• Laissez-faire Vs Communism
    168 replies, posted
[QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]Somehow it got bent into us that our interests are worth more than others. Most humans are selfish beings because of the way society has shaped us.[/QUOTE] Selfishness, even greed, is a very positive factor. Placing in a state where you are able to be as selfish and greedy as you want as long as you follow the non aggression axiom and respect property rights would allow for selfishness to be the driving force in decreasing poverty. Take the industrial revolution, seen to be one of the greediest periods ever, yet the poorest people received the largest standard of living increase in history. I also like to bring up how greed could be a force that would save thousands of lives. The selling of kidneys should be legal. Currently the majority of patients with failed kidneys die without ever receiving a donor. Allowing a legal market to open up would save all these lives, all in the name of greed. [QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]I truly believe, that if you could take people to a place where there was no society, and allow them to live, you would see communism.[/quote] Not very likely. It's been very well known for example that [url=http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74983/title/Kids_own_up_to_ownership]kids as young as three already have a notion of property rights[/url]. If you're claiming that a command economy could be done and is likely to exist on a small scale, yes that is likely to happen and it could work. If you're wondering why it wouldn't work on a larger scale, there is a lot to it, but a large portion to it is that the larger the scale the greater the commander needs to know to make well informed decisions. This starts getting into central planning. [QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]The Sum is greater than it's parts. Modern society seems to flip that to make the parts greater than the sum. People who "earn" £100,000 a week, (like premiership footballers) who avoid tax, and complain about having to redistribute some of their wealth.[/quote] Why are you entitled to their money? [QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]I don't know how it is possible to advocate Laissez-faire economics, because it has no soul. It is devoid of any emotion; you can't pay your medical bills, fuck you. you can't buy food? fuck you. You've got a disability, fuck you.[/quote] You seem to be very confused. How is it at all rational to make judgement upon an economics based on "soul". [QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]I'd rather have a broken communist society than a broken "meritocratic" economy where the rich get richer.[/QUOTE] Which would you pick 1. The standard of living of the poor increases substantially while the rich get far richer 2. The remain at about the same standard of living while the rich get poorer
[QUOTE=Pepin;32458415]Selfishness, even greed, is a very positive factor.[/quote] Ignoring what you said, "greed" is not a societal issue. If you think that you're stupid, speaking to Benf199105. Greed is an evolutionary mechanism that has helped our species to survive over decades, all greed is, is "self interest". Everyone has their own motives for doing something and everyone is selfish. Period. Even the most hardened communists, socialists, whatever. They're selfish in their own way. To even begin to imagine that they aren't is grandiose. It has nothing at all to do with "society", yeah totally man, all of the ape-men before us were totally selfless creatures who did things for free for one another. What he fails to properly grasp is: [QUOTE=Benf199105;32456499]Way back when we bartered, we still put a value on a goat, or a value to our time. Somehow it got bent into us that our interests are worth more than others. Most humans are selfish beings because of the way society has shaped us.[/quote] The only way you're able to run your uneducated mouth about the excesses of capitalism is because barter and later capital have allowed you to do so. There would be no excesses of anything otherwise. All of the things capitalism has helped to create, for the [b]first time in history[/b], general abundance of goods is what allows you to complain about people being "greedy" with that abundance. In a world devoid of capital you would have a world most assuredly devoid of abundance.
