New Data Shows Just How Unequal Wealth Has Become in the U.S. Since the 80s - Polidicks

Well the thing about the markets is, i prefer the least amount of coercion in a society. That is, forcing some person to do something because it supposedly meets the end of a greater purpose. We're not there, we're far from it right now. This current situation you're living in isn't the market at work, not matter what you were lead to believe. However: How can a socialist or communist society work without coercion, enlighten me, I'm all for hearing alternative viewpoints and I'd like to know. I think that the government should let the market be free -- really free, that is, the only thing they should get involved in is violation of human rights. The government must protect those rights and it should be it's primary focus. Trading, in it's purest form, is peaceful. It is voluntary, nobody forces you to buy an XBOX or cigarettes or McDonalds burgers, you choose those things. It is an agreement between consumer and seller. If the seller were to commit a crime however, i have no problem punishing them. Only if it's a legitimate crime. The government is a necessary force in that respect, it should be punishing people who turn peaceful trade into robbery, coercion, force of some kind. Sadly, most of the examples of the supposed ills of capitalism usually come from some example of a government assisting a corporate entity in crimes. The the east india company comes to mind. I just thought i'd share my thoughts on the subject of capitalism again and that it's not that bad. "Greed" is a natural human emotion, it will never be snuffed out just as you can never snuff out love or hatred. I think utilizing it in a peaceful way is preferable to society. You can't ban greed just as you can't ban drugs or guns or anything else. People find a way.

[QUOTE=Pockets;28311899]Communism: TF2 before trading Capitalism: TF2 [i]after[/i] trading. TF2 is now an unplayable mess of sociopaths trying to scam each other as much as possible without getting caught how has this not been mentioned yet in this thread on facepunch of all places[/QUOTE] Terrible analogy, that's why it hasn't been mentioned beforehand.

[QUOTE=s0beit;28312318]Well the thing about the markets is, i prefer the least amount of coercion in a society. That is, forcing some person to do something because it supposedly meets the end of a greater purpose. We're not there, we're far from it right now. This current situation you're living in isn't the market at work, not matter what you were lead to believe. However: How can a socialist or communist society work without coercion, enlighten me, I'm all for hearing alternative viewpoints and I'd like to know. I think that the government should let the market be free -- really free, that is, the only thing they should get involved in is violation of human rights. The government must protect those rights and it should be it's primary focus. Trading, in it's purest form, is peaceful. It is voluntary, nobody forces you to buy an XBOX or cigarettes or McDonalds burgers, you choose those things. It is an agreement between consumer and seller. If the seller were to commit a crime however, i have no problem punishing them. Only if it's a legitimate crime. The government is a necessary force in that respect, it should be punishing people who turn peaceful trade into robbery, coercion, force of some kind. Sadly, most of the examples of the supposed ills of capitalism usually come from some example of a government assisting a corporate entity in crimes. The the east india company comes to mind. I just thought i'd share my thoughts on the subject of capitalism again and that it's not that bad. "Greed" is a natural human emotion, it will never be snuffed out just as you can never snuff out love or hatred. I think utilizing it in a peaceful way is preferable to society. You can't ban greed just as you can't ban drugs or guns or anything else. People find a way.[/QUOTE] This is in a world without advertisers who can be incredibly coercive. People don't realize it, but I deal with a lot of industry profesionals, especially with ads and what not, and man.. you would not believe how easily they trick people into buying things. I'm not saying all people, just some.

Makes sense. When your rich your able to make money off of money. Like letting people borrow money for interest and junk like that. I miss the old capitalist dream of making money for working hard but the hardest workers seem to be the middle to lower class.

Also, for Strider, I think you had to buy things in Soviet Russia, too. That is why the people had money. (inb4 clocks)

[QUOTE=Strider*;28301427]That's never what I said. I never said art never came out of Soviet Russia.[/QUOTE] Most artist (at least good artists) Would create art whether or not they get paid. This is why you see things like deviantart because people like to create things. In fact there were many times were money ruined art like a few artists that had to paint little boys because the person who bought there art was a perv.

