeing who hear the company extolling this or that virtue: commitment, security ... why does any company care about its employees five-year learning plans? So the employee can take the company's suggestion, pay to educate themselves (some help from the company), work essentially two jobs (as any working student/parent can tell you) and then be laid off because the guy who told you all about the wonderful community of the company screwed up?

But in the end, it's just that the letter writer's point made me chuckle. If the point of something in capitalism is to reduce human beings to business assets, though, perhaps capitalism itself is the problem.

In the meantime, I point to Counterbalance's perspective: It's what people do with those ideas.

But this seems to be what people do with capitalism: hurt each other for money.

What does that speak in light of the letter writer's dictionary?

thanx much,
Tiassa :cool:

I started to reply to some of your observations and questions but realized that the best way to get a truly comprehensive answer to all that you're pondering is, again, to read the two Rand books I mentioned.

I was in my thirties before I read Rand, and can't imagine trying to do that in my teenage years. If you're around 28 now, with such an obviously broad knowledge of these matters, I honestly believe you would find Rand's works not only interesting but enlightening. Depending upon your style of reading, you might need to be a little patient. Both are long, but absolutely brimming with mind-opening ideas. (Stories are damn good, too.)

At any rate, answers or explanations for everything you've questioned here may be found in The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged. The former, as Rand puts it, is an overture to the latter.

Mind, I don't propose that you will instantly agree with her philosophy. (Objectivism) If some of these ideas are totally new to you, they may want to sit on the back shelf in your brain for awhile. Or not. But as far as understanding why "management" or company owners behave as they do, (when they aren't actually being irrational and purely greedy) these works hold the key to a truly better understanding.

(And no, I'm not being paid to say this. :) )

~~~~

Enjoyed the exchange and if you do read these books, let me know! I'm curious to hear whatcha think.


Counterbalance

I find nothing controversial about a statement that capitalism=greed. I find it rather correct. All the employees that allegedly "make" a company are not in it for the company but for the paycheck. They only work hard because if they didn't someone else would have their job. If they were offered a pot of gold on a golden parachute, they would forsake the company and their compatriots in a nanosecond.

This, of course, is a generality. There are always exceptions, especially creative types holding creative jobs (I'm one of those lucky ones.) But for most work is not at the top of the list when it comes to fun pastimes. And the society's backbone are not the creative types (even though their ideas help drive it) -- but the grunts who actually lay the roads and build the bridges.

I think it's most correct to fundamentally assume that people are lazy and greedy. It rings true from an evolutionary perspective, and it certainly rings true according to my own insight. Thus, most people will not do anything unless they are properly motivated -- and greed is the most powerful motivator. Capitalism is merely this doctrine institutionalized into a social contract.

Granted, let loose capitalism is vastly destructive both to the environment and the society. That is why it must always be balanced by a complementary social contract that emphasizes fair chance and safety nets. I.e. socialism. The trick is to balance the two in such a way that one does not completely choke the other. An even tougher trick is to find an optimal balance where each is the widest spread and interferes with the other the least.

Rarely will you find a Platonic/Marxist (for those lurking I'm not a communist, I'm a Marxist-big difference) so in favor of capitalism as I am. In this case, I don't think it was the managers who screwed up. As much as I hate the people I work for, they're not always responsible... in this case, and I imagine that it is because of the reduced air travel and all that jazz. NO ONE could have forseen the drop off in air travel a year ago... and I can bet that there were alot of supervisors and "white collar" people who lost their jobs. In fact, in general, it is the middle management that gets cleared out when a company does layoffs, as well as production.

And you are right, I'm a mercenary bastard... if I got an offer at another company for an extra $1000 a year, I'd be out of this job faster than an olympic runner

Boeing can't pay people to do nothing, and I agree, it is cut throat. I grapple with the morality of capitalism all of the time. For a while, I rationalized that "if you want to make an omlette, you have to break a few eggs" and, the US has been building the biggest omlette the world has ever seen... of course, now that I'm older, I've realized that philosophy isn't a matter of quotes and cliches.

I think that alot of people have a problem with capitalism because they have a HUGE lack of perspective on the matter. The media has, for the most part, encouraged a huge provinciality upon the american people. Even in our borders to our south, you can see how other systems have affected the people. Hell, our "poverty line" is still 10x what most people in other countries make.

In all fairness, and I have little to back me up at the moment, Capitalism has lost it's way. Originally it was production based. I think after the inception of incorporation and public trading it became a bit more profit driven.

If this seems rambling, I'm not really sure what your counterargument is... which I'm sure is a failing on my part.

Capitalism is simply an economic model. It's not geared towards or away from greed. Granted, greedy people can cynically manipulate the system to make lots of money, but if you're thinking that communism is any better, don't check Stalin's bank accounts. (As a side note, you have to admire the fact that while every communist model castro had has fallen, and that their trade is in the shit-hole for the next 50 years, Cuba still hasn't revolted. I find it amazing). Any system can be, and will be, manipulated by the greedy.

Also, the definition (as shown above) is oversimplified. Capitalism is a complex system of supply and demand for wants and needs of a population. (and even that is a oversimplification). Greed is the self-destructive desire for nothing but money. I think this shows the differences? I'll be happy to expand any of my above arguments when I know which you disagree with :)

Might not there be a need for a new term and model: Corperatism, rather than Capitalism?

Curious.

Not yet. There was a word for the older style... the name escapes me at the moment... I'll have to look it up, but I think it was physical capitalism or something... really, this is just a transition phase into corporate feudalism.

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NEW YORK—MCI-WorldCom and Bank One-Chase Manhattan merged in a blockbuster $112 billion deal Monday, forming the world's largest telecommunications/banking company and reducing the number of existing corporations to six.


Above: MCI-WorldCom CEO Donald Cosgrove (left) and Bank One-Chase Manhattan CEO Walter Courson celebrate their companies' historic $112 billion merger.
"This is an exciting move for both companies," said Donald Cosgrove, CEO of MCI-WorldCom, whose subsidiaries include SBC-Ameritech, Bell Atlantic-NYNEX and McDonnell Douglas. "As a result of this historic merger, we should be in much better position to consolidate vast amounts of wealth and power in the coming years."

The other five remaining corporations are Daimler-Chrysler, Monsanto-American Home Products, Shearson-Lehman-Chemical-Citicorp-Travelers Group, Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, and Lockheed-Northrop-Boeing-Pepsico.

According to Forbes managing editor Russell Belanger, at the current rate of mergers, there will be only one corporation in the world by 2000.

"The six remaining corporations have shown great interest in merging with each other," Belanger said. "Clearly, the stage is being set for the long-discussed creation of UniCorp, a $92 trillion corporation that produces every product on earth, from canned yams to basketballs to poison gas."

Belanger said mergers are desirable because they give corporations "synergy," enabling them to better sell their products. "Take Paramount-Viacom-ABC-Disney, for example," he said. "Disney makes the movie, Joel Siegel of Paramount-owned ABC-TV gives the movie a rave review, and Disney subsidiaries Blockbuster and McDonald's promote the video release of the movie in their respective stores with mail-in rebates and Happy Meal action figures. It's a win-win scenario."

Bill Clinton, chief executive of U.S. Government, a division of MCI-WorldCom, praised Monday's merger as "an excellent move."

A spokesperson for the newly formed Bank One-Chase Manhattan-MCI-WorldCom said the company plans to cut 92,000 jobs this month.



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*Originally posted by Counterbalance
away from anything that demands I live my life and direct all of my efforts toward the good of anything other than myself.*

Where tiassa was quoting something about greed, you're proclaiming the ultimate selfishness.
Your name doesn't fit.
You're anything but counterbalance.
You are pure selfishness.

*the best way to get a truly comprehensive answer to all that you're pondering is, again, to read the two Rand books I mentioned. *

Information from books?
As I recall you are against a book in the religion forum.

*Originally posted by Bambi
That is why it must always be balanced by a complementary social contract that emphasizes fair chance and safety nets. I.e. socialism. The trick is to balance the two in such a way that one does not completely choke the other. An even tougher trick is to find an optimal balance where each is the widest spread and interferes with the other the least.*

Why is it that socialists don't become socialists until they've got a fairly "good" (lucrative and/or creative) job?
Capitalism seems fine while you're climbing, but when you're in a position to lose something, socialism seems like a good way to keep it.

*Originally posted by Riomacleod
I've realized that philosophy isn't a matter of quotes and cliches. *

How did you come to that realization, when it IS a matter of quotes and cliches, plus speculation, of course?

*Cuba still hasn't revolted. I find it amazing*

They're so broke, they can't even afford to revolt.

Tony1:

3 points:

Socialism is a bad way to keep money. However, preaching socialism is a good way to make rich people feel bad and give you money. If I'm for anything, I'm for keeping money away from the people who don't deserve it. I know more poor people who think that socialism is a good idea than the people who kicked their asses to get to where they are. I imagine that your information comes from watching the inherited rich and actors who are all in favor of such programs.

I came to that realization as I began to really study philosophy. Serious philosophers do bring in and reference other books, I'll admit, but philosophy in general is more than that.

Finally, there is no such thing as "too poor to revolt" the bolshevik (sp?) revolution was the poorest of the poor. The French Revolution was much of the same.

I'm no politician but it's a shame that someone has to suffer in ANY political system. Personally, majority rules is a bad way to run a society.













































































boo

Give a hungry person some food and they call you a saint. Ask why he is hungry and they call you a communist.

I hate to say this, but there were poor people in every single economic structure. I think that the difference in capitalism is that in most systems EVERYONE is poor, except for a few of the very rich. So it looks like poor is normal. However in capitalism, lots of people can make lots of money. Therefore the people who are really in need are more obvious. So, really, we're getting better. Let's continue this trend.

I hate to say this, but there were poor people in every single economic structure.I agree, but the problem with capitalism is twofold in this respect. First, it requires a poor laboring class to support the consumer lifestyle necessary to maintain such economic growth as the United States has seen. Secondly, as the quote cited in the topic post notes, there is no obligation to improve on this condition. Certes, it's getting better, but by this economic theory, stopping to worry about how to create even less poor people is bad for business; and, as we see, what's good or bad for business is all that matters to the capitalists.

How is a shrinking body of working poor bad for business? Ask any capitalist: Why isn't everyone paid a living wage for their labor?

Because it would ruin the consumer market, damage currency value, and slow economic growth.

It isn't that we're not doing well, but that we now have license to cease seeking to do better as a society while we pursue the betterment of our own capital comforts.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

I agree, but the problem with capitalism is twofold in this respect. First, it requires a poor laboring class to support the consumer lifestyle necessary to maintain such economic growth as the United States has seen. Secondly, as the quote cited in the topic post notes, there is no obligation to improve on this condition. Certes, it's getting better, but by this economic theory, stopping to worry about how to create even less poor people is bad for business; and, as we see, what's good or bad for business is all that matters to the capitalists....

It isn't that we're not doing well, but that we now have license to cease seeking to do better as a society while we pursue the betterment of our own capital comforts.

~~~

tiassa,

The quote above demonstrates (in my view) where a lot of people misunderstand capitalism. We are a society of individuals, (which you've previously acknowledged). Yet, capitalism makes no distinction about who will succeed and becomes wealthy, or who won't. This is because it is a system that will work for those individuals who are willing to work within the system. It's also a system that can work for the majority of individuals, but the majority does not necessarily make the best use of it. When this is the case, there are usually to be found any number of reasons why they don't; reasons other than that of capitalism standing in their way.

Throughout man's history people have complained that the poor are disadvantaged by a variety of causes, and there is always a group crying out against the current politico-economical system--whatever it may be. (We are never all happy at the same time, ya know?) In some cases, the poor actually have been treated badly, cheated, you-name-it. In some case, large businesses have sought to be monster monopolies--with no regard for what their actions might do to the very capitalistic system that helped them to succeed--or to those other businesses (& consumers) they need in order to have healthy competition. OR... To other countries, societies, cultures, market systems... --But this is true of man in general. Some of us don't have a clue about what we do, or why we do it; some know perfectly well what they're up to. In general, we just get out there and do-it-the-hell anyway!

"Society" needs fixin;' mankind needs to abandon the tendency to embrace irrationality which is both anti-individual AND anti-society. So, what inspires irrational greed? 'Cause it only takes one unenlightened CEO, one twisted market director, to taint any scenario; to abuse any system.

Ditching Capitalism is not the way to go. Saving Capitalism is a much better idea, imo. I don't want either to be done, however, at the expense of the individual worker or entrepreneur.

Of all the political/economical systems humans have come up with so far, Capitalism gives a willing worker the best chance of success--without him having to take alms from his brother's earnings. And that, primarily, is the key: A system wherein fewer are living off of what they have not earned.

Don't mistake me. There is plenty of room for improvement. People have cried "discrimination!" and pushed through asinine, destructive legislation. The democrats have their way one season, the republicans the next, short-sighted corporations have muscled their way into the bully pulpit... But it is too, too easy for individual "rights" to disappear once we lose sight of why these systems came into being in the first place. Once those are gone, it won't matter any longer. We will already have become a communist nation. For me, (a very rational being :) ) communism is unacceptable.

To solve any problem we need to find the true root of it. Capitalism isn't our main problem or the root of it. It's just another tool; another weapon that's being misused.

~~~

Counterbalance

Counterbalance

It isn't a matter of bringing about a Communist Revolution. Just a couple quick notes; I'll give more comment when I've got it ....
Ditching Capitalism is not the way to goI agree entirely. Part of it is that we seem to isolate Capitalism as an academic concept, and never look at how it interacts with the people who live it. In that sense, it's like the notion of trickle-down. Sure we created a lot of new wealth, and we created new millionaires, but the reality is that there's a wider gap now 'twixt the American haves and have-nots. It isn't that the idea is wrong, but that its results are too narrow because we continue to think of Capitalism as a pure idea.

We could throw religion in there: Weber did. In that sense, we can look at Capitalism contrasted against any number of religions and see conflicts arise between the presupposed morality and the necessities of economy. For instance, I know a good many Christians whose major failing is lucre. I've known a good many socialistic Wiccans as well, and also a fair number of waer-loga whose primary failing as a witch was their greed. It is this presupposed morality that compels us to not adopt Spartan values toward human life, though strangely the greatest exploiter of that presupposed morality--Communism--couldn't function harmoniously with religions.

But we are taught to have compassion toward the poor: this is not Capitalist. We are taught to seek equality in opportunity and before the law: this is not Capitalist. Where Capitalism allows us to fail is when we prescribe it in order to exploit the presupposed morality: this is Capitalist. To exploit the extant conditions toward personal gain is the process of a Capitalist. Among the wisest of Marx's observations of Capitalism is its lack of foresight: if you pass a law that says to hang the Capitalists, they will still sell you the rope.

In an austere environment where Capitalism remains solitary we will not necessarily learn to make Capitalism work harmoniously with our presupposed morality. Herein lies a reason to understand the nature of the presuppositions which form the moral base: we can either rewrite the morality or readjust our perceptions of the Capitalist idea to meet that greater morality. To undertake the rewriting of morality raises the possibility of Capitalism becoming so morally justified that we cut each others' throats in search of supremacy. To undertake the readjustment of the Capitalist idea creates the potential to build a Capitalist-centered idea that works toward the greater future of society, and thus the perpetuity of the human endeavor. The purpose of "winning" the "competition" is not to self-destruct.

I don't see it as submitting to a state identity or a cultural identity in conformity. Rather, I propose that Captialism must, at some point, undertake the issue of what it's for. If it is an economic system for the benefit of humankind, then we must make it work to humanity's benefit truly instead of when its convenient to do so. If Capitalism is a purpose for life, then we must throw off all notions of familial beneficience, and spend the rest of our lives waiting to stick the knife into the next guy. It's all a matter of how far we want to go with the idea, and why we want to go there.
For me, (a very rational being ) communism is unacceptable. One of my favorite points about the unacceptabillity of Communism is that we in the US will accept it under a different label. What is objectionable about the state handling your medical expenses? Yet you'll entrust your employer to do so while counting their own pennies to make sure they won't spend too much. Your education? What of corporations who offer college assistance within a specific range of majors? (Your education no longer becomes a benefit but a commodity traded.) Retirement? Again, we'll entrust our employers, who, as noted in the Dain-Rauscher quote in the topic post, ought to have concern only for the shareholders and the bottom-line, and not toward the posterity of their employees. We live according to some communistic principles, we just disguise them as capitalistic. Public education? Social Security? (Work with it, I know SS is a bloody mess, but it's the principle we're after here ....)

No American wants to trade the Bill of Rights for the Hammer and Sickle, but we've recognized the benefit of seeing things in terms larger than ourselves. Even if our communitarian ideas are motivated by greed, we are at least putting that greed to work for the benefit of the human endeavor. The way I see it, we're all in this together, and there's no reason to go throwing everyone else overboard just to get a suntan.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Excellent, tiassa!

Thanks for the expansion. I now understand more of where you're coming from. I'll give this a couple more read-overs and get back to you as time allows. (over the weekend hopefully)

~~~

Counterbalance

Mornin’ tiassa,


This is a long one. May have to post it half-n-half.



It isn't a matter of bringing about a Communist Revolution.

Good! “’Cause if ya go hanging around with Chairman Mao, ya ain’t gonna make it with anyone anyhow...” ~The Beatles~

Couldn’t resist! ;)

~~~



“Ditching Capitalism is not the way to go.’

I agree entirely. Part of it is that we seem to isolate Capitalism as an academic concept, and never look at how it interacts with the people who live it ... It isn't that the idea is wrong, but that its results are too narrow because we continue to think of Capitalism as a pure idea....

We could throw religion in there: Weber did. In that sense, we can look at Capitalism contrasted against any number of religions and see conflicts arise between the presupposed morality and the necessities of economy. For instance, I know a good many Christians whose major failing is lucre. I've known a good many socialistic Wiccans as well, and also a fair number of waer-loga whose primary failing as a witch was their greed. It is this presupposed morality that compels us to not adopt Spartan values toward human life, though strangely the greatest exploiter of that presupposed morality--Communism--couldn't function harmoniously with religions.


Okay, tiassa, we agree that ditching Capitalism isn’t the way to go, and that we need to look deeper at how ‘Capitalism interacts with the people who live it.’ After that we may be going down different pathways. I’ll work my way through this in sections.

I think we have been watching Capitalism’s progress, and that many have done so with pre-conceived ideas--or with a presupposed (and accepted) morality influencing the observers’ evaluations. As with any society-related issue, there are a plethora of books, polls and studies providing data which will support every kind of notion, including any for or against Capitalism.

A couple of points here: Since the days of the Industrial Revolution, the population of our nation has grown considerably. How accurate have our censuses been? How accurate are they now? How accurate are the statistical methods used to determine the figures that would suggest the “wider gap?” How are we defining “poor.” How well are we filtering out the “slant” factor?

When I look around I see gaps, but I see a bigger difference in how people from the “poor side of town” (or cities) are living now compared to how they were living forty + years ago. I can recall a time when the poor family wouldn’t even think of shopping at the equivalent of a Dollar General Store--much less a Wal*Mart ...when a good portion of their food came from their own gardens, neighbors/family, charities--or they simply didn‘t eat. ...a time when my own parents were making significant and repeated efforts to teach my siblings and me to understand the unmistakable gap (then) between how we lived and how they, the poor, lived, and we weren’t a wealthy family.

There are still gaps, granted, but I don’t buy wholesale into the idea that the gaps are truly greater now. Or that there is the same sort of hard-drawn line between the poor and the rich. I do agree that there are “haves” and “have nots.” I think this is (and will remain) the norm for our species for some time to come.

But let’s look at this some more because you‘ve compared Capitalism to a religion; to an institution that lacks the proper morality. (or that’s how it comes across to me) And I’m not entirely sure what kind of morality you’re referring to as you‘re throwing in both religion and greed--many directions to go in with either. Let’s start with greed.

Money (or lucre) is used properly when it is used to assign value to the efforts an individual makes when (s)he produces/creates. In this sense, it’s a precious symbol according to Ayn Rand. Yet for a majority of consumers and producers money doesn’t represent that at all. Those who don’t understand the above definition of money are prone to operate with ‘anti-man’ greed as part, if not all, of their motivation for acquisition. Some, unfortunately, have already accepted it as a goal of sorts. They will claim that man is greedy; that it is his nature to be a glutton: “Hey, whatever it is man is suppose to want, (wealth, fame, sex appeal...) we want more of it than the other guy’s got.“

Nevertheless...

The science of political economy is relatively young. In the nineteenth century Kantian ideology was waning and ‘political economy’ (as it came into being) more or less adopted the basic principles, or morality, of collectivism. The overall accepted goal was to find the best way to share the available resources for the common good. Most “Capitalists” went along with this. By and large it seemed the moral thing to do. And yet, what kind of morality was this? The morality of altruism.


But we are taught to have compassion toward the poor: this is not Capitalist.

No, this is altruistic. And altruism and Capitalism are dipolar.


We are taught to seek equality in opportunity and before the law: this is not Capitalist.

Here, I disagree somewhat. I think we have more often been taught that we are owed equal opportunity; that we come into this world being owed such, and laws have been enacted in a “collective” sort of effort to assure that we either got a fair shot at it, or in some cases, that we got it whether we deserved it or not. Much of this is definitely at odds with Capitalism.

“Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.” Ayn Rand

But Capitalism does not guarantee that one will get the opportunity one seeks. And after all, what is sought may not be a rational goal.

Capitalism does offer the best chance of success for those who seek opportunity in a rational manner. It is irrational to believe or to assert that we are all capable of producing, creating, inventing the same caliber or quality or even quantity of anything. We are not. We are born with a handful of basic individual rights by virtue of the fact that we come into existence as human beings. But as to ability and as to what we each deserve in the way of opportunities or recompense, we are not born equal. We do not die equal. Capitalism does work in favor of diversity, however.

So it seems that we do agree that Capitalism does not promise equality. And we still have more to go on the morality issue.


Where Capitalism allows us to fail is when we prescribe it in order to exploit the presupposed morality: this is Capitalist. To exploit the extant conditions toward personal gain is the process of a Capitalist. Among the wisest of Marx's observations of Capitalism is its lack of foresight: if you pass a law that says to hang the Capitalists, they will still sell you the rope.

About the rope? A bittersweet kind of truth.

Allows us to fail?

Why is Capitalism allowed such a position of authority or power over our choices? (and btw...not directing any hostility here--merely questions for the sake of the general discussion) Where is our individual responsibility to use the tool wisely? Where is that morality? Who has labeled a Capitalist as one who “exploits” the presupposed morality? I ask because according to Ayn Rand, a true Capitalist would exploit the morality that is proper to Capitalism--which is the same morality that is proper to Man. And personally, I have no problem with the word “exploit,” but it can be interpreted in two ways: to utilize... or to take improper advantage of.

A true Capitalist is not the true enemy--and I will add that, as it is with all things, a true Capitalist of today will have evolved a bit from Rand’s initial concept. This individual doesn‘t think in terms of “what I do is for the common good, even though when I do it for the sake of self, I am, in the long run, contributing to the upkeep of a proper morality and this will or can contribute to the common good in a broader sense.” A true Capitalist would keep the priorities straight and would do so by adhering to a rational, pro-individual philosophy--or morality. There is no ’anti-man’ greed inherent in such a philosophy. It may sound kinda complex or contradictory at a first encounter, but the rationality becomes clear after a closer inspection.

Capitalism, in my view, is an economic system that lacks the proper--or properly defined--morality. (Most people don’t even think in terms of there being a need to adopt or to accept an accompanying philosophy.) This lack comes about because of the long-standing influence of religion over the entire world. For at the core of any religion you will find a creed or code or morality that is in many ways identical to that found in the doctrines of socialism or communism. And in a nutshell, that is a morality which asserts that society should comes first, and that an individual should be his brothers’ keepers--financially, spiritually, ethically... you-name-it.

Capitalism--from its very roots--is at odds with this kind of ideology, so that over the years as people have tried (usually unknowingly) to force Capitalism and “society-first” premises to an unholy altar, we’ve had nothing but chaos and/or mixed results at best. To come as far as we have, which is much farther, historically, than other political-economical systems, has required a lot more “blood, sweat, & tears” than was ever strictly necessary--but this is what happens when you mix oil and water. The two will always separate into what they are unless you keep stirring them up. Tiassa, it sounds to me like you’re tired of stirring. Hey... I don’t blame you. Futility sucks.


In an austere environment where Capitalism remains solitary we will not necessarily learn to make Capitalism work harmoniously with our presupposed morality. Herein lies a reason to understand the nature of the presuppositions which form the moral base: we can either rewrite the morality or readjust our perceptions of the Capitalist idea to meet that greater morality. To undertake the rewriting of morality raises the possibility of Capitalism becoming so morally justified that we cut each others' throats in search of supremacy. To undertake the readjustment of the Capitalist idea creates the potential to build a Capitalist-centered idea that works toward the greater future of society, and thus the perpetuity of the human endeavor. The purpose of "winning" the "competition" is not to self-destruct.

And so this now sounds like we are back on the same or a similar page. To rewrite the morality? We never actually wrote one to start with. Rand’s objectivism is the closest thing we have to it--and while it is pretty close, it’s still too hard for a religion-strapped world to take. Our constitution has some good premises, but it’s been tinkered with-- over- and under-interpreted, ignored, maligned...

With the proper tenets (something much akin to objectivism‘s) linked to Capitalism, cutting one another’s throats would be clearly out of line and not predictable once the newlyweds were given a chance to prove their compatibility. We have no adequate working models, so for the moment we can only hypothesize. Man has been labeled as a hopeless, greedy, even demon-controlled (roll-of-eyes) creature for so long, that society simply cannot comprehend anything different. Man deserves a proper chance to live up to his/her potential. (Not promising it would be pretty to watch in the initial stages, but neither is watching the tiresome, day to day ‘workings’ of religion.)

True, we would seek various types of ‘supremacy’ in that we would continually seek to achieve and prosper. And “supremacy” is another word that carries a not necessarily appropriate connotation of negativism. But the system itself when allowed to work free of the machinations of ’anti-man’ supporters (or of their poorly-disguised moralities) is one in which all who are willing to do what it takes to succeed--meaning, ultimately, to educate and dedicate themselves to a rationality appropriate for an individual living in a world full of individuals-- do/will have that in which they may make such a noble attempt.

What I’ve written above is similar to your second option with an added twist: “the purpose of winning the competition is not to self-destruct,” (and so I add) ...but is to keep an ongoing balance that will (as a likely by-product) contribute to a greater future of society by virtue of it’s primary objective which is actually the greater future of the individual.


I don't see it as submitting to a state identity or a cultural identity in conformity. Rather, I propose that Captialism must, at some point, undertake the issue of what it's for. If it is an economic system for the benefit of humankind, then we must make it work to humanity's benefit truly instead of when its convenient to do so. If Capitalism is a purpose for life, then we must throw off all notions of familial beneficience, and spend the rest of our lives waiting to stick the knife into the next guy. It's all a matter of how far we want to go with the idea, and why we want to go there.

I appreciate the emphases you’ve made here. However, as I’ve already written, the proper “identity” for Capitalism is not one for Humankind. Not primarily. Not initially. Not in its gut. Granted, at present, it is an economic system without a “soul.“ --or one with a beleaguered soul. However, there cannot be a soul-mind dichotomy and there also be a rational anything. America and its political-economical system needs an anchoring philosophy that is not chained to a variety of faith-based ideologies. It is not proper however to make such a marriage happen by any means of force. It IS proper to reason with American Individuals in order that they may come to a same conclusion.

Capitalism needs an accompanying philosophy that clearly explains why an individual must work, earn, achieve, compete for his/her own sake. On an individual basis, one might wish to donate time, money, or effort to others or others’ efforts for various value-based reasons, but such would always be secondary. And to say secondary is not to say it isn’t likely to happen that way. And it is irrational to take the true ’cut throat’ way, or to do anything that calls into question an individual’s true motives, or to do anything that will undermine the integrity of the self OR the system that protects and promotes the survival of a community of selves.



One of my favorite points about the unacceptabillity of Communism is that we in the US will accept it under a different label. What is objectionable about the state handling your medical expenses? Yet you'll entrust your employer to do so while counting their own pennies to make sure they won't spend too much. Your education? What of corporations who offer college assistance within a specific range of majors? (Your education no longer becomes a benefit but a commodity traded.) Retirement? Again, we'll entrust our employers, who, as noted in the Dain-Rauscher quote in the topic post, ought to have concern only for the shareholders and the bottom-line, and not toward the posterity of their employees. We live according to some communistic principles, we just disguise them as capitalistic. Public education? Social Security? (Work with it, I know SS is a bloody mess, but it's the principle we're after here ....)

You make an excellent point here. American Individuals’ dependency upon the state or an employer to provide these things is scarcely removed from the serf’s dependency on the landowner of old. In some respects, however, those who are less able to produce/create will always be dependent on the those with more ability, though I don’t think the degree to which we’ve become dependent in these times is at all appropriate.

We are but one species on this planet, and we have supposedly evolved into one with the highest capability to reason--that we know of so far. Yet, it IS a “survival of the fittest” world in which we humans live. It is our nature. Factor in aberrant (irrational) behavior caused by any number of things, and we will always have those who behave irrationally; who will expect what is not theirs to expect; who will refuse to make appropriate efforts; or to discern what is appropriate to value...etc...and who will try to throw sticks into the spinning bicycle wheel of progress.

Yes. It’s a bloody mess. Ignorance and fear have stunted Man and Mankind.


No American wants to trade the Bill of Rights for the Hammer and Sickle, but we've recognized the benefit of seeing things in terms larger than ourselves. Even if our communitarian ideas are motivated by greed, we are at least putting that greed to work for the benefit of the human endeavor. The way I see it, we're all in this together, and there's no reason to go throwing everyone else overboard just to get a suntan.

The way I and some others see it, the key to ‘benefits for all’ is to achieve a proper focus on the self, first and foremost. A system/philosophy that supports rational success of rational individuals should motivate more to want to work within and among the same. It’s another win-win kind of thing. There is a larger picture to see, and much of import to discern, but how we look at it, and the types of prejudicial viewing lenses we use...

Sometimes we make things waaaaaay more difficult than they need to be. History has spoken eloquently and repeatedly about the folly of accepting that which simply is not acceptable or rational for man. --For A man, and not for mankind.

But in the end we have to deal with reality; with the here-n-now. Although here in sciforums you and I seem to look at this similarly, we may not actually be able to agree totally, and this is what will (and does) happen in the larger world, too. So, I don’t expect to see Capitalism or Capitalists undergoing any sweeping changes in the near future, nor do I think it would be healthy for Capitalism to do so because of the kinds of individuals and societies that work within (and around) the system currently. The world today could not withstand this kind of upset. The world isn’t ready yet.

And as with religion, I don’t expect to see these issues resolved within my lifetime, though I never rule out a hope that enlightenment will come sooner rather than later, even if it comes in baby steps. It’s not “my cross to bear” for I haven’t taken on the world’s dilemmas to solve, but I don’t mind to sweep clean the road ahead for all every now and then.

Enjoyed the exchange, tiassa, and I expect I’ll enjoy reading anything you might offer in reply. I do have to reiterate however that my reasons for visiting sciforums is not because I actively seek debate, or because I have a driving passion to see changes come about in society. If anything I’ve offered here is intriguing to you, I would again suggest that you give Rand another try. I can’t be certain, but I think a lot of her ideas may be right in line with what you’re envisioning.

my sincere thanks for sharing,

Counterbalance

I take issue with people instantly rearing the ghost of Stalinism whenever socialism is mentioned. And contrary to seemingly popular belief, socialism and capitalism are not diametrically opposed or totally incompatible.

Without social safety nets capitalism results in pollution, sweatshops, natural resource decimation, unworkable public facility organization and infrastructure, and vast social inequalities. Capitalism definitely needs to be counterbalanced by environmental laws, labor laws, antitrust laws, civic long-term planning and coordinating bodies, and yes, anti-bribe laws when it comes to political spending (in the latter case, unbridled capitalism actually poses a threat to the very idea of democracy.) Equally importantly, all those laws must actually be enforced.

When people point out the prosperity of the West while crediting it to capitalism, they forget to factor in that the West is literally feeding on the rest of the world. As it stands, the vast majority of humans are devastatingly poor. However, the available resources of our planet are unlikely to be sufficient to bring them up to the same standard of living as the top western nations of today -- at least not without major technological change. Yet such a change can only be anticipated and prepared by long-term, far-sighted social programs. Capitalist institutions, on the other hand, are entirely too focused on the near term and typically on a very limited slice of the world's complexity.

Another area where socialism definitely comes in, is equal opportunity. And I'm not talking about "affirmative action" of any traditional sort. What I'm saying is that eventually free societies might want to respect one of their most fundamental (if often non-binding legally) premises: that all individuals are born equal. As it stands, simply being born into a poor family severely hampers one's chances of success compared to rich-family children. That is fundamentally unfair. At least up to adulthood (when personal decisions and fiscal autonomy kick in), even the poorest of the poor must be given a sporting if not equal chance when compared to the rich.

While one marvels at the American success, one also has to realize that in some ways it is a failure. Americans are the most overworked people among all industrialized nations. Compared to the rest of the Western world, Americans have no life despite their impressive fiscal standing. America is a nation of workaholics (whether voluntary or not), and it is getting worse all the time. Eventually, social action will have to kick in to reverse this unwelcome trend -- or we'll end up working ourselves to death. There is more to quality of life than mere possessions, and the overall quality of life in America is declining.

With respect to the poor in America, one has to note that the current poverty line is something like 20 years old, while the current percentage of the poor in the population is actually higher than 20 years ago. That means due to inflation today's poor are much poorer than the poor of the 1970s. And that is despite the massive recent economic boom. So much for the trickle-down effect.

When one talks of opportunity and the failure of individuals to pursue it, one glosses over the many showstoppers in that overly simplistic depiction. In the increasingly technological and globalized economy, it becomes increasingly difficult for some trailer park Joe to start and grow a successful business when he can't even so much as read and write at a fourth-grade level. His children (and likely there'll be many of them) won't have much of a better chance. And this is even before globalization truly kicks in and business goes truly international and forsakes expensive Western labor in favor of a cheap (nearly free!) third-world workforce. This will tend to deplete the western countries of manual jobs, and will further disadvantage the poor segments that are ill-equipped to succeed in a service/high-tech economy. Without a socialist framework to level the playing field opportunity-wise, the poor segment of the population is destined to remain poor and even to grow as it had over the last couple of decades.

There are other benefits to socialist policies. For example, every time we rely on business for our basic needs and services, we end up paying 200% of the cost (after all, the business is geared toward making money.) That's one reason why American medical care, for example, is so exhorbitantly expensive. One could argue that a government-driven medical care system would be mired in bureacracy and inefficiency, in addition to being sluggish when responding to technological advances. That, however, depends on the actual architecture and modus operandi of any such system. Perhaps a government/business hybrid could both retain the advantages of private health care and keep the price of care reasonable. As it stands, however, Americans are among the most deprived in the western world when it comes to health care. In most other western countries, for example, people get hospitalized for free until they are healthy enough to leave; in America, hospital care is prohibitively expensive and people are routinely thrown out of hospitals to recuperate at home after what most other western countries would consider inadequately short stays. In a purely capitalist medical establishment, patients are treated as business customers instead of people who need help and cannot necessarily afford it. In the current system, people pay 200% for the cost of services, plus an extra 200% on top of that to their health insurance company (which, after all, must make profit too.) If instead people paid as much money in taxes to the government as they spend on private health care, with the government then distributing the money to those who actually need care and using more cost-efficient care providers, a much better standard of care would be possible.

Another demonstrable disaster in the making is the nightmarish emergent combination of suburbia and the car culture. This is arguably purely a product of market forces -- but it is responsible for huge areas of land being sacrificed to roadways, and nevertheless ever-present and ever-growing congestion. Concomitant are pollution, road maintenance, expansion and policing expenses, and people spending increasing hours stuck or crawling along to/from work. People don't walk as much any more, as even a minor shopping trip involves driving to the nearest suburban mall 5 miles away; as a result we have the infamous obesity epidemic. There's been a decimation of urban high culture; the replacement apparently is MTV and the couch. Yet it didn't have to turn out this way. Instead of now facing the headache of fixing the unfixable problems, the society could have planned its growth and urban architecture a little better. This is a prime example of how long-term, far-sighted social policy could be superior to the short-sighted, fix-it-when-it-breaks capitalist mentality.

This post is already too long, so I'll wrap it up. The last thing I want to emphasize is that despite the fact that socialism has the potential to correct for the failures of capitalism, the two are not mutually exclusive. They can coexist and be balanced for optimal quality-of-life effect. In fact modern America has already come quite a way toward such a balance when compared to the old, laissez-faire capitalism of the nineteenth century. And people should stop denying the fact that U.S. is right now, already, a mildly socialist country. But the point is that more could be done -- and should be done, for all our sakes.

Bambi:

I beg to differ. You are confusing Capitalism with Plutacracy which have as much to do with each other as Socialism has to do with Totalitarianism.

The Wall Street Journal has copies of ALL their newspapers back to the mid 1800's I suggest you READ them, and you'll find that the social abuses you are decrying are all found to be a result of "special" status given to the owners to ignore skirt, abuse labour laws, OR that labour laws were passed to prevent such. The abuses you are decrying come from legislation allowing it. The monopoly the utilities currently enjoy would be another example of legislated monopolies abusing their status. It was supposed to 'simplify' things and got out of hand.

Pullman OH EXISTS because Pullman built it. He abused his workers. They sturck for higher wages and LOWER prices in his company stores, and ultimately BURNT his company town to the ground. Things got better when Pullman went bankrupt and Carnegie bought him out, and paid fairer wages and reduced the profits of the company stores. The point being that Pullman CANNOT abuse his workers indefinitely IN A FREE MARKET PLACE.

You, like so many, confuse greed with capitalism, alturism and socialism. If I can't feed my family, do you think I give a darn about how many deer there are--or are not? Or, am I going to shoot THAT deer, eating my rose bush, so I can feed my family?
Now, it's the same way as you keep scaling it up. I get paid x cents per pound for copper ore. I own the land the mine is under. Do I give a darn about the trees on the land--heck no, I want the money from the ore.
IF YOU don't like the WAY I'm STRIP minning the ORE, YOU can buy the land from me, when I am DONE. YOU can pay to plant TREES if YOU want to--I don't like trees they don't pay as much as copper ore... SEE?
NO, I don't owe humanity, the green party, nor anybody else ANYTHING. I earned the money to buy the land, discovered the ore, found a buyer, and paid for the equipment to get the ore to the buyer. I get paid to produce ore, not plant trees. If YOU want trees, you can pay for them AFTER I'm done strip mining the land. and I sell it for 3cents on the dollar of what I paid for it in the first place because I've destroyed it.
We'll discuss the tax man on a later date...

YOU are NOT required to stay in the coal town and get black lung disease mining coal. You can always MOVE... You don't have to sit in Seatlle jobless on the public dole, after being laid off. You can move to LA and work for MacDonald Douglas, move to Wichita and work for Cessna, or move to Atlanta and work for Gulfstream, maybe, if they need your services...

mrk,

Yes indeed, plutocracy; the opposite of which is socialism. So let me restate: in the absense of socialism plutocracy is the end-result and capitalism coexists with it just fine; i.e. capitalism does not in itself combat or counteract plutocracy.

Your example of striking workers is an example of a socialist movement. A plutocratic system would forbid the worker strikes. Similarly, when workers burn down factories they commit crimes and therefore fail to further their own cause by ending up in jail (or worse, brutalized by police in the employ of the plutocrats.) Only with built-in social protections that legalize such things as strikes and labor unions, could the workers successfully counteract the business owners' tendency to exploit the workforce for maximum profit.

As far as legislation, it should be ovious that abuses come precisely when there is no legislation to provide social protection. Just look at Malaysia, Indonesia, India, or any other favorite third-world country.



If I can't feed my family, do you think I give a darn about how many deer there are--or are not? Or, am I going to shoot THAT deer, eating my rose bush, so I can feed my family?


That's the point. You WILL shoot that deer if you have to feed your family and you have no other choice. It is the goal of socialism to give you an alternative route of action that would be more benign with respect to everyone else.



I own the land the mine is under. Do I give a darn about the trees on the land--heck no, I want the money from the ore.
IF YOU don't like the WAY I'm STRIP minning the ORE, YOU can buy the land from me, when I am DONE.


I don't think so. What if someone lives on that land of yours? What if your strip mine pollutes the ground water table for miles around? What if the forest you destroyed was a unique ecosystem and no amount of money or restoration will get it back? The land is not YOURS, even when you bought it. It is merely temporarily under your control. The problem is that the land supports others; others than you -- and will be needed to support others in the future. Grievous harm comes when people only focus upon themselves. Socialist policies serve to refocus the attention on the big picture and the common good.



NO, I don't owe humanity, the green party, nor anybody else ANYTHING.


But you do. You are part of humanity. You were nurtured by humanity to your adulthood. Throughout your life you enjoyed the fruits of past labor of others.

You obey society's laws because you owe society your cooperation. That much is required of you in order to maintain your membership in society. If you think you can hack it on your own, then you better first think real carefully.

And in case you do or plan to have children, your perspective might change a bit. You wouldn't want to saddle your progeny with a strip-mined, polluted, disfigured, impoverished, dying world; you wouldn't want them to curse your name and your memory every day of their miserable lives.

Finally no matter how grizzled an egotist you are, you do sometimes have to contemplate your place in the universe and how your existence affects the large scheme of things. Are you really content to live behind nothing but destruction in the wake of your selfish indulgences?



YOU are NOT required to stay in the coal town and get black lung disease mining coal. You can always MOVE...


Not necessarily. What if family circumstances anchor me where I am? What if I cannot afford the cost of living in that other place? You cannot always move. You do not always have a choice.

And what if I'm a child?

Bambi:
If I own the land, I inform MY tenants of my intents to strip mine, and evict them. Strip mining does not pollute (unless I am refining, which in this instance which was used only for explanatory purposes of the ideal, there was NO mention of refining, only processing e.g.: crushing raw ore.
You can be a socialist, but YOU cannot be one BY YOURSELF. The rest of us have to agree to SUBSIDIZE/PAY it/for it. I CAN be a solitary capitalist. I won't, and you can't (except with threats of incarceration, or death) make me.
I earn my way and pay for it. I only thing I want from my national government to enforce the Bill of Rights (which they suspended last month, and almost no one noticed--of course yelling it about it would be "unpatriotic", right now). I don't need the DEA, (I KNOW what to do when some jerk teaches my kid how to stick a needle of poison in his arm, thank you) EPA, OSHA, SSA, or any of the rest of their superfluous agencies which, to me are excuses to employ the incompetent. I am NURTURED by my OWN sweat and work. I have zero debt and no credit cards. I don't owe humanity ANYTHING because "humanity" provides me with NOTHING. Humanity does not provide me with O2, H2O nor food. I buy my meat and veggies from the grower, literally, (I'd buy my grains directly, too, but, instead I PAY Pillsbury to grow/pay to grow and grind it for me)...
You missed the point on the Strip mine as usual. I use it for that reason, btw. It really gets to the greeners. I OWN the land and the mineral rights (including the water), because I bought it with MY money. IF I pollute MY water, it's MY problem, unless I expect SOMEONE ELSE e.g.: Super FUND (Gee, where'd that come from, besides my back pocket) to pay to clean it for me. THAT IS MY POINT ABOUT SOCIALISM.
Socialism is about the abdication of responsibility! Capitalism, in its "pure", which can be seen on many street corners in the USA, form is about acceptance of it. As a capitalist, I am responsible for my welfare. I am responsible for feeding, clothing, and educating my children (and designing their curriculae). I am responsible and decide every facet of my life. Yes, I may well CHOOSE to pay others to provide various services for me, but that would be my CHOICE, not that of some bureaucratic fool who couldn't pass a basic English course, or who employs "teachers" who cannot distinguish between objective and subjective personal pronouns, and don't know their basic rights under the Constitution. I have a public school teacher living next to me-those are just some of her deficiencies, and is why I won't send my kids to public school, ever, and seriously resent paying for them.
In socialism, YOU give up YOUR rights and power to someone else to decide these things for you. Read George Orwell's 1984, again, and you'll find out what happens when Socialism is deteriorated to its lowest forms. Everything is fine as long as there are no "greedy" people running it. The minute you do have greedy people running them, well, they called him Stalin in Russia, or Hitler in Germany. Hitler was a totalitarian FACIST-same difference-the Party was supposedly Socialist and sold that way. They need living space, which why they invaded Austria which folded the same day... In ALL socialist societies, it is about THEM (whoever them is) providing SERVICES for ME to use at NO cost to me. Yeah, right. Well, someone sometime, somewhere has to GIVE them altruistically, or PAY for them, or they do not exist, just as Pullman OH didn't exist until Pullman BUILT it. Another point missed, almost. His "workers" burned it to the ground in an, as you pointed out, illegal fit of rage (when all they had to do was MOVE). They did not HAVE to strike and burn the town. They could have QUIT! They CHOSE to use violence against their employer rather than bankrupt him in a mass walk out.
Now, I went to private schools, where I received a better education than I could have at public schools (Rand was on the compulsory reading list, btw, as was Marx--who was a far better accountant/economist than he ever was a communist. Before you start yapping about how it was my
PARENTS and not me who paid for it, you're right, THEY did, I didn't. But when I was 18, I was asked to take out the trash, and found they'd packed my bags and changed the lock while I was out. :0
I have provided EVERYTHING for myself, since, with NO help from anyone including the TAX man, thank you very much. In point of fact, LBJ's Great Society's costs have greatly impeded the process for me, because some bleeding heart liberal wants to provide "social" services for the "downtrodden" poor who won't budge from watching Jerry or Oprah in their trailers.
Sweden is the ONLY country I know of where Socialism half-way works, and it COSTS 70% of your gross pay, to get it. I'd rather pay CASH for my "services", thank you, than allow an inept bureaucracy 'administer' them for me, thank you.
Yes, Socialism is "nicer" system for "all" including the undeserving--those who refuse to work. I would as soon let them starve, but I am "cruel" and "heartless" and as demanding of all as I am of myself.
Laws exist for those who WILL follow them--period. Have you NEVER broken a "law"? There are more than few who do it every time they fire up their bongs, and don't even think (or care) about how they are violating one of million unenforceable laws the feds have on the books, that we DON'T need. The only way of enforcing them is with the threat of incarceration (if that is a threat, and currently in "developed" nations it isn't much of one) or death. Three hots, a cot, and Oprah, what more do you want, if you WON'T work? OH, I forgot conjugal visits, well, in Europe I understand that's a right, too (rightly or wrongly--correction gratefully accepted, btw) unlike most of the US.
So if you're going to kill me for REFUSING to feed people too lazy to get up off their butts and do something to feed themselves besides sit in front of a begging bowl, shoot me, bill my family, if you can find them, for the bullet, and be done with it. But, that isn't socialist, it's totalitarian.
I was trying to point out that you were comparing capitalism the ideal, by using Plutocracy as the example as many socialists do, instead of capitalism (btw, a Plutocracy is a government run by the rich, not necessarily a capitalist government, at all). In Rhetoric classes, it's called a non sequitor (That's Latin for doesn't follow).
Socialism provides all of the same services to all that capitalism does, except you add in the cost of a bureaucracy to administer it "fairly" at the expense of the productive, and deprive the citizen of his CHOICE to participate, BY LAW.
Why do I have to pay for YOUR kid to eat? WHERE is the logic in this? What benefits shall I (Yes, I, personally) derive from it--If I LIKE you and I feel sorry for YOU and the rug rat, I may CHOOSE to support you. On the other hand, maybe we can work out a deal where you give me something I want and I give you the coin for your kid to eat... Gee, I wonder why Harry S. Truman was looking for a ONE handed economist? Gosh darn, we're back to capitalism, in it's purest form, again, now aren't we...?
BTW, I doubt you can find very many POOR, and working, socialists in the USA. If they're poor and WORKING, they want to KEEP every dime they make, not pay it out for "social" welfare they don't qualify for BECAUSE they work.
YOU ALWAYS have choices. Yes, you MAY choose to live with the choices of your parents for a time, but as soon as their choices are no longer yours, you CHANGE them, you grow up, sometimes faster than they. YOU ALWAYS have a choice in the USA.
If I must choose between your socialism, which is too easily perverted (as has the capitalism of the 18th Century) and it requires me to PAY for YOUR social services and death, then by all means, shoot me, now...

Accepting human frailties rather than attempting to CHANGE them to your (subjective) perception of "Right", is one of the turning points of life. I don't require others to accept my points of view, but I would like to be left in peace to live them as I see fit. Paying for social welfare is not among things I would do, left to myself, even unto paying for public education (which does, in some ways benefit me), however, that is not the case. Somebody who typically is registered at Yahoo-gee, go figure-is always screaming about the poor down trodden. Well Christ talked about that 2000 years ago or so, and He told us that THEY are ALWAYS with us, so I take his Semitic view, and ignore them as much as possible. If they WANT more, let them WORK more and buy it themselves.

"When a gun is held to the head of a man who thinks, and told, 'Don't Think!' the man replies, 'Pull the trigger [, fool {text added, mine}]'." Ayn Rand.

mrk,

I just want to say that I appreciate your thorough and thoughtful responses (even though as you can clearly see I disagree with much of what you say.)

As a prelude to my response to your last post, let me say that sometimes you seem to come across as if you are attacking some perverse, imaginative caricature of socialism. You seem to ascribe to it qualities and policies which really are not idempotent with the philosophy and sometimes even counter to it. Surely, you can have a corrupt and/or ineffective organization under any overriding philosophy; that in itself does not imply that a given social philosophy is in principle untenable, subversive or ineffective.

Originally posted by mrk



"When a gun is held to the head of a man who thinks, and told, 'Don't Think!' the man replies, 'Pull the trigger [, fool {text added, mine}]'." Ayn Rand.


You know, it's funny you decided to pull out that quote. What's happening here is that I'm not holding a gun to your head, and I'm actually telling you, 'Think!'



You can be a socialist, but YOU cannot be one BY YOURSELF. The rest of us have to agree to SUBSIDIZE/PAY it/for it. I CAN be a solitary capitalist. I won't, and you can't (except with threats of incarceration, or death) make me.


What is a law? A piece of binding legislation passed by a majority that "makes" everyone, even dissenters, obey. Perhaps I can't convince you, the individual. But maybe I can convince a majority. That's point number one.

You cannot be a solitary capitalist. With no other people present on the earth, all alone, capitalism means nothing. The problem is, Earth is full of people and we all have to live together somehow. That is called society; it is a collective thing. Point number two.

What you call "pure" capitalism is as naive and dysfunctional as "pure" socialism (Stalinism, Nazism, etc.) It is an abstract, idealized economic theory that ignores many social realities. While it can be used as a policy guide, by the virtue of its idealization and abstraction it cannot be the singular backbone of a healthy society. Which concludes my third point.



I earn my way and pay for it. I only thing I want from my national government to enforce the Bill of Rights (which they suspended last month, and almost no one noticed--of course yelling it about it would be "unpatriotic", right now).


You might want more than that. Perhaps an army to protect you from invaders? How about national standards to enable you to interoperate with others across the state? How about alliances and treaties with foreign nations? Law enforcement and crime prevention/suppression? How about someone to go to when a neighborhood oil refinery is dumping dioxins into your garden? Which brings us to:



I don't need the DEA, (I KNOW what to do when some jerk teaches my kid how to stick a needle of poison in his arm, thank you) EPA, OSHA, SSA, or any of the rest of their superfluous agencies which, to me are excuses to employ the incompetent.


I'm sorry that there are incompetent people employed in the government. Just like in any other large business where every single employee cannot be personally accounted for by the top supervisers. But you are right, government inefficiency is a problem and the government can definitely benefit from adoption of management practices from efficient businesses. However, an agency does not become unnecessary or useless due to inefficiency. What is needed is reform (real reform as opposed to political half-measures), not destruction.



I am NURTURED by my OWN sweat and work. ... I PAY Pillsbury to grow/pay to grow and grind it for me)...


That's fine, but the comfy high-technology, democratic society you live in today comes on top of millennia of hard labor by others. Incidentally, this really has little to do with arguments for socialism; rather, it is an invitation to consider the world beyond yourself as an actual part of you.



You missed the point on the Strip mine as usual. I use it for that reason, btw. It really gets to the greeners. I OWN the land and the mineral rights (including the water), because I bought it with MY money. IF I pollute MY water, it's MY problem, unless I expect SOMEONE ELSE e.g.: Super FUND (Gee, where'd that come from, besides my back pocket) to pay to clean it for me. THAT IS MY POINT ABOUT SOCIALISM.


I don't think I missed your point at all. But you did miss mine. First of all, "greeners" are not concerned about YOUR water or YOUR land or YOUR air because there are no such things. If you pollute "YOUR" land, the pollution can travel over and under the surface to poison others very far from your original crime. If you destroy a unique ecosystem on "YOUR" land, you are robbing the entirety of humanity of its biological heritage for all time to come. If you burn down too many rainforests on "YOUR" lands, you might even cause a local if not global climate catastrophy. And finally, a lot is to be said for public land that is forever secured from development and reserved for clean environment, biological sanctuary or public enjoyment; even if you might not appreciate that very many others do.

With respect to the general attitude of the "greeners", protecting nature from abuse is merely a special case. The overarching principle could be summed up as "global responsibility". It is a postulate recognizing that your actions affect not only yourself but many others and sometimes the entire planet -- just like do the actions of many others affect you and some actions of all others affect you. It is really a generalization of the "golden rule".



Socialism is about the abdication of responsibility! Capitalism, in its "pure", which can be seen on many street corners in the USA, form is about acceptance of it. As a capitalist, I am responsible for my welfare. ...


We are talking about two different kinds of responsibility. One can be responsible for something. At the same time, one can be responsible (as opposed to irresponsible.) The word has multiple meanings, which is why you may have confused the issues.

Socialism does not abdicate your personal responsibility to take care of yourself. However, as a generalization of the intention present in any body of law, it in addition requires you to be a responsible member of your society in particular and the world in general.

With respect to personal responsibility, what socialism does propose is giving you tools to make your job easier or to even do your job for you when you become incapable of doing it yourself for whatever reason. Note that this does not mean socialism is all about dysfunctional wellfare systems that actually encourage their participants to form a dependence on them. One wellfare system can succeed where another one failed.



I am responsible for feeding, clothing, and educating my children (and designing their curriculae).


What about orphans? What if you work 14 hours a day just to make ends meet, and have no energy or time left for taking care of your children? What if in your absense your children are "taken care of" by the neighborhood gangs in the ghetto where you live because you can't afford a better place?

Generally speaking, you sound as if you really don't know what it's like to be poor or to grow up poor. You sound as if you are incapable of imagining yourself in another man's shoes without transplanting your entire background and life's history in the process.



I am responsible and decide every facet of my life.


And that's good, and socialism is not against it but indeed for it. It is a philosophy of empowerment, not of inhibition. If you are capable of taking care of yourself without social assistance, great! You won't get the assistance. However, those who need assistance should be given it.

You have to realise that while you may be in control of your life at any given moment, things can quickly change. You can control your personal choices, but you can't control your fate. Tomorrow, you can be stabbed in a mugging and paralyzed for the rest of your life. What will you do then without social assistance, if you don't have a personal fortune or supportive family to rely on?



I have a public school teacher living next to me-those are just some of her deficiencies, and is why I won't send my kids to public school, ever, and seriously resent paying for them.


I wholeheartedly agree that the current state of public schools is horrendous. My position, however, would be to fix them rather than axe them. Instead of resenting having to pay for public schools, perhaps you should be resenting the fact that these schools are as rundown and dysfunctional as they are. They can be A LOT better. Just visit any other western country's public school for an example.



In socialism, YOU give up YOUR rights and power to someone else to decide these things for you.


Not really. Socialism does not preclude or impede democracy. Of course, if you are arguing against democracy (and for anarchy) then it's a whole new issue.



Read George Orwell's 1984, again, and you'll find out what happens when Socialism is deteriorated to its lowest forms. Everything is fine as long as there are no "greedy" people running it.


Come on, let's not get boggled down in caricatures. Socialism is only obligatory in that it relies on taxes to support its programs. That's it. It cannot force you to participate in any of its programs; as soon as it tries it is no longer socialism but something else (totalitarianism comes to mind.) One has to guard against totalitarianism no matter what starting policy: socialism, communism, capitalism, feudalism, you name it. As was famously said, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.



In ALL socialist societies, it is about THEM (whoever them is) providing SERVICES for ME to use at NO cost to me. Yeah, right. Well, someone sometime, somewhere has to GIVE them altruistically, or PAY for them, or they do not exist, just as Pullman OH didn't exist until Pullman BUILT it.


Of course, socialism is NOT free and nobody in their right mind would argue otherwise. Social programs are paid for by taxes. All members of society are expected to contribute their share in taxes according to their ability. All members of a democratic society are also expected to keep an eye on those programs to make sure their money is getting put to use as efficiently as possible.



Now, I went to private schools, where I received a better education than I could have at public schools (Rand was on the compulsory reading list, btw, as was Marx--who was a far better accountant/economist than he ever was a communist.


Now give me one good reason why public schools cannot have a quality curriculum. Demonstrate why Rand or Marx are incompatible with public schools. And if you can't, then the problem is not with the public schools but in how they are being run. The need is for massive reform and restructuring -- just exactly what you do for an ailing business.



Before you start yapping about how it was my PARENTS and not me who paid for it, you're right, THEY did, I didn't. But when I was 18, I was asked to take out the trash, and found they'd packed my bags and changed the lock while I was out. :0


It is good for you and your parents that they were able to afford to pay for you and send you to a quality private school. Not everybody is so fortunate.

As far as the coming-of-age story, right on. Despite what you might have imagined, it does not go against socialist principles. As a matter of fact, I wholeheartedly agree that is precisely how success should be passed from one generation to the next.



I have provided EVERYTHING for myself, since, with NO help from anyone including the TAX man, thank you very much. In point of fact, LBJ's Great Society's costs have greatly impeded the process for me, because some bleeding heart liberal wants to provide "social" services for the "downtrodden" poor who won't budge from watching Jerry or Oprah in their trailers.


You assume too much. You assume that everyone will have it as good as you did. And before you launch into a laundry list of all the hardships you had to endure, let me tell you they are nothing compared to how bad it really can get. You also assume too much about the poor and why they are the way they are. Clearly, you haven't lived among them or ever bothered to even take a look for longer than it takes to spit on them.



Sweden is the ONLY country I know of where Socialism half-way works, and it COSTS 70% of your gross pay, to get it. I'd rather pay CASH for my "services", thank you, than allow an inept bureaucracy 'administer' them for me, thank you.


Yet Swedish people are among the happiest and most comfortable on this planet. I believe they even work only something like 30 hours a week.



Yes, Socialism is "nicer" system for "all" including the undeserving--those who refuse to work. I would as soon let them starve, but I am "cruel" and "heartless" and as demanding of all as I am of myself.


No, that is not what socialism is about. Providing those who refuse to work with social services is just plain stupid. Those people, you just let them go live on the street until they decide to change their minds. However, if you really looked you would discover there are very few such people. The reason the old U.S. wellfare system was dysfunctional is because it failed to demand personal progress either via job training or actually working an available job while the participants received assistance. Tying encouragement of self-sufficiency to social assistance is crucial to the success of any wellfare system.



There are more than few who do it every time they fire up their bongs, and don't even think (or care) about how they are violating one of million unenforceable laws the feds have on the books, that we DON'T need.


Overcomplication or illegitimacy of a legal code is not a counterargument against socialism. Socialism does not imply unnecessary and/or ineffective laws.



Socialism provides all of the same services to all that capitalism does, except you add in the cost of a bureaucracy to administer it "fairly" at the expense of the productive, and deprive the citizen of his CHOICE to participate, BY LAW.


Agains, the services are for all who deserve them by holding up their own end of the bargain (as long as they are capable of doing so.) With respect to social laws, individuals never have a "CHOICE" to participate, under any social system or philosophy. In democratic settings, they do have the choice to advocate for different laws.



Why do I have to pay for YOUR kid to eat? WHERE is the logic in this? What benefits shall I (Yes, I, personally) derive from it...


As I already said, treat others as you would have them treat you. Quite simple. You can think of your investment in social programs as a downpayment on a rainy day, as your insurance. The rainy day may never come, but in case it does there will now be a net there to catch your fall.

But also alleviating the pandemic of poverty would reduce crime and increase security. You would like to live in a more peaceful, harmonious, secure country -- wouldn't you? Or would you rather have an actual reason for arming yourself to your teeth?



BTW, I doubt you can find very many POOR, and working, socialists in the USA. If they're poor and WORKING, they want to KEEP every dime they make, not pay it out for "social" welfare they don't qualify for BECAUSE they work.


First of all, socialism enjoys its strongest support among the poor because they would be the ones most likely to benefit from it. Secondly, any social program that disqualifies people from benefiting because they are capable of supporting themselves is perverse and counterproductive.



YOU ALWAYS have a choice in the USA.


You live in a fairytale land. Talk to any long-time cop to get an insight into the real complexities of USA life.



If I must choose between your socialism, which is too easily perverted (as has the capitalism of the 18th Century)...


Exactly. It is not perverted any more easily than any other policy of government. If you think otherwise, give reasons why (which wouldn't apply to other social philosophies.) It is too easy to cite the examples of past socialist failures. However, you already pointed out yourself that in Sweden it is successful. Similarly, one can point out many instances where non-socialist government systems are perverted, and yet other instances when the perversion is avoided.

Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: http://www.cpm.ehime-u.ac.jp/AkamacHomePage/Akamac_E-text_Links/Smith.html

Marx & Engels' Communist Manifesto: http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/26/176.html

Engels Socialism Utopian and Scientific: http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1880-SUS/sus92a.html



The majority of people spoil their lives by an unhealthy and exaggerated altruism - are forced, indeed, so to spoil them. They find themselves surrounded by hideous poverty, by hideous ugliness, by hideous starvation. It is inevitable that they should be strongly moved by all this. The emotions of man are stirred more quickly than man's intelligence; and, as I pointed out some time ago in an article on the function of criticism, it is much more easy to have sympathy with suffering than it is to have sympathy with thought. Accordingly, with admirable though misdirected intentions, they very seriously and very sentimentally set themselves to the task of remedying the evils that they see. But their remedies do not cure the disease: they merely prolong it. Indeed, their remedies are part of the disease.

They try to solve the problem of poverty, for instance, by keeping the poor alive; or, in the case of a very advanced school, by amusing the poor.

But this is not a solution: it is an aggravation of the difficulty. The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. And the altruistic virtues have really prevented the carrying out of this aim. Just as the worst slave-owners were those who were kind to their slaves, and so prevented the horror of the system being realised by those who suffered from it, and understood by those who contemplated it, so, in the present state of things in England, the people who do most harm are the people who try to do most good; and at last we have had the spectacle of men who have really studied the problem and know the life - educated men who live in the East End - coming forward and imploring the community to restrain its altruistic impulses of charity, benevolence, and the like. They do so on the ground that such charity degrades and demoralises. They are perfectly right. Charity creates a multitude of sins.

There is also this to be said. It is immoral to use private property in order to alleviate the horrible evils that result from the institution of private property. It is both immoral and unfair. (Oscar Wilde)Wilde's The Soul of Man Under Socialism: http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/hist_texts/wilde_soul.html

In the end, the reason Capitalism seems so attractive to people is that it is easy. The capitalists I know in daily life treat each other horribly by convention. If I seem a little sensitive about that, it's because I just spent a weekend listening to it. And therein lies a question: is Capitalism restricted to how we view money and the potential of money, or does it bleed over into other relationships--How do you profit by your friendships? (Note: If it seems insignificant, it's because it is common--think of the hypocrisy of a parent who calls their infant child a "blessing" yet in later years demands that the child "earn their keep in the family"; frankly, if it's that much of a hardship, why did the idiots choose to raise children? Yet we hear people talk to their kids like this daily; everyone's value becomes their financial worth regardless of their contribution to the greater human endeavor.) But yes, Capitalism is easy: it means you expend no investment toward friendship without guarantee of a greater return. It's no different than giving a woman the wrong phone number and a hybrid of your best friends' name (Hi, my name is Chan-Huan Jones!) just to get her into the sack. Seriously: What happens when we apply Capitalist mores to human associations?

Please remember: I live in a locality where the constituency frequenly votes against school and basic emergency funding because the individual voters don't feel enough of a financial profit from such community endeavors. Seriously, we spent $500+ million on a baseball stadium, and we're amid a similar--perhaps taller--expense for a new football stadium; why can we cough up $1 billion in civic funds for sports arenas and not schools? The potential financial impact of a pro sports team is documentable on paper. When comes the generation of students too stupid to read that documentation will also come that generation of students too stupid to understand why such documents are important. But remember: when it comes to education, we must economize our investment and maximize our profit. Is it any wonder schools are considering allowing corporate takeover? It's capitalism; it needs $5.00/hour peanut vendors and does not need public education.
Socialism is about the abdication of responsibility! Capitalism, in its "pure", which can be seen on many street corners in the USA, form is about acceptance of itI wanted to comment on a couple of MRK's points. First and foremost, for the purposes of illustration, I would like to inquire by what means did you acquire the strip mine?

Secondly: in the United States, there is only one pure capitalism--black market. It is only beneath the cover of criminal activity that capitalism operates without the veneer of human conscience capitalism so despises. Which brings up the counterpoint, from the aforementioned Oscar Wilde:
The chief advantage that would result from the establishment of Socialism is, undoubtedly, the fact that Socialism would relieve us from that sordid necessity of living for others which, in the present condition of things, presses so hardly upon almost everybody.Which responsibility does Socialism ask you to abdicate?

The only reason any Utopia is impossible is because people choose that it should be. We're the human species: we can get to the moon, broadcast a half-watt back through the solar system, replace your heart with a machine, get erections from pills, reshape the landscape, extinct species and, if we choose, destroy ourselves. Who here is going to tell me that the one thing the human species can't do is operate according to the integrity of its better conscience? Neither economic prosperity nor religious blackmail nor simple appeals to what is obvious and demonstrable seem to work. It is simple greed for excess that prevents any Utopia under any label.

Would somebody tell me why murder is illegal? If it's for the cholera threat, we need to revoke the prohibition.

Ah, it's better for society? Well now, it looks like we're not exactly Capitalists if we won't personally kill for profit, eh? That thing about respecting life is a little to pinko, y'know ;)

There are better things to aspire to; I always wonder why we don't.

thanx much,
Tiassa :cool:

Warning quite long!!.

Theory
Capitalism is a social system vased on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
The recoginition of individual rights entails the bansihment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the goverment in such a society, is the task of protecting man's rights, i.e. , the task of protecting him from physical force; the goverment acts as the agent of man's right of self-defence, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the goverment is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under objective control. "What is Capitalism?Pg.19" Ayn Rand


When I say "capitalism," I mean a full, pure, uncontrolled, unregulated laissez-faire capitalism--with seperation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the seperation of state and church."The Objectivist Ethics" Ayn Rand

The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the alturist claim that it represents the best way to achieve "the common good." It is true that capitalism does--if that catch-frace has any meaning-but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principles is: Justice."What is capatilism Pg.20"

The action required to sustain human life is primarily intellectual: everything man needs has to be discovered by his mind and produced by his effort. Production is the application of reason to the problem of survival.
Since knowledge, thinking, and rational action are properties of the individual, since the choice to exercise his rational faculty or not depends on the individual, man's survival requieres that those who think be free of the interference of those who don't. Since men are neither omniscient nor infallible, they must be free to agree or disagree, to cooperate or to pursue their own independent course, each according to his own rational judgement. Freedom is the fundamental requirement of man's mind. (Ibid.,17)

The above is just a little, Trully one has to examine the concepts of capitalism through the eyes of Ayn Rand.

Capitalism did not cause poverty it inhereted it. Ayn Rand.

Godless,

I'm not sure what your point was. If you weren't responding to any recent posts but to the first post of the thread, I would understand. However, what are your thoughts on socialism (to be explicit, not as an alternative to (popular misconception), but a complementary gap-filler for, capitalism?)

Originally posted by Bambi
Godless,

I'm not sure what your point was. If you weren't responding to any recent posts but to the first post of the thread, I would understand. However, what are your thoughts on socialism (to be explicit, not as an alternative to (popular misconception), but a complementary gap-filler for, capitalism?)

Well Banbi since I came late in this I was refering to the first post on capitalism. However my thoughts of socialism!. and the way that you are trying to explain is what it exist in the US, it's not socialism as a gap-filter, it's called a "mixed economy" that is capitalism with goverment control, and as seen it does not work well!.

__________________________________________________ __

Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, that his life and his work do not belong to "him", but belongs to society, that the only justification of his existence is his service to society, and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good. ("For The New Intellectual" Ayn Rand)

The essential characteristic of socialism is the denial of individual property rights; under socialism, the right to property (which is the right of use & disposal) is vested in "society as a whole," i.e., in the collective, with production and distribution controlled by the state, i.e., by the goverment.
Socialism may be stablished by force, as in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics--or by vote, as in Nazi (National Socialist) Germany. The degree of socialization may be total, as in "Formal" Rusia-or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.
The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure--terrifying, that is if one's motive is men's welfare.
Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly. ("The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand)

These are just a sample of her writting, on the topic of Socialism, if you would like to know more, read some of her books. Start with "Capitalism The Unknown Ideal"

Interesting to hear Ayn Rand's opinion on the issue. Even though I was asking for yours. But since I'm apparently talking to Ayn Rand, then let me address her points:



Socialism is the doctrine that man has no right to exist for his own sake, ... , and that society may dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good. ("For The New Intellectual" Ayn Rand)

...
The degree of socialization may be total, as in "Formal" Rusia-or partial, as in England. Theoretically, the differences are superficial; practically, they are only a matter of time. The basic principle, in all cases, is the same.
The alleged goals of socialism were: the abolition of poverty, the achievement of general prosperity, progress, peace and human brotherhood. The results have been a terrifying failure--terrifying, that is if one's motive is men's welfare.
Instead of prosperity, socialism has brought economic paralysis and or collapse to every country that tried it. The degree of socialization has been the degree of disaster. The consequences have varied accordingly. ("The Virtue of Selfishness, Ayn Rand)


First of all, we seem to be defining Socialism as an extreme philosophy first and then varying the degree to which this extreme postulate is approximated to account for reality. Sort of like trying to define Christianity as a religion of raving lunatics, and then proceeding to state that in actuality most Christians are merely a moderate manifestation of that religion.

Secondly, where does she get off concluding that "Theoretically, the differences are superficial"? I'm sorry, but the sort of socialism I've been arguing in my posts is more than theoretically, superficially different from the extremism she appears to foist upon her readers. Then again, what is this: "The basic principle, in all cases, is the same" ? Stalinist Russia and democratic Sweden are based on the same basic principles? Hello?

I'm sure the European Union is a manifest disaster in progress. At the same time, has anyone really taken a careful look at the alleged American "success"? I've already provided some simple statistics in my previous posts that argue quite the opposite.

What I think Rand has done, is deliberately confuse the issues. She took what in essense is a very limited slice of Socialism and infused Capitalism with it, redefining the latter in the process. At the same time, she selects the extreme right-wing outliers on the Socialist spectrum and redefines them as Socialism. I'm sure it's very convenient to mix terminology like this when pushing the elitist, plutocratic agenda of the endowed rich while pulling the wool over the eyes of the overwhelming majority of the not so well-endowed.

Secondly, where does she get off concluding that "Theoretically, the differences are superficial"?

~~~

Where does she get off?

Or perhaps you're wondering where does Godless get off?

Or, where does anyone get off making such bold statements?

Such would not be unusual reactions from (most) people who haven't read Rand.

But....

~~~



I'm sure the European Union is a manifest disaster in progress. At the same time, has anyone really taken a careful look at the alleged American "success"? I've already provided some simple statistics in my previous posts that argue quite the opposite.

~~~

Your statistics may be quite factual. Or not.

A couple of us who have posted on this thread have made simple or polite suggestions that it might be interesting or enlightening for others to read Rand's works. Mere snippets of her writings have been quoted here. Scarcely enough material, I think, to justify such a harsh reaction.

Godless may respond as he/she chooses, of course. But I fail to see any cause for the tone of your last post. You aren't pleased that Godless (or others) aren't debating in a fashion you like? Providing information of a sort that you prefer? It's a public forum and people will offer whatever they think relevant--including you. Still, and with all due respect, I think you've missed a point or two here. There is a bigger picture, indeed. Have you taken in as much as you can of the view?

As for reading Rand, you might be surprised to discover the level of insight this woman philosopher and writer had; insight not only into Capitalism, but into man, into what it is to be a human.

If you have already read Rand and have formed your opinions on discoveries already made, then so be it. If not, maybe the opinions of others who have don't quite deserve such an impatient rebuff?


Your right to post as you please. Your tone or choice of target however may lead others to misinterpret your purpose.

~~~

Counterbalance

Capitalism is a social system (b)ased on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Capitalism is an economic system.

Capitalism ...

Capital: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=capital
2a. Wealth in the form of money or property, used or accumulated in a business by a person, partnership, or corporation.
b. Material wealth used or available for use in the production of more wealth.
c. Human resources considered in terms of their contributions to an economy: “ [The] swift unveiling of his... plans provoked a flight of human capital” (George F. Will). Capitalism ...

-ism: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=ism
1. Action; process; practice: terrorism.
2. Characteristic behavior or quality: heroism.
3. a. State; condition; quality: pauperism.
b. State or condition resulting from an excess of something specified: strychninism.
4. Distinctive or characteristic trait: Latinism.
5. a. Doctrine; theory; system of principles: pacifism.
b. An attitude of prejudice against a given group: racism. Capitalism: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=capitalism
An economic system in which the means of production and distribution are privately or corporately owned and development is proportionate to the accumulation and reinvestment of profits gained in a free market.

an economic system based on private ownership of capital (syn: capitalist economy) (ant: socialism)Interestingly, however, and to get away from dictionary.com, it is worth noting that Capitalist.org shares Godless' opinion that capitalism is a "social system", and also banners that moral altruism quote from page 20 of Rand. I took the children's tour, and saw a bunch of indoctrinating BS that makes capitalism into a full-blown political platform, including military policy. Strangely, there were a bunch of patriotic American pictures in the "Visual Tour", but the site described a society that is not the United States.
A society where one man's gain is never at someone else's sacrifice, but at best is to the mutual benefit of both.

A society where each man is free to pursue his own happiness, wherever it may take him.I'll stop there because I'm just flipping through the tour and lifting a sentence here and there. It's an amazing set of assertions, and no wonder they keep referring to it as the unknown ideal.

One thing of note is that Capitalism.org, whose definition of Capitalism very nearly reflects Godless', stresses that it operates by a broader philosophic definition. It is, essentially, a different Capitalism than the economic theory. This is important to bear in mind when defending Capitalism against classic criticisms.

The FAQ is hilarious:
Who is the poor man better off under: Mother Teresa or Bill Gates?
A Mother Teresa who hands them bowls of slop every day, so they can barely exist--or a genius like Bill Gates who creates a fortune for himself by helping others to create fortunes for themselves, i.e., "where the first feeds them for a day, the second helps them feed themselves." Observe that it is the Bill Gates of the world who are not allowed to exist in India--and the Mother Teresas who areYou know ... you'll notice that the author of the FAQ doesn't really address what happened to India under the British and the long-term consequences of that period.

I'd drag Aldous Huxley into it, but it's late and I need sleep. But consider that a prosperous nation has no need for history, and a poor nation has no vision of the future.

I'll have to read more into http://capitalism.org to find out what they think of Disney paying 29 cents an hour for the Pocohontas pj's to be made in Central America. I'll bet you that created some well-paid American jobs.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Counterbalance,

I just read your post and was about to reiterate the point that Capitalism is merely an economic philosophy, not a social one. By that time Tiassa beat me to it, I guess. But please consider the point made.

As for Ayn Rand, I've read a little. Can't claim to be a Rand specialist, but I've read enough to know that her "amazing" insight does not appeal to me. Frankly, reading her I find so many questionable assumptions and phony arguments, that I cannot read her for extended periods of time without ending up wanting to strangle something. Reading her makes me want to write my own series of books specifically targeted at dispelling all the idiocies she comes up with. Of course, I'm not a very good book writer whereas she is -- that much I will give her.

In the specific quotes Godless provided, I've already pointed out a few problems. Let me just focus on the most egregious error: equating Socialism with Stalinism. Rand, like so many after her (undoubtedly many being her fans), makes the basic mistake of assuming that Socialism is incompatible with Democracy and/or Capitalism. It is compatible. I'm not carrying out an either-or argument. Rather, the question is why are we content to have Capitalism and Democracy without Socialism.

The principal reason for economic failure of the Communist bloc was bad economic policy (DUH!), not bad social policy. Experience has shown that market-driven capitalistic economy is by far superior to state-driven, 5-year-plan, artificial, bureaucratic "economy" of the Communist countries past and present. That should have been a lesson learned decades ago; by now one thinks we should have moved on...

The issue now is social, not economic, policy. With respect to the economic superiority of market-driven Capitalism over other economic policies, there is no contest, there is a hands-down clear winner. Now can we focus on the social policy, please? Have I made it clear enough?

I'm sorry if I come across as rude. That's not my intention. I just want to 1) get to the heart of the matter, and 2) hear peoples own thoughts rather than regurgitation of Rand.

A parting thought before you turn in for the night, tiassa...


I'll stop there because I'm just flipping through the tour and lifting a sentence here and there. It's an amazing set of assertions, and no wonder they keep referring to it as the unknown ideal.


If you're referring to any of Rand's assertions, (which might be part or parcel of the underpinning doctrines of these sites) recall one of my previous posts where I pointed out that Rand's ideas might need some time to "breathe" in a back cellar of one's mind for a spell? More importantly, and regardless of what one's final opinion might be of her philosophy, it isn't possible to truly grasp where she's coming from UNTIL one of her works, like Atlas Shrugged have been read and digested. This is where you will find the rationale and the examples, I think, most useful in aiding understanding.

Frankly, and I would say this to anyone... whether you wanted to dispute or to support her notions, the best, most fair way, would be to truly familiarize yourself with her works.

