Taverner (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:13 PM
Original message
Capitalism IS the problem
Not the solution
<snip>
I won't bore you with the rest of the OP; it's not like you haven't seen it before.
Fresh out of the gate:
dkf (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:18 PM
Response to Original message
2. Yet it gives us New technology, pharmaceuticals, entertainment and a lot of the pleasures in life.
How else do you get there without incentives?
Taverner (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:19 PM
Response to Reply #2
5. Capitalism is not the only way to provide incentives
IN fact you can still reward these achievements with money under other systems
We're just tricked into thinking Capitalism is the ONLY way to reward initiative
dkf (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:22 PM
Response to Reply #5
7. How do you reward achievements with money and not be capitalist?
Edited on Mon Oct-10-11 11:24 PM by dkf
Is that just a renaming?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated for profit, usually in competitive markets.<1> There is no consensus on the precise definition of capitalism, nor on how the term should be used as a historical category.<2> There is, however, little controversy that private ownership of the means of production, creation of goods or services for profit in a market, and prices and wages are elements of capitalism.<3> The designation is applied to a variety of historical cases, varying in time, geography, politics and culture.<4>
Taverner (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:24 PM
Response to Reply #7
9. Is the Nobel prize a capitalist reward?
Employees can be rewarded with bonuses even in state agencies...
So let me see if I get this right.
Supposedly the Owies are upset 1% controls 50% of the wealth.
So the solution is to use a system that rewards ~12 out of 6,500,000,000.
And let's face it: when you work extra hours at your job you don't really want more money to spend in the economy on other people who provide you goods and services so you can have nice things for your friends and family.
What you want is a medal.
dkf (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 12:16 AM
Response to Reply #47
55. Dunno. Doesn't seem like the ultimate in incentivizing though does it?
Taverner (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 02:37 AM
Response to Reply #55
80. It's an example
Let's go with another then - USPS, Alvarado Street Bakery, National Park Service...
leftstreet (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:25 PM
Response to Reply #7
10. Why does a hedge fund manager get a bigger reward than the person who collects your garbage?
pipoman (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #10
17. Maybe because anyone who can walk and lift 50 pounds can collect garbage?
Taverner (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:35 PM
Response to Reply #17
20. ...and anyone with a keyboard can be a hedge fund manager
Come on, do you really think Garbage Collecting is the easiest job in the world?
I'd like to see you do it for a day
So do it. You've got a keyboard. I can see it defecating all over the internet. Become a hedge fund manager, pay your mailroom clerk $20/hour, 6 weeks vacation, full healthcare and 75% retirement after 15 years. You can then give to charity while you pay a 90% marginal tax rate.
You might even have enough left over for dope and munchies.
leftstreet (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:32 PM
Response to Reply #12
15. Yeah, what is the alternative to letting rich people profit from our labor?
Have you tried profiting from your own labor?
All you have to do is provide goods and services people want.
ChillbertKChesterton (92 posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:34 PM
Response to Reply #12
18. The answer of "what we should do now" is to find an answer to this question
And in the process of answering, we will face failures.
Leftists need to re-embrace certain values that have been renounced by the previous generations of activists. Anti-authority, anti-order, anti-discipline, pro-free love, pro-self actualization through inner experience, ect. ect.
We need to grow past this. Accept appopriate authority, accept following appropriate orders, accept hard discipline and hard work. We need to re-accept family values and moderation.
We need to take back what the conservative movement has claimed for itself, and use it for the Right Reasons. IF the left can take all of these values upon itself and work towards finding an alternative, then it can be done.
Taverner (1000+ posts) Mon Oct-10-11 11:57 PM
Response to Reply #40
44. Economist David Ricardo suggested Social Democracy as a tranition phase
Thus, avoiding the killing
As for the jobs, if the people, not just the state, had control of the means of production - jobs for the masses.
Doing what? Selling snow-blowers in Florida?
A job has to have VALUE. It has to be something somebody wants done enough to pay for it.
MineralMan (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 12:03 AM
Response to Reply #44
48. And how do you put people in control of the means of production,
Edited on Tue Oct-11-11 12:03 AM by MineralMan
Taverner? Again, you're speaking in slogans. We all know the slogans. Social Democracy works pretty well in some European countries. How do we get from here to there? What's the process? Slogans aren't going to get us there, especially slogans from over 100 years ago. There have been nations that professed those slogans. There have. How are they doing?
Get us from where we are from where you think we should be in some actual steps, no matter how broad those steps are. Write them down. Post them. Don't just repeat 100 year old slogans.
Taverner (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 02:24 AM
Response to Reply #48
77. How do we get there? Nationalize certain companies. I'd start with Big Pharm.
Include Big Oil.
It won't be easy, but it will be worth it.
AndyTiedye (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 04:37 AM
Response to Reply #77
94. When the Oil Companies **** Up Big Time, Cancel their Leases
It would be expensive, you have to compensate all the shareholders. The Constitution requires it.
