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Admin
Exactly. If you look at the history of the world, and of social organizations (of any type) throughout history, you'll find that all social organization that remains stable for any non-trivial amount of time share the same essential organization pattern, which is basically the pattern of a family tree. This pattern is pyramid shaped, with a patriarch (or a very small number of rulers) at the top, and multiple layers beneath, each larger and less powerful than the last.
Families, tribes, governments, churches, businesses, social clubs--any serious organization has this structure, the pattern of human nature. There are plenty of differences in how the different layers are organized and what their rights and duties are, but the basic structure is always there. Organizations that attempt to subvert this basic pattern, if they become notable at all, generally do so due to being a monumental waste of potential--the most recent example being Occupy Wall Street.
Understanding this simple fact makes it easy to understand why Libertarian philosophy is ridiculously, unworkably naive. History shows us, again and again, that where the basic power structure of human nature does not exist, the social organization finds a way to produce it, or it falls apart. (Or it falls apart until it produces it.) On a national scale, this is called a power vacuum, and it tends to produce hideous conditions of warfare and oppression beyond the darkest dreams of the most tyrannical dictators. (Just look at Somalia!)
The power of the government, if the government were to relinquish it, would not, as Libertarians seem to think, simply vanish into a magical puff of rainbows and sparkles and more freedom for everyone. It would create a power vacuum, until someone with the will to power showed up to take that power, as it always has throughout human history.
So, given the choice between having that power in the hands of democratically elected representatives that I can vote out if they do a bad job, or having that power in the hands of a conqueror, I'll choose the former every time.
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Perfectly correct. Not all corporatist goons are anarchists, and not all anarchists are corporatist goons, but anyone who wants to revoke the government is at least in the ordinary usage, an anarchist.
Yes, I am aware that, to an anarchist, anarchism is much more involved and debated political philosophy, but in the ordinary usage an anarchist is someone who wants to kick it over for the sake of kicking it over. If he means what he says, which I doubt, Randy fits the bill.
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It is also a big part of why things are so hard to change. Show me a common sense solution to a widely acknowledged problem, and I will show you someone who will lobby against it because change will impact their bottom line.
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It is unfair to say the factory "cost" so much - as it implies a loss - when, if it were truly because of the workers, that money would be spent as quickly as it came. Not all of it, but certainly much more of it than what would be accumulated by the wealthy owners. So sure, it costs, but again that goes back to my point that these entities only think of themselves. How can the whole improve? You hopefully don't think it's reductionist to be suspect of many independent pieces not considering their interactions beyond a few parameters?
Yes but the difference is the ownership! You've completely sidestepped my point that in fact, the workers are not the means of production nor do they own it. You've a fetish for "voluntary" yet you seem to think there's no difference between voluntary participation, and say, choosing your means of execution.
I'll stop you there. If you've only moderate resources, then once again I'll say it: you're not a real capitalist. Yes you're participating in the charade, but as it has been very well said a few posts ago: the current meaning of capitalist is corporatist. You're not a corporation. You're a small shareholder. You're plenty likely to have all your wealth wiped out by some manipulation of the markets by the real capitalists (which are the mega entities: either individuals of obscene wealth or corporations).
Yeah, yeah, we get it. There's a difference between the philosophy and the perversion of the implementation. Return on investment is fine and dandy when it pays mind to the effect on those that aren't participating on the investment, on the environment, on the people producing the return. It does not, these days.
It's really not. A logical, rational choice so as to avoid self-harm is nothing intolerable. The lust for profits goes so far beyond that, I cannot believe you honestly don't see it. I can't even begin to attempt to convince you, because I don't know which part of you is so broken that you can't see what is right in front of you.
Oh he certainly did - and the entire equation pays no mind to the cost at which he produced it. This is the insatiable lust for profits. It's the fact that who cares if children make the clothes? As long as I receive a larger return on investment!
You speak in binary. As though there is only "multi-million dollar bonus as a reward for putting thousands of people out of work and destroying families" and "theft". It is troublesome that you can only think in terms of such extremes, that you cannot even begin to fathom a world where people don't pursue things as much as humanly possible with no regard for consequence or scarcity. When I think of "capitalist" I don't think of the owner of a small shop. It may be true that would be the original definition, but that's not where we are. I do think capitalist to be synonymous with corporatist, but I also have to suspect that the later is merely the second phase of the former. When competition, win-or-lose, live-or-die, is the spirit of your essence, I can't see how that can be good for most of the inhabitants of our planet. A few? Surely. Not most.
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The story also reminded me that, at the same place, I had to cover my gigantic APC Symetra racks with plastic to keep the roof from leaking onto them. Thank God it's only 220 triple phase, right? Oh, they did "try" to fix it, but we're evidently incapable of producing the sort of technology needed to keep offices dry...
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Yes, the vernacular use of "anarchism" is pretty mindless.
Somewhat ironically, if those same wretched punks were burning, smashing & crapping on stuff in an actual anarchistic society, they would likely be staring down the business end of a lot of privately-owned firearms.
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The political discourse on this thread reminds me of a GTA radio station. All we need is Maurice Chavez narrating.
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Human greed is what leads to rubbish like charging $500 for something that costs you $100 to make/purchase, or the average CEO "needing" to make 3000% more than his workers for no reason other than to fuel his own ego and make him feel important. That's the root of what corporatism is, it's not about "return on investment" it's about squeezing as much as humanly (and legally) possible due to one's own greedy nature.
In an ideal world these people would be entitled to a profit, of course, but not the crazy extent which we have now. This is more like feudalism: A handful of lords in their castles living like kings while the rest of us toil in the fields to fund their extravagance for the meager scraps they throw to us.
Most corporations are run like plantations or feudal fiefdoms.
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"When competition, win-or-lose, live-or-die, is the spirit of your essence, I can't see how that can be good for most of the inhabitants of our planet."
You may not be aware of this, but you have just described the operating ruleset of all life on this planet. Seems to have been working out OK for millions of years.
Your "greater good" philosophy is a quasi-religious luxury afforded to the intellectually idle, cosseted by their astonishing - and unappreciated - wealth.
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This is Pressing Issues, only on Vice City Public Radio!
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But, but, but...we're only one political rant away from changing the world!
;)
Do it for the children!
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This could easily be Montreal in the beautiful province of Quebec, Canada. They have lots of snow, they have lots of poorly constructed buildings (the mayor just quit recently because he was being paid bribes by construction companies to ignore safety), and there are many bureaucratic idiots running the shops.
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Sitting down can be dangerous.
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Yep. To quote one of the more honorable anarchists I've known: "In the war of all against all, you ain't nothin' but a light snack".
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I'd also like to add that some unidentified group have been called parasites, repeatedly in this thread.
It can't be further from the truth. Go tell someone who works at Foxconn that they are only in their situation because they are dumb or lazy. Go tell someone who works three jobs and has no health insurance that it's their fault and they're a parasite looking for handouts. They likely work harder than you have ever known.
The real parasites, the ones that don't want to do anything, will always find ways to leech. When you oppose socialist initiatives because you think it means that you're endorsing laziness, you're only hurting the former. The later will beg, cheat and steal in ways you can't imagine and they will persevere. They're also the obscenely wealthy, who's money makes more money through mere inevitability, who don't have to do anything for themselves. In the middle, the people who actually stand to win or lose from any system, are the people who don't have it all, but just want a chance. And if you have to give health care to a few people who don't "deserve" it (because being alive is not enough of a reason to be free from pain and suffering, a separate issue), in order to ensure that a few who do get it? So be it.
Globalization didn't unite the world. All it did was make people realize that they can royally screw over a few million people for the benefit of a few thousand and it wouldn't be so noticeable. Even when it does get discovered, only enough is done, a token, to appeal to whatever disapproval comes up. But nobody actually stands up - we don't throw out our computers because of it - because our survival is just as hopelessly tied to feeding off the refuse of this kind of human waste, that we dare not actually make a stand.
I'm generally pretty cynical about people. They are lazy. I'm lazy. They're greedy. I'm greedy. But one thing I don't believe is that people are only motivated by profit. Many things have been done - and many things are worth doing - that were not done - or would not be done - for the sake of "profit".
I've said this before elsewhere: if, in another 200 years, we're still working 40-60 hours a week trying to pay off mortgages and credit cards and people still have to choose between pain-reliving (or even life-providing) medication and nutritious food and clean water, I'd say we've failed to advance as a species. Failed miserably.
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Brilliant. I'm shamelessly stealing that one :)
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You may not be aware of this, but most other forms of life on this planet go through an awful lot of suffering in order to get by with very low odds of survival. It's quantity over quality.
My "greater good" philosophy has nothing to do with religion (which was really just your attempt at suggesting I am not well reasoned). Morality is separate, and our being a higher form of life (insofar as intelligence, or at least, the potential for it) is that we look at life as more than just something to replicate. Quality over quantity. If this were untrue, if I were to play by the "OK" laws of nature as you cite, then I should breed as much as possible and act in any way I see fit towards my own survival.
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We've already failed miserably as a species. All the advancement we've made and the power is still held by a very tiny minority of people, who often don't deserve a fraction of that power and were born into it without having to work for it. Look at the wreck that is the how medicine works; it's all controlled by big faceless pharmaceutical corps that don't give a shit about actually helping people, they're more concerned about how to make a profit off of things that should be provided for the betterment of humankind. The people who really need the meds can't afford it because big pharma wants to mark up the cost to ludicrous amounts to pad their own pockets, and the people with tons of money to throw around get treatment while the poor are left to die (it was satirical but there was I believe a South Park episode that joked the cure for AIDS was having millions of dollars).
Same with many doctors; one used to become a doctor because of a desire to help people and treat the sick, now it's a reason to make a six figure salary and become wealthy, morals be damned, helping those who need it be damned.
That's the great evil of corporatism: Everything must revolve around "How do I profit from this?" instead of "How does this benefit society?" and the thought of helping others or providing goods/services to the needy takes a back seat to greed.
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Exactly. And this goes back to what I was saying earlier about how the term "capitalism" itself has been corrupted by Ayn Rand.
If you look at Adam Smith's writings, he was much more a moralist than an economist. His work was an attempt to answer the question, "how can a morally good society be successfully established along capitalist principles?" Many of his arguments boil down to the idea that, when done right, working for your own good also ends up benefiting the greater good of society in general, which shows that the system works.
This is in sharp contrast to Rand, who denies the very concept of the greater good of society as an evil socialist plot designed to enslave us all.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U09N7LOyOq0
Also, akismet sucks.
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I should add that I don't condone a true Communist society where everything is free, but use common sense. Medical attention and medication SHOULD be made freely available or extremely cheap. Living facilities should be the same way. Even basic foodstuffs I feel should fall under that category.
Making some profit for your work is acceptable and understandable. Making a 500% profit just because you're a greedy immoral scumbag and can get away with charging that much, however, is not.
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"...then I should breed as much as possible and act in any way I see fit towards my own survival."
And you may likely fail were to behave so. Real life is far more complex than your reduction.
Your obsession with how much profit people should be allowed to make, or how 'greedy' they are, or how they 'screw' others over, is a sign that you have too much time spent in idle comfort. Perhaps you should spend more time in the harder environs of nature - it may improve your perspective.
Me? I'll step over the corpses of a million grandmothers to get to my gilded armchair, then whip legions of immigrant orphan children until they bring me my pipe and slippers - made from clubbed kittens, natch - as I laugh at the filthy disease-ridden peasants begging at my door for a drop of penicillin.
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I agree that it is ugly, but I don't think we've failed just yet.
More and more people are starting to realize that, for previous generations, the simple prosperity afforded to them (which initially appeared to just be "progress") involved a tremendous amount of suffering in other parts of the globe - it involved attitudes towards economic policy that were (and continue to be) unsustainable.
As I said above, our effort, through what I can only summarize as civilization, to prioritize quality of life over quantity of life, involve things like population growth control - which conflicts with our growth-based economic model. There has to be a change. I think the change is inevitable, I think the only uncertainty is whether it's going to be gradual or spontaneous, whether it's due to paradigm shifts through reform, or through collapse and violence. I suspect, though not with any academic credibility, that a lot of people are going to die until the elite relinquish their control and thus it will be the later, but I hope for the former.
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"This is in sharp contrast to Rand, who denies the very concept of the greater good of society as an evil socialist plot designed to enslave us all."
Not really. I think she was objecting to the way such "greater good" morality was forced upon people. I do not see that she objected to a genuine desire to personally help others.
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"Making some profit for your work is acceptable and understandable. Making a 500% profit just because you're a greedy immoral scumbag and can get away with charging that much, however, is not."
I'm curious - can you describe your calculus for determining what is 'acceptable' levels of profit?
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It's not a reduction. It is the behavior of every other form of life we've encountered to date. As I said, it does terrible for the individual: it's about quantity over quality. I would likely fail, but that's not what this is about and you're proving my point. With intelligence, we understand that as individuals we are likely to fail and we see the benefit of working together. Other forms of life will over-consume their environment and though it still "works" (as you say, "OK for millions of years") - it sucks for most of them. Show me an animal that will refrain from procreation because it understands resource scarcity.
This is a stupid argument. I mean no offense, but it is stupid. We're arguing on an internet forum. You can't use "you have too much free time" as an argument. Your obsession with how much free time people have suggests you don't make very good use of your time. Neener-neener?
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An amount inversely related to the overall well-being of the society that produced said wealth. It's not finite and it changes as the situation changes. (We're being invaded by aliens! What about the profits!?)
But, for a start, I mean a real basic start, we could say no more than 100 times the minimum wage.
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Honestly I'd say when you get more than 100% profit, you start to cross the line from "I should make a profit" into "I want to rip people off." Maybe as much as 200% for things that fall squarely into the "nice to have" category (e.g. entertainment) as opposed to the "This is necessary for living" category (e.g. medication).
But that doesn't happen. Things get marked up to hundreds of percent, just because they can be, to pad the pockets of self-entitled individuals who have deluded themselves into thinking they "deserve" such ludicrously high profits.
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"An amount inversely related to the overall well-being of the society that produced said wealth"
How is this 'well-being' objectively measured, and why is it related to profit levels?
"no more than 100 times the minimum wage."
Why 100? Why should there be any arbitrary limit? If someone is willing to voluntarily pay X for something, is it relevant that X represents a profit margin of 1%, 10%, 100% or 1000%?
Why do you and your ilk believe you have any authority whatsoever to dictate profit levels for others' property?
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Which is a completely valid argument. It's called case law. Try to understand at least the most fundamental legal concepts before you start claiming to be an expert.
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Give them a break! There aren't enough bad coders left in the world from which to get tech-related WTFery on a weekly basis.
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On a side note, why is it that whenever one of these threads gets sidetracked into economics or politics, the trolls always come out on both sides?
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Just watch: In ten years, the industry management will be expressing puzzlement because its information technology is so out of date.
But, hey, bonuses now!
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No that will come from workers comp or maybe even a law suit
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When I do work as a freelance web developer, how the hell should I calculate what my margin is? Do I take the cost of my computer and any books and training on the courses and divide it by how long I plan to own them and consider that my expenses? Can I add in my college education? Or is it living expenses? But then when I'm earning an extra 100% above what I need to live, I'm going to buy a bigger apartment, pay more rent, have higher expenses, and therefore raise my rate again.
Eventually everything comes down to some guy saying 'well, this seems fair to me...'
Hate arguing against you -- I'm an anarcho-syndicalist, so I tend to agree with you -- but that argument is meaningless.
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I've read that some people have actually had a jury rule in their favor during trials because nobody was able to provide an actual law (although I wouldn't take that bet) to the contrary. Again this is from a documentary so I'm not claiming to have intimate knowledge of the subject.
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I think a great deal of this disagreement revolves around how you view 'profit'
I view profit as an analog for value. The greater the perceived value, the greater the profit that can be derived from it.
If I make something that costs me $1 (some wooden widget maybe), but sell it for $10, and people willingly buy it because of how useful they find it, why is my 1000% profit immoral, greedy or ludicrous?
Some people earn millions of dollars for playing make-believe, others for running about a field chasing a ball, others for writing a book about how evil democrats are, others for inventing lifesaving devices. What calculus differentiates the good from the bad? And why are the good and the bad, considered as being good or bad?
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Don't try to play at this. In my life, I've gone from earning 7.25USD/hr while supporting a wife and child -- without family or government assistance (No foodstamps, medicaid, housing, etc.). What I have managed to accumulate in the 12 years since I left home should be mine. Fair share would, to me, indicate that everyone else should be paying the same 28% I pay, or in reverse I should be paying the same rate everyone else is.
Business and government corruption may abound, however: Living within ones means, managing ones finances, saving and investing are not only available to the super wealthy. Expecting the government to be as responsible with the money they take from me as I have been to acquire the money to be taken is not an unrealistic expectation.
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javascript:(function(b){b.innerHTML=b.innerHTML.replace(/<!--/g,'<span style="color:#090;">/*').replace(/-->/g,'*/')})(document.querySelector('.ArticleBody'))Admin
Ok i have 1 thing to say about the whole capitalist-socialist argument going on right now.
