Why Socialism?

[Bardeaux]

^I'm starting to wonder about the seriousness of your argument here.

If I understand what you're driving at, a "truly free market" would essentially dismantle the economy as people would stay home raising chickens instead of going to work. Hundreds of millions of people, just growing tomatoes and collecting chicken eggs for a living in their apartments and town-homes. Forget gasoline, cars, clothing, etc. Unless others have somehow figured out a way to gather and produce these things in this post-apocalyptic sounding scenario.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for self-sustenance. I think urban farming and the self production of energy and food is a great thing. But do you honestly believe that an anarcho-primitive utopia will arise out of dismantling all regulations in the market? Rