Economy Wealth Distribution: For The Many Or The Few?

[JessFR]

this is why I don't bother with the minutiae of the specific details. someone can invariably come up with better solutions than me, and regardless it's ridiculous to try to come up with an ideal implementation right from the very start, for one because there's little research on what the ideal implementation would be; two, the ideal implementation will vary based on context, societal values, available materials, etc; three, like with anything else, it should be improved and refined over time after seeing what works and what doesn't

though im definitely thankful for people like you that are able to help explain what possibles implementations could look like in practice, my focus is more on the framework that those implementations will be built on. this is the strength of the left, of diversity. heterogeneity of ideas is essential for a healthy society

You still gotta have at least some idea of how it's gonna work, how else can you really know if the idea is remotely practical or plausible?

I frequently leave some room open in my ideas for how I think things should work for blanks to be filled in with best research and evidence. But I still have an idea of how things could or should go depending on what the research might say.

And there's a lot of difference between supporting a difference that has been tried in other countries, and leaving some room open, and having a huge idea like anarchocommunism and not really knowing how it should work.

Some reasons I don't believe what you believe is because I don't believe any form of anarchy can work. I generally favor smaller government, but I'm not anti government. I don't believe the social systems we have can operate on an anarchist model. Because in practice all I see happening is turning one state into hundreds of tiny states, most of which running worse than the original and having fewer resources.

Then there's the economic aspect. I don't believe society can work without some type of barter. And I see money as simply an extension of barter.

And modern economics an extension of money.

I don't believe it's OK for countries as wealth as America to not provide social support for its citizens. Basic needs, medical care, that kinda stuff. I think that's morally wrong and while I'm generally individualistic, on those kinds of matters I tend towards more collectivist beliefs.

But lots of capitalist countries have social support programs of various kinds. Many far better than what America has with limited support in Medicare, medicaid, etc.

Likewise there's no reason there can't be better legal protections against exploration by large companies within a capitalist framework.

Basically, by the time you get to a socialist system that I think could work, it's basically become close to the merged capitalist socialist mixed model system I already support.

I blame the cold war for pushing us too strongly into capitalist principles. I don't think it has to be this way and I don't think removing capitalism entirely is either required or desirable for an ideal society.

I don't think you should be concerned about people poking holes in your ideas either. If the ideas are fundamentally sound, flaws that people find only serve to better work out what you really believe.

I've had a few of my opinions change because of good arguments I've read here against my beliefs on bluelight. My opinion on the electoral college is probably the biggest.

 

[Infernal]

getting hung up on private property here, is it just physical private property? or does it include non physical private property, intangibles to use the terminology, intellectual property in my head, the benefit of education and so forth, I use this to make more money.
Is private property so long as it is not productive acceptable? for example a Tesla? A swamp?

The more pertinent distinction is that between earned and unearned income I forget Mills exact terminology. But that doesn't require communism to solve it

Sure, to a point. The easiest to talk about is always tangibles since that really is a matter of "whether or not its ownership constitutes a means of production." Intangibles are a little more difficult. Like, if I invented a process by which I could feed ten times the mass of humanity that currently exists then no, probably not but would you be compensated for it because in all likelihood you might create more. Marx was trying to avoid, in Capital 3, the notion of fetishism of abstracts or I guess in more modern terms, locking something beneficial to society behind a paywall of "first post."

 

[novaveritas]

I don't see why the basic concept of capitalism has any intrinsic problems as an efficient way of allocating resources and using those resources in an efficient way. The religion of consumerism and so forth is a different matter entirely.
in the American parlance I subscribe to a pretty libertarian viewpoint, on the basis that most humans are pretty decent creatures given the right opportunities and environment and most people can see a little bit beyond immediate gain, altruism is actually enlightened self interest.

The current problems are a flawed and degenerate implementation of capitalism.

Labor should have sufficient bargaining power to get a decent slice without having to discard capitalism, it doesn't because the western statist system is set up to force labor into a weak bargaining position. labour cannot withhold the one thing they have which is of value, their labor. The devious trick is as simple as levying unavoidable taxes in a fiat currency that requires work. The other trick and granted it is clever, is preaching that those unavoidable taxes are levied for the benefit of the poor and needy and redistribute wealth, they don't, they weaken the hands of real people in bargaining a decent living wage thus creating more poor and needy people. Robots, machines and corporations don't pay tax and that is the move that is being played out now.