~~~

Counterbalance

If you're referring to any of Rand's assertions, (which might be part or parcel of the underpinning doctrines of these sites) recall one of my previous posts where I pointed out that Rand's ideas might need some time to "breathe" in a back cellar of one's mind for a spell? Actually, Counterbalance, I was lifting those assertions from the childrens' propaganda tour at capitalism.org. What I think is crushing about the couple I that this capitalism being promoted in this topic is different from that addressed by Communism or that addressed by the topic citation regarding Boeing.

When it comes to Rand, why are we taking a novelist's view of capitalism instead of a social scientist's? (Capitalism.org chooses to call Rand a novelist; I would have said social philosopher, but let's take the capitalists' version of it.) I noticed very little from Adam Smith or other fundamental capitalist writings on the site (Hirschmann?); it seems they're devoted entirely to Rand.

But specifically:
A society where one man's gain is never at someone else's sacrifice, but at best is to the mutual benefit of both. This assertion of what Capitalism creates makes me laugh. First of all, compare it to the topic post and the quote from the Dain Rauscher representative. Secondly, compare that to where Oscar Wilde wrote of Socialism: The proper aim is to try and reconstruct society on such a basis that poverty will be impossible. Seems less than antonymous, doesn't it?

When you wrote that ditching capitalism is not the way to go (a sentiment I agree with), are you referring to the Dain Rauscher (topic-associated) perspective of capitalism, or the unrecognized ideal of capitalism.org? Or are you referring to simple concepts like Smith's Wealth of Nations and Hirschmann's passions and interests?

It's hard to ditch something we don't have. Depending on which Capitalism you refer to, it becomes a largely subjective assertion that ditching it is not the way to go. Economic capitalism as classically defined has its merits. Rand's vision seems pleasant. But neither is in place, and neither refers to the more commonly-respected version of capitalism reflected in the Dain Rauscher quote in the topic post.
Frankly, and I would say this to anyone... whether you wanted to dispute or to support her notions, the best, most fair way, would be to truly familiarize yourself with her works.I could care less, actually. What strikes me about the current focus on Rand is that people seem to be sick of capitalism but are afraid to admit it, so they're focusing on this unknown, unrecognized ideal and defending that. Great: you're now on par with those who defend Communism against the Bolshevik failure.

Capitalism tries to spare you from your conscience. Socialism tries to spare you from those things that set it off. Capitalism is about the individual. Socialism is about the human species. It's great to be greedy, I admit. But at some point, this noble arrgoance of capitalism needs to get a serious attitude problem. Capitalism requires poverty to support it, and there's no way around that. Socialism seeks to eliminate poverty, and there's no way around that, either. I think it's one of those things where Capitalists are right, though: if people are so poor they have to beg for food and cut each other's throats for basic necessities, it's much better for the human race than having people fed, educated, and inspired toward better standards for society.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

I'm having fun with the Capitalism.org FAQ. Check out some of these entries: http://capitalism.org/faq/history.htm
Isn't capitalism utopian (unpractical)?
Capitalism is not utopian, but it is entirely practical theory. A utopia is some ideal which cannot ever exist in reality, i.e., it is too good to be true. Capitalism is not a utopia--it is entirely something of "this world", based on facts observable in "this world". The fact that laissez faire capitalism has never existed, does not mean it cannot exist, or that it will not exist in the future; laissez faire capitalism is a definite metaphysical possibility.I won't go so far as to ask, What facts? but it is a valid question. I think one of the observable facts is that Capitalism has, thus far, fallen victim to one of the same key assumptions which brought down Communism: human will. Communism, by nature, assumes naturally that the citizens will provide according to their ability. Many Capitalists point out the failure of Communist-Russian products: there is little or no incentive to work hard. This assumption of goodwill (providing according to their ability) is similar to the assumption of goodwill inherent in Capitalism. In example, trickle-down relied on those at the top allowing money to trickle down the pyramid in a certain fashion, and did not account for greed. Specifically, there's a part on the Capitalism.org Visual Tour that asks you to imagine A society where one man's gain is never at someone else's sacrifice, but at best is to the mutual benefit of both.

Never at someone else's sacrifice? Show me. I'm not talking the "sacrifice" of capital in exchange for goods and services. Consider how Americans sell things: minimum investment, maximum return. Tell me, please, how that works in terms of the Boeing jobs referenced in the topic post, or, more directly, how the profit of my company's outgoing CEO ($5m package) isn't at the sacrifice of the 15% workforce reduction necessitated by his incompetent efforts to accommodate investors in the manner described in the topic post citation. (Seriously, in responding directly to investor demands, the executives nearly sank the company by shattering product quality and service quality.) I dispute the claim that a Capitalist world will profit without sacrifice.

And it's true that the capitalism described at the site has never existed. It's potential and metaphysical possibility I grant. But this idea of capitalism being advocated has no factual merit. Which brings me back to the question I wasn't going to ask about. But proper, manifesto communism has never existed, nor proper, doctrinal socialism. Economic theories are largely like religions: pick the one that leads to your best idea of human benefit and go with it. I like the fact that the site is taking theoretic fancy and using it to characterize and criticize something for existing in the same metaphysical state. Seems pretty damn silly, to me. I would have thought they had something better to go on.
Isn't Capitalism a bad theory, that works in practice?
Capitalism is the best--the ideal--theory, because to the extent that it is allowed to work, it always works in practice.And if it is allowed to go far enough, we can shoot each other for money. Sure, there's that bit about no sacrifice and abolition of the initiation of force, but those are as metaphysically potential as any utopia, and just about as real. The more they spread this out into a political theory, the more it sounds like Anarchism with a fixation on currency.
Isn't Capitalism responsible for children working in factories?
Children working in factories was only a transitory stage between early feudalism and capitalism. Prior to working in factories, before capitalism, many of children (and their parents) used to die and starve, as evidenced by the high infant mortality statistics before capitalism. Observe that is was not until families left the "country" and went into the "cities" that they were able to produce enough food to eat. The clearest evidence of this is population and infant mortality statistics: population did not go up, and infant mortality did not go down, until the Industrial Revolution. If life was so great before capitalism in the "country", why was infant mortality so high and population numbers considerably lower before capitalism? Answer: because life was not so great until Capitalism.This is almost cute. First off, it assumes that Capitalism is the sole factor in the human condition. Cute attempt to limit the issues, but you'll have to tell me how technology has been limited to capitalists through history.

Furthermore, how can they assert that life was not so great until Capitalism when the version of Capitalism they describe has, by their own declaration, never existed?

And take a look at modern, poor nations. Do you think they would be as poor if the American companies operating factories there had to pay a fair wage? I heard someone tell me on the one hand that economy and eduction are cruel to poor nations, and that they must be brought up to economic equality through military action. What is it that we don't want intelligent people figuring the political philosophy of Greed?
What halted child labor in factories?
Throughout history the parents of most families could not produce enough to support their families without having their children work also (such was the case of my father in India). It was the accumulation capital by the industrialists that made the labor of parents more productive, that children had to stop working in fields or factories. In poor non-capitalist countries they are still working in fields and factories.Oh, we hurt those people so badly when we stopped their children from working in dangerous factories. Tell me: if nobody has the means to educate themselves so that they're not so poor that their children need to work instead of learn, aren't we just perpetuating the idea of human capital and a form of classism? Capitalism always requires a poverty class to support it. If things get too expensive, Capitalism falls apart. Consider an International Socialist Order comparison of Michael Eisner's millions annually at Disney and the 29 cents an hour paid to the Honduran women making Pocahontas pajamas. Could the average worker afford consumer-oriented production if the rich CEO took less money in order to pay a working wage? Possibly, but then again we might recall that in the US (not a capitalist country, according to the website), it was for a while your civic duty to be indebted against future labor in order to buy more, more, more products. I have a few well-made things in my life; I paid about 20-30% more than the run-of-the-mill models, but I generally get 200-300% greater use out of them. I don't mind if things are a little more expensive. If they're higher quality, I won't need to buy so damn many of them.

http://capitalism.org/faq/women.htm
As to wages, what an individual is paid is determined by the value he can offer to others in a free market. As an illustration observe the large number women who earn enormous salaries that dwarf those of most men.Funny, though ... it's still true that women are being paid less for equal work than men. There's a woman in my office who has a better title, more complex and demanding duties, and more market experience than I do. She's earning exactly, as of the last time she showed me her pay stub, 15.7% less than I do. I found out when the last gender/wage numbers came out (15% disparity) that my company is right on target; I don't get a large sampling, but so far it's consistent. The women are making about 15% less. Studies show that the illustration offered is a fantasy of exceptions to the norm.

* In the United States and elsewhere, a "gender gap often exists, in which women are paid less than men for comparable positions. http://www.encyclopedia.com/articlesnew/49088.html

* These results indicate a link between female wages and gender composition that is much stronger in the United States than in Canada, where the relationship is generally small and not statistically significant. The relatively more advantageous position of women in female jobs in Canada is found to be linked to higher unionization rates and the industry-wage effects of "public goods" sectors. http://www.hrdc-drhc.gc.ca/arb/publications/research/2000docs/abw-00-3e.shtml

It really does seem that the capitalists down at the dot-org work with exceptionally limited data sets and have crafted a modernized political platform around greed. They stress the individual, which is well and proper. But the concept of society is apparently just a competitive arena. I guess I just don't understand the idea of coming together as a society just to tear each other apart like animals. And again, I'd love to buy the "no sacrifice" line from the capitalists, but it's BS and, currently, a mere metaphysical potentiality.

Is it dishonesty or mere inattention which compels this dubious capitalist line?

A question about Rand and capitalism:
The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man's rational nature, that it protects man's survival qua man, and that its ruling principles is: Justice.Unfortunately, the Rand fans at Capitalism.org chose to omit any FAQ entry describing what capitalists call justice. Since it's a ruling principle of the moral justification of capitalism, I think it's a vital question: What is Justice?

A point regarding humanity, from Emma Goldman:
A thorough perusal of the history of human development will disclose two elements in bitter conflict with each other; elements that are only now beginning to be understood, not as foreign to each other, but as closely related and truly harmonious, if only placed in proper environment: the individual and social instincts. The individual and society have waged a relentless and bloody battle for ages, each striving for supremacy, because each was blind to the value and importance of the other. The individual and social instincts,--the one a most potent factor for individual endeavor, for growth, aspiration, self-realization; the other an equally potent factor for mutual helpfulness and social well-being http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Goldman/Writings/Anarchism/anarchism.html

This is how one thinks when one isn't focused on capital resources and isn't focused solely on the individual self. It's not that tough to do, and it seems a more trustworthy guide than avarice.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

For Banbi, no I'm not Ayn Rand, however I support her views, and I've studied her fully, from nobels, to the very few philosophical books she wrote. She has been the most contraversial philosopher nobelist of the 19Th century, her ideas are not new, just redefined, her philosophical base comes from Aristotle. However a great tragedy has happened in the world, that is a tragedy that is 1000's of years old, the philophycal base of the rest of the world is based upon Plato, Platonism created problems were none existed, the father of business and the capitalist ideal is Aristotle, the father of socialism, communism, stalinism, collectivism, democracies, is largely based on Plato's philosophic writings.

This is a hard pill to swallow, what would you do? take the blue pill, or the red and live happily in la-la land?.

I took the blue pill, lol.

I see the world and the way its about to self distruct, largely based on a philosophical war if you will, that war is 1000's of years old.

It's a war of principles of which way society shoud be, I believe that The US, this country, by it's existence has by and far proven!. With out of a shadow of a doubt! that the Aritotelian philosophical ideal is the best way to go, however we've had that great tragedy of the philosophical ideals of Plato infect "if you will" early in this countries history of big business. Beggining with the Antitrust Laws, this gave way for goverment quislings to be bouth out by big businesses. It created more problems than it solved, it's still creates more problems than it solves.

Tiassa, I don't judge a book by it's cover, I believe that you don't either. Couterbalance is correct in quiding you to read some of Rand's nobles, this gives life to the theories of her philosophie, and in a way she explains in her nobles what her philosophy would be like if one lived it.

No! you are correct "capitalism" is not a way to utopia, no social system would be, however with capitalism, if one feels not happy with the job, then one can just move on to another, or study to become a businessman etc...
Bill Gates the man was not rich all his life, yet the opportunities given by this country has made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. This could be the goal of anyone. If one was willing to pay the price. Bill did.

What opportunity would Bill have had in a Socialist economical system? Microsoft would have been property of the state, Bill would have just worked as a programmer by force! his income would have been miniscule.

Capitalism is not fair! capitalism was not meant to be fair, however if one was to live under a social state, i.e. socialism, communism, what would constitute as fair in these states? For one your job is chosen for you, If you happened to be born under a family whose father is a political leader, your chances of welfare are a lot better of, compared to the son of the grocer down the street. Do you think?

Socialism by all means is not equal. There are lots of poor people in socialist states, the ideal has not worked and it will not work.

Socialism has explained by Banbi, will not work either. Why!!!! she might scream at the top of her lungs at me! I will explain.

It may seem that is working, however have you heard of the quote "mind drain" what this is in economical terms is that most of your educated people, businessmen, doctors, engineers, etc. Are leaving at large quantities a geographical area. If one was to look at which area they are leaving from they are communist countries, or socialist countries. Why do you suppose that is?. They are scaping the atrocities about to be commited by these countries when the social system fails. They are fed up, that they are being "used" by the social system for its benefit and not theirs. Thier work does not belong to them, thier ingenuity is given at a price and that price is thier freedom to reap the rewards of their labor. Which brings us back to Bill Gates, where would he have been in a communist country?.

When it comes to Rand, why are we taking a novelist's view of capitalism instead of a social scientist's?

~~~

Tiassa...

You nor we HAVE to take Rand's view of anything.

Yet... Why would Rand's name keep surfacing?

The reason Rand's name keeps popping up here, and on websites offering views/info on Capitalism, is because she took the time to delve into what Capitalism really means; she made doing that and building her philosophy of Objectivism her life's work. She earned the scrutiny she gets. She took apart the concept of Capitalism--took it down to the bone--in an effort to help people understand. This is reflected in her literary works, fiction and non-fiction. She didn't make it simple, but she was thorough. I've never thought of her as a "social scientist" but, after a fashion, that's what she was.

I have no interest in proving or disproving anything about Capitalism or Rand. As you seemed to have a keen interest in the "whys" and "hows" of Capitalism and similar politico-economical topics, I offered a good source of information; directions toward a viewpoint (or information) that you (or others) might find useful to add to your mental libraries, providing you're able to give Rand's writings a chance.

Bambi admits that (s)he couldn't get past certain (emotional?) objections and only read so far. And this has often been the case for other readers or seekers. The best way to approach reading Rand, in my view, is to be as objective as possible. After all, no one has to accept her assertions. I had to tell myself that a few times the first time I tackled The Fountainhead. However, perseverance paid off. Putting aside my emotions, including fear from encountering such bold indictments against established beliefs, earned a reward. For me it was indeed a thing of value: the reward of a better understanding.

Actually, anything that provokes a strong emotional reaction is worth a deeper look, imo.

At any rate, for those who like to... debating these issues can bring about a multitude of good things. No question. Debating them with a depth and breadth of understanding, or with a desire for such a depth could actually lead to (dare we hope?) enlightenment. That you, tiassa, go in search of deeper understanding is obvious and commendable. Thus, my reasoning, (flawed though it may have been), was to offer you another source. I don't care what your final verdict is. The quest itself should prove worthwhile.

...Can you remember as a very young child going into a department store and seeing the shelves stocked with toys, and perhaps you wondered on occasion why toys weren't free for you and all children to have as and when you liked? Well, like most people you learned over time why you have to pay for things. But which "why" did you learn? Did you learn all of the "Whys?"

Rand's insight into the "whys" was interesting to me. They may or may not be to you, but you'll never know if you don't go there. :)

~~~

Happy hunting,

Counterbalance

You nor we HAVE to take Rand's view of anything. Well, the Capitalists seem quite devoted to her visionary idyll. Like I noted, though, there's not much on the fundamental devices of Capitalism there. Of course we don't have to take Rand's view, but everyone seems to be saying, "Let Ayn Rand speak for me." It's like saying to let the Bible speak for a person. To me, it's a lot like Emma Goldman: it would be well enough to let some of her words speak for me, but it's always worth it to throw a little direction on that. Why hide the agenda behind a novelist's lofty vision and not discuss the realities of it? I read a James Carroll (Boston Globe) article today, one I had filed away a couple of months ago; he was "defending the drug war against charges of racism". His essential point, summed up at the end, was that while the crafters of drug policy may or may not have been racist, the racist result of those policies is clear to anyone who looks. (E.g.--Blacks account for 13% of drug users, 55% of drug convictions, and 74% of drug prison terms in the United States.) Unlike the drug war, however, Rand's assertions have no real basis upon which to conclude them correct. They are, at heart, as subjective as Communism, Christianity, or the merits of iambic foot. Take this page from the FAQ, which seems immersed entirely in Rand: http://capitalism.org/faq/society.htm
Capitalism is opposed to slave states. Capitalism is only opposed to man living in society as a non-individual amorphous member of a collective, i.e. as a slave. Individualism holds that it is much better for man to live on a deserted island, than to live in a society where he is nothing more than a pawn ready to be sacrificed to the altar of the "public good".Sounds a little like Anarchism to me. And there's the point, though: better to live on a desert island than to live in a society, blah blah blah. That's as subjective as any of a massive number of Biblical principles. It's as well as they can dress up the idea that society is there for the taking. The site says much about rights, and makes it a very individual appeal (e.g. The only obligation one's rights impose on others is for them to leave you alone, i.e. free to act within your sphere of rights.) You'll note that capitalists largely talk about what someone owes you, or what someone owes "me". It talks about rights and never about responsibilities because, as we see from the website, Capitalism's modern incarnation claims to be about man's natural state. You know, that inherent state of man in nature: skyscrapers, nuclear missiles ....

