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Admin
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Admin
"Interesting how you use the term "force and coercion" as if it were two words for the same thing. The truth is, there are many other forms of coercion besides (the threat of) physical violence."
Interesting how you think my use of the term force is synonymous with physical violence. It isn't. Perhaps I should have written "forceful coercion" to be clearer. Coercion is but one manifestation of force. There are many others.
"That's the thing these people never, ever get."
Hmmm...it would seem that I do, indeed, 'get' it.
"They don't think that economic coercion exists..."
Sounds like orc-mischief to me....like 'social justice'
You need to do something to support your life, and those that you are responsible for, right? In our world, that means you get a job, either from someone else, or by working for yourself. Correct?
Your 'need' for a job is concomitant with your 'need' to continue living. Nobody else is responsible for your life. Nobody else is responsible to provide you with sustenance....they are not your slaves.
You offer a skillset, they offer remuneration. If you agree to the exchange, you shake hands and begin work. Where is the coercion?
Yes, there are people in dire economic conditions. Yes, there are people that will take advantage of that. Yes, I consider them immoral....but not criminal. I would like to see such people exposed and shunned and driven out of business. Voluntarily.
Admin
I didn't say that it shouldn't be rewarded. But clearly you have some kind of reading comprehension disorder, or you just have this need to misrepresent others.
I said that the problem is that we are rewarding people simply for already having money MORE THAN THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY DO THE WORK. There is no reason whatsoever that this should happen. Simply having money might have some value, but there is no way that it should be valued more than the people who actually do the work. When that happens is when capitalism fails, because having money is seen as more valuable than being productive.
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Free education and healthcare--really free healthcare, not Obamacare "We're going to force you to buy health insurance to pad the pockets of crooked insurance companies" type of healthcare--should be available to everyone, at a reasonable level of service. Those with the money to spend can "upgrade" as it were to better things, but the basics should be there. Sadly with healthcare as is proven in other nations that DO have free healthcare, the quality suffers drastically because you get doctors that don't care about helping the sick, they want money, and so they do a half-assed job because they can't charge for it.
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You're making the false assumption that this isn't what's happening. I, for one, know I can achieve far more when I don't have to worry where my next meal is.
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If progressives really believe that the poor can be lifted out of poverty with social programs, why do they always speak of them as if they are serfs, with no hope of improving their position?
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"Yes, some of them are self-made, but are they really worth 100000x what someone else is?"
I guess that depends entirely upon whom you ask, and your calculus for 'worth'.
A brain surgeon isn't worth shit when my septic tank backs up ;)
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I did.
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And that's the point. They get to decide this themselves so OF COURSE the answer is "Yes". Same like in the article about the exec bonuses; did the execs warrant bonuses while R&D budget was cut and basic maintenance requirements were ignored? The execs themselves were given the right to decide the answer, and it too was "Yes". Greed.
If you let the people who stand to benefit the most from a positive answer get to decide the answer, of course it's going to be what will benefit them.
There's an old saying about democracy that I think illustrates this point perfectly:
Democracy is two wolves and a sheep deciding what to have for dinner.
Admin
And you have proven that you do not get it.
You claim you'd like to see those that take advantage of the economic conditions "shunned and driven out of business". Yet you completely ignore the fact that Capitalism advocates and rewards exactly this! So how the fuck are they going to be "driven out of business" without using something like government to step in and make them play fair?
And your rant of "you are responsible for your life" completely misses the point. I'm not interested in your natural law Libertarian bullshit. I'm interested in reality. And in reality, you are incredibly naive. Someone threatening to take away the means through which you support yourself, whether or not they are obligated to do so, is using force against you. They are coercing you, and that makes any exchange between you decidedly non-voluntary.
Admin
"I said that the problem is that we are rewarding people simply for already having money MORE THAN THE PEOPLE WHO ACTUALLY DO THE WORK. There is no reason whatsoever that this should happen"
Yes there is. The investment capital is more valuable than the individual worker. The worker plays his part, but the investor provides the theater. Without it, there would be no work for anyone.
Do you have an interest-bearing bank account? IRA? Stocks? You evil profit-monger, you!
Admin
Obviously not true if you think about it even a little.
Its MUCH easier to keep track of people in an office. You can SEE them surfing youtube, etc, all day. Lync is not going to help with employees like that. I dont see how you can possibly think that the employee being aware they can be spied on is WORSE for monitoring of performance, considering when working from home, they dont have to worry about being spied on at all.
Admin
You know, as I think about it, I realize that there's an element of force to economic coercion after all.
Let's say that you're starving, and someone is selling food, at a price you can't afford, and they say "pay what I ask or do without." If you choose to exercise your natural right to preserve your own life, you will be called a thief, and by the power of force in the hands of the state you will be arrested and imprisoned.
Then again, there really is nothing new under the sun. This is hardly an original argument; it was the premise of one of the greatest and best-known novels in the history of literature, way back in 1862.
It really says something about our priorities, though, that if I were to kill a man to preserve my own life, I'm considered justified before the law, but if I were to steal food to preserve my own life, I'd find myself playing Jean Valjean and not on a stage.
Admin
"Yet you completely ignore the fact that Capitalism advocates and rewards exactly this!"
No. I disagree with this characterization of capitalism.
"Someone threatening to take away the means through which you support yourself, whether or not they are obligated to do so, is using force against you. They are coercing you, and that makes any exchange between you decidedly non-voluntary."
And, depending on the context, that same 'coercive' person may be committing a crime. A lawyer may well start throwing the words "unconscionable" and "untenable" around in the ensuing contract-law suit.
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Now you're the threadjacker ;)
Admin
I did. I was raised in perpetual poverty, some of the worst conditions you can imagine while still in a first-world country (and yes, I know it can get a lot worse; I spent a few years living in a third-world country doing service there, and I know just how blessed we are here) due to my dad being a lazy, violent man who couldn't hold down a job. I've only ever had three things going for me:
Because of that, I'm now doing pretty well for myself. But I'd be a liar of the highest order if I were to claim that I earned it on my own merits.
Admin
Um, what?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
I don't know what your definition of "free" is in the context of government services, but mine means "affordable". (Nothing is "free", obviously, and any intelligent person understands a relationship between taxes and services).
From the top:
Admin
Please, for heaven's sake, learn to use the QUOTE tag properly!
Admin
You say the one's that want a free ride will always find one, but if their only choice in that regard is
Before public education in America, the schools were funded by communities who got college educated teachers to teach their children all together, and our reading levels were the highest in the world. Now we're 35th (correct me if I'm wrong) in the world for reading. My state in particular leads the nation in high school dropouts. "Free" healthcare in other nations has lead to care rationing and long wait times - there's a reason Canadians come to the US for major surgery.
I agree that everyone should have access to health care and education like you - I simply disagree with how we should do it. I don't believe that government should be the one to do it, because I don't trust them to do a good job with it. I would trust you more than I trust any congressman; at least you believe in what you say, and aren't just telling me what I want to hear to buy my vote.
You talked about greedy businessmen who only care about "profit". Do you honestly believe the politicians who have to get campaign donations and votes are any different?
Admin
Speaking from Massachusetts, home of Romneycare, I agree with the first part of this: Romney's policy is not very well thought out, and it's astounding to me that it's considered a reasonable national policy. However, there are some aspects of the overall plan that are improvements over the previous free-for-all, so I'm going to just accept it while grumbling.
However, having had experience with actual socialized health care, and having had direct reports from many people who have lived in countries with civilized health care systems, the latter half does not agree with anything I've experienced or heard from first-hand sources. I've experienced Finnish and German health care, and heard first-hand accounts from people who have experienced health and dental care in England, Canada, Germany, and Costa Rica, and all of them sound preferable to what we have here. Certainly my experiences were better in civilized countries, and hearing about a root canal in Costa Rica made me wish I'd been there when I had mine done.
Don't believe the hype: the US health care system sucks, there's really no question about that.
Admin
I guess this is where we disagree. I think that, most likely, a "worker" (though it isn't one vs. one, it's one vs. thousands, you really like to mislead the argument) will be able to do something of utility to society, at least locally, in the absence of investors. In many cases the investor is only needed because another investor is holding on to some resource be it land or raw materials, and so on and so forth.
When it comes down, especially, to the necessities of life, you could lose all the investors and capitalists in the world and still have a fairly healthy society. It sure pays to organize and work together, but I don't think that profit or investment return are the only terms in which people collaborate. That's actually fairly evident.
Admin
Not sure where you're from, but the reason my government was formed is explicitly stated in its oldest and most sacred founding document to be the protection of its citizens' rights to life, liberty, and a lifestyle of happiness. (The common meaning of the word "pursuit" has changed significantly since then. It was meant as a noun, not a verb signifying "chasing after," Will Smith movies notwithstanding.) "Protecting property" is conspicuously absent from the rationale.
