The rich are getting richer
Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2012, 10:20 am
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
Well now days you pretty much have to work for someone to afford the basic nessesities of life, in a sense its slavery...we all have to get a job and work for someone, all the while supporting a system of hierarchy based on material wealth. You can't nessisarly say 'screw this horrible place Im going to journey far away until I find some unsettled land or a better town.' Especially the unsettled land pretty much all of it belongs to someone so you have to be supporting the corrupt system we have just to meet your basic needs. Sure this is the direction its been going for 300,000 years or whatever but that does not mean its the only way things can be.
Also if the amount of money one had really showed how much they've accomplished or how much work/effort they put in...then that would be a viable theory. But the trouble is a growing number of people working their asses off just to barely make ends meet and still need government assistance. Yeah tell all those people their just being lazy, though it would probably make one look like an ass.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2012, 10:22 am
ruveyn wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Well then everything's pointless after all I guess.
Not completely. We can always work on a better furnace or a better bicycle.
ruveyn
Why not just take a break and enjoy life for a while? why's everyone always have to be on the go 24/7? it's a very stressfull way to live and considering the rate of mental illness now days I don't think it's healthy.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2012, 10:25 am
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
The problem is freedom is just another one of those window dressing words used to sell an ideology invented to benefit one group at the expense of another. Everyone likes the sound of the word freedom, but every ideology gives a different definition. Marxists have their own definition of freedom.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The other part is that Marxists are generally either economic illiterates or naive gullible suckers who ignore human nature. Personally, I define economic freedom in the only logical way, the freedom to spend my money as I elect to.
And what if their was no money? Also the whole greedy 'I want more' thing is actually more a part of our animal instincts then our human instincts.....but I guess people do have the excuse that they only use 10% of their brain so that's it might as well ignore the things that set us apart from the other animals and build a society based on social darwanism. Nothing against animals mind you, I do love my kitties and my friends dog and other animals but obviously they don't think and reason quite like a human because they did not develop that sort of brain.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2012, 10:28 am
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
The problem is freedom is just another one of those window dressing words used to sell an ideology invented to benefit one group at the expense of another. Everyone likes the sound of the word freedom, but every ideology gives a different definition. Marxists have their own definition of freedom.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The other part is that Marxists are generally either economic illiterates or naive gullible suckers who ignore human nature. Personally, I define economic freedom in the only logical way, the freedom to spend my money as I elect to.
I don't think economic literacy or knowledge of human nature has anything to do with values. One can study the economics of capitalist systems in detached analytic framework without necessarily agreeing with the moral outcome of the system. I think liassez-faire advocates have a lot in common with Marxists in that they mix subjective moral claims regarding "natural rights", "value", and "freedom" and treat them as if they were objective fact. I find this an annoying type of sophistry.
I also don't think pure liassez-faire capitalism is any more compatible with human nature than Marxism. If all people naturally loved liassez-faire and thought it provided the most freedom and justice to every person alive there wouldn't have been such a history of strife and occasional violence between labor and owners/industrialists. If there were no excesses and general dissatisfaction in liassez-faire capitalism the ideas Karl Marx wouldn't have gained traction.
There is a saying in business, "If you have too many principles, you end up having no money" business isn't about morals its about getting as much out of it as you possibly can for yourself and those close to you. This is the mantra of capitalism and what ultimately ends up happening under Marxism.
Yes at all costs and regardless of how it effects the society as a whole.....and that is the part where it really turns into a sick game.
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Sweetleaf
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06 Apr 2012, 10:29 am
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
The problem is freedom is just another one of those window dressing words used to sell an ideology invented to benefit one group at the expense of another. Everyone likes the sound of the word freedom, but every ideology gives a different definition. Marxists have their own definition of freedom.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The other part is that Marxists are generally either economic illiterates or naive gullible suckers who ignore human nature. Personally, I define economic freedom in the only logical way, the freedom to spend my money as I elect to.
I don't think economic literacy or knowledge of human nature has anything to do with values. One can study the economics of capitalist systems in detached analytic framework without necessarily agreeing with the moral outcome of the system. I think liassez-faire advocates have a lot in common with Marxists in that they mix subjective moral claims regarding "natural rights", "value", and "freedom" and treat them as if they were objective fact. I find this an annoying type of sophistry.
I also don't think pure liassez-faire capitalism is any more compatible with human nature than Marxism. If all people naturally loved liassez-faire and thought it provided the most freedom and justice to every person alive there wouldn't have been such a history of strife and occasional violence between labor and owners/industrialists. If there were no excesses and general dissatisfaction in liassez-faire capitalism the ideas Karl Marx wouldn't have gained traction.
There is a saying in business, "If you have too many principles, you end up having no money" business isn't about morals its about getting as much out of it as you possibly can for yourself and those close to you. This is the mantra of capitalism and what ultimately ends up happening under Marxism.