[quote] I also like to bring up how greed could be a force that would save thousands of lives. The selling of kidneys should be legal. Currently the majority of patients with failed kidneys die without ever receiving a donor. Allowing a legal market to open up would save all these lives, all in the name of greed.[/quote] It would also cause more murders for the selling of organs, in the name of greed
It needs regulation, or else there would be 10,000 cures for cancer on the market already
[QUOTE=thrawn2787;32460725]It would also cause more murders for the selling of organs, in the name of greed[/QUOTE] Your implication is that legalizing the selling of organs would create a huge black market largely in favor of murder? First, such a black market already exists. Second, if the selling of organs were legalized, the price would go far down. If you doubt this, I can provide a lot to back this up, take the prohibition of alcohol or any other substance or activity. Prohibition causes prices to rise. Anyway, as a result of the lower price of legalization, it really wouldn't be worth the risk or profitable for someone to murder to sell organs. Your notion of how it would work isn't correct, but even it were, it wouldn't work out. [QUOTE=Megadick;32462479]It needs regulation, or else there would be 10,000 cures for cancer on the market already[/QUOTE] I'm not even sure what kind of logic and reasoning you are using. A hasn't provided B A needs action X A hasn't provided B A needs regulatory limitations Where is it established that A has a duty to provide B, and that providing B is possible, and that limitations somehow contribute to A's ability to provide for B? Even if there is a presumption I'm missing, I don't know how this could seem rational.
[QUOTE=Pepin;32458415]Selfishness, even greed, is a very positive factor. Placing in a state where you are able to be as selfish and greedy as you want as long as you follow the non aggression axiom and respect property rights would allow for selfishness to be the driving force in decreasing poverty. Take the industrial revolution, seen to be one of the greediest periods ever, yet the poorest people received the largest standard of living increase in history. I also like to bring up how greed could be a force that would save thousands of lives. The selling of kidneys should be legal. Currently the majority of patients with failed kidneys die without ever receiving a donor. Allowing a legal market to open up would save all these lives, all in the name of greed. Not very likely. It's been very well known for example that [url=http://www.sciencenews.org/view/generic/id/74983/title/Kids_own_up_to_ownership]kids as young as three already have a notion of property rights[/url]. If you're claiming that a command economy could be done and is likely to exist on a small scale, yes that is likely to happen and it could work. If you're wondering why it wouldn't work on a larger scale, there is a lot to it, but a large portion to it is that the larger the scale the greater the commander needs to know to make well informed decisions. This starts getting into central planning. Why are you entitled to their money? You seem to be very confused. How is it at all rational to make judgement upon an economics based on "soul". Which would you pick 1. The standard of living of the poor increases substantially while the rich get far richer 2. The remain at about the same standard of living while the rich get poorer[/QUOTE] Greed is not a positive factor. It is a side effect of our societal structure. It is better to be greedy because everyone else is greedy. Selling kidneys for profit would open up a black market aswell. We all know about grave robbery. Why do these children have notions of property rights? Because they have been raised in our society. It's very easy to support capitalism by pointing at examples from within a capitalist system. It's like saying, "Look, Capitalism makes us rich, gives us money and possessions" but that's completely illogical, as Capitalism is built upon money and possessions, it always will be the best at assigning material goods and services in exchange for money, because that is what it is designed to do. Why am I entitled to their money - a little thing called the social contract. Without society they would not have the life they have lived. Everything you see around you every day is affected by the state in some way. Street lighting, sewers, schools, hospitals, pot holes. It's only fair if you earn an extraordinary amount of money that you pay back your share to the society that protected you from infancy to adulthood. I'm not confused, capitalism has no soul, or maybe a better term would be emphatic response? I'm not sure what word you want, but you know what I mean, you're just nitpicking. It is the bottom line, it is the profit motive, it is greed, it is selfishness; it's "me me me". Economics is a zero sum game, so I'd pick 2; you're forgetting that the poor in other continents are readily forgotten in terms of economics. We all talk about the rich-poor divide in developed countries, but what about the rich poor divide between here and Sub Saharan Africa. "We should allow child labor overseas ...the sweatshop is what is saving the 9 year old worker" From your title. How deliciously ironic to me. [QUOTE=s0beit;32460275]Ignoring what you said, "greed" is not a societal issue. If you think that you're stupid, speaking to Benf199105. Greed is an evolutionary mechanism that has helped our species to survive over decades, all greed is, is "self interest". Everyone has their own motives for doing something and everyone is selfish. Period. Even the most hardened communists, socialists, whatever. They're selfish in their own way. To even begin to imagine that they aren't is grandiose. It has nothing at all to do with "society", yeah totally man, all of the ape-men before us were totally selfless creatures who did things for free for one another. What he fails to properly grasp is: The only way you're able to run your uneducated mouth about the excesses of capitalism is because barter and later capital have allowed you to do so. There would be no excesses of anything otherwise. All of the things capitalism has helped to create, for the [b]first time in history[/b], general abundance of goods is what allows you to complain about people being "greedy" with that abundance. In a world devoid of capital you would have a world most assuredly devoid of abundance.[/QUOTE] Sorry, I didn't come here to be insulted you uneducated brainless cunt, so let's play nicely, yes? What you fail to grasp is that you sat on your computer, hammering the keyboard angrily happened because of Society. The society that plucked you from your mothers vagina, slapped your ass and gave you medicine. Without some form of centralised public spending, tax payer dollars and general standards, you'd come out of the womb and left to fend for yourself. Nomadic tribes, people untouched by western influences, all pull together, they are what we would almost describe as communist. That's not even debated, that is pure fact. And I don't know how you can even bring cave men into this, as we have 0 idea about their societal structure, and how things worked thousands of years ago. So Moot point. You seem to miss the irony of your point. That I'm somehow complaining (which I'm not I'm debating, in a debating forum) about greed, when greed allows me to complain. It's ironic that you don't seem to realise that economics is zero sum. There is a thing called Pareto Equilibrium. For us to have this general abundance of goods, money, credit, food and everything else, someone has to suffer. Capitalism FACTUALLY cannot survive if everyone get's rich. It needs the dregs, the slaves, the drones. It needs to oppress and control a percentage of people, so that their allocation can be passed to the rich middle. You can pinhole all you want; but the world doesn't stop in the West. The irony is that you praise the greedy selfish motives that capitalism instills, when factually it only extends these privelidges to a chosen few percentiles. The very fact of Capitalism is that the poor will always be poor. It's not meritocratic and it is zero sum. What Capitalism does is exploit people for the gain of others. If you're cool with that, that's awesome, but one day you could get fucked by the system too, have a bank lose your money, get your house torched down, and when the Insurance company tells you to go fuck yourself, you'll be at the front of the line on food stamps and welfare. Let's see how much you enjoy actual fully fledged capitalism, because frankly, with the wealth of security nets the western world gives to people; exactly because of the numerous downfalls capitalism brings, it's really easy to live in our society, we aren't anywhere near the brutal capitalist world we could be. "The more complex societies get and the more complex the networks of interdependence within and beyond community and national borders get, the more people are forced in their own interests to find non-zero-sum solutions. That is, win–win solutions instead of win–lose solutions.... Because we find as our interdependence increases that, on the whole, we do better when other people do better as well — so we have to find ways that we can all win, we have to accommodate each other...." ITT: S0beit is a terrible debater. Shit flinging and name calling. Hahaha. He'd get eaten alive at any self respecting debating society.
One is an economical system, the other is a flawed ideology and a prelude to fascism. What's there to discuss?
[QUOTE=Cheezy;32655822]One is an economical system, the other is a flawed ideology and a prelude to fascism. What's there to discuss?[/QUOTE] Marxist theory is certainly not a prelude to Fascism.
[QUOTE=s0beit;32422878]Capitalist systems would work just fine, better, even.[/quote] they talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in africa, asia and latin america?
[QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]Greed is not a positive factor. It is a side effect of our societal structure. It is better to be greedy because everyone else is greedy.[/quote] Unless you're going to quote the Bible or Marx (who cited the Bible) you don't really have a case. Greed is opinionated remark describing someone trying to further their self interest. I'm not sure if you believe in the theory of evolution, but it is ironic that many of the people who do dismiss self interest as an evolutionary factor. The fall back for this is that a society in which everyone is completely self interested wouldn't work as everyone would be trying to "exploit" each other. This is had been common thought until Adam Smith's Wealth of Nation's where he pointed out [quote=Adam Smith=]It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. (Smith, p. 14, Modern Library edition, 1937).[/quote] To explain the book and idea a bit further [quote]Adam Smith, who first made the case for capitalism in his book The Wealth of Nations, acknowledged that capitalism is based on self-interest. The reason for this, he said, is that human nature is self-interested. In Smith’s view, it is ridiculous to expect farmers in rural England wake up at four o’clock in the morning to tend cattle and plant potatoes so that Londoners can have steak and potatoes for dinner. What motivates the farmers is the desire to benefit themselves and support their families. This is not a base motive, it is a decent one. It is rooted in self-interest, but it is self-interest ennobled by filial attachment and responsibility. Smith pointed out a further paradox of capitalism: although it is motivated by the desire for personal gain, the way that the entrepreneur maximizes his profits is by focusing his everyday attention on meeting the needs and wants of others. So greed leads to empathy. At Wal-Mart, for example, Sam Walton became rich by developing an efficient inventory control system so that he could monitor consumer preferences and satisfy them as promptly and cheaply as possible. The most successful entrepreneurs do not merely identify and gratify people’s wants, but they anticipate desires before people have them. Think about the portable computer, the Palm Pilot and the cell-phone: entrepreneurs figured out that we would want and benefit from these things even before we knew we couldn’t function without them. The moral argument for capitalism is that it makes us better people by regulating the vices of greed and selfishness. Capitalism civilizes greed in much the same way that marriage civilizes lust. Greed, like lust, is part of our human nature; it would be futile to try to root it out. What capitalism does is to channel greed in such a way that it works to meet the wants and needs of society. [url]http://www.dineshdsouza.com/articles/civilizinggreed.html[/url][/quote] Now part of the issue with a simplistic way of thinking about self interest is assuming that nobody who is self interested would do anything other than in their self interest. The fault in this thinking is that what is in your self interest is likely in somebody's self interest. Say I want to get rich by making a computer program. This would be considered "greedy" because I want to make large profits. My "greediness" has caused me to hire a number of programers, artists, and advertisers, who have it in their self interest to make money off of me, not to mention I have to rent out a building who also has it in their self interest to make money off me. I'm not sure if the product will be received well or not as this program hasn't been tried before and the future is unknown. Now the product is finished and gets released and let's say it has a positive impact on people's lives and I make huge profits, or let's say the investment doesn't pay off and I just lost all my money. In both scenarios, the entrepreneur is the one bearing all of the risk. What is wrong with the outcome in either scenario? [QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]Selling kidneys for profit would open up a black market aswell. We all know about grave robbery.[/quote] Are you trying to make a joke or are you being serious? I'm going to have to assume you aren't, and the only evidence you offered is grave robbery. Legalizing the selling of organs would not legalize grave robbing (not that graves would be a good source of organs). It also wouldn't allow the sale of stolen organs, just as any other market. As far as the first statement, it is nonsensical, it is like saying legalizing drugs would open up a black market. If you aren't aware, there is already a black market for this kind of stuff, and making it legal would get rid of it, especially the violence and force involved. Offer more of a detailed argument that makes more sense, or rather look up the issue, I'm under the assumption you're arguing about something where you know about neither side. [QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]Why do these children have notions of property rights? Because they have been raised in our society. It's very easy to support capitalism by pointing at examples from within a capitalist system.[/quote] Children don't have property rights though, as they have little control of their body, and they can't be said to own [much of] their body. It is clear as that they are taken care of by the parents or guardians, and if they don't own their body, it allows for force to be used on children in circumstances where it would not be used on adults, such as getting shots. The basic idea is that parents don't own their children, they own a right to homestead their child, or the right to take care of the child. When the child grows up and can claim right to their body, then it is of no one's right to homestead them. People can only be taken care of, they can't be owned as property, they can only own themselves. This idea actually applies to land as well, that land can't be owned, that it can only be homesteaded. [QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]Why am I entitled to their money - a little thing called the social contract. Without society they would not have the life they have lived. Everything you see around you every day is affected by the state in some way. Street lighting, sewers, schools, hospitals, pot holes. It's only fair if you earn an extraordinary amount of money that you pay back your share to the society that protected you from infancy to adulthood.[/quote] Oh, the social contract argument. This was recently brought up by someone Elizabeth Warren. It's pretty nonsensical by it's own logic. Here's what she said [quote=Elizabeth Warren]There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there? Good for you. But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did. Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.[/quote] Here's a reaction. I suggest reading the [url= [url]http://mises.org/daily/5699/Elizabeth-Warrens-Blank-Check]whole[/url] article[/url]. [quote=Robert P. Murphy]But what does this have to do with paying taxes to the government? Warren alludes to an "underlying social contract." Well it's very convenient for her to discuss this contract, which none of us has ever seen but apparently she can interpret. Even on Warren's own terms, we would have to say that the community collectively decides how much it will tax people in order to provide goods that benefit the community (such as roads, national defense, etc.). So when the George W. Bush administration "cut taxes on the rich" — a move that Warren finds indefensible, as her earlier remarks in the video demonstrate — that was just as valid an exercise of the public's will as it will be if and when the Obama administration raises tax rates. Yet for some reason, Warren acts as if the "social contract" always means we can take more from rich people, regardless of how much we're currently taking. (If the Obama administration doesn't raise taxes back up to the 70 percent marginal tax rate on upper income earners like we had in the late 1970s, will Warren say it's because Jimmy Carter was breaking the underlying social contract back then?) ... Besides the principled objections, we can also raise several practical, economic problems with Warren's views. For one thing, a factory owner already does pay a lot for use of the government roads and labor services of his employees. In contrast to other "public goods," roads often have a much more dedicated payment stream, in the form of tolls and gasoline taxes. So the factory owner, who pays trucking companies to ship products around, is already paying a lot more to maintain the interstate highway system than is a lower-income person living in Manhattan with no car. Regarding skilled workers, here too the factory owner already pays for it: we call these payments "wages" or "salaries." If someone goes to the University of California at Berkeley and becomes an excellent engineer, who is able to deliver an extra $150,000 in revenues to a factory owner, then with competitive labor markets we'd expect the engineer to earn close to $150,000. This analysis doesn't mean that business owners are indifferent to educational quality, but it does show that things aren't quite as obvious as Warren makes them out to be. If students at state schools are receiving subsidized education that raises their productivity, the primary beneficiaries are the students themselves. So Warren should be asking them to cough up more money, not the employers who have to pay full freight for their services. If we really wanted to be picky, we could ask if Warren thinks wealthy businesses that do not rely on roads, and that have few employees from government-funded schools, should get a break on their income taxes. For example, suppose a best-selling novelist went to private schools his entire life. Now he sits in a log cabin in the middle of nowhere, emailing his latest manuscripts to his agent. Except for Al Gore's Internet, what "public resources" is our novelist consuming? Why should he have to pay a large fraction of his income to the government?