Admin
I understand what you're getting at, but if the money is legally theirs to distribute, of what relevance is debating the merits of their decision? Maybe they have an understanding of someone's 'worth' that you and I do not share. Maybe it's an old boys club. Maybe they're retards. I don't know.....but if a crime isn't being committed, what's the beef?
It certainly isn't our money to decide what to do with.
Admin
NEVER! I will not submit to your oppressive tag coercion! ;)
Admin
"you could lose all the investors and capitalists in the world and still have a fairly healthy society"
I don't believe you would like to live in that world ;)
Admin
Of course not! The difference is that those people are being deceptive. They're a perversion of their purpose. A properly accountable government (as we should be able to have, especially in this age of technology) should be scared shitless of its citizens! The private sectors true purpose is profit for the owners. You don't have them saying, "Oh, alright then, that's enough profit for this year, lets lower prices" or "you know what? we made a pretty good return on that new drug, lets drop the patent on it now so that everyone can enjoy affordable medication for their disease". It's their nature whereas your concerns, valid as they are, are not the correct nature of a representative in government. Corruption is not a reason to hand the controls over to someone who will behave in much the same way just because they're being honest about it.
This is part of the same type of arguing, which is that governments are inefficient so we should let corporations do everything (and somehow they will still make a profit while delivering more services to us). The correct answer is more accountability in government, more transparency. I should have a log every time an elected official farts, just in case.
Admin
"I guess this is where we disagree. I think that, most likely, a "worker" (though it isn't one vs. one, it's one vs. thousands, you really like to mislead the argument) will be able to do something of utility to society, at least locally, in the absence of investors"
It was not my intent to mislead.
OK, let's talk about thousands or workers. There's a one to many relationship between investors and the jobs they help create. That is of great value/utility to society, yes?
They get a small slice of the pie for doing little more than reading the news and transferring digits between accounts. Yet the ultimate beneficial effect of their economic actions is tremendous. With enough investment, they can accrue greater amounts of money, which can be both spent and/or reinvested (even if only in a bank account). Regardless of the quantity of reward, their investment actions are still valuable. They don't cease to be so beyond an arbitrary level.
Admin
You own your life, do you not? The government serves the role of protecting your life through laws, police, and armies.
What is liberty? If you own your life, then you can do what you want with it - liberty, the ability to make your own choices. Government and law, too, should protect this, and any government which does not do so is not performing its proper role.
And your lifestyle, well, that is a combination of your domicile, your possessions, and your personal activities which are covered by liberty. Whether you like a high lifestyle in an expensive high rise apartment or some cabin in the woods, the government must protect those things as well, typically with the aforementioned armies.
All of these things are an extension of "property" which is a creation of "law". And that is why people form governments.
Admin
"The correct answer is more accountability in government, more transparency."
Please excuse me, I just sharted.
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I don't believe so either. You were participating in a dissection of the system to establish at what point it is irreducibly complex.
I want to live in a world where all humans are guaranteed health, education and a job that pays them enough to live modestly but contently. Where fortunes amassed do not bestow power unobtainable by 99.999999% of the people to ever be born. Where the focus is more on leisure and creativity (software being a huge part of that), not on productivity and profitability.
With our advancements in robotics and automation, I'd like to think that some day manual labor jobs will be a thing of the past. That food, cheap affordable food, will be harvested quickly and easily and no one will go hungry. The only thing I see standing in the way of that... isn't technology. It's someone asking, "but who will make a profit?" - the same goes for energy, be it fusion or whatever. The same goes for space exploration. As soon as we as a species decide we want to attempt to inhabit another celestial body, we have a huge clusterfuck of problems: who owns it? How much of it? Do I get to land on Mars and just run as far as I can and put a stake in the ground and say "this is mine"? This is why I focus on the chain of ownership break down that occurs when people try to talk about their rights/freedoms to do what they want. I I think that in order to progress, especially off this rock, we have to re-visit the idea of private ownership of everything as the basis for how we interact.
Like I said, I certainly hope that my children's children (perhaps their children, don't want to be too hopeful) aren't working 40-60 hours a week just to afford a simple home. Our house is quite modest, one bathroom, etc. and cost $250,000 - the backyard isn't even big enough to throw a ball with my son, really.
Admin
You're correct in that a properly accountable government with transparency would likely act in the best interest of its people. I agree with your desire for such a thing. However, the problem is that men creates the law, and men have a tendency to not dick themselves by creating laws that would hold themselves accountable. Power corrupts, as the saying goes; the founders tried to set up the government in such a way that it would be limited as possible to prevent its corruption, but it has grown too powerful. You keep governments honest by keeping them small (since they can't hide so easily).