[QUOTE=SigmaLambda;28311714]Being a dictator is the ultimate form of self-serving success.[/QUOTE] Ruling over others is exactly the opposite of the pursuit of individual self-serving success. A man who doesn't respect the individual rights of others has no rights of his own. [editline]27th February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=imasillypiggy;28315597]This is why you see things like deviantart because people like to create things. .[/QUOTE] Deviantart is a method of spreading art. Deviantart is an example of capitalism, thanks. [editline]27th February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=s0beit;28312318]You can't ban greed just as you can't ban drugs or guns or anything else. People find a way.[/QUOTE] And you wouldn't and shouldn't ever need to. Greed is a great thing.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316383] Deviantart is a method of spreading art. Deviantart is an example of capitalism, thanks. [/QUOTE] Thats not the point and even if it was its not like there could ever be another image sharing site.

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;28316504]Thats not the point and even if it was its not like there could ever be another image sharing site.[/QUOTE] That is the point. Capitalism is what allows all the people who use Deviantart to spread their work. Deviantart exists through ads and commercial membership.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316548]That is the point. Capitalism is what allows all the people who use Deviantart to spread their work. Deviantart exists through ads and commercial membership.[/QUOTE] If it weren't for deviant there would be other sites. A deviant art like site would be around whether or not people could find ways to much huge sums of money off of it. There are people who make sites for the purpose of making a site. You cant say capitalism is the only reason people makes sites. Also the point was what motivates people to paint.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316548]That is the point. Capitalism is what allows all the people who use Deviantart to spread their work. Deviantart exists through ads and commercial membership.[/QUOTE] i'd just like to point out that a) bandwidth is now more or less an infinite resource, the only reason any site has to have ads to support themselves is because they have to pay for something that could easily be free under a different economic system and b) a better example would be something like [url=http://sheezyart.com/]SheezyArt[/url] where they don't charge members for features that should be standard and only use Ads to pay for bandwidth.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316383]Ruling over others is exactly the opposite of the pursuit of individual self-serving success. A man who doesn't respect the individual rights of others has no rights of his own. [/QUOTE] Not enjoying haggis is exactly the opposite of being a Scotsman.

[QUOTE=imasillypiggy;28316590]If it weren't for deviant there would be other sites. A deviant art like site would be around whether or not people could find ways to much huge sums of money off of it. There are people who make sites for the purpose of making a site. You cant say capitalism is the only reason people makes sites. Also the point was what motivates people to paint.[/QUOTE] Not all artists are motivated by money and you're right they shouldn't be. Money and capitalism are the means to the ends of sharing their work. And imasillypiggy sure you could make a site for the sole purpose of making a site but to maintain and host that site requires capital and consequently capitalism.

yes because it's all the republican's fault even though Clinton has done his fair share to help this happen and Obama hasn't stopped it. The US government has been slowly becoming the tool for the super rich ever since Reagan or even Nixon, and we're not the only country.

People do art for a lot of reasons, for the pure enjoyment of it, for the self pride in having done it, to spread their vision, for god, for someone else, for the hell of it, and yeah for money. But to say that money/capitalism alone drives art is insane. [QUOTE=Strider*;28316643]Not all artists are motivated by money and you're right they shouldn't be. Money and capitalism are the means to the ends of sharing their work. And imasillypiggy sure you could make a site for the sole purpose of making a site but to maintain and host that site requires capital and consequently capitalism.[/QUOTE] That's such an awful argument, just because capitalism is linked into it doesn't mean that it's the means to spread their work. What if a person donated site space for free? what if a gallery puts up a free exhibition of someone's work? Art is spread through a lot of means.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316643]Not all artists are motivated by money and you're right they shouldn't be. Money and capitalism are the means to the ends of sharing their work. And imasillypiggy sure you could make a site for the sole purpose of making a site but to maintain and host that site requires capital and consequently capitalism.[/QUOTE] Yep because you can only own a website if your a capitalist. If you are living in a capitalist system then you are going to have to play by the rules of capitalism to have the site up.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;28316663]But to say that money/capitalism alone drives art is insane.[/QUOTE] Don't put words in my mouth.. fuck. I'm saying that capitalism is the most efficient and best way to spread art not to drive it. [editline]27th February 2011[/editline] [QUOTE=imasillypiggy;28316694]Yep because you can only own a website if your a capitalist. If you are living in a capitalist system then you are going to have to play by the rules of capitalism to have the site up.[/QUOTE] So you think Deviantart would be a much better site under a different economic model?

