Sel
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Anti-capitalism, pro Icing
- Thread starter LeSwordfish
- Start date
English Mobster
L6: Sharp Member
- Jul 10, 2011
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Every system has its own host of problems.
Human nature is to want a better life for themselves and their offspring. Communism in theory will provide a decent life for everyone, but fails to compensate for the fact that humans always want more. When gambling, if we win $100, we will not settle with what we have. We will bet that $100 over and over until we lose all of it, thinking somehow we can make that $100 turn into $1000. We desire upward mobility, and if we think we can find a way to ensure it, we will take that route.
So what Communism does is provide every gambler with that $100 and tell them they can't turn it into $1000. Because there is no legal upward mobility, humans would stockpile it to use as bribes to bribe an official into putting them in a new casino where they get $200 instead. The officials take the bribes and thus they wind up being one step ahead of everyone else: the person who receives the $100 gives it to the official, who then allows them to get $200, which they again use to bribe the official, never happy with what they have even though it is overall making their family's lives worse, not better. The only person who comes out on top is the official taking the bribes, who likely had to give a few bribes himself to be in the position to get it in the first place.
Because there is no legal upward mobility, people turn to illegal means. The people on top are the ones who were the best at taking and making bribes, and the people on the bottom can't feed their family because they have to spend their money on bribing officials in the hopes of eventually having more overall money.
It's not a perfect metaphor, nor is this always the case in a communist society. Not everyone is making and taking bribes, but the leadership and those close to them - the most well-off - certainly are.
Capitalism falls into a similar pitfall. The idea is that people who "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" and create something new should be rewarded for it (another problem with communism: no matter how hard you work, you will always get that $100, no less, no more, so why work hard?).
Yet capitalism doesn't account for those who have no "business" skill, the ones who have no boots to speak of, whether they were born into a poor household in a poor neighborhood or just were the victims of misfortune.
You can't honestly look me in the eye and tell me that an african-american inner-city youth, born into a family making $7 an hour with four other mouths to feed is going to have the same chance to be successful as his white counterpart, raised by nannies and private tutors, comfortable in one of his large houses bought by his Ivy-league educated parents who make a six-figure salary.
Even if the poor kid is the hardest worker on the planet and the rich kid is a lazy sloth, the poor kid will likely never see a college, if only because his family can't afford it. Because his family can't afford it, he is a lot less likely to get a good job and will fall into the same minimum-wage labor as his parents, thus ensuring that his kids will never be able to go to a college, either. If he were to go to any college, it would be a community college, which (if it like were the college I go to, which I'm assuming is average) is $35 a unit with the smallest classes being 3 units and the required ones for the lowest degree being 5.
To even afford 8 units - nowhere near the amount of credits he'll need for even the lowest degree - his family would spend $280 in a purely capitalist society. That's 40 hours of solid work, an entire week of an 8-hour job going straight to school, BEFORE books and other expenses get factored in. No matter how hard he works, he won't get that upward mobility because he isn't ever given a chance at life. He can't pull himself up by his bootstraps because he's too poor to afford them, or he pulled on them so hard they broke with no chance at a better life.
The rich kid, meanwhile, born to affluent parents, will have his Ivy League education paid for with no effort on his part. His parents will secure a good job for him - after all, what's an Ivy League education good for if not to have a cushy job handed to you? - and he will be as affluent as they are, even if he did poorly in school, with no effort on his part. He has bootstraps, but why pull on them when you can lounge in your mink slippers instead?
This is, of course, another extreme example, and doesn't hold true for all cases. Likely, the rich kid would be inspired by that ever-increasing drive for upward mobility and a better future to find ways to get even richer (likely through the stock market, which isn't really an example of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps rather than it is buying the bootstraps of others and reaping the dividends when they pull up on them). The poor kid will likely become an assistant manager, if not a manager, of some public service job, provided he put his full effort into it. But is that really an example of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Pushing yourself into a dead-end job for the rest of your life because you can't afford to be trained in the "skills tomorrow needs" while someone born to rich parents can make your yearly salary in a couple weeks simply by betting on the work done by others?
A perfect system would account for that drive for upward mobility, allowing room for that while also providing a floor, a decent livable income where a family can support themselves. They may not have luxuries, but they can pay for food and they can send their kids off to follow their future. The drive for upward mobility will encourage them to find a way to earn more, to find a way to secure those luxuries. Businesses would need to compete with what the government gives, thus encouraging new employees to work for them and earn those luxuries.
The ones on top, our official and rich kid, would pay for the expenses of those who do their work. The ones who do the least - management - should be paid the least, while the ones who do the most - the workforce - should be the ones earning the majority of the money. The harder the job, the more beneficial it is to society, the better the pay. Mooching off the effort of others, like the official taking bribes or the rich kid buying stocks, will not make your kids' lives better, but learning to do your job better or finding a new, better way to fuel society will.
But this system requires strong government involvement. The managers, as it stands, are the ones who control pay. Government should give incentives to those who can effectively manage a company - finding ways to do things cheaper or more efficiently - but give stronger incentives to those who do the actual work. The government would be the ones controlling the pay, although it should not impose an upper limit, just a lower one, to allow for the upward mobility aspect. The better you do your job, the better you get paid. There will probably be the same sort of problems communism has with bribery, but it's certainly a better system than what we have now, where the ones on top stay on top for no other reason than they or one of their ancestors managed to roll the dice and score a natural d20.
The closest we have to this system is socialism. Socialism isn't perfect, because it has to have some sort of punishment for success (in our case, it would actually punish those who work the hardest and thus make the most). But perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps a tax on personal income isn't the way to go.
In our current system, successful companies sit on a large chunk of wealth - wealth they use to fund Super PACs or file lawsuits. Rather than tax an individual's income, a heavy, perhaps communist-level tax should be levied on the income of the corporation (after all other expenses have been paid). This encourages corporations to invest more in their workers, their equipment, and the overall economy so as to avoid having that extra income to tax. Things such as lawsuits or stocks should need to be factored in after taxes so the corporation doesn't skirt the system by using their income to sue others (for example). Because it is impossible for a corporation to be so efficient they avoid this tax altogether (and if they do, the corporation's practices are probably largely suspect), there will be funding for the "floor" and other government programs, and because corporations are investing in the economy and always have incentive for creating jobs, the job market should be healthy as well. The tax would need to be heavy to produce that incentive, but there should be a reprieve for corporations that are losing money, a welfare system, of sorts, for corporations. If they are in the red, the government will step in and help them make ends meet, but unless they show consistent progress towards breaking even, the government will help less and less until they eventually collapse.
Anyway, that's all theory and will likely never see practice. I honestly meant to type a much shorter post, but somehow I wound up with that.
Human nature is to want a better life for themselves and their offspring. Communism in theory will provide a decent life for everyone, but fails to compensate for the fact that humans always want more. When gambling, if we win $100, we will not settle with what we have. We will bet that $100 over and over until we lose all of it, thinking somehow we can make that $100 turn into $1000. We desire upward mobility, and if we think we can find a way to ensure it, we will take that route.
So what Communism does is provide every gambler with that $100 and tell them they can't turn it into $1000. Because there is no legal upward mobility, humans would stockpile it to use as bribes to bribe an official into putting them in a new casino where they get $200 instead. The officials take the bribes and thus they wind up being one step ahead of everyone else: the person who receives the $100 gives it to the official, who then allows them to get $200, which they again use to bribe the official, never happy with what they have even though it is overall making their family's lives worse, not better. The only person who comes out on top is the official taking the bribes, who likely had to give a few bribes himself to be in the position to get it in the first place.
Because there is no legal upward mobility, people turn to illegal means. The people on top are the ones who were the best at taking and making bribes, and the people on the bottom can't feed their family because they have to spend their money on bribing officials in the hopes of eventually having more overall money.
It's not a perfect metaphor, nor is this always the case in a communist society. Not everyone is making and taking bribes, but the leadership and those close to them - the most well-off - certainly are.
Capitalism falls into a similar pitfall. The idea is that people who "pull themselves up by their own bootstraps" and create something new should be rewarded for it (another problem with communism: no matter how hard you work, you will always get that $100, no less, no more, so why work hard?).
Yet capitalism doesn't account for those who have no "business" skill, the ones who have no boots to speak of, whether they were born into a poor household in a poor neighborhood or just were the victims of misfortune.
You can't honestly look me in the eye and tell me that an african-american inner-city youth, born into a family making $7 an hour with four other mouths to feed is going to have the same chance to be successful as his white counterpart, raised by nannies and private tutors, comfortable in one of his large houses bought by his Ivy-league educated parents who make a six-figure salary.