Which makes the perfect argument against unbridled rule-of-the-jungle capitalism. It's a system that gives sociopaths free-reign and crashes the entire economy, and with no government sefety-nets that means people finding themselves unable to feed themselves. If that's the kind of morality you want to promote, don't be surprised if the peasants eventually revolt and gather the severed heads of the business elite.
So, just to summarize, you are saying "If sociopaths are given free reign in our economic system and never physically hurt someone, the natural consequence is that the downtrodden decapitate people? That sounds like a case for more police and control of the populace if anything ever did. At least in my book crashing a financial system that everyone including the saber-wielders were happy to benefit from until they had to face consequences is less bad than decapitating people.
But people are physically hurt by this........and yeah I bet a police state would really solve all the problems. Why do you care so much about protecting big business at all costs?
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06 Apr 2012, 10:43 am
ruveyn wrote:
marshall wrote:
If that's the kind of morality you want to promote, don't be surprised if the peasants eventually revolt and gather the severed heads of the business elite.
That last time that happened was in 1793. In general the peasants don't revolt regardless of how bad things are. Revolutions are started by intellectuals who come from the upper classes.
Don't count on the Proles. All they require is some strong drink and enough food to keep from starving. If things get bad enough the government will issue food stamps precisely to keep the Proles quiet.
ruveyn
Times have changed since 1793. These days even the starving proles will have access to the internet. They aren't trapped in a knowledge vacuum anymore.
Sweetleaf
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Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 35
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Posts: 34,964
Location: Somewhere in Colorado
06 Apr 2012, 10:49 am
marshall wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
marshall wrote:
If that's the kind of morality you want to promote, don't be surprised if the peasants eventually revolt and gather the severed heads of the business elite.
That last time that happened was in 1793. In general the peasants don't revolt regardless of how bad things are. Revolutions are started by intellectuals who come from the upper classes.
Don't count on the Proles. All they require is some strong drink and enough food to keep from starving. If things get bad enough the government will issue food stamps precisely to keep the Proles quiet.
ruveyn
Times have changed since 1793. These days even the starving proles will have access to the internet. They aren't trapped in a knowledge vacuum anymore.
Yeah, libraries let you use the internet for free......I see people who look poor/homeless using public computers at libraries quite often actually.
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06 Apr 2012, 11:02 am
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
The problem is freedom is just another one of those window dressing words used to sell an ideology invented to benefit one group at the expense of another. Everyone likes the sound of the word freedom, but every ideology gives a different definition. Marxists have their own definition of freedom.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The other part is that Marxists are generally either economic illiterates or naive gullible suckers who ignore human nature. Personally, I define economic freedom in the only logical way, the freedom to spend my money as I elect to.
I don't think economic literacy or knowledge of human nature has anything to do with values. One can study the economics of capitalist systems in detached analytic framework without necessarily agreeing with the moral outcome of the system. I think liassez-faire advocates have a lot in common with Marxists in that they mix subjective moral claims regarding "natural rights", "value", and "freedom" and treat them as if they were objective fact. I find this an annoying type of sophistry.
I also don't think pure liassez-faire capitalism is any more compatible with human nature than Marxism. If all people naturally loved liassez-faire and thought it provided the most freedom and justice to every person alive there wouldn't have been such a history of strife and occasional violence between labor and owners/industrialists. If there were no excesses and general dissatisfaction in liassez-faire capitalism the ideas Karl Marx wouldn't have gained traction.
There is a saying in business, "If you have too many principles, you end up having no money" business isn't about morals its about getting as much out of it as you possibly can for yourself and those close to you. This is the mantra of capitalism and what ultimately ends up happening under Marxism.
Which makes the perfect argument against unbridled rule-of-the-jungle capitalism. It's a system that gives sociopaths free-reign and crashes the entire economy, and with no government sefety-nets that means people finding themselves unable to feed themselves. If that's the kind of morality you want to promote, don't be surprised if the peasants eventually revolt and gather the severed heads of the business elite.
So, just to summarize, you are saying "If sociopaths are given free reign in our economic system and never physically hurt someone, the natural consequence is that the downtrodden decapitate people? That sounds like a case for more police and control of the populace if anything ever did. At least in my book crashing a financial system that everyone including the saber-wielders were happy to benefit from until they had to face consequences is less bad than decapitating people.
Regardless of what you think is moral or immoral, allowing huge disparities increases unrest and conflict. If you want to argue that greed and selfishness are human nature, then I can argue that class conflict is another element of human nature. People will band together when their livelihood and well-being are put in grave jeopardy. I also take issue with the notion that economic decisions never physically harm anyone.
06 Apr 2012, 11:51 am
Sweetleaf wrote:
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
TM wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
But how much economic freedom do people really have in this society? I mean unless your extremely wealthy there's not exactly endless options. What it's turned into is peoples worth being measured by how much wealth they've accumulated. People are barred from many things due to not having enough money........it would seem maybe capitalism does not work so well for humans. I guess communism wasn't the only thing that failed when put into action.