Life is not fair. Nobody is born equal. That is just the breaks. Capitalism tries to encourage iniative by allowing people to work for their own income in any legal way they see fit. As a result, it tends to amplify these inequalities. Socialism tries to make everybody equal, when they are not. This is the typical result: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h8O7V-WxWQ
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You could start with lifespan. Some smarter folks than us might be able to drive other metrics such as disease incidence that represent overall public health.
I chose an arbitrary number both to represent a reasonable distance between the lowest and the highest: assuming minimum wage actually pays a livable wage (which admittedly is a separate argument - let's assume for this argument that we agree that people should be paid something they can live off of based on modern views of poverty: so no car, but public transport and food and clean water and an apartment building that isn't hazardous to live in) - then the maximum means that someone can live 100 times over what someone needs to survive without real pain or hunger or suffering. Why is that so outrageous?
Well, if you want to take it that way, why do you and your ilk think you have any authority whatsoever to earn profit?
My point wasn't that it was investment per se, but that the wealth required to invest in such a thing is usually handed down between families. You're playing the bootstrappy self-made millionaire card, but the evidence doesn't support those kind of tales. I grew up in a single-mom welfare home and now I make about 90K a year. Some of that was my effort. A lot of it was luck and the fact that the state was willing to spend money on me.
So, first and foremost: I'm very skeptical about your claim. Unless you're attempting to be deceptive with inflation (and you seem to say 12 years, so no), that's 319 a week with no tax withheld, assuming a 44 hour week. (If you worked overtime then you're manipulating facts, because few employers will pay overtime and instead will hire many part-time employees). $650/month (which is the lowest rent I've ever seen for a one bedroom in my life - feel free to correct) represents $150/week. That leaves you with $169 a week. With $10/week for public transport, you would have had $159 weekly for food, clothing and everything else. That's $22/day - which hardly covers food for our family (and we don't eat organic or anything like that), certainly doesn't cover anything else like medical or dental. When you said "I provided for my family on $7.25 an hour", what you actually meant to say was "I rolled the dice every day, giving them sub-par food and health care and was horribly fortunate that no one in my family was ill or born with a disease while I struggled with poverty and eventually found a way out."
No. You're just wrong, I mean - no, you don't get to pay "as much as everyone else". Someone who makes a hundred million a year enjoys comforts and securities that someone who makes 10k a year can never dream of. Their wealth is not the product of only their own work: it is built by many others. Your system doesn't scale. Not everyone can be wealthy "job creators". Some actually have to do the jobs. You also enjoyed so many other benefits: when you say you "only" made $7.25 an hour, you enjoyed protection and care, infrastructure, that enabled you to make it possible to get out of poverty. Good for you. I did the same, except I don't look back with contempt for those that are still stuck. I think, oh, I was lucky. You're the embodiment of the "Fuck you, I've got mine" side of the struggle.
Saving and investing is a very generic term. If you're saving and investing as a guy who works for a living, it's not very much. You're putting a bit away every pay to save up for retirement. You don't expect to become the next multi-millionaire - and you won't. There's nothing wrong with that.
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"Well, if you want to take it that way, why do you and your ilk think you have any authority whatsoever to earn profit?"
Never go full retard.
Are you seriously challenging my individual sovereign authority over my own life?
I make something. I have sole authority over it. It is mine. I decide to offer it for sale at a profit of 1000%. Somebody freely decides that the price is worth it. We both profit from our transaction. No coercion.
or
I make something. I do not have sole authority over it. Therefore, it is not truly mine. You decide I can only offer it at a certain arbitrary maximum price, dictated by your quasi-religious mantra of 'fairness' and 'greater good'. I get screwed, by you, out of optimally profiting from my work. You use force and coercion to accomplish this.
One is not the inverse of the other. The former respects my individual liberty, the latter insults it.
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Most of the elite and powermongers didn't earn wealth anyways, they were born into it. Most business owners either had wealthy family to finance their endeavor, inherited it from a family member, or had some kind of outside connections that gave them a stepping stone that others don't have.
Again, nobody is stating there shouldn't be profit, but to use the example saying you deserve $1M/year in payment while you pay the people who do the real work, and enable you to get that million, $10k/year is garbage. That was kind of the crux of this whole discussion. In the original article, the executives demanded budgets be cut for everyone else BUT they still gave themselves big fat bonuses, while at the same time saying how they need to cut. That's the root of the problem.