Even if the poor kid is the hardest worker on the planet and the rich kid is a lazy sloth, the poor kid will likely never see a college, if only because his family can't afford it. Because his family can't afford it, he is a lot less likely to get a good job and will fall into the same minimum-wage labor as his parents, thus ensuring that his kids will never be able to go to a college, either. If he were to go to any college, it would be a community college, which (if it like were the college I go to, which I'm assuming is average) is $35 a unit with the smallest classes being 3 units and the required ones for the lowest degree being 5.
To even afford 8 units - nowhere near the amount of credits he'll need for even the lowest degree - his family would spend $280 in a purely capitalist society. That's 40 hours of solid work, an entire week of an 8-hour job going straight to school, BEFORE books and other expenses get factored in. No matter how hard he works, he won't get that upward mobility because he isn't ever given a chance at life. He can't pull himself up by his bootstraps because he's too poor to afford them, or he pulled on them so hard they broke with no chance at a better life.
The rich kid, meanwhile, born to affluent parents, will have his Ivy League education paid for with no effort on his part. His parents will secure a good job for him - after all, what's an Ivy League education good for if not to have a cushy job handed to you? - and he will be as affluent as they are, even if he did poorly in school, with no effort on his part. He has bootstraps, but why pull on them when you can lounge in your mink slippers instead?
This is, of course, another extreme example, and doesn't hold true for all cases. Likely, the rich kid would be inspired by that ever-increasing drive for upward mobility and a better future to find ways to get even richer (likely through the stock market, which isn't really an example of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps rather than it is buying the bootstraps of others and reaping the dividends when they pull up on them). The poor kid will likely become an assistant manager, if not a manager, of some public service job, provided he put his full effort into it. But is that really an example of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps? Pushing yourself into a dead-end job for the rest of your life because you can't afford to be trained in the "skills tomorrow needs" while someone born to rich parents can make your yearly salary in a couple weeks simply by betting on the work done by others?
A perfect system would account for that drive for upward mobility, allowing room for that while also providing a floor, a decent livable income where a family can support themselves. They may not have luxuries, but they can pay for food and they can send their kids off to follow their future. The drive for upward mobility will encourage them to find a way to earn more, to find a way to secure those luxuries. Businesses would need to compete with what the government gives, thus encouraging new employees to work for them and earn those luxuries.
The ones on top, our official and rich kid, would pay for the expenses of those who do their work. The ones who do the least - management - should be paid the least, while the ones who do the most - the workforce - should be the ones earning the majority of the money. The harder the job, the more beneficial it is to society, the better the pay. Mooching off the effort of others, like the official taking bribes or the rich kid buying stocks, will not make your kids' lives better, but learning to do your job better or finding a new, better way to fuel society will.
But this system requires strong government involvement. The managers, as it stands, are the ones who control pay. Government should give incentives to those who can effectively manage a company - finding ways to do things cheaper or more efficiently - but give stronger incentives to those who do the actual work. The government would be the ones controlling the pay, although it should not impose an upper limit, just a lower one, to allow for the upward mobility aspect. The better you do your job, the better you get paid. There will probably be the same sort of problems communism has with bribery, but it's certainly a better system than what we have now, where the ones on top stay on top for no other reason than they or one of their ancestors managed to roll the dice and score a natural d20.
The closest we have to this system is socialism. Socialism isn't perfect, because it has to have some sort of punishment for success (in our case, it would actually punish those who work the hardest and thus make the most). But perhaps we're looking at this the wrong way. Perhaps a tax on personal income isn't the way to go.
In our current system, successful companies sit on a large chunk of wealth - wealth they use to fund Super PACs or file lawsuits. Rather than tax an individual's income, a heavy, perhaps communist-level tax should be levied on the income of the corporation (after all other expenses have been paid). This encourages corporations to invest more in their workers, their equipment, and the overall economy so as to avoid having that extra income to tax. Things such as lawsuits or stocks should need to be factored in after taxes so the corporation doesn't skirt the system by using their income to sue others (for example). Because it is impossible for a corporation to be so efficient they avoid this tax altogether (and if they do, the corporation's practices are probably largely suspect), there will be funding for the "floor" and other government programs, and because corporations are investing in the economy and always have incentive for creating jobs, the job market should be healthy as well. The tax would need to be heavy to produce that incentive, but there should be a reprieve for corporations that are losing money, a welfare system, of sorts, for corporations. If they are in the red, the government will step in and help them make ends meet, but unless they show consistent progress towards breaking even, the government will help less and less until they eventually collapse.