[/quote] If that wasn't clear enough, here is a passage contesting the same idea. [quote=Murray Rothbard]Some writers have contended that people benefit from government in proportion to their income; others, that they benefit in increased proportion to their income, thus justifying a progressive income tax. Yet this entire application of the benefit theory is nonsensical. How do the rich reap a greater benefit proportionately, or even more than proportionately, from government than the poor? They could do so only if the government were responsible for these riches by a grant of special privilege, such as a subsidy, a monopoly grant, etc. Otherwise, how do the rich benefit? From “welfare” and other redistributive expenditures, which take from the rich and give to the bureaucrats and the poor? Certainly not. From police protection? But it is precisely the rich who could more afford to pay for their own protection and who therefore derive less benefit from it than the poor. The benefit theory holds that the rich benefit more from protection because their property is more valuable; but the cost of protection may have little relation to the value of the property. Since it costs less to police a bank vault containing $100 million than to guard 100 acres of land worth $10 per acre, the poor landowner receives a far greater benefit from the State’s protection than the rich owner of personalty. Neither would it be relevant to say that A earns more money than B because A receives a greater benefit from “society” and should therefore pay more in taxes. In the first place, everyone participates in society. The fact that A earns more than B means precisely that A’s services are individually worth more to his fellows. Therefore, since A and B benefit similarly from society’s existence, the reverse argument is far more accurate: that the differential between them is due to A’s individual superiority in productivity, and not at all to “society.” Secondly, society is not at all the State, and the State’s possible claim must be independently validated. Hence, neither proportionate nor progressive income taxation can be sustained on benefit principles. In fact, the reverse is true. If everyone were to pay in accordance with benefit received, it is clear that (a) the recipients of “welfare” benefits would bear the full costs of these benefits: the poor would have to pay for their own doles (including, of course, the extra cost of paying the bureaucracy for making the transfers); (b) the buyers of any government service would be the only payers, so that government services could be financed out of a general tax fund; and (c) for police protection, a rich man would pay less than a poor man, and less in absolute amounts. Furthermore, landowners would pay more than owners of intangible property, and the weak and infirm, who clearly benefit more from police protection than the strong, would have to pay higher taxes than the latter. It becomes immediately clear why the benefit principle has been practically abandoned in recent years. For it is evident that if (a) welfare recipients and (b) receivers of other special privilege, such as monopoly grants, were to pay according to the benefit received, there would not be much point in either form of government expenditure. And if each were to pay an amount equal to the benefit he received rather than simply proportionately (and he would have to do so because there would be nowhere else for the State to turn for funds), then the recipient of the subsidy would not only earn nothing, but would have to pay the bureaucracy for the cost of handling and transfer. The establishment of the benefit principle would therefore result in a laissez-faire system, with government strictly limited to supplying defense service. And the taxation for this defense service would be levied more on the poor and the infirm than on the strong and the rich.[/quote] If you want to support the idea of a social contract, do it I guess, but at least logical and consistent. [QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]I'm not confused, capitalism has no soul, or maybe a better term would be emphatic response? I'm not sure what word you want, but you know what I mean, you're just nitpicking. It is the bottom line, it is the profit motive, it is greed, it is selfishness; it's "me me me".[/quote] I really can't understand the no soul argument. Is any economic system supposed to have a soul? Economics is supposed to be a science. Though it's a bit difficult to understand, it seems as though you're saying that any system that promotes self interest is inherently bad as it promotes self interest, which is really just a societal objection and does not deal with anything other than the idea of self interest having an impact of society. To make this clear, you have two choices 1. The standard of living remains the same, but people are not self interested 2. The standard of living increases for everyone but people are self interested [QUOTE=Benf199105;32621910]Economics is a zero sum game, so I'd pick 2; you're forgetting that the poor in other continents are readily forgotten in terms of economics. We all talk about the rich-poor divide in developed countries, but what about the rich poor divide between here and Sub Saharan Africa. "We should allow child labor overseas ...the sweatshop is what is saving the 9 year old worker" From your title. How deliciously ironic to me. [/QUOTE] To answer the first statement, no, not at all. All trade is beneficial to both parties at the time of transaction. This is elementary to economics. I can provide some articles explaining it. Africa has many issues, foreign aid made all of these issues worse. I don't think there is a study showing otherwise. There also isn't a study showing that in poor place where child labor was banned that the children either starved to death or came prostitutes. It's obvious why, in these places kids work to survive, taking away this mean either kills them or drives them to much less preferred jobs.
