The Fall of Western Civilization

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What resources would we really want other than people? I mean, it would be wonderful to have all resources, but people certainly are an important part of the system. Technology and capital based upon that(such as our computer resources) are also immensely important. America has both people and capital, and that sounds like a winning combination to me and it really seems to be the combination that the 1st world rides on and that the rising nations across the world seem to try to emulate as the oil-rich and the gold-rich nations really seem to mostly be impoverished as that is all they have. The immense debt is an annoyance, but I never said I agreed with much of that debt.

IMO a lot of the argument between "capitalism" and "socialism" is going to be rendered obsolete by technology over the next 100 years, especially as nanotechnology revolutionizes manufacturing by making the mass production of consumer goods obsolete and as the Open Source movement revolutionizes software.

IMO there is too much guess work in making that claim. I don't see why nanotechnology would make some variant of mass production obsolete in the first place as nanotechnology seems more like something that would simply refine raw material, help make better parts and do stuff like that, not a method that would completely replace old methods. Not only that, but I don't see Open Source making traditional software obsolete, just as I don't see webcomics or online readings making traditional books obsolete. I guess it is possible that an age of radical abundance could kill the need for capitalism, but it is hard for me to foresee such an age until we all have robot butlers and every woman has been genetically engineered to be "the hottest".

Theres a book you can read written a hundred years ago that shows this was all planned, it might be banned where you are?, for obvious reasons.

Once Western, (and Eastern) civilisations have fallen, the writers of said book can step into the power vacume they created, and take control.

Its called the New World Order. (Not the book).

That "book" you are talking about was originally a novel - a piece of fiction. It was reworked into a justification for religious and ethnic bigotry. Since you did not mention the title, neither will I.

Forgive me if I missed something earlier in this thread, but I'm curious: is there an example you can point to, either current or historic, that would illustrate how you believe socialism should function?

Yugoslavia, under Tito, came close in some respects. However, there was still too much statism and not enough localism. The country rapidy disintegrated after his passing. The collectivization under Mao was also, IMO, good in some ways. Again, though, there was too much statism.

I would like to see communities establish elected labor boards. Members of these boards could not hold management positions in any company (collectivized or not). They would make sure that businesses are worker owned and operated, or community owned and operated, or user owned and operated. Examples would include credit unions, some power utilities, and some small companies in which all workers are equal owners.

Last edited by nominalist on 08 Jan 2008, 5:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Ive never seen where it was said to have been a novel, maybe you can post a link or something.

I am quite happy though to belive it was written by somebody other than who it was said to be written by, in order to shift the blame onto somebody else.

Whatever, a mighty propetic "novel", somebody knew the big plan, bit like the book 1984.

I didn't think you wanted anyone to know what book you were talking about. You did not mention it. However, here is a good summary:

http://skepdic.com/protocols.html



There is no blame. It was copied from a piece of fiction.

Ok, I am going to attempt some very basic analysis here, AG. I’d thank everyone to try not to scoff too much.

Now, people might disagree on terms, but I will say first that I am no fan of socialism as many people might understand the term. I think there are many people who hold certain socialist beliefs then ditch them once they get an idea of the social damage that can be caused by dependency on the state, and once they come across clever ideas like Adam Smith’s “invisible hand”.

AG, perhaps you were like this? I know I was.
Still, I don’t have a huge amount of faith in modern capitalism either – certainly less than you seem to have.

In fact, what we seem to have at the moment in the West (certainly in Britain) is a combination of the worst of capitalism and the worst of socialism. As they are currently practised, capitalism and socialism seem to complement each other. They have the same globalist ambitions, and are both contemptuous of family, race and nation, and they both assume that money is the answer to everything. As I understand it, several socialists in Britain realised long ago that they don’t need to control the means of production in order to control the people (or is someone going to tell me I’m thinking of communism here – don’t bite my head off if you do!). The modern socialist has realised he can control society by controlling people’s thoughts and words, through education, the media and censorship.

As for our present capitalist system, is it really that great for British and American people that their manufacturing jobs are going to the Third World? Or that they are themselves being flooded with immigrants in the name of cheap labour? Or that about 95% of the money in circulation is created, as an interest-bearing debt, by the private banking system for their profit? Or that millions of kids are being fed on lowest-common-denominator MTV-type garbage?

There is an interesting (and long) article here about the Japanese system, which seems to be a centrally-planned capitalist economy, largely run by unelected bureaucrats. Sounds pretty good as long as those bureaucrats aren’t the sort of worthless traitors we have in Europe.

Btw, hope no one is offended by the title of the website: post-autistic economics! (I think the idea is to move beyond rigid mainstream economic theories – and possibly also the idea that you can measure the health of a society by looking at balance sheets, or something.)

Click here for another conservative critique of capitalism.