As for leaving it to corporations to handle everything, remember that the government in essence functions like an expansionist corporation. They too seek higher profits (through a combination of taxes, borrowing, and inflating the currency), but they have one major bonus in that the only way to not pay them (as S3V3R pointed out) is to move to another one. It's this one difference which makes corporations more efficient, because while corporations are incentivized to minimize costs to maximize profits, and have to compete, the government has no competition. We must do business with the government, so their incentive becomes maximizing their own personal benefits at the cost of us.
We need governments but I think they should do as little as possible, precisely because it is so hard to get transparency and accountability from them. Sort of a "who guards the guards" deal.
Admin
We elect the government. Corruption comes in to play but that's a whole other matter. I'm asking you to compare them as they're both intended to function. Who guards the corporations? Other corporations? The government? How is that any better considering the track record? If we have the capability to keep the government accountable (so that they correctly guard the corporations) then have we not reached the goal and thus no longer need the corporations?
I don't see what you're saying to be a solution, or even a clear problem description. You're basically playing in to the "power corrupts" hand, which is true - but if you assume / strive for a counterbalance to that power, then what do you end up with?
Can you fill in the blanks?
Admin
What we had was Racketeering and Price Fixing by definition. The government couldn't stand for that and decided it would make it better by making it illegal to not self subjugate.
Why is it that a dog owner can pay for a full chemo regimen for less than the cost of a single treatment for a person? It's not because the drugs are any different, if that's not too much of a spoiler. How much do you think the person's treatment would cost if health insurance wasn't so busy helping us?
Admin
We used to have a cleaner who kept leaving those signs the kitchen and toilets after she'd cleaned the floor. One of the engineers then started sticking printed sheets to them, with a message to the effect of "Caution: hazardously placed warning sign".
Admin
You clearly have a good heart, for which I cannot fault you :)
"re-visit the idea of private ownership of everything"
By all means, 'revisit' it. The bar is pretty high though.
Admin
To which someone should have stuck a "Caution: hazardous obscuration of warning sign" message ;)
Admin
5 pages of comments, and nobody's pointed out that "Several floors have had their roof collapse."
I don't know about you, but I find that usually only one floor has a roof.
Admin
Every time "A" trades with "B" they do so because both of them expect to be happier after the trade. That additional happiness is called profit and they both enjoy it.
Every profit-making transaction, invariably must make the world a better place, because it makes both parties happier. Profits are a measure of how much good one has done.
Unless there's violence involved. If "A" forces "B" to part with property, that is not free trade. That is theft, and it is always harmful in the net analysis, though it may benefit the recipient of the stolen goods.
Admin
You assume all transactions are voluntary and that there exists no such thing as necessity (and thus, unfair trade). The whole thing deconstructs from that point. You've also clearly demonstrated that you made no effort to read the thread, as you have re-used an already defeated argument that implies violence is the only means of coercion. This is obviously not so.
f I am given drugs to manage my disease, but there is in fact a cure being withheld (because it would not generate as much profit as ongoing medication) - how do you equate that?
You don't, because you've horribly oversimplified.
Admin
Let's examine the process of "producing" that wealth and "earning" that two million dollar bonus from the point of view of the business leader.
I'm J. Random Bossman, and I'm sitting on my yacht cruising along the Pacific coast. Looking at my data, I can see that another boss man somewhere is on track to be able to give you a return on investment of $80, while as it stands right now I am only able to give you an ROI of $60. I want the bonus you've offered, so I need some way to raise the ROI. Which means some way of getting extra profit without any extra expense.
So I grab my cell phone, I call up the manager of each local production facility. I give him an option. "Either raise your profitability by X%, or you're fired. I don't care how you do it. Either fire people, or cut their benefits, whatever." And I hang up. Now it's someone else's problem. I don't actually have to figure out what to do -- I just have to hold the threat of being without a job over someone else's head so that they figure it out for me.
Some managers decide to lay off huge numbers of workers. Some cut the benefits. So out of my 5,000 workers that I had at all facilities, 3,500 of them lose their jobs and the others now no longer have health care. Of course, if one of them complains to me, I get to hold up my hands and say, "I didn't fire them, the managers did. You should take it up with them," while I take another sip of single-malt scotch from the bar on my yacht. The savings I get from these layoffs allows me to return an extra $40 to you as an investor, bringing your ROI up and earning me the two-million dollar bonus.