Let's take into account that in a truly capitalist society, all the services which are currently provided by the US government would be privatized. Privatized services are owned by corporations. Even while some corporations are more efficient than governments, a corporation's motivation is not to help the well-being of the people, rather it's about profit. Does this mean corporations want to kill us? No. But, this does mean that corporations can (and will in my opinion) kill us if they can turn a high net profit from doing so. Think it's unreasonable? Look at previous governments in history. Kings of nations and their noble families (effectively the wealthy politicians and their corporate friends) would turn huge sums of wealth from turning the people of their nations into a race of serfs and peons. Of course, this doesn't actually answer the question of whether or not it's unreasonable, and such a question is a difficult one to answer. Why? Because depending on the situation, it may or may not be (in the realm of personal wealth). If the answer is yes, then the elite have every reason to kick the shit out of the proletariat. If the answer is no, then it still doesn't matter, because human nature is built on accumulating a large amount of resources in a small amount of time, even if it's unreasonable by standards of logic. The greedy need not logic to take money in as long as they can do just that. Now, what you have to understand is that self-interest is not a bad thing, as it's a driving force in economies. However, there's a difference between wanting to accumulate enough wealth to buy a nice house, and taking in enough money to buy ten while the people under you are struggling to pay bills. The people which do the latter cannot be reasoned with, and will not give up their wealth. As a result, a governing body must control what they can and can't do to refrain from infringing on the welfare of others. Make no mistake, this doesn't mean that government is incorruptible and should have massive amounts of power-- it shouldn't. What should happen, in my eyes, is a limit of power on both sides. Neither the government nor Bank of America should have the ability to take your home from you (if you've paid/are paying for it) and as a result they should [B]both[/B] be regulated. It works like this: The companies are controlled in power by the government, different pieces of the government controls itself, while the people have the ability to control the government as well. We call it democracy, where effectively the people have all the power. I'd also like to raise a point on government services: A corporation doesn't answer to it's employees nor it's consumers when their well being is infringed on. They can just shrug it off and continue with business as usual. The government, however, cannot (assuming elections aren't rigged), as they answer to the people. Let me give an example: Corporation A provides healthcare plan T. Plan T is unreasonably expensive, and corporation A has the resources to make plan T cheaper. Users of plan T urge the corporation to make plan T cheaper. Corporation A doesn't need to listen to users of plan T, and as a result keeps plan T expensive. Government B provides healthcare plan Y. Plan Y is unreasonably expensive, and government B has the resources to make plan Y cheaper. Users of plan Y urge the government to make plan Y cheaper. If politicians of government B do not lower costs, users of plan Y can effectively eject them from office. Government B makes plan Y cheaper. This comes back to "wouldn't it be more profitable to make plan T cheaper anyway?". Well, the answer is no. Consider this, let's say that there are 100 people looking to use plan T. Under current prices, plan T costs 500 dollars a month. Only 50 of these 100 people can afford plan T. 500*50 = 25,000 Now say that the price is 250 dollars a month, which 90% of those people can afford. 250*75 = 22,500 That means that even though 50% of the population can afford plan T, it makes 2,500 more dollars per month. And, my final point, corporate salaries. Some CEOs make up to 11 million dollars per year, which means a lot of the company's money is poured into their salary. You might say that it's not as good for the CEO to have this. But, let's do some more math. Let's say CEO A makes 100,000 a year. CEO B makes 1,000,000 a year. CEO A's company lasts for 10 years, CEO B's company lasts for one. Both CEO A and CEO B make the same amount of money, but CEO B makes it in 1/10 of the time that CEO A makes his million. Now, of course, this is only talking about salaries, and obviously company stock success would eventually make CEO A richer. However, like I said, people will do unreasonable things to accumulate as much wealth as possible, as fast as possible, which means that it's not too big a longshot that CEOs are increasing their salaries to such a rate. This is just my opinion, though, so yeah...
[QUOTE=TropicalV2;32657405]they talk about the failure of socialism, but where is the success of capitalism in africa, asia and latin america?[/QUOTE] Make an actual argument. Prove that there was some form capitalism in all of these places and then go how capitalism failed [and is still failing] those place providing evidence. You can just focus one area as focusing on many is difficult to do. I mean the countries in Africa is very diversified and very difficult to generalize, the issues in the other areas like Asia.
That title of yours, Pepin. Couldn't we save the 9 year old worker by paying the workers who are parents to the 9 year old a decent wage and provide welfare for those 9 year olds who have parents unable to work? Because educating the child to be successful in his/her situation really should be the priority here, so their future children won't have to worry about working in a sweatshop.