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316715]So you think Deviantart would be a much better site under a different economic model?[/QUOTE] I don't think it would change much except no paying and no ads.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316715]Don't put words in my mouth.. fuck. I'm saying that capitalism is the most efficient and best way to spread art not to drive it. [editline]27th February 2011[/editline] So you think Deviantart would be a much better site under a different economic model?[/QUOTE] But you're making capitalism out to be everything. It's not a means to the artist himself, the artist himself doesn't give two shits if DA is ad supported or not, and the end user doesn't either. The backend of it deals with the money but that doesn't affect the effectiveness of the spreading of the art. Hell, your argument can be absurdly extrapolated to anything that uses something paid for. Look at it this way, if we lived in a communistic society and deviantart was exactly the same except for the fact that the webspace was provided for free... there would be nothing different. What you're arguing is meaningless. E: Seriously, there's no substance to your argument. We don't have an example of communist DA (or at least I don't know of one) so you can't compare the two. You're saying capitalism is efficient because it's what we have.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316715]Don't put words in my mouth.. fuck. I'm saying that capitalism is the most efficient and best way to spread art not to drive it. [/QUOTE] I could argue the time spent without leisure and a drive to make art because you want money will make the art forced and not as good.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;28316759]But you're making capitalism out to be everything. It's not a means to the artist himself, the artist himself doesn't give two shits if DA is ad supported or not, and the end user doesn't either. The backend of it deals with the money but that doesn't affect the effectiveness of the spreading of the art. Hell, your argument can be absurdly extrapolated to anything that uses something paid for. Look at it this way, if we lived in a communistic society and deviantart was exactly the same except for the fact that the webspace was provided for free... there would be nothing different. What you're arguing is meaningless.[/QUOTE] Deviantart would most likely be seen as unnecessary under a communist system and thus unfunded.

Capitalism doesn't drive art just like capitalism doesn't drive doctors or policemen or race car drivers However like i said earlier, it sure is nice making a living out of your favorite thing to do. Speaking from experience.

Capitalism doesn't drive art. Capitalism sure as hell harbors and supports art more than any other economic system known to man however.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316783]Deviantart would most likely be seen as unnecessary under a communist system and thus unfunded.[/QUOTE] Yea because it costs so many resources to run a site also there are other systems besides communism that aren't capitalist.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316783]Deviantart would most likely be seen as unnecessary under a communist system and thus unfunded.[/QUOTE] Man I can't even insult you for this post, it's stupid enough to speak for itself. You have no argument.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316795] Capitalism sure as hell harbors and supports art more than any other economic system known to man however.[/QUOTE] Explain

Capitalism has it's own disgusting evils just as every other economic method.

[QUOTE=Xen Tricks;28316803]Man I can't even insult you for this post, it's stupid enough to speak for itself. You have no argument.[/QUOTE] You have no argument against the statement, you're incapability to argue against me is astounding.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316823]You have no argument against the statement, you're incapability to argue against me is astounding.[/QUOTE] Heres one. There would be a lot more artists if people didn't have to spend most of there time competing with each other. Also theres the examples of how artists had to paint things they didn't want to because they needed food on the table. Oh and art always copies itself now a days in order to get money instead of being original. So in this way money ruins art.

[QUOTE=Strider*;28316823]You have no argument against the statement, you're incapability to argue against me is astounding.[/QUOTE] Making hypothetical statements about what could or could not happen to art when we're not even talking about that is pretty bad. Ok a communistic society is formed from a bunch of artists. Bam art gets funded because they like it. That sure was hard to counter.