What this website sounds like is a bunch of libertarian yahoos who got together and thought as little as possible while creating an attractive political package; but libertarianism hasn't gotten the respect it deserves, or some such, so let's rename it. What should we call it, objectivism? Why not capitalism. But wait, isn't capitalism an economic theory? Well, who cares? This is the United States of America, and we can call whatever we want whatever we like. Cable internet can call itself fast and reliable. Ford can still assert that quality is job one. Microsoft can claim to be a solution provider. Whatever you want to call it, it becomes. So call it Capitalism because people already like that, and since most of 'em are ignorant of what they claim to believe, they might accidentally believe that this is Capitalism. It's like saying the Manifesto is Communism. Technically, it is, but I've never seen nor heard of it being properly implemented.

Capitalism doesn't have a military philosophy: that's an accretion of later fans trying to make economy the purpose of life. Seriously, it sounds like Anarchism with a seriously detrimental greedy streak, or, more appropriately named, vulgar libertarianism. It's all about the self, and that's well and fine. There's an operating assumption of wellbeing that historically is not evident in any economic/political theory.
I have no interest in proving or disproving anything about Capitalism or Rand. Well it's not necessarily that, but that all the capitalists in these considerations seem to revolve around Rand, with little or no consideration toward ideas such as the advent of the division of labor and what its real effect was on the laborer's station in society. These considerations seem to resoundingly declare that the bizarre capitalist summary in the topic post is wrong. And that's well and fine, but take, for instance, the widespread capitalist condemnation of communism and socialism as pipe dreams: so it would seem with this political platform named Capitalism. You could run a presidential candidate based on that website and sound amazingly mainstream, but the simple fact is that even the proponents of this political capitalism admit it to have no functional precedent. In that sense, we're still working with theories. We can note that prior attempts at Communism have failed; compared to the Rand vision, Capitalism will never exist.

The scariest part of the FAQ I've found so far: http://capitalism.org/faq/education.htm

It's an amazing document. And I noted among all of their characterizations of "collectivists" and so forth that they provide no basis for it, so it seems quite arbitrary.
Doesn't capitalism oppose public "free" education?
no, capitalism opposes government controlled "public" education. In a capitalist society, the indoctrination of the young by the officials of the state is banned completely. Under capitalism, all education is taken on as a private profit making enterprise, not because education is unimportant, but because it is so important.Um ... I went to a private high school. In order to keep tuition costs accessible to the middle class, it operated under massive charitable endowment. This is not a profit-making enterprise. Look what happened the last time education was only available to those who could afford to pay for it: the world is still recovering from the hideous illiteracy that has compelled notions of public education at least since Charlemange. Apparently, society itself must be a profit-making enterprise: e.g. that there is no point in coming together in society unless we can invent an abstraction called currency and demand that everything we do increase the amount of currency we have inherently. It's like criticizing a mason because the wall isn't finished when the first brick is laid. He hasn't actually made any money on the contract yet, so the contract must necessarily be bad. It's a matter of how we classify our actions, and how specific we wish to be. It is, for instance, a prime factor in the frighteningly common phenomenon of parents who believe their children are supposed to contribute financially to the family instead of learn and grow. Carry one's own weight? What, maybe it wasn't a profitable idea to have children? This is exactly what I oppose about capitalism: in order to make it work as harmoniously as the idyll likes to assert, one must, upon institution of the system, undertake the incredibly communitarian act of equalizing the financial scene. Consider if we instituted this Rand capitalism tomorrow: how many of the United States' families could afford to educate their children? Well then, take a loan, and thus oblige more capital.

Tell me: how will the capitalists understand their responsibilities (e.g. banishment of initiation of force; profit of one without sacrifice of another) if they're not educated in the way of capitalism because they can't afford to learn to read?

So here's the deal on Rand: I'll get there when I get there. For project reading I've got Sir James Frazier, at least, in the queue, and a revisitation of Camus in light of a recent validation of a notion I formerly held of Sisyphan philosophy which I had discarded. The functional illustrations of Frazier tell me more about how to properly associate among humans than the fancies of Ayn Rand. The philosophic considerations of Camus shed better light on why people behave the way they do than justifications of selfishness. ( http://capitalism.org/faq/selfishness.htm is hilarious ... they actually have to establish what they mean by selfishness, as opposed to a dictionary definition. In fact, you'll notice a lot of capitalist justifications are based in redefinitions of word.)

Since what Rand-capitalism is apparently, actually called objectivism (I just noticed the .org's copyright notice--the whole thing is based entirely in that volume, and thus makes no considerations of its own of the devices of capitalism as they relate to Rand's presuppositions. Since you're presenting Rand, do you accept the redefinition of commonly-known words (e.g. selfishness) in order to justify the vision? It seems a little dishonest to me, but then again, integrity is largely unprofitable, though, so we understand that.

I'll get to Rand eventually, but I'm not going to change the current course at present to accommodate the present debate. However I find it interesting that a real-life assertion such as the topic post inspires considerations of theory. It's not that I won't discuss theory--heavens, my reputation should precede me in that, at least--but I find it interesting that the practical examples used to demonstrate this political platform employ ridiculous statistical exceptions:

* If a laborer--say Michael Jordan--is not paid enough for what he produces, then someone else will hire him an pay him more. ( http://capitalism.org/faq/labor.htm )

* Which brings us back to Bill Gates, where would he have been in a communist country? (Godless, 12/13 ... and as a note to that, I intend to give your post better consideration, but I've been at this one a while; suffice to say that Capitalism would not have benefitted Gates, either, since all he really did was deceive a guy about the value of his product and profit by the sacrifice of another; in the .org site--based solely in Rand--this is not capitalist. Nobody remembers Q-DOS, and that for a reason.)
Rand's insight into the "whys" was interesting to me.So are Emma Goldman, Karl Marx, Sir James Frazier, and many others. Consider the presuppositions which lead to Rand's whys. There are times I disagree with those I hold aloft, and it's usually in a given presupposition that can only be resolved by comparison to historical conditions.

thanx much,
Tiassa :cool:

Sounds a little like Anarchism to me. And there's the point, though: better to live on a desert island than to live in a society, blah blah blah. That's as subjective as any of a massive number of Biblical principles. It's as well as they can dress up the idea that society is there for the taking. The site says much about rights, and makes it a very individual appeal (e.g. The only obligation one's rights impose on others is for them to leave you alone, i.e. free to act within your sphere of rights.) You'll note that capitalists largely talk about what someone owes you, or what someone owes "me". It talks about rights and never about responsibilities because, as we see from the website, Capitalism's modern incarnation claims to be about man's natural state. You know, that inherent state of man in nature: skyscrapers, nuclear missiles ....It would do me well to include a certain point that I seem to have danced around without actually landing on: What is slavery to society? The fetters of government and social obligation are something the Goldman acknowledged while calling on the potential of the human intellect to behave in such a manner as to make governments largely unnecessary. But with the point of humans being slaves yet to resolve for our purposes (I'll check in with that FAQ for its perspective), but the example of slavery seems to describe something vague that leaves us wondering at what point our commitments to the societal communities become slavery. In terms of government, Lysander Spooner pointed out in 1875 (or thereabout) that no body of people can award to government a right or responsibility which they hitherto did not possess. In the long run, the prosperity of society depends on what we the individuals grant it.

The point I missed including is simply this: If man is better off on a desert island than obliged to society, what is the point of society? Did we really come in from the cold just to create a faux-nature? Did we "civilize" just to tear each others' throats out? The .org asserts that profit should come without sacrifice by another; this sounds much like religious philosophies such as the Rede or the Law of Thelema. But both of those creeds, by the philosophies they exist amid, understand that in order to harm none, one must occasionally "take one for the team". As I'm receiving it from the .org, one should never do this.

Seriously: at what point does a capitalist (by the .org adaptation of Rand, or by any other which asserts conditions of "slavery") become a slave to honesty? Compare that to the present day in the US: deceiving consumers is the basis of the market economy. Words like "quality" and "performace" take on product-specific definitions in order to quell the legalisms of false advertising.

Since it's that large of a point, we might say I missed my point quite widely. Then again, considering a Capitalism designed as a political platform, it's a broad spectrum of considerations.

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

it would be well enough to let some of her words speak for me, but it's always worth it to throw a little direction on that. Why hide the agenda behind a novelist's lofty vision and not discuss the realities of it?

~~~

As for me, I'm not hiding anything here. (the opposite, actually) I don't see it as my duty to "teach" Rand to others. And as I've written more than once, I don't have a desire to. I'm being honest. Those who actually ARE interested will check her out if they want.

Generally speaking, whatever it is we really want, or whatever it is we really want to know, that's the thing in which we'll invest time, energy, or money. Not that we'll all invest wisely, but where and how we invest is pretty telling, imo.

Valued-based decisions: We don't all hold the same values.
We don't all see (or seem to see) how telling our actions or choices actually are--be they the actions of a Capitalist or the actions of a sciforums member. (Yes. Rand goes into all of that as well. And that brief Rand bit is worth my mentioning it. It's not worth my time however to spend 30 minutes giving everyone my "subjective" opinion on what they need to sort out for themselves.)

You've invested considerable time posting on the subject of Capitalism. You've read the works of other knowledgeable and gifted authors. You've done some research on the Internet. You've now come across a website that has obviously caught your attention. You've formed and expressed opinions about it, but also on Rand; opinions based, at least in part, on what you've read at this site. Okay, have at it. (Btw... don't know how much you're aware of this, but there are quite a number of political-philosophical organizations that have somewhat aligned themselves, or tried to, with Rand's notions since her death, not all of whom Rand would endorse herself. The Libertarians are one such group.)

And sure, if you want to read Rand later, then "do as thou wilt." Just don't be surprised or confounded if, in the meantime, (while you continue to "talk" about or explore Capitalism) that you also continue to encounter Rand quotes and people pointing you in her direction. Maybe there's a good reason for this?

Very few folk I've encountered can explain or "share" Rand better than Rand herself. Me, personally, I'd rather go straight for the source, or to the "fountainhead," if you will. It's a waste of time for me to seriously seek answers--or to seek serious answers--from a forum full of hundreds of conflicting subjective opinions. But to each his own.

In other words, when I do actively seek... when I'm truly interested in learning about something... I prefer not to have to sort through just anyone's 'kitchen sink' full of presuppositions, accusations, challenges for proof...etc. Hey, they're free to come at it from any direction they like, and sometimes in the give-and-take we do learn something worthwhile, but I like to take a more direct route. Maybe I'm just more result-oriented. I definitely place a high value on my time.

Why would I take the time to even say all of this? I mean, it's not like you don't already know this stuff, right?

I do it, tiassa, because you have shown that you have a well-developed mind, and because you've demonstrated more than once that you can back off and look at what you've proposed without substantial fear. There is then, at times, a seemingly real objectivity in tiassa. These, among other things, are qualities that I value. If by spending a little time in brief discussions with you supports something I value, then I'm satisfied. If you also gain value from it--now or later--then that's a bonus for both of us. By some people's standards, it's a great bonus.

What all have I really said here?

Probably more than some might guess after a first, or even a second reading. My way tends naturally to be one of making it so simple or understated that those who read/approach my posts with their own (even fairly soft-set ) presuppositions or assumptions will tend to discount .. "the stuff they already know." --or thought they knew -- or thought they understood pretty well -- or maybe they hadn't really connected some of those dots, but yeah ... it sorta seems like there should be a connection...

~~~

So, as always,

For what it's worth... (even if only eventually)

Counterbalance

Valued-based decisions: We don't all hold the same values.
We don't all see (or seem to see) how telling our actions or choices actually are--be they the actions of a Capitalist or the actions of a sciforums memberI'm curious about something. Looking at a Rand-capitalist concept regarding religion:
Isn't Capitalism opposed to freedom of religion?
No. Capitalism is the only system that allows freedom of religion, including freedom from it. Or, in the words of James Madison,

"While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the religion which we believe to be of a divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us."

Thus, capitalism neither supports nor opposes religion, as long as those religious practices do not violate the rights of others. Or. in the words of Thomas Jefferson,

"The legitimate powers of government tend to such acts as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." There's more on that page about religion, but since rights are the centerpiece of this particular capitalism: What happens when the religion runs counter to Capitalism? What this capitalism proposes equals nothing more or less than the extinction of current religions, and while I'm not going to cry over that loss, one might wonder about the practical application of a capitalist principle that seems in the individual mind to oppose what God instructs. The reason the United States is not purely capitalist is that nobody really wants it; nobody can stomach the idea--the religious conscience compels them toward socialist ideas. Which is an interesting notion in itself; the .org notes that religion is a perfect base for socialism,
Religion--a pre-philosophical outlook--is a perfect philosophical base for socialism. The philosophical essentials of religion are as follows: in metaphysics religion holds to the supernatural and miracles (as opposed to reality and causality), in epistemology religion holds that the means of knowledge is revelation and faith (as opposed to reason and logic), in ethics religion holds to self-sacrifice or altruism (as opposed to self-interest and the pursuit of happiness) Please note that after making the assertion, there is little connection drawn. It would appear, then, that in addition to altruism, Socialism finds its roots in supernatural miracles, and revelation and faith. Someone please show me the supernatural miracle alleged in socialism. These politically-crafted characterizations lend toward the ongoing idea that, in lieu of anything other than greed to justify capitalism, the capitalists are resorting to demonization of their chosen opponents. Once again, we see capitalism as a comparison to religions: it relies not on practical data but lofty assertions and slanderous characterizations. Don't get me wrong: that's the way of faith--whether Capitalist, Communist, Christian, or whatnot, such is the product of faith. So much for reality and causality.

See, this whole Rand thing is strange to me: I've known that many philosophies look to Rand for years, notable among them are Satanists and Capitalists. (Objectivists of course, Libertarians, Individualists, Natural Law philosophy, &c., among others.) But to see a wholesale abandonment of the founding principles and devices leading to the capitalist era (Machiavelli, Smith, &c.) is a little puzzling. Hirschmann's The Passions and the Interests even explores the question of how something so disapproved of in Jefferson's time as commercial banking could become the respectable centerpiece of a modern economy. And not a whit on this powerful, pro-capitalist result at all.

You've now come across a website that has obviously caught your attention. Well, to be honest, I'd have thought this site crackers if it wasn't for the number of people excerpting the same bits from Rand in this debate. I don't disapprove of it in any moral sense; I just find it interesting that the Capitalism being defended is a different one from that presented in the topic post (this is not problematic; after all, any considerations on Capitalism seems to be the point, eh?) and that the Capitalism being considered is a lofty assertion that ignores the historical result of certain of its precepts in order to make the idea sound politically appealing. It's broader in some respects than the Communist Manifesto, which is an interesting point to consider. A theory with no historical precedent criticizing another theory with no historical precedent. Doctrinal socialism or communism are as impossible to compare objectively as this idyllic Capitalism.
As for me, I'm not hiding anything here. (the opposite, actually) I don't see it as my duty to "teach" Rand to others. I'm sorry if you feel I've been pressing you unduly; it's just that with three Rand advocates here presenting this version of Capitalism (you, Godless, and the dot-org) I really do wonder why we invest in this unrealized Capitalist idyll instead of considering the state of the current Capitalist idea. It all sounds nice and lovely, but it includes similar obstacles to that which it opposes and, in its political form, bears a sense of integrity that is so foreign to me I'm having a hard time seeing it.

The question of Anarchism is simple: How, once people shake off the fetters of government, do they get along peacefully? (Simply, how do they avoid stealing and fighting and taking advantage of one another in lieu of no regulation on conduct.)

The question of Communism is simple: How, in a from-each/to-each idea, do the people avoid reduction of contribution in response to interpersonal jealousy or other issues? (It's one I heard all over the place as a kid: If you're getting paid X to do a job, and the guy next to you gets paid the same for not doing his job, what incentive is there to do well? Russian industrial products usually served as a striking example.)

The question of Capitalism is simple: How does one educate in the principles of Capitalism (e.g. profit without harm) if education is a capitalist device seeking profit? (In other words, if the assertion of profit without harm is something that can be realized, can it be maintained? Diverse values are certainly one thing, but how do those values reflect on profit and harm? Think of it this way: my high school education in 1988-91 cost $3,800 a year, and my school was both the lowest tuition and the best educational result in the state. Does this point toward a capital success? No, but being located in Tacoma (western Washington, cosmopolitan) and not in Spokane (eastern Washington, cities on a desert plateau), we managed a better charitable endowment to cover the expenses of jacking up that educational standard. It's not that the eastern-state parochial schools suck, by any means: being in the more cosmopolitan part of the state, we just got a lot more endowment money. But, more to the point, how does making education a for-profit enterprise improve education? Take a look at how many companies increase profitability by cutting into necessary expenses: my company is doing that very thing right now. Put it this way: across the aisle from me are two guys whose duties surround accommodating the needs of 460+ people; I did this very job, too. When the positions were created, the two were expected to accommodate the needs of less than 150 people; the office has tripled in population, and the same labor effort is expected to handle this increase without faltering. As it is, a full-service department has stripped itself down to basic functions, and those are even inadequately executed most days. Considering also that my company, in its quest for profitability, pays below the market average, I'm suddenly frightened for the challenges facing teachers in a for-profit enterprise: 120 students and 1 kindergarten teacher? It's possible. Out-of-date textbooks due to replacement expense? It's possible; we've used inadequate textbooks and justified it by racial arguments before, so I'm happy we're at least considering finance instead of race, but still ...

Do you really think that a Capitalism that relies on the best potential of a well-educated human individual has any better chance of success when that very education is a profit device? Currently, the profits of education come in reduced crime, greater productivity, civil peace (relatively), and increased understanding of one another. To the Capitalists I can only say, "I'm sorry that capital profit isn't the first concern of the public education; I know how worthless intangible profits are in the marketplace."

We profit greatly from education; demanding a financial profit is possible--we're just selling out the more vital and demonstrable "intangible" profits of education in the process.

It's pretty much like Anarchism: once everyone's agreed to get along, how do you prevent people taking advantage of the peace, which ends up causing the very governmental conventions Anarchism despises? Of Capitalism: once everyone is getting along, how do you indoctrinate the next generation in order to maintain the Capitalist convention?

Strangely, this started out as a short note on values-based decisions ... but that's how interconnected it seems to be. Where do those values come from? How are they communicated? What happens when one portion of the Capitalists don't want to play by the Capitalist rules (e.g. profit without harm)?

It's a lofty vision, this Rand capitalism. And it's the one the Capitalists seem to prefer to employ in both the advocation and defense of Capitalism. It does not, however, reflect the Capitalist experience in the world, and I'm curious why that is.

Just don't be surprised or confounded if, in the meantime, (while you continue to "talk" about or explore Capitalism) that you also continue to encounter Rand quotes and people pointing you in her direction. Maybe there's a good reason for this?The same reasons we see in any Communism debate: the Communists want to hold up the paper idyll, the Critics want to examine the practical downfalls.

There is a good reason, I believe, why Capitalists, when assessing what capitalism is, point to an idyll that is not and possibly cannot be actualized: denial.