I just earned two million dollars by making ten phone calls and screwing ~15,000 people (5,000 employees and their family members) out of their living. I didn't actually PRODUCE anything! In fact, the capacity of the capital that I own to actually produce products has gone DOWN, since I have fewer workers with experience on my production line, and the workers I have left are likely to suffer increased attrition due to worse health over time. But I, sitting on my yacht, produced nothing. I hired other workers to produce something for me, but that demonstrates THEIR economic value -- not mine. As you said, "so it goes, back layer by layer, every capital tool was made by workers" -- you are correct. Every tool was made by WORKERS. None of the tools were made by OWNERS. The worker produces the good or service; it's the worker that has value. You can't count that value once for the worker and then again for whoever is paying him.
So how does me producing nothing, over a thirty-minute time span, "earn" me sixty times more than one of my workers would have earned in a year? What output did I generate? What good or service did I produce? What exactly is it that you, Randy, value so highly about J. Random Bossman's half-hour of sailing that you believe he deserves two million dollars for?
If your answer is, "well, what I value about his actions is that I just made an ROI of $100" then you're essentially saying "I value the fact that I am making money, regardless of the fact that in order for me to make it, many other people were dehumanized and will suffer going forward." Which is absolutely your right to say. Just like it's our right to think that that makes you and those like you cold-hearted Scrooges, who believe money is more ethically important than people. (And that's not an insult. That's a description.)
Admin
Admin
"f I am given drugs to manage my disease, but there is in fact a cure being withheld (because it would not generate as much profit as ongoing medication) - how do you equate that? "
Maybe they're playing a much longer game of "population control", and are, in certain people's eyes, heroes.
Cull the herd, natural selection, blah blah blah
Admin
^ this times a million (actually, only 100, because no statement can be more than 100 times better than the worst).
Seriously though. The how is a huge deal to some people. Whether or not it is to you really depends on whether or not you're a decent human being. And the fact is that those laid off people will go find work somewhere else, probably paying less because the same type of behavior is going on all over the place - the guy who got screwed out of the last bonus now has his managers on the line telling them to cut costs, which means closing more plants, moving them overseas or hiring all the laid off workers from the other plant at much lower wage with no benefits.
Then in response to that situation, you cue the "well, if they din like them jerbs they should get new jerbs!" type victim-blaming.
Admin
"Every tool was made by WORKERS"
And who invented the tool, thereby providing the worker with the blueprint to follow?
And who invented the tools the workers use to make the tools?
Admin
People who work with their brain? That's still a worker. (You're aware which website you're on, right? You're aware that it is geared towards highlighting cases where workers who use their brain didn't do so?)
Admin
To answer your questions
I don't believe it's ultimately possible to keep governments accountable, at least not as accountable as we would like. We can only limit it's power so it can't screw up too much.
A [private] corporation that [competes against the other corporation(s) by offering better services or lower cost, which forces the other "bad" corporation(s) to change ways or go out of business.] So yes, in essence, corporations are the counter to other corporations; A corporation, is just a collection of people working for a specific purpose, which is usually making money. Ambitious people who recognize that a corporation is bad for one reason or another will form their own corporation that works better.
I suppose I have been unclear, so let me make a clear statement then of what I perceive to be the main problem, and what I believe to be the solution.
The problem that I see, is the government is insulated from public concerns, and they're managing areas they should be. You say we elect the government, but I don't believe that to be case; rather we're presented with a small list of candidates who are deemed "acceptable". These candidates enter government and work on behalf of various interest groups to enact legislation that is good for that group and bad for the nation. They also enact "nice sounding" legislation in order to trick the population in to thinking they represent them wall accomplishing nothing of real value. I believe that most of the nations problems can be traced to government interference; the government is attempting to manage areas in which it's not qualified to manage, such as education and healthcare. It is a monolith which is only capable of assigning priorities in a very blunt and broad fashion.
The solution to the problem is to eliminate the excess laws that work outside of the primary purpose of the central government (protecting property), and reduce its overall power. By taking these powers away from the federal government, you put the power in the hands of the more local state governments, who are in a better position to address the concerns of their individual populations. The federal government must then return to its role of protecting the country, and preventing the states from dicking each other through stupid individual state laws like tolls.
When the government acts in its proper single role, the rest of the jobs can be taken by the people. Who cares more about your child's education and healthcare than you? Who better knows your healthcare needs?
Admin
"People who work with their brain? That's still a worker."
Really? Like investors and executives? They're workers too?
Admin
Yes, "isms" like monopolism.
Admin
Monopolies only exist with force. Typically the kind of force only derived from government interference...or organized crime....but I repeat myself.
Unfortunately, there are many that define "monopoly" as being singularly successful. This is camouflage for their statist desire to attack anything that rises too high for their tastes.