No because foreign aid doesn't work for so many different reasons. The country itself doesn't have the option of providing welfare because the country is poor, and the ones that do anyway make their people worse off, and it isn't surprising that this happens. There is a large temptation to suggest those types of solutions, but similar things have been tried and they have only made things worse. I can go into the reasons if needed, but it mainly has to do with the governments in charge.
Communism is just all-around a terrible idea in my belief.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;32677716]Communism is just all-around a terrible idea in my belief.[/QUOTE] Well what do you think Communism is? I have a hunch you don't know what Communism as Marx, Engels, or Lenin spoke of it is.
[QUOTE=Elecbullet;32677716]Communism is just all-around a terrible idea in my belief.[/QUOTE] Communism is a pipe dream, whoever tells you otherwise is delusional. However, we can learn a lot from communism and the role of the government in the economy, while people would criticise the government for interfering in natural cycles of the market it can provide a buffer to prevent the impact of the movement in cycles from heavily impacting upon it's citizens. This is further supported by the movement towards economic 'equality' (an arbitrary term, as a capitalist system calls for wealth inequality) where the lifestyles and living conditions of all people's are more evenly balanced than would be otherwise, providing a greater societal equality.
[QUOTE=Pepin;32669536]No because foreign aid doesn't work for so many different reasons. The country itself doesn't have the option of providing welfare because the country is poor, and the ones that do anyway make their people worse off, and it isn't surprising that this happens. There is a large temptation to suggest those types of solutions, but similar things have been tried and they have only made things worse. I can go into the reasons if needed, but it mainly has to do with the governments in charge.[/QUOTE] What the fuck are you talking about? Other than corruption, the biggest reason why foreign aid fails is because most of the time we force them to buy it from us. The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, as primary holders of developing countries' debt, attach structural adjustment conditionalities to loans which generally include the elimination of state subsidies and the privatization of state services. For example, the World Bank presses poor nations to eliminate subsidies for fertilizer even while many farmers cannot afford them at market prices. In the case of Malawi, almost five million of its 13 million people used to need emergency food aid. However, after the government changed policy and subsidies for fertilizer and seed were introduced, farmers produced record-breaking corn harvests in 2006 and 2007 as production leaped to 3.4 million in 2007 from 1.2 million in 2005, making Malawi a major food exporter. [editline]9th October 2011[/editline] Aid in its simplest form is a basic income grant, a form of social security periodically providing citizens with money. In pilot projects in Namibia, where such a program pays just $13 a month, people were able to pay tuition fees, raising the proportion of children going to school by 92% while child malnutrition rates fell from 42% to 10% and economic activity grew by 10%.
[QUOTE=Contag;32694696]Other than corruption, the biggest reason why foreign aid fails is because most of the time we force them to buy it from us.[/quote] Why would you go into a foreign aid conversion talking about the present? It isn't as though the past as influenced present policy. What you're inferring wasn't at all the case when it was first implemented. Foreign aid was first implemented in Germany after WWII. Germany made quite an economic comeback and many politicians attributed this to the Martial Plan, but historically this makes little sense as the data shows most of Germany made a recovery before the Martial Plan was even implemented. As a result, politicians were conducting similar Martial Plans on the third world believing it would have the same effect that they thought it had in Germany. The foreign aid was very relaxed, no real strings attached. I'm not at all saying you couldn't find strings attached, but in general it is was money without strings. This resulted in disastrous consequences. The Clinton administration admitted that foreign aid was doing more harm than good and was really the first to stop it. The Bush administration started bringing back the policies with the message of "this time we'll send the aid to the right people this time". The foreign aid in the present has so many strings attached because the foreign aid of the past did so much harm. I don't know if I need to prove that foreign aid in how it was first implemented propped up dictators and made people poorer. You avoided that and focused on current studies, so that may show you recognize that, I don't know. Are you making a claim similar to Bush where it [I]can [/I]work if we get it to the right people and that it doesn't need to be so limited assuming it goes to the right people? I really just want to be clear on your overall view. It's hard to get that when you're being very specific.
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