Pretty dumb of the capitalists in the long term because who buys all the crap that the capitalists sell...the workers. Henry ford had some odd ideas that I don't subscribe too but paying his workers enough so they possible could be customers at some future point was an enlightened idea.

The other flaw is allowing debt as money and allowing debt money to have equal purchasing power to real money. The minute that happens those who are non-productive and are merely gaming the system (looking at you bankers) gain an advantage which compounds over time until they own everything. The system is falling apart because future production is being spent today, todays production was spent a long time ago.

 

[Soso78]

haha
wakey wakey boyo the clue is in the soviet terminology

U must remember I’m uneducated, I don’t understand who would be in charge of the infrastructure of society?
would there be a government?

 

[tathra]

The current problems are a flawed and degenerate implementation of capitalism.

so in other words, capitalism looks good in theory but doesn't work in practice because of human nature

 

[novaveritas]

U must remember I’m uneducated, I don’t understand who would be in charge of the infrastructure of society?
would there be a government?

I'm not communist. I am a limited government advocate, a capitalist and in favor of people being given control of their own lives not by new laws but by less laws, less bureaucracy, less government. I am also very strongly in favor of removing a lot of laws that give corporations rights as pretend people, they are not people and should not be treated as people. Which fits into less laws not more. The entire legal code for a country should be the size of a small novel, not a shipping container and it should be possible for everyone to read and understand it, bad news for lawyers but who cares about them.

The central government can stick to the few things where everyone has the same interest, defense from external threats for example and that can be paid for by limited taxation.

Currently who is in charge of the infrastructure of society as you put it? There are a whole bunch of things central governments run, for want of a better word, from their ivory towers in the big town, London in your case. They have no clue whether what they are doing works, or works for the people the infrastructure is supposed serve. I'll go further and say they don't care if it works or not because they don't lose their jobs if it doesn't work. So long as their friends can privately profit from it they really don't care. They also don't care whether is can be paid for, or whether it is constructive or destructive, because they don't have to pay for it, they spend OPM, other peoples money, (actually is future generations money). If you have control from the center, strangely all government money goes to improving the center, the regions are screwed over. If you are spending OPM you really don't care. The infrastructure is really run by a professional bureaucrat class who don't change when governments change and who are utterly incompetent.

These things can be run more efficiently by smaller management units, mutuals, co-ops collectives call them whatever you like, and these units are must be collectively owned, so the money is not OPM and these smaller units must also be properly accountable to their owners, the people they serve. which means the customers, if enough of the customers don't like it they can remove the management, which is complete contrast to trying to remove a bureaucrat, bureaucrats tend to remain until they leave in a box.

This is not incompatible with capitalism at all, for most of capitalism's history collectively owned things existed side by side with privately controlled things. Collectively owned things are those things like water supply or electricity supply basic medical provision or the rail system where there tends to be a natural monopoly. There are never going to be two competing side by side rail tracks or two competing power lines to your house,

Those natural monopolies are the very things the neoliberals Thatcher and Reagan for example sold so their buddies could profit. These were not owned by the government of the time they were owned by the people, these are also things were there can be no effective competition. If something is an essential and monopolized then crony capitalist rent extractors get hold of it and turn the screws to extract money privately for themselves. so some things would be nationalized, as for compensating the shareholders well that is a risk you took holding the shares, you have already seen huge benefits, so losing your capital is the risk.

I have zero problem with people doing capitalist things, I have zero problem with people owning stuff, I have zero problem with people charging for their skills and getting what they can, I have problems where cronies steal commons and charge rent for it. I also have problems where cronies capture the government and right rules that keep out competition or to get legal cover for doing stuff that a little guy would go to jail for, there are two ways to sort this write more laws or get rid of laws, one of those feeds the beast one doesn't.

 

[novaveritas]

so in other words, capitalism looks good in theory but doesn't work in practice because of human nature

Some form of capitalism has existed since the very beginning and so it is human nature. It is also human nature to band into groups together to fuck over people not in the group, and that is the thing that needs to be dealt with. Not capitalism. Communist systems had the same problem.