It depends on what you define as economic freedom I guess. If you define economic freedom as being financially independent, that's a fairly small group. If you define economic freedom as in freedom in exchange of goods and services, people have quite a lot of freedom. Everyone is a trader in one form or another, a worker trades his labor for money, a shareholder trades his money for ownership in a company and so on.
People being measured by how much money they have is no difference than a painter being measured based on the quality of his art or the same for a writer. People are judged by what they have done and money is a measure of this, admiration is another.
The problem is freedom is just another one of those window dressing words used to sell an ideology invented to benefit one group at the expense of another. Everyone likes the sound of the word freedom, but every ideology gives a different definition. Marxists have their own definition of freedom.
Yeah, that's part of the problem. The other part is that Marxists are generally either economic illiterates or naive gullible suckers who ignore human nature. Personally, I define economic freedom in the only logical way, the freedom to spend my money as I elect to.
And what if their was no money? Also the whole greedy 'I want more' thing is actually more a part of our animal instincts then our human instincts.....but I guess people do have the excuse that they only use 10% of their brain so that's it might as well ignore the things that set us apart from the other animals and build a society based on social darwanism. Nothing against animals mind you, I do love my kitties and my friends dog and other animals but obviously they don't think and reason quite like a human because they did not develop that sort of brain.
I don't think human nature is all so greedy and selfish. I remember watching a documentary "Inside the Twin Towers" on the anniversary of 9/11. If people were all so egocentric and selfish you'd expect everyone to be storming down the stair wells in a blind panic, trampling and pushing their way down. Instead it was all very orderly. People who couldn't walk on their own were carried down the stairs by complete strangers. Blue-collar maintenance workers broke through walls to rescue bankers and stock brokers. Firefighters and people who worked in the building took equal time rescuing trapped receptionists and janitors as they did rescuing trapped managers and executives.
06 Apr 2012, 11:53 am
marshall wrote:
Regardless of what you think is moral or immoral, allowing huge disparities increases unrest and conflict. If you want to argue that greed and selfishness are human nature, then I can argue that class conflict is another element of human nature. People will band together when their livelihood and well-being are put in grave jeopardy. I also take issue with the notion that economic decisions never physically harm anyone.
Oh, I agree that social disparities increase unrest, Freud said something akin to "man is only able to suppress animal instincts so long as he is bribe or threated into doing so". That's the prime reason why I'm cool with paying for the police and army.
@Sweetleaf
I think we've had this discussion before and and I'm not really interested in having the same "I wish there was no such thing as private property" discussion again. I think Thomas Paine handled that very well about 250 years ago or so in "The Age of Reason", "Common sense" and "Agrarian Justice".
Sweetleaf
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Joined: 6 Jan 2011
Age: 35
Gender: Female
Posts: 34,964
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06 Apr 2012, 12:22 pm
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
Regardless of what you think is moral or immoral, allowing huge disparities increases unrest and conflict. If you want to argue that greed and selfishness are human nature, then I can argue that class conflict is another element of human nature. People will band together when their livelihood and well-being are put in grave jeopardy. I also take issue with the notion that economic decisions never physically harm anyone.
Oh, I agree that social disparities increase unrest, Freud said something akin to "man is only able to suppress animal instincts so long as he is bribe or threated into doing so". That's the prime reason why I'm cool with paying for the police and army.
@Sweetleaf
I think we've had this discussion before and and I'm not really interested in having the same "I wish there was no such thing as private property" discussion again. I think Thomas Paine handled that very well about 250 years ago or so in "The Age of Reason", "Common sense" and "Agrarian Justice".
Well considering I never said I wish there was no such thing as private property, I don't think we've had this discussion...try not putting words in peoples mouth.
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06 Apr 2012, 12:54 pm
TM wrote:
marshall wrote:
Regardless of what you think is moral or immoral, allowing huge disparities increases unrest and conflict. If you want to argue that greed and selfishness are human nature, then I can argue that class conflict is another element of human nature. People will band together when their livelihood and well-being are put in grave jeopardy. I also take issue with the notion that economic decisions never physically harm anyone.
Oh, I agree that social disparities increase unrest, Freud said something akin to "man is only able to suppress animal instincts so long as he is bribe or threated into doing so". That's the prime reason why I'm cool with paying for the police and army.
And if the police and army are not enough you end up with a situation akin to Egypt or Syria. Would you be willing to have government order a massacre on the peasants in order to deter an uprising? I'd rather prefer a democratic avenue. As opposed to someone like Pinochet coming in and using the army to defend the plutocracy.
09 Apr 2012, 8:53 am
It brings this quote to mind:
'For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath.'
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10 Apr 2012, 12:16 am
Republican Donor Simmons Seeks Rule to Fill Texas Dump
$$$$$$$$>you
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