Anyway, that's all theory and will likely never see practice. I honestly meant to type a much shorter post, but somehow I wound up with that.
They were boycotted by anti-war protestors, and they did just fine. Left-wingers tend to be a lot more active in their protesting.
And they continued manufacturing the stuff despite those boycotts, which suggests, a bit, that they didn't give a damn and just wanted to make more money regardless of how many birth defects they caused. Capitalism, Ho!
No, it happens because of capitalism, capitalism is simply so ingrained that, put your blinkers on and it looks like inevitability.
An odd point. However these are undoubtedly two human beings, as opposed to a situation where one thing is arguably a bundle of cells as much as a child. As i said, there's likely no direct line.
Why should it be? Why should my life be governed by anothr countrys laws?
What if i had sex at age 16, then moved to a state where the age of consent is 18? Course, it depends which states laws you use.
Sorry. I'll take this argument on the internet more seriously in future.
Oh, fair enough. My point still stands, and i'd be interested to see how you'd meet the point that the tenets of capitalism are near exact opposite of those of common humanity.
I can't actually speak for that website, but www.american.com? It doesnt sound the most unbiased of places. Regardless, giving money to the rest of the world is a lovely thing to do when the country is not also colossally shitting on them, simply by its hunger.
Trotim
aa
- Jul 14, 2009
- 1,195
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NOT SO FAST!
Yeah the USA will donate more money than Switzerland total because Switzerland has about 2% the citizens...
Saying the USA donate more money total than many other countries is true because America is huge (and just ignores the giant debt it has). The percentage of donations however is actually even smaller than the ones of most other countries.
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=2676
Meanwhile, on the website you linked to:
...like, really? You don't get the idea that maybe this isn't totally correct? Your website is just FULL of mathemagical trickery. Let's take a look at this gem:
Let's just take the basic numbers and say families earning ~$20000 give ~$450. That's a bit under 2.25%, for the maximal income.
Families with "more than" (see how this can go up to infinite by the way, affecting the percentage if you just take that minimal number?) $100000 give away "a bit more" (because we have to add as many positive connotations to this as possible) than $3000... which even then, using $3000 and $100000, is also only 3%.
Given how vague the numbers are all it proves is there is next to no significant difference. This is bad since costs of living etc. don't increase proportionally, meaning the families with more income (and that difference in income is fucking gigantic, it's at least 500% of the one cited for poorer families) should have a far higher percentage of donated money as it doesn't negatively affect their daily life at all, opposed to poorer families who donate despite actually needing the money for all the costs.
And that site is full of crap like that, but that's no surprise at all:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Enterprise_Institute
http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/american-enterprise-institute
Surprise, it's pro-capitalist propaganda from all the rich people in charge right now!
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Pro-capitalist prophaganda? Saying America is great? From the rich?
I am shocked, and more than a little disappointed.
On a serious note, that there is a fantastic post Trotim. I'd been unable to work up the energy to write something on that theme myself: even if i had, i doubt i'd have done it so well. Anyone interested in this sort of lies, damn lies and statistics should check out the blog of Ben Goldacre, though his schtick is really more health. Still, if you've ever disliked Gillian McKeith, he's the guy to go to for additional reasons why.
I am shocked, and more than a little disappointed.
On a serious note, that there is a fantastic post Trotim. I'd been unable to work up the energy to write something on that theme myself: even if i had, i doubt i'd have done it so well. Anyone interested in this sort of lies, damn lies and statistics should check out the blog of Ben Goldacre, though his schtick is really more health. Still, if you've ever disliked Gillian McKeith, he's the guy to go to for additional reasons why.
Trotim said:
To further put this into perspective, here is a handy graph of what was mentioned in that quote.
www.bit.ly/AmMCnr
While the US has a lot of money, and gives a seemingly huge sum of money to aid (in raw numbers it's by far the largest). America is actually tied for last place (with japan) for giving the least of their Gross National Income at 0.18%.
Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, and should check how generous the actual real American population are, not the government!
www.bit.ly/yIi5oq
Oh.... sorry.
(great site btw, try it out for a bit if you haven't before)
What Trotim has said kinda reminds me of how David Beckham, a famous UK football player (if not the most famous UK football player ever) had a dialogue with a disabled kid several years ago (can't remember whether it was by email first and then a meet, or a public meet by chance and then a few emails afterwards). Anyway, this kid couldn't afford an electric chair he really needed to improve his quality of life. So Beckham spent £2k on a new electric chair for the kid.
The entire UK tabloid media was in a hoo-haa about how generous and kind and amazing David Beckham is for it and yes, what he did was really really nice and he didn't have to do it at all. But the gift cost him 0.2% of his weekly salary. Or 0.0038% of his annual salary. It's not in proportion.
David Beckham is a lot more active in charity now and i have total respect for his UNICEF work and the several charities he currently organises. But nobody sees the bigger picture. More poor people donate a higher proportion of their wages than any rich celebrity, CEO or politician (short of Bill Gates, obviously).
The entire UK tabloid media was in a hoo-haa about how generous and kind and amazing David Beckham is for it and yes, what he did was really really nice and he didn't have to do it at all. But the gift cost him 0.2% of his weekly salary. Or 0.0038% of his annual salary. It's not in proportion.
David Beckham is a lot more active in charity now and i have total respect for his UNICEF work and the several charities he currently organises. But nobody sees the bigger picture. More poor people donate a higher proportion of their wages than any rich celebrity, CEO or politician (short of Bill Gates, obviously).
Bill Maher said:
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- Jul 31, 2011
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https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2172rank.html
If you're proud of living in a developed country where the distribution of wealth is JUST BARELY more equitable than in Jamaica, Mozambique, and Rwanda, (two of which are on the UN's Least Developed Countries list) and less equitable than Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya, (look at pictures of downtown and suburban Nairobi to see an extreme example of this) then I would say there is something severely wrong with your preferred economic system.
If you're proud of living in a developed country where the distribution of wealth is JUST BARELY more equitable than in Jamaica, Mozambique, and Rwanda, (two of which are on the UN's Least Developed Countries list) and less equitable than Uganda, Nigeria, and Kenya, (look at pictures of downtown and suburban Nairobi to see an extreme example of this) then I would say there is something severely wrong with your preferred economic system.
Leminnes
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- Jan 20, 2010
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Sel
Banned
- Feb 18, 2009
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That was pretty excellent yeah.
Am I allowed to like the pre-world war era's when America had an isolationism policy? To me, it seemed like those were good years (barring great depression)
Terwonick
L6: Sharp Member
- Aug 25, 2010
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Those just so happen to be the years I was referencing earlier, so yes.
Moose
L6: Sharp Member
- Nov 4, 2009
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So I'm not reading this thread, but I'll bet people are arguing about economic shit. Frankly, everybody seems to think they understand the economy and how our government works, but they almost never do. If you want to get a good idea of what's going on, look up modern monetary theory.
companies continuously break laws and don't give a shit, and almost everything companies lobby for fuck with people's rights. if you can't see that, there's something wrong with you.
Not going to bother with this thread any more because it's pretty much pointless.
companies continuously break laws and don't give a shit, and almost everything companies lobby for fuck with people's rights. if you can't see that, there's something wrong with you.
Not going to bother with this thread any more because it's pretty much pointless.
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I change my stance on the premise that they agree with Terwonick's ideals.
(I jest... but seriously, Isolationism.. it's awesome.)
Terwonick
L6: Sharp Member
- Aug 25, 2010
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Isolationism > Imperialism
I believe you are talking about militaristic Isolationism, not economic Isolationism, correct?
Yes, militaristic.
Sel
Banned
- Feb 18, 2009
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I don't see anyone claiming to have complete understanding of any of the topics discussed here, no one on the planet has that kind of knowledge. What I see are people (Even Ter) discussing the problems we're faced with now, and discussing possible ways to solve them, and make a better world for everyone, whether it's reverting to older USA Capitalism, or Communism
The idea that we shouldn't be discussing these things because we don't have a complete understanding of what's going on, or the economics we're talking about is absolutely ludicrous. No one here has, or needs that understanding, to realize that something is fucked up in our world and desperately needs to be fixed. If we followed the logic you seem to be promoting no one on the face of the planet would be allowed to discuss the problems we're facing, or solutions to those problems.
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Terwonick
L6: Sharp Member
- Aug 25, 2010
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It's funny because Ron Paul is the only candidate with a policy of isolationism... And it's probably the reason he won't get elected.
Well shit.
... I'm more screwed up with politics than I thought.
/me runs and hides behind science.
... I'm more screwed up with politics than I thought.
/me runs and hides behind science.
Sel
Banned
- Feb 18, 2009
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It's sad because he's the only mainstream candidate, who has a chance in hell of getting elected, who is Anti war, and doesn't want to start ANOTHER war with Iran.