I fight it by sticking the knife into groups like this whenever I get the opportunity, I am too small to fight head on but I can clip them, wound them, harass and move, discover their weaknesses, turn them on themselves and eventually they will collapse. Patience is a virtue, I will wait for the opportunity and show no mercy when the opportunity arises. I am really not alone in doing this and I will always help others doing what I am doing, it is a strategy that works and cannot be countered. It is also rather profitable, I am not going to go into details but it has taken large corporate scalps and changed a country.

If everyone started doing this today, global change would happen by the weekend.

Actually historically revolutions only need 5% of the people active and the rest acquiescing or ignoring it to become unstoppable

 

[Xorkoth]

so in other words, capitalism looks good in theory but doesn't work in practice because of human nature

Yes, exactly. I believe ANY system of government will be corrupted because of human nature. There is no way around that unless we can somehow manage to overcome that part of ourselves one day. I think capitalism is more difficult to corrupt as it (in its ideal form) puts more power and control in the hands of anyone wanting to work for it, by design. Capitalism in a well-designed democracy is a good system, in my view because it is harder to corrupt and it allows mobility to any individual. It seems to me that socialism and communism, while on paper I would prefer, are much more easily and quickly corrupted. If you look at the governments of the world in recent times, the most stable ones are capitalist democracies, the best ones being ones that people call democratic socialist but which are really just using tax money for what tax money is supposed to be used for. I agree with you that no true socialist or communist systems have gotten any real time to prove themselves, and I also understand that the US kills some of them before they can, but there are a number of examples of nations trying that without us stopping them, and all of them became very corrupt, very quickly, because in a power vacuum, the sharks descend.

The real enemy here is human nature, and complacency. Although we were led here by design, it's also our fault (as a society) for becoming complacent. We allowed this to happen. No system is perfect but if we had leaders who were actually interested in the peoples' welfare (which we HAVE had), we could undo (or have prevented in the first place) the policies that have allowed our system to get so corrupted. If you think about it, we started with slavery, and regulated ourselves morally to get rid of that, and regulated ourselves to create a middle class, and vastly improved the quality of life and created the strongest nation in the world with the highest quality of life. Since then we have regressed, but my point is that under capitalism, we did that.

Capitalism is not perfect, but it is not evil by nature. However some humans are evil by nature and seek to dominate, and that is the real root of the problems we constantly face.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

What liberals don't get, about overpopulation being the crux of the problem. Explained to you through Bible scripture, by an atheist. :D

Enjoy. Overpopulation is killing Plant Earth and if we don't address it, any other leftist agenda is insane.

But God said to Jonah: "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" And he said: "I do. I am angry enough to die."
But the LORD said: "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight, and died overnight.
But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

— Jonah 4:9-11

 

[tathra]

Capitalism is not perfect, but it is not evil by nature. However some humans are evil by nature and seek to dominate, and that is the real root of the problems we constantly face.

tools are not inherently good or bad, but some tools are better suited to certain jobs than others. capitalism is the worst economic tool we could use given the current state of the world today and the ridiculous amount of damage it has resulted in

 

[novaveritas]

What liberals don't get, about overpopulation being the crux of the problem. Explained to you through Bible scripture, by an atheist. :D

Enjoy. Overpopulation is killing Plant Earth and if we don't address it, any other leftist agenda is insane.

nah
overpopulation will sort itself out over time. It can be sorted out quicker by humans getting their shit together which means stopping killing each other. It is much easier to believe doom and gloom end of the world bullshit because that is what humans are hard wired to do.
Planet earth cannot be killed by something as insignificant as human-monkey-things despite what we believe. Life on planet earth has survived bigger and badder things than us humans. Climate will change has always changed no matter what the human-monkey-things do. In the long run all that remains of human-monkey-things will just be a thin geological strata of plastic that baffles alien archaeologists.

 

[tathra]

Climate will change has always changed no matter what the human-monkey-things do. In the long run all that remains of human-monkey-things will just be a thin geological strata of plastic that baffles alien archaeologists.

correct. the earth itself is in no danger. life will continue on regardless in one form or another

what is at risk is human society, we're quickly making the earth inhospitable to humans and collapsing countless ecosystems by being directly responsible for the ongoing extinction event. the earth will be fine, but we won't if we continue to let capitalists destroy everything in the name of profits, since they don't give a fuck what happens after they're dead and gone

 

[Captain.Heroin]

overpopulation will sort itself out over time.