Besides, they're not all wealthy capitalists, many are retired employees of the company, etc.
Then there is the question of what you would be getting.
Why nationalize the oil companies? What you you get? a bunch of run-down refineries and gas stations. Oil leases. They're leases. The government already owns the actual property.
You don't need to nationalize the oil companies. Cancel their leases when they **** up. BP should have lost every lease they have for the Gulf disaster. Exxon should have lost theirs for Valdez.
What landlord would put up with such careless and destructive tenants?
It depends.
Is the landlord motivated by profit or social justice through fair housing?
MineralMan (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 12:58 PM
Response to Reply #77
107. You do realize that there is no current way to nationalize
those companies. We do not have a method that can be used to do that in this country. It cannot be done without some really major legislation, and could even require a constitutional amendment. Eminent Domain isn't enough.
snooper2 (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:14 PM
Response to Reply #107
123. And that's where the conversation ends...
Lofty goals with no real plans to implement
Zanzoobar (509 posts) Tue Oct-11-11 12:09 AM
Response to Original message
50. Imagine
With computer technology we could easily make sure that everyone had the same number of credits. Everyone.
And those credits wouldn't be worth the non-paper they weren't written on.
itsallhappening (342 posts) Tue Oct-11-11 02:48 PM
Response to Reply #112
113. We could start with all the failed socialist states.
Or we could even look at smaller socialist experiments like Brook Farm.
It doesn't work because of its inherent flaw: You can't suppress free will forever.
white_wolf (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 02:50 PM
Response to Reply #113
115. Your one flaw doesn't exist.
Socialism is not the suppressing of free will. If you actually think that it's clear you haven't read much of Marx or Engels.
OK. Bluff called.
I refuse to partake of the socialist system and will expand my personal fortunes without regard to the collective good.
You reply: ____________________________________
Actually, he doesn't reply.
itsallhappening (342 posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:00 PM
Response to Reply #115
119. That's exactly what it is.
Edited on Tue Oct-11-11 03:02 PM by itsallhappening
You, as an individual, exist only to serve the collective in a socialist model. You are a subject of The State.
You can read all the theory you want. It's great for classroom conversation. But you won't have an understanding of its implementation until you study the history of socialist experiments, which is littered with famine, repression and genocide.
Those in power in the socialist states still end up with more money and goods and, obviously, more power. And when the masses realize "the great leap forward" only applied to the few in power, they rise up and you get things like the "Red Terror," or the massacre of tens (maybe hundreds) of thousands in Romania. The list goes on and on.
And invariably, those who still advocate for this failed economic model argue that it just wasn't properly implemented.
white_wolf (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:06 PM
Response to Reply #119
120. Oh, so we are judging an ideology based upon the atrocities committed in it's name, are we?
Edited on Tue Oct-11-11 03:06 PM by white_wolf
Let's see what capitalism has caused: The slave trade, the slaughter the whole tribes of Native Americans, colonialism, two world wars and various smaller ones all over the world, the Holocaust,Augusto Pinochet, Robespierre's Terror, massive environmental damage, thousands of deaths from starvation and sickness, people forced to work as slaves in sweatshops. When you look it at that way your precious capitalism isn't too exactly stainless either.
It's amazing.
Christ preaches love but because there were periods in Christian history when people of centralized authority preached hate they mock Christ.
Marx preached violent overthrow but when violent revolutions became violent governments Marx is not supposed to be blamed.
I would also not that the Nazis and the French Revolution were socialist and many of those sweatshops are in socialist countries where people have no right to complain and the government has no incentive to change.
AndyTiedye (1000+ posts) Tue Oct-11-11 03:51 AM
Response to Reply #76
89. Why Has Communism Failed to Protect the Workers in China from Said Evils?
Funny you should mention China.
What kind of government do they claim to have over there again?
It seems that communism is just as vulnerable to corruption as capitalism is, if not more so.
The purported economic system under which an oligarchy rules makes little difference.
itsallhappening (342 posts) Tue Oct-11-11 01:43 PM
Response to Reply #89
110. The former USSR is a better example.
Central planning for the purpose of "serving the masses" is a failure.
Wouldn't it be great to walk into a grocery store and find the shelves stocked not with what you or your neighbors wanted, but what a central committee wanted? And if the masses were demanding something, they had no market power to demand it, they had to bribe bureaucrats and hope the bribe worked. That happened in the USSR.
Wouldn't it be great to have your class stamped on your ID by a central committee, and then have that class designation be a determining factor in what kind of rights you were afforded, even in a court of law? That happened in the USSR.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to have your medical care completely provided by the state and have your procedures OK'd by the same central committee who couldn't properly stock the grocery store shelves? That happened in the USSR.
There are many other examples of socialism failing. Inherent in the socialist model is the idea that people are too stupid and/or weak to think for themselves. Of course, those who are really smart are the "enlightened" ones who come up with centrally planned models that fail. Huh.
Enjoy your stay.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2093155#2094233