I don't see any problem from "globalism" itself, I have no use for nationalism and ethnocentrism (both of which are parasitic memes that uses our instinctual "us versus them" thinking to spread). The problem is that the economically powerful are abusing globalization to enrich themselves further.

I am a scoffer. I scoff as I please.


Technically I was, however, my position in favor of capitalism is more ideologically based than you probably recognize.


Oh, most countries are going to develop that from my view, simply because governments are attempting to control the society. I will agree that capitalism doesn't care about family, race or nation, but frankly, I don't want a paternalistic system anyway. Yes, by controlling education and the media, you do exert a large amount of control on society. In fact, you can get the rest by those means. I recently read an article in Foreign Policy about European economics education and the biases found there. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms. ... ry_id=4095


Those elements depress wages. I already know that and accept that and don't see anything inherently wrong with that. I don't mind banking systems and they function based upon exchange, and if you speak of central banking, I would prefer an anti-inflationary system, and want to research the idea of multiple private systems. I see the fact that millions of parents are letting their kids have this MTV stuff as a greater problem, but I stand on consumer sovereignty and parental sovereignty.


I think that the bureaucrats will be worthless traitors or end up working towards some perverse and really I think that the Japanese system promotes inefficiency, particularly with its system of trade(which wasn't addressed by this article), but I also am untrusting of its promotion of large corporate structures as I think that the Japanese society is also going to be the controlled society(and on some level I do think that Japan tends towards a paternalistic moral economy form rather than the capitalist form). Really though, I don't only stand on capitalism based upon its efficiency but also ideologically, and finally I state that Japan IS still capitalistic and not socialist, which means that it still works on a market basis, which is what I argue promotes efficiency.


That is the idea, however, rigidity is a valuable thing in terms of methodology. Technically, there is no judgment for the health of a society as the measure of man is inherently man and a job for the priests and philosophers of society rather than of any science. Economists measure data that these groups can examine, we don't tell them exactly what to think, and we try to work in regard to certain models and theories and objective standards.

As for this last comment, one, I don't think that advertising means immunity. I think that a cause of corporate bureaucracy will end up being our work to maintain large corporations through things such as corporate welfare and various legal issues that will promote less competition. Two, I think that all human values can be expressed in economics terms, I don't think that all human values are purely monetary, but I tend to be an economic imperialist as Gary Becker and Steven Levitt are and think that money is merely an expression of subjective human values rather than the other way around and I think that companies tend to recognize this fact as well. Finally, I am not a nationalist, and even if I were I would not see a need to force markets to be nationalist as companies are not national organizations so much as trade organizations and they are supposed to organize our society based upon profit maximization, which I am not opposed to.

I don't see the abuse. They are moving jobs overseas and making a profit off of it.

Because the folks working in Chinese sweatshops get paid crap. That is the big problem I have with corporations, their only responsibility is to maximize shareholder profit, social responsibility, and even the law, be damned; many fines are so low that ignoring them is more profitable then obeying them, the fines are just written off as an expense. The collective behavior of a corporation can be described as sociopathic.

So? They still accept those jobs, which still leaves me with the question of who is abused given that choices are still in action. From everything I have heard sweatshops end up paying workers more than they would earn otherwise anyway, which means it is an ugly situation but not abuse, and most economists I have heard of have even gone so far as to write defenses of sweatshops or praise them in some other fashion.

Yes, and that is PRECISELY how they are supposed to work, in fact, modern economic theory tends to believe that this is the most economically efficient way for them to work. They aren't supposed to be socially responsible because they aren't the department of fluffy kittens or road management. They were created with the goal of producing the best products for the least cost, and the best way to find that out is through profit maximization, if we want them to do otherwise then we should make good laws that deal with the externalities created by their behavior. Heck, if the law is damned then why do we blame the corporations for ill-designed laws? People would do the same thing in that situation as well, unless you don't think that folks won't go over the speed limit and litter if the cops won't do anything. Sociopathic is just a term, corporations are designed to be "sociopathic", we want them to do their job and their job is profit maximization. The entire reason to throw about that term is because it is emotionally loaded more so than it makes for a logical condemnation of them.

I think also as the Chinese economy pics up (copyright infringements galore probably helped this one as well), the other jobs will get better and the sweat shops will become more and more like our factory jobs or at least what we have left of them. Also, the poster who your responding to forgot the fact that currency doesn't work the same everywhere - American minimum wage, if earned over there, you'd probably be upper middle class if not rich, you'd probably be living like a king with that kind of cash - things in general are just less expensive. That last part is not to say that its all equal, just that its really like if we had loads of factories over here only paying 6.00 per hour and people slaving to keep their apartments, a few items on the table for food, and not being able to save a dime; not a great situation but still not slave labor - if they're choosing it it probably is the best thing they can find.