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marshall
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14 Mar 2013, 7:16 pm

ruveyn wrote:

marshall wrote:

Fnord wrote:

They get paid what their labor is worth; that's all that matters. If they want to share more in the profits, then they should own shares in the company.

That first statement makes absolutely no logical sense. It's an example of the Just World Fallacy. Would say the labor of a starving third world child sweatshop laborer is worth a mere fraction of the labor of some fatass American producing the exact same good? One persons labor is worth more than another persons because they're lucky enough to be born in a country with a history of labor activism and thus are able to obtain higher wages? Cognitive dissonance?

The price of labor (the wage) is determined by supply and demand. If the demand is weak, who do you wish to blame?

ruveyn

Your armchair economics is a simplification of reality, not to mention completely irrelevant to my argument. Obviously the reason sweat shops exist is because capital is mobile while labor isn't. A large company can move production wherever it wants but workers are forced to remain citizens of a nation state the prohibits them from immigrating anywhere in the world where they can find the highest wage. Proves that there's a lot more to pay than "supply and demand".

EliteEnigma57
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16 Mar 2013, 3:44 pm

marshall wrote:

EliteEnigma57 wrote:

thomas81 wrote:

but under the free market, workers are having their lives micro managed by the private sector. At least in a direct democracy you can vote against this.

Only if the market is overrun with out-of-control monopolies, which isn't characteristic of a true free market. Also, when did I suggest that I didn't support direct democracy? I hate representative democracy; it just brings more unnecessary power to the government.

I think traditional capitalism will always lead to monopolies as there is nothing to stop the accumulation of mergers and buyouts over time as existing markets always seek to increase profitability through reducing workforce redundancy. Economy of scale wins out in the long run. Once you have an economy utterly dominated by a handful of large corporations idealized competitive liassez-faire models no longer hold water.

Also, with emerging new forms of technology and infrastructure the government is typically heavily involved in paving the way for entrepreneurs through things like land leases and eminent domain. A lot of infrastructure technology simply isn't conducive to competitive market forces and government is almost always heavily involved. A true "free-market" without government involvement is a fantasy that's never existed. The idea is too keep government accountable to the common good, not allow it to be auctioned off to the highest bidder.

I don't believe in government managing every mom-and-pop shop on every street corner, but I think government has to put rules around monolithic corporations with the power to manipulate the entire market or become "too big to fail". I think in the future the economy will have to evolve to something more socialistic than what we have now. Hopefully we will have some kind of market socialism with most large companies being semi-cooperatives.

Of course. Anti-monopoly laws are essential to the preservation of competition in the market. For example, the main reason the 2008 American recession happened was because the Glass-Steagall Act, a law passed during the Great Depression which prevented investment banks from dealing with consumer deposits, was repealed in 1998. Because of this, investment banks seized too much power, became "too big to fail", and everything snowballed from there. But still (though I hate to use an overused cliche), with government intervention in the market, a little goes a long way.

ruveyn
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16 Mar 2013, 3:47 pm

marshall wrote:

Yes. There are the laws that prevent supply and demand from functioning. Governments love to fix prices.

ruveyn

Fnord
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16 Mar 2013, 3:51 pm

If anyone can point to a current political and economic system that has completely eliminated poverty, yet still allows for its citizens to become wealthy without exploiting others, then please provide a link to its website so that I can consider emigrating there. Otherwise, I'll stick with the successful reality of "Supply & Demand" Capitalism.

ruveyn wrote:

There are the laws that prevent supply and demand from functioning.

... thus making North Korea the dominant force in our global economy!

MasterSynaps
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16 Mar 2013, 6:13 pm

In Australia we have a more socialistic model than the US it would seem. This works well, though is being erroded from US corporate pressure. Some check needs to be placed on runnaway corporate greed, and some susidy is needed for those who can't cut it in a competitive economy. When power/wealth get cocentrated in too few hands, the effect of distributed intelligence and distributed decision making that is a key feature of capitalism is perverted.
Welfare, when "properly balanced" is good for the economy as it allows greater participation by all and is a circuit breaker on poverty related crime to some extent.

We must remember that business and economics exist to serve the needs of people, not the other way round. Compassionate capitalism, or if you like a socisalist capitalist hybrid seems to me to be the best compromise.

EliteEnigma57
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16 Mar 2013, 6:37 pm

MasterSynaps wrote:

We must remember that business and economics exist to serve the needs of people, not the other way round.

The same principle applies to government as well.

marshall
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16 Mar 2013, 6:43 pm

Here is my summary of this thread:

Communists: Money, private property, and all forms of competition are evil and must be eliminated! If you think otherwise you are a no good capitalist scum! No middle way can possibly exist!

Capitalists: Your value as a human being is your market value! Nothing else exists! One person should be free to become is rich as he/she desires and have free reign to own anything and everything, including the very air you breathe! If you think otherwise you are a no good commie scum! No middle way can possibly exist!

MasterSynaps
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16 Mar 2013, 7:07 pm

EliteEnigma57 wrote:

MasterSynaps wrote:

We must remember that business and economics exist to serve the needs of people, not the other way round.

The same principle applies to government as well.

Of course.

RushKing
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16 Mar 2013, 8:20 pm

marshall wrote:

As a libertarian communist, I believe mutualism is tolerable enough to coo-exist. But it still gives gives off the impression of renting yourself out due to its wage system. If we know we can put an end to involuntary labor, why not go all out? Why not end productivism? In a market socialist society there would still be incentive to overproduce. I don't want collectives telling me that i'm not "working hard enough" to earn my paper. Productivist models are only good at creating waste imo. We need to save the environment. We need less people driving cars around. We only have one earth. Even without centralized authority there can still be misery if we are still controlled by clocks and wages.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jkv04K4tyTM[/youtube]

MasterSynaps
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16 Mar 2013, 9:22 pm

While some are happy to exploit others for personal gain, does it really matter what system they do it under? Ways will be found.

I suggest rather than concentrating on the system, we concentrate on our lack of concern for one another's wellbeing. This is the cause of our problems.

androbot2084
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16 Mar 2013, 9:41 pm

Rich people will never enter heaven.

RushKing
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16 Mar 2013, 9:45 pm

MasterSynaps wrote:

Well I believe there are systematic reasons why we are so selfish. The more you give in capitalism, the more you lose. I have to sacrifice my own standard of living when I help other people in capitalism. The market punishes charitable people, which is why I believe charity cannot be a solution. There will never be enough donation in capitalism. Because our living standards are determined by the amount of cash in our pockets.

EliteEnigma57
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17 Mar 2013, 9:50 am

androbot2084 wrote:

Rich people will never enter heaven.

Really? So you're saying that people like Andrew Carnegie (whose namesake dictum stated that an individual should, after getting a good education and using it to make as much money as possible, donate their fortune to philanthropic causes) and Bill Gates (who has routinely given up his position as the world's richest person due to his donating several billion dollars to charity) can't enter heaven?

Logic. Try using it sometime, you might enjoy it.

marshall
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17 Mar 2013, 10:03 am

RushKing wrote:

marshall wrote:

If you want to be a dreamer that's fine. I'm just more interested in possibilities that I think have the potential to work. The only way I can see anarcho-communism ever working is if there is a way to move away from mass production. That can only happen if we develop the technology to produce everything we need locally. I think that's pretty much in the realm of science fiction. The other possibility is to forgo modern technology and go back to living primitively. I don't think many people, including myself, see that as a desirable option.

RushKing
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17 Mar 2013, 1:49 pm

marshall wrote:

RushKing wrote:

marshall wrote:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUB1WgiAFHg[/youtube]

ruveyn
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17 Mar 2013, 3:27 pm

marshall wrote:

Or you can be a successful capitalist, make a bundle, and then-invest- your capitalistically earned wealth in useful and virtuous causes. See Carnegie, Gates, Ed Land and many others who regard money as a useful tool to do useful things and not as Stuff to lock up and hoard. That is the Third Way.

ruveyn

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