Capitalism sounds good: conventionally-accepted greed is what everyone wants in some form or another. But it doesn't work, and we have a plethora of human history to demonstrate that. Throughout the entire development of capitalism, the philosophies have always placed the self above the community, and resulted in a widespread sense of greed. Of course it does: the individual is the centerpiece and capital the object. And that's it's major downfall, and that downfall is what the Rand capitalists are trying to work around without ever acknowledging the fault in the first place.

You've been most kind throughout this debate, and I thank you for your warm words. I don't mean to press you, but we've got an interesting dialogue going on here, and it's a great chance to figure out why the Capitalists think they can ignore the same thing their predecessors and their opposition failed to work around

I don't understand how a society centered around individual greed can work. It seems that the society, then, is a combat arena for the individuals to hammer it out for the abstraction of money. That is, society exists so that we can carry out a fiction by which we might compare ourselves against each other.

Anyone who ever did any time in the retail sector knows: everyone is a potential customer; in other words, everyone who walks into the store has money, and it's your job to get it from them come hell or high water. Do that for even a short period of less than a year or so: you'll notice that the people around you start to look at all of life in that sense. And that's how we get to the idea that we raise children for the profit of their labors on our behalf (e.g.--"Earn your keep", "Carry your weight", &c), for instance.

It sounds like a nice philosophy, but what does it really describe?

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Tiassa,

I'm suddenly frightened for the challenges facing teachers in a for-profit enterprise: 120 students and 1 kindergarten teacher? It's possible. Out-of-date textbooks due to replacement expense? It's possible; we've used inadequate textbooks and justified it by racial arguments before, so I'm happy we're at least considering finance instead of race, but still ...

Only with K classes from 6 am to 10pm and the broken down teacher teaching all of them. What does, for the love of Mike, RACE have to do with capitalistic education?

For the Record, I'm a Randian, too. Not a cultist, just someone who appreciates she was both an atheist, and wrote with élan and perspicuity. She as many other philosophers (especially the sophists whom she admired greatly) used fiction to make her points. RTM

There are many businesses that manage to survive for decades at or near break-even. If the business exists (eg: primary purpose) to educate, then the "profit" return expectations would be minimal of the capitalists, which in the event of a secondary school would be the local indigenous denizens, as it was until the '60s when the fed started truly intervening in our lives with LBJs WONDERFUL :rolleyes: Great Society, which failed abysmally. They want their money back, with a reasonable profit (not the 500 per cent in five years like the venture caps financers want). Then the tuitions are expected to cover operating costs, and fees. Yes, buying books is a requirement there are ways of minimizing this. One or them is the FOCUS of your school.

ONE of the justifications of using books in secondary schools which are decades out of date is that the fundamentals (which should be IMHO the primary focus in a secondary school not horse manure golbal studies or warming) for the sake of argument, when you add oil of vitriol to sea water, you are ALWAYS going to get chlorine gas. Now does it really matter that oil of vitriol is NOW called sulfuric acid, and the sea water has been replaced with a sterile saline solution? OF course not. Would it matter in that particular case whether that laboratory experiment came out of a book written in 1830, or 2001? Not at all. The same exercise can be accomplished a tactile method of demonstrating the precision of chemistry. I should like to have a grammar book with dosen't like the idea of people interchanging the verbs "to say" and "to go", constantly, but that just me. I want to understand people, and I don't much care for want the inclusive lexicographers have to say.

Now we are back to purpose. THE purpose of secondary schools was to provide sufficient grounding in basic subjects, so that the colleges had something to work with. That's why there USED to be true entrance examinations which were replaced with these ridiculous SAT/ACT tests. Purportedly in a college lit courses, the student should already know how to write a book report, term paper, and an essay properly. He should also, know how to read critically; unfortunately, this falls to the colleges, because the public schools are too busy dealing with hopped up kids shooting the hell out of the place with stolen guns, instead of TEACHING, because the TV told the parents to abdicate all parental responsibility to the gov't. OR they are pursuing the American Nightmare so fully they don't understand that there are something which cannot replace parents being in control of their children. (I realize you have some issues in this regard, but I submit that they are YOUR issues).

Instead, of REJECTING unacceptable applicants, now the colleges are wasting two years of the students time to bring them up to necessary standards, when possible (review the college entrance vs. graduation figures), so they can actually study their course majors. The colleges have also been dumbed down to accommodate the "traditional" four year standard as many of them ARE for profit institutions who have Tax exemptions-the distinction is considerable..

However your post was about how CAPTITALISM cannot be applied to everything in society. I would have to agree. It cannot. There are issues which may well, even in an "idyllic" capitalistic economy, have to remain somewhat socialistic.

However, I don't care to support ALL of society, most, nor even some. I, personally, nor generally, am NOT required by ANY standard to provide the produce of MY labor for YOUR groceries/healthcare/nor educating YOUR children. I may well be complled by law, but not by moral, nor ethical standard. Christianity is a belief system, not a moral standard, btw. I can refuse, and I do. Selfish, yes, and it's rational. I work for ME. I may well CHOOSE to include others e.g.: wife and ubiquitous rug rat curtain climbing yard apes, however I work for ME and NO one else unless I choose it. Yes and if they won't toe the mark, well, that is their challenge (and for the sake of obfuscation, I can choose death rather than slavery)

However in YOUR socialism, or communism, you'll find that I shall be "sentenced" to perform OVERTIME, just because I am the MOST efficient at my work. Well, IF I am the best, WHY ain't I got the MOST? IF I am TRULY the best, I end up OWNING the thing by virtue of reward in a capitalistic economy, but in a socialist one the state owns EVERYTHING, I think I"ll "opt out" as I do with the 14 gazillion advertisers of EVERY web based email. Somebody has to pay the freight; and in the case of the web based email providers, that's the advertisers, not the end user, but I'll opt out, just the same (and use my ad blocker, thank you very much). Now, if they would just come up with the same thing for cable TV... hehe :)

Tiassa, uh Rand was an atheist, so in her version of captialism there was NO religion. When you are in conflict, you are struggling with emotive vs. rational issues. Rand claimed to respond ONLY rationally--she lied. Ref: Nathanial & Barbra Brandon

[quote]What does, for the love of Mike, RACE have to do with capitalistic education?It's a fair question. Quite simply, it used to be a practice in the United States to segregate schools according to color; the "colored" schools generally received hand-me-down books and equipment. I do, actually, much prefer the admission that education doesn't give enough of a capital return to racial justifications for bad education. It's a catch-22 that we have to solve before we can have the harmonious, harm-reduction society advocated by Rand capitalism. Proper capitalism, that is, an economic theory without a full-blown political platform, makes no such considerations. None of it, however, excuses the state of public education.
There are many businesses that manage to survive for decades at or near break-even. If the business exists (eg: primary purpose) to educate, then the "profit" return expectations would be minimal of the capitalists, which in the event of a secondary school would be the local indigenous denizens, as it was until the '60s when the fed started truly intervening in our lives with LBJs WONDERFUL Great Society, which failed abysmally. They want their money back, with a reasonable profit (not the 500 per cent in five years like the venture caps financers want). Then the tuitions are expected to cover operating costs, and fees. Yes, buying books is a requirement there are ways of minimizing this. One or them is the FOCUS of your school.Who wants their money back? The businesses? If we look at the present corporate-welfare state of the US, we might wonder what the point of hiring someone for paid labor is if the government is supposed to take the laborers' money and give it back to the companies.

There are two primary reasons why companies not breaking even survive: government assistance and idiot investors. Remember TV Nation? Michael Moore got thrown out of a Giuliani press conference for asking him about city money given to a company. The money was given to prevent layoffs; the company took the money and laid off the employees anyway, giving the benefits of public money to the investors. Or we might point out the company I work for, an insurance company that is coming apart at the seams. What happened? Well, a few years ago, the board and the investors got together and decided to buy a vulnerable insurance company. The investors, though, were worried that they would lose the customer base when the policy books rolled together, so what they did was elect to leave the newly-acquired policies at their old rate. For two years, we lost money on those policies until the company raised the policy rate. The hike was pretty steep, and we lost a whole lot of those customers anyway. The only reason we're in business is because as one investor sold off, another idiot bought in. Just a couple of examples that spring to mind.
ONE of the justifications of using books in secondary schools which are decades out of date is that the fundamentals (which should be IMHO the primary focus in a secondary school not horse manure golbal studies or warming) for the sake of argument, when you add oil of vitriol to sea water, you are ALWAYS going to get chlorine gas. Now does it really matter that oil of vitriol is NOW called sulfuric acid, and the sea water has been replaced with a sterile saline solution? OF course not. Would it matter in that particular case whether that laboratory experiment came out of a book written in 1830, or 2001? Not at all. The same exercise can be accomplished a tactile method of demonstrating the precision of chemistry. I should like to have a grammar book with dosen't like the idea of people interchanging the verbs "to say" and "to go", constantly, but that just me. I want to understand people, and I don't much care for want the inclusive lexicographers have to say. Can you imagine teaching geography with a ten-year-old map? How about a health class based on 1980's market-determined ideas of healthy? The FBI, in the late 80's or 90's, finally released to the public evidence of the Rosenbergs' guilt; in the space of a year or two, the Rosenberg history resolved from a debate of the ethics of guilt to being a non-issue to be recounted among the other names, dates, and events of history. 1830-2001? Okay, I'll grant a facetious envelope there, but it's worth pointing to Nag Hammadi, which changed the way we look at certain parts of history. "Missing" documents were suddenly available, and eighteen-hundred year-old speculations suddenly resolved: we had manuscripts that were, thitherto, merely rumors. Mathematics? I'd rather my child have a current textbook; certainly the basic functions of algebra remain unchanged, but how we prepare students for the next step changes. And that affects the outcome of the educational process, doesn't it? Oil of vitriol? A strange suggestion: watch The Simpsons; Monty Burns has some just amazing lines in there, such as the episode where Marge acquires a Chanel suit: You, fill up the tank with petroleum distillate and vulcanize these tires post-haste! What mixes poorly with oil of vitriol? Can you imagine a kid killing himself because he didn't know not to mix "oil of vitriol" with another compound? Why? Because he thought he was mixing "oil of vitriol", and not "sulphuric acid".

Just a note about the lexicographers: Lemme axe you a kestchin ....

Transition is not like lasso. Yet "transition" has become a verb.

Disorientated ...?
. THE purpose of secondary schools was to provide sufficient grounding in basic subjects, so that the colleges had something to work with. That's why there USED to be true entrance examinations which were replaced with these ridiculous SAT/ACT testsA result of capitalism: the old way wasn't economical enough. Sounds blunt, but there you go. It's too expensive to do it right.

Incidentally, public schools were also supposed to prepare students for life without college; a diploma used to be enough to give the average working man a shot at home ownership.
Purportedly in a college lit courses, the student should already know how to write a book report, term paper, and an essay properly. He should also, know how to read critically; unfortunately, this falls to the colleges, because the public schools are too busy dealing with hopped up kids shooting the hell out of the place with stolen guns, instead of TEACHING, because the TV told the parents to abdicate all parental responsibility to the gov't. OR they are pursuing the American Nightmare so fully they don't understand that there are something which cannot replace parents being in control of their children. (I realize you have some issues in this regard, but I submit that they are YOUR issues). These are all results of capitalism. It's too expensive to run the schools properly. That's why they're always coming up short in results. I still have to blame the parents for being too lazy to raise their kids right. If the parents believe everything they see on TV, they shouldn't have had kids.

And who is pursuing the Nightmare? The parents? Isn't that part of the problem particularly capitalist? Or am I thinking of the wrong Nightmare?
Instead, of REJECTING unacceptable applicants, now the colleges are wasting two years of the students time to bring them up to necessary standards, when possible (review the college entrance vs. graduation figures), so they can actually study their course majors. The colleges have also been dumbed down to accommodate the "traditional" four year standard as many of them ARE for profit institutions who have Tax exemptions-the distinction is considerable.Tell it to Harvard, Stanford, or Johns Hopkins. What about public Universities? There is definitely a dumbing down going on, but its all about economization. There used to be a term called "well-rounded". This does not seem to be a prominent idea anymore.

For profit? Is this a problem to a capitalist? I personally think it's what the problem of society is. Take your local capitalist institution, your bank: it used to be you got an account, paid a slight fee, and they took care of your money. They made their money from investments and interest. Now, that's not enough: every service they provide should be for profit. Hence, $3.00 to use an ATM in some cities; hence $7.00 to see a teller in some banks. My bank would prefer that I never set foot inside their bank: I can use in-branch ATM's and write checks as much as I want, and they'll even give me the checks for free, so long as I just don't set foot inside their damn bank. I was in a restaurant the other night; they were selling money in their foyer. I was in a bar, same thing. We now buy money because there's money to be made that way.

I truly feel you're slapping around capitalism with your points. You're not making it out to be a very worthwhile practice: it seems to be a contributing factor to much that you've noted as societal negatives.
However your post was about how CAPTITALISM cannot be applied to everything in society. I would have to agree. It cannot. There are issues which may well, even in an "idyllic" capitalistic economy, have to remain somewhat socialisticMany people will admit this. I believe it capitalist to be socialist sometimes. Why do I want strong public education? Because a lesser proportion of students will grow up (or die) to be criminals. It does, in fact, hurt me and my profitability to be ducking gunfire or avoiding parts of town in order to stay safe. Why do I want publicly-financed needle exchange? Well, on the one hand, you can't do it for profit or else it won't have its intended result. To the other, no matter how many fingers one wants to point to blame something for the American drug problem, we have to start somewhere, and a for-profit needle exchange won't do a damn thing to reduce drug addiction or HIV transmission. But you have a point: you should be able to live as you want--and, presumably, treat people however you want--and not ever have to think about the responsibilities attached to those rights. Guess what? You live in society, you know, a social body? Can you tell me why we came together in the first place? I highly doubt it was to sell each other insurance.
However, I don't care to support ALL of society, most, nor even some. I, personally, nor generally, am NOT required by ANY standard to provide the produce of MY labor for YOUR groceries/healthcare/nor educating YOUR children. I may well be complled by law, but not by moral, nor ethical standard. Christianity is a belief system, not a moral standard, btw. I can refuse, and I do. Selfish, yes, and it's rational. I work for ME. I may well CHOOSE to include others e.g.: wife and ubiquitous rug rat curtain climbing yard apes, however I work for ME and NO one else unless I choose it. Yes and if they won't toe the mark, well, that is their challenge (and for the sake of obfuscation, I can choose death rather than slavery)First, tell it to the Christians.

Secondly, you're exactly right: Me, Me, Me. All capitalism is for is to justify the self in relation to others. It's a quantitative justification, and not a qualitative one.

So figure that out: Apparently, society exists just for you. I must, at this time, invite you to get over yourself and look around at those neighbors to whom you apparently owe nothing. Without them, even capital itself disappears. Economy will remain, but the greedy fiction of capitalism disappears.
However in YOUR socialism, or communism, you'll find that I shall be "sentenced" to perform OVERTIME, just because I am the MOST efficient at my workMy socialism or communism? I think you're overstepping your underoos here.
Well, IF I am the best, WHY ain't I got the MOST? Well, we could point to Bill Gates and tell you to ask him. To the other, what is your criteria for the best? It seems you're so focused on your profit and your labor that you're working for an idea and not yourself. Sure, I don't have to slip my close friend five bucks for a burger while he waits for yet another employer to call back, and while he files the paperwork to find out why doing his job got him fired. But that kind of self-serving crap doesn't even serve the self. What's most important to you in life, Mr K? What you have or how you feel?
IF I am TRULY the best, I end up OWNING the thing by virtue of reward in a capitalistic economy, but in a socialist one the state owns EVERYTHING, I think I"ll "opt out" as I do with the 14 gazillion advertisers of EVERY web based email. Well, I stand answered on the issue of what you have versus how you feel. As to opting out of the advertising:

* Why do you have to opt out in the first place? Is it perhaps because you are nothing more than a capital asset to them? Why should you have to agree to be put on how many advertising lists for how many companies just so the phone company can make profit from your name and address? Why, aside from the capital potential, would any company sell the names and addresses of their customers? Maybe to give the competition a shot of getting to you? Doesn't sound very capitalist.

* I doubt it was Communists who invented such a silly, harassing marketing scheme. What about you?
Somebody has to pay the freight; and in the case of the web based email providers, that's the advertisers, not the end user, but I'll opt out, just the same (and use my ad blocker, thank you very much).Well, it could be investor money, but the investors would rather sell your personal data for capital than actually set their business up to work properly. I highly doubt it's the socialists.
Tiassa, uh Rand was an atheist, so in her version of captialism there was NO religion. Yes, but it's covered by the political platform built around Rand's work. Check that silly capitalist website, and tell me how "capitalist" the "harm none" aspect of profit is. Tell me how capitalist a state military policy is. It has nothing to do with economy.

And since you're so kind as to refer to my communism, and my post ... would you be so kind as to comment on my topic starter? There's a great assertion about capitalism by an actual capitalist (I can't imagine an investment firm of communists, can you?)

The only reason we're focused on the joke made out of Rand at capitalism.org is that this is the capitalism that people preferred to address. You'll notice how quickly the focus was switched from the Dain-Rauscher quote to Rand capitalism.

I highly recommend that you check out the capitalism.org site if you haven't. They're wholly centered around Rand. By the time you get to the bit about profit without harm, ask yourself if this vision is any more plausible than Marxism.

I might also ask your opinion of the Enron issue. By the topic post's citation, we might conclude that the commies in the Ashcroft DoJ are trying to destroy yet another valiant American enterprise. Is that really an accurate summary?

But I think the basic difference we're experiencing is how we view ourselves in society. I think we're all part of the same endeavor, and therefore have certain responsibilities toward one another. One need not be communist to see how giving someone a sandwich might actually stop them from robbing a corner convenience store. It's all a matter of what you want. And on that point, might I ask a conscience question? So a street urchin robs the corner convenience store and in the resulting fracas the owner, a nice man you've bought from for five years, dies. Do you actually care? If so, why?

Society is an elected responsibility, not just a playground for hedonistic obsession.

thanx much,
Tiassa :cool:

(PS ... I notice there wasn't much on class size and economization; is there a point where a class is too big? After all, cramming two-hundred kids into a small room with a single teacher is, by the money issue, a better economy than twenty kids in ten classrooms with one teacher in each room.)

tiassa,


Rauscher's definition of capitalism is virtually indistinguishable from my dictionary's definition of greed ("an excessive desire to acquire or possess") and selfish ("concerned chiefly or only with oneself without regard for the well-being of others").

Makes one wonder why our nation is always so sure God is on our side.

That's it... :)

Capitalism is based on competitivity, materialism, selfishness, proundness, superiority/inferiority... everything that is fool and wicked. How can God be with America, if America is against God?

Look everywhere. You can see many people around you living a pretty "good" life, with lots of possessions and power. But look in Africa and tell me what you see... For Americans to be so rich, there must be other people REALLY poor, that don't have not even something to eat. And still... many Americans throw food in garbage. Actually, Americans throw everything in the garbage. Their so precious things brake and then what? Throw in the garbage eventhough it's perfectly fixable...
Some years ago you couldn't see poverty it in the big cities of the US. But now, there is already poverty in America too.

And the US do it all in the name of freedom... Which freedom are you talking about?!? You want so obsecivelly to have more and more... you can't stand without something material... Which kind of freedom is that? And the violence that frightens people and make them go home earlier? Which freedom are you talking about US?

Possession... Money... Power... Violence...
Just watch TV and you'll see it all there: the image of our society. And still, we let our children watch TV and forget that they will inherit this world...
If you Love your children, SHOUT with me...

Solution? I don't know... Perhaps Anarquism... or a society Religious-Centred. Or perhaps an Anarco-Capitalist system to begin with... Have my own ideas... ;)

Love,
Nelson

Truth Seeker, this subject has been around quiet awhile without any responces, I was surprized to see the e-mail describing this topic...

However Capitalism is not the problem, in fact capitalism has been the solution, however with goverment interference, capitalism never did reach it's full potenctial.

America is not a capitalist state, it's a "mixed economy" capitalism with goverment intervention does not work, we can see the results just look at our economy.

Godless,

If you get out the government intervention...
You get the 1929 crisis!!!!!!! ;)

Without the government intervention we would allways have depression...

It just doesn't work out in any way...

I can be a Christian that allways shout Love...

But to change the world, I have to know what I'm dealing with... ;)

Love,
Nelson

The crash of 1929 was caused by goverment intervention..

The US goverment intervene in the economy of this country when the rail road debackel happened in late 1800's they came out with the Anti-Trust Act. Which in turn it slowed the business advances of one mayor rail-road man, one who didn't use the goverment to build his rail road lines, his name: Jay Gould!.

Gould built the Northern line and ran it at a profit, when the other two lines which were largerly supported by goverment were running at a loss. Gould tried to stop the Anti-Trust Act, however he failed in his attempt to demolish this goverment act.

How did it hurt the economy?

J.Gould, would do buisiness in a very unique way, whith the advancing of population in the northern states, he would take families in those lands, and build lines to transport their livestock or produce into the cities, lots were done on credit, for future payment. With the Anti-Trust Act, Gould was unable to give in essence free commerce distribution of farmers produce, therefore slowing down the economy.

Gould was also doing buissness with China, by the same terms, and selling US steel to build China's rail-road, however with the Anti-Trust Act, that passed congress, Gould was unable to transport steel at his expence to China, for future profit.

It is hard to imagine, what would have happened if China would have been able to build rail-roads, at that time, perhaps China would have never became Communist, China would have been a very strong economical country, therefore rendering communism a less likely economic system for the country.

Oh... I see...

So everything that I learned about it in Brazil and Canada is just... fake?? :confused:

I learned that the government didn't intervented in the economy and that caused the crisis. The government was too liberal, and people started buying actions like crazy and they had no money to pay and so on... too boring to explain...

What? Americans can't do mistakes...? Do they control what you learn there? Who knows?... They even control what you see and don't see in the TV... ;)

Love,
Nelson

Unfortunately you were tought, what seems to be appropriate, however you were never really tought the truth!!.

Have you at least inquiered about Jay Gould?

Read the history of this man.

Need more resources? find it at; www.neo-tech.com

Here you will learn the kind of history that was never tought to you!!. ;)

I can't say what's true in this whole thing...

I'm just telling what I learnt... and it seems really logical...

I'll ask my teacher tough...

Love,
Nelson

Here follow this link, young crasshopper!!;)

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/g/gould-ja.asp

Others to also consider in study are Carnigie Hall, Vanderbilts,
philosopher Ayn Rand.

From the link:
http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/g/gould-ja.asp



Gould, Jay
1836-92, American speculator, b. Delaware co., N.Y. A country-store clerk and surveyor's assistant, he rose to control half the railroad mileage in the Southwest, New York City's elevated railroads, and the Western Union Telegraph Company. With savings of $5,000 at 21 he became a speculator, particularly in small railroads. After some years he became a director of the Erie RR. Aided by James Fisk and Daniel Drew, he defeated Cornelius Vanderbilt for control of this road and manipulated its stocks in his own interest and that of his group, including BossTweed. The Gould-Fisk scheme to corner gold in 1869 caused the Black Friday panic. Public protest forced the Gould group out of the Erie, ending with Gould's expulsion in 1872. He then bought into the Union Pacific and other western roads. He gained control of four lines that made up the Gould system. For years his name was a symbol of autocratic business practice, and he was widely disliked. After his death his estate and interests were managed by his son, George Jay Gould.

Errr....
1869 ...?
I thought the Depression was in 1929...??

:confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:

Fithty years... half century of difference!!! :bugeye: :bugeye: :bugeye:

:D
I guess they lied to you at school, Godless... :rolleyes:

Can anyone explain this to me...?

Btw... what's crasshopper...?

Love,
Nelson

You mentioned, that the collapse of 1929 market was caused by the goverment did not intervened in buissiness. I on the other hand showed you the goverment intervened in economics 50 years earlier!!.

Sorry for the confussion!.

Quote: "whats crasshopper?"

:D a mispelled word!!, I meant to say "grasshopper" an insect, no pun intended, it was what the teacher of Cain in Kun-Fu, called Cain when he went to the temple!!. Tv talk!!.
lol
Not that I'm the teacher, however it was a suggestion at naiveness.;)

Here's another link for ya!, learn about the Capitlaists, is always a good lesson, to learn about the creative minds who struggled agains oppressions, such as goverment, even our own!!.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/carnegie/

Are you saying that the government interveined and fithty years later it happened all that crap? Humm... capitalism seems really weak... How could this happen...??

Love,
Nelson

Capitalism is not weak, nor strong it's not a way to view, an economical system.

*Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned.
The recognition of individual rights entails the banishment of physical force from human relationships: basically, rights can be violated only by means of force. In a capitalist society, no man or group may initiate the use of physical force against others. The only function of the goverment, in such a society, is the task of protecting him from physical force; the government acts as the agent of man's rights of self defence, and may use force only in retaliation and only against those who initiate its use; thus the government is the means of placing the retaliatory use of force under "objective control". *(Ayn Rand)

Unfortunate this is not how the US does buissiness!!.

The US is a mixed economy, which is a mix of capitalism and statism, of freedom and controls. A mixed economy is a country in the process of disintegration, a civil war of pressure-groups looting and devouring one another.

A mixed economy is a mixture of freedom and controls--with no principles, rules, or theories to define either. Since the introduction of controls necessiates and leads to further controls, it is an unstable, explosive mixture which, ultimately, has to repeal the controls or colapse into dictatorship. A mixed economy has no principles to define its policies, its goals, its laws--no principels to limit the power of its goverment. The only principle of a mixed economy--which necessarily has to remain unnamed and unacknowledged--is that no one's interests are safe, everyone's interests are on a public auction block, and anything goes for anyone who can get away with it. Such a system--or, more precisely, anti-system--breaks up a country into an ever growing number of enemy camps, into economic groups fighting one another for self preservation in an indeterminate mixture of defence and offence, as the nature of such a jungle demands. While, politically, a mixed economy preserves the semblance of an organized society with a semblance of law and order, economically it is the equivalent of the chaos that had ruled China for centuries: a chaos of robber gangs looting--and draining the productive elements of the country.*Ayn Rand

After reading above Truthseeker, think back at the recent movements several pressure groups bringing lawsuits against Microsoft, why? cause they can't compete!!.

When US automakers were in a slump, and they couldn't compete with Japanese automakers they ran to the goverment!, the goerment responce?, was to heavily tax foreign automakers tariff tax, got so rediculous high, that Toyota built a plant in the US, in order to produce cars here and not get charged for exporting, same reason why Sony built a US production plant!.

Take a look at all those corporations that are always crying foul play against one another, then letting a biased goverment which is run by the highest bitter to determine the outcome!.

Regarding the Panic of 1869--is it government intervention, or irresponsible government intervention? Would, for instance, Jay Gould have fallen so hard had his business opponents (Pierpont and Morgan, as I recall) not bribed Congress? There was a lot of greasing of palms going on; the tobacco companies handing out money on the Senate floor shouldn't have shocked anyone--it's a tradition to go down to the Capitol in order to buy the Congress. Did government intervene in business? Or did business, then, intervene in government?

Regarding Microsoft: We might ask why the others "can't compete".

And that's the issue of the lawsuits. Did you know that Microsoft is working to cut every non-IE browser out of the internet? Consider:

• Is the browser part of the operating system?
•*Why, then, did Microsoft--after agreeing to a technology development deal--not write a new browser for Apple's OSX? Quite frankly, the browser sucks; it doesn't even display Sciforums correctly. Thus, if the browser is such an integral part of the OS, as Bill Gates has asserted, why is my Internet Explorer merely a port from another operating system? Perhaps because to write it in Cocoa is beyond the capabilities of Microsoft's best and brightest? Hardly. Because it's less expensive, and it damages the credibility of a competing operating system. And, yes, Internet Explorer is part of our operating system; you do not update IE through Microsoft; IE is updated as part of your operating system update through Apple. Funny; since the browser is so important to the operating system, why didn't Microsoft see fit to, oh, back that claim with actions? Microsoft's duplicity does, in fact lend toward its monopolistic image.
• Do you use QuickTime or Windows Media Player? Tell me, why is it that Microsoft will not release the codecs for WMP for Apple users? As it is, maybe half the sites using WMP will run on a Mac because Bill Gates wants it that way. Strangely, I've found that a number of QuickTime mpegs don't run on Macs. How the hell is this? We are QuickTime. Oh, could it be that these particular mpegs are encoded on a WinTel machine running a Microsoft operating system?
• Bill Gates wants to say that other operating systems exist, and therefore he doesn't have a monopoly. At the same time, he's working as hard as he can to eliminate the competition through backdoor maneuvers.
• If I recall correctly, the MS/Apple technology sharing deal expires in August. Will Steve Jobs speak out then? Many of us are expecting him to.

Could it be that the government's lawsuits against Microsoft exist because they are deserved? After all, we hear how healthy competition is. And yet, here comes Bill, doing everything he can to smile to the court and say everyone's friendly while waiting for his chance to knife everyone.

And I thought it worth mentioning that I won't argue with the dogmatic assertion that a mixed economy is a state in dissolution. But I will point out that the Rand-capitalism which has been debated at Sciforums for the last few months is as utopiate as Communism and Christianity. Captialism is an economic system, not a political platform.

If Capitalists want to be a social system based on something else, they ought not call it Capitalism. What would be the point of calling myself a Christian if the center of my vision is Shiva?

Well ... I suppose if I were in politics, I might as well try to pull off that big a lie.

just a few thoughts ...

thanx,
Tiassa :cool:

Companies, corporations, limited, publicly limited, incorporated, whatever.
They can all be viewed as entities.

To expect a corporate entity not to hold its own lifeblood, money, above all else is like expecting a fish to live out of water.
Damaging to the fish.

Godless, tiassa, & esp...

I’ll agree with tiassa that Microsoft is not a good example to use when exhorting the virtues of Capitalism. And after all, at this point it wouldn’t matter if Bill Gates were a paragon of virtue himself since much of the world has already been convinced otherwise.

As for the history of Capitalism (or of famous “Capitalists“)--and as far as I know--for the men and women who have attempted to practice an ideal version of Capitalism, and for those still trying today, the words “MONEY“ and “COMPETITION,” and what they represent, have been, and are, stumbling blocks to too many minds.

Esp has it right. But from his statement where will you all take it? Some will run with the notion that money is bad; money is evil! Some won’t express their thoughts and opinions carefully or clearly. (Or respectfully. ) They won’t guard against misunderstanding, inasmuch as they could. Too interested in having the world see it their own way.

Money is not evil. That notion is pure nonsense. Power or competition are not bad either. Mankind, on the whole, is not evil.

Nothing about the “questionable” aspects of Capitalism is ever going to be addressed/resolved until people learn the true value of what it is to be a human on planet Earth. Until we learn to respect ourselves and our abilities to achieve, Capitalism will flounder and so will many who live in a so-called Capitalistic society.

This thread has been an interesting one so far. Hope it remains so.

Thx,

Counterbalance

Conterbalance,


Money is not evil. That notion is pure nonsense. Power or competition are not bad either. Mankind, on the whole, is not evil.

Money in essence can be no evil. For example, if you give money to the poor really helping them, or if you use money to research a medicine (eventhough I don't like medicines, but the intention is good anyways...), then, money is even very good! But if you destroy people's lifes or even kill them for money, then, you made money evil.

Power is not bad in the same sense. The Universe is powerful. Nature is powerful. And look how much life and beauty it creates... :)
But you MUST have WISDOM to use power. We don't. For instance, we use nuclear power to do weapons for mass destruction, to kill many innocent. Then, money become evil.

Competition, the same thing. In sports, for example, can make people healthier. Or... you can have a violent sport like football or hockey and finish by hurting and hating people.

It's all about the way you use those things.
And the way "we" use, is not usually the best...

Love,
Nelson

Truthseeker:

Are you trying to say that objects have their own moral virtue? I hope not. In every example you've given you've shown that the objects themselves are morally neutral. Money sitting in the corner of a room can't kill someone, it can't fund medicinal research. A gun can't choose whether to shoot and kill someone. Money is a tool, just like anything else, and it is up to the person wielding the tool to have the sense to act correctly.

Counterbalance:

It's good to see this thread is alive and well since way back when when we discussed all of this. I just picked up "For the New Intellectual" by Rand, and I was wondering if there were any other contemporary philosophers that you could suggest? I'm about to start on my admission papers for grad school. (On a complete off-topic note, my prof was very supportive for me to go-woo!)

Tiassa...

Many of your questions regarding the substance of Rand's work would be answered if, instead of reading the non-fiction works she wrote, you read something like "The Fountainhead" or "Atlass Shrugged". I myself get bored with simply reading a work of philosophy and perhaps dont put in the effort required to understand it, out of boredom and a lack of concentration. Therefore I found her fictional works to be more enlightening, because they described her position using examples and fictional characters I could identify with.
"Atlass Shrugged" is a good one to read if you are interested in what might have happened to Gould.

One thing it's important to realise about Rand is that her ideal capitalists were those who RECEIVED, and EXPECTED, value in return for RENDERING A GOOD OR SERVICE. Unfortunately capitalism in our world is infested with "freeloaders", or those who make profit from someone ELSE'S goods or services. There is a difference between, for example, the Musician and the Manager who takes half the profits. Which of the two is rendering the service, and therefore entitled to profit? Which of the two holds real Value?

Perhaps another problem is that, while the ideal capitalist would produce a product which has value in terms of quality and longevity, a modern day capitalist is more interested in the profit than in the product. In the interest of cost cutting, and the production of a more competitive product, the aspect of quality is often lost. In addition, the product is sold to us, rather than selling itself. We find ourselves thinking a brand name is "good" more as a result of clever advertising than of the quality of the product itself. (McDonalds is perhaps one of the best examples of this).

In essence, the ideal capitalist, of which Rand speaks, does indeed exist, but is in a postition where he or she will find it very difficult to survive, due to the outside influences of other agencies.
Rand's ideal capitalist would not compromise his or her product to ensure survival, due to strong moral character. The real world, however, has seen that strength of character rendered almost unable to survive, let alone prosper.

Riomacleod,


Are you trying to say that objects have their own moral virtue? I hope not. In every example you've given you've shown that the objects themselves are morally neutral. Money sitting in the corner of a room can't kill someone, it can't fund medicinal research. A gun can't choose whether to shoot and kill someone. Money is a tool, just like anything else, and it is up to the person wielding the tool to have the sense to act correctly.

No... I'm trying to say that the way you use them is what gives them "moral virtue"...

If you use money for good, it will be good; if you use it for bad, it will be bad... What makes it good or not is the way you use it...

Love,
Nelson

Counterbalance:

It's good to see this thread is alive and well since way back when when we discussed all of this. I just picked up "For the New Intellectual" by Rand, and I was wondering if there were any other contemporary philosophers that you could suggest? I'm about to start on my admission papers for grad school. (On a complete off-topic note, my prof was very supportive for me to go-woo!)

Riomacleod,

Yep, tiassa’s thread is still alive and ripe with potential.

Been a few years since I read For the New Intellectual front to back, but if memory serves it’s a short read that includes passages from some of Rand’s more well known works like Atlas Shrugged and Anthem. Covers the fundamentals of Objectivism.

As for contemporary philosophers, I‘m not sure how contemporary you meant, but someone I’m interested in knowing more about is Raymond Aron (died in ’83, I think) who wrote
The Opium of the Intellectuals.

The following excerpts have been “borrowed” from: Raymond Aron & the power of ideals, by Roger Kimball. The remainder can be read at:

http://www.newcriterion.com/archive/19/may01/opium.htm


First published in France in 1955, at the height of the Cold War, L’Opium des intellectuels was an immediate sensation. It caused something of a sensation in the United States, too, when an English translation was published in 1957. Writing in The New York Times, the historian Crane Brinton spoke for many when he said that the book was “a kind of running commentary on the Western world today.” Aron’s subject is the bewitchment—the moral and intellectual disordering—that comes with adherence to certain ideologies. Why is it, he wondered, that certain intellectuals are “merciless toward the failings of the democracies but ready to tolerate the worst crimes as long as they are committed in the name of the proper doctrines”? Aron’s title is an inversion of Marx’s contemptuous remark that religion is “the opium of the people.” He quotes Simone Weil’s sly reversal as an epigraph: “Marxism is undoubtedly a religion, in the lowest sense of the word. the people.” In fact—and fortunately—Weil got it only partly right. Marxism and kindred forms of thought never really became the people’s narcotic. But they certainly became—and in essentials they still are—the drug of choice for the group that Aron anatomized: the intellectuals...

“The man who no longer expects miraculous changes either from a revolution or from an economic plan,’ Aron wrote, is not obliged to resign himself to the unjustifiable. It is because he likes individual human beings, participates in living communities, and respects the truth, that he refuses to surrender his soul to an abstract ideal of humanity, a tyrannical party, and an absurd scholasticism. all the models and utopias, to challenge all the prophets of redemption and the heralds of catastrophe. If they can abolish fanaticism, let us pray for the advent of the skeptics.”

The article is enjoyable. You might also start at the homepage: http://www.newcriterion.com/ Check out the contents of their archives for titles on topics that appeal.

Otherwise, I have just this week packed virtually every book, magazine or pamphlet that I own in preparation for a move or I’d shift through some of that and pick out a few more. If the works of Rand or the topic of Objectivism interests you especially, there are plenty of Internet sites to peruse. At http://www.aynrandbookstore.com/ you’ll find numerous Rand titles (and a few other author’s names). For “hardcore” Objectivism try: http://www.intellectualactivist.com

I’ll also remind that by sharing these links I’m not promoting any one particular philosophy. I have my favorites of course but as far as I’m concerned no one philosopher has a monopoly on wisdom or truth. For the purpose of exploring ideas or ideals, for seeking a better understanding of how we humans have come to view ourselves, I’ve found it beneficial to look at “us” from many angles; through the eyes of various authors, be they philosophers or plowmen. Requires some (edit: ) winnowing of the grain from the chaff sometimes, but even this process is educational.

At http://www.friesian.com/history.htm you’ll also find a decent collection of philosophical essays written by ancient and modern thinkers as well as other useful bits. It’s a “history of philosophy” sort of site; a springboard if you like.

Hope some of this proves to be useful to you, good luck with the admission papers, and congratulations on having made it this far! :)

~~~

Counterbalance


(We now return you to “Considerations on Capitalism.”)