Yeah, through war, disease, and complete destruction of the ecosystem = NO THANKS.

humans getting their shit together which means stopping having too many babies

This.

Yes, exactly. I believe ANY system of government will be corrupted because of human nature. There is no way around that unless we can somehow manage to overcome that part of ourselves one day. I think capitalism is more difficult to corrupt as it (in its ideal form) puts more power and control in the hands of anyone wanting to work for it, by design. Capitalism in a well-designed democracy is a good system, in my view because it is harder to corrupt and it allows mobility to any individual. It seems to me that socialism and communism, while on paper I would prefer, are much more easily and quickly corrupted. If you look at the governments of the world in recent times, the most stable ones are capitalist democracies, the best ones being ones that people call democratic socialist but which are really just using tax money for what tax money is supposed to be used for. I agree with you that no true socialist or communist systems have gotten any real time to prove themselves, and I also understand that the US kills some of them before they can, but there are a number of examples of nations trying that without us stopping them, and all of them became very corrupt, very quickly, because in a power vacuum, the sharks descend.

The real enemy here is human nature, and complacency. Although we were led here by design, it's also our fault (as a society) for becoming complacent. We allowed this to happen. No system is perfect but if we had leaders who were actually interested in the peoples' welfare (which we HAVE had), we could undo (or have prevented in the first place) the policies that have allowed our system to get so corrupted. If you think about it, we started with slavery, and regulated ourselves morally to get rid of that, and regulated ourselves to create a middle class, and vastly improved the quality of life and created the strongest nation in the world with the highest quality of life. Since then we have regressed, but my point is that under capitalism, we did that.

Capitalism is not perfect, but it is not evil by nature. However some humans are evil by nature and seek to dominate, and that is the real root of the problems we constantly face.

Aside from corruption issues, why do you think people like me should have more money than I've earned through hard work, "birth lottery" etc? Why do I deserve that?

I don't think you'll be able to convince me of why that might be.

I just don't. Sorry.

the earth itself is in no danger.

HOW DARE YOU

for more than 40 years the science has been crystal clear...

Life on planet earth has survived bigger and badder things than us humans.

LOL

 

[DopeM]

the earth will be fine, but we won't if we continue to let capitalists destroy everything in the name of profits, since they don't give a fuck what happens after they're dead and gone

What makes you think that communists or socialists or anarchists have shown any difference in attitude?

 

[Captain.Heroin]

What makes you think that communists or socialists or anarchists have shown any difference in attitude?

Anarchy is better than totalitarianism. At least in theory I guess.

 

[novaveritas]

HOW DARE YOU I LOVE GRETA BECAUSE SHE IS SO FUCKING POSITIVE.
IN FACT EVERYONE SHOULD KILL THESELVES SO GRETA AND HER SURROUNDING UBERMENSCH CAN FIX THE WORLD

This girl is as much a victim as the teen pageant beauty queens. In the future expect many amusing headlines: when Greta gets a habit, when Greta has an unsuitable partner when Greta gets a partnership of Goldman Sachs

biblical wailing and gnashing of teeth is amusing to watch but fixes nothing.

subtle edit was noticed

 

[Captain.Heroin]

my edit was because ihad double posted or the first pic didn't work well

to be honest she's a victim OF GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE and climate change deniers.

Even if you're one of the 9% of scientists that says we aren't the cause of it, it's real and human beings have to adapt.

No reputable scientists disclaim the idea of (catastrophic/problematic and ongoing) climate change.

 

[DopeM]

What makes a scientist reputable though? Getting pats on the back from other reputable scientists who are part of the same mindset?

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Like I said let's assume the 9% of scientists who aren't blaming humanity for the problems.... we still have to deal with them.

There's a lot of scientists and when they 100% agree on something, I'm going to go with that.

I've seen documentaries, time-lapsed and it's clear climate change is happening. Even if I was a gun-toting gas-guzzling Republican, it's just too real to say it isn't.

 

[DopeM]

Yea, but who makes the documentaries and time lapses? Do you trust them? Where do they get their funding?

What are the problems again?

Too much carbon? You know, the stuff that trees and plants need to excel, further producing more oxygen which is needed for us to excel?

Glaciers melting? Just like the signs said in glacier national Park "these glaciers won't be here in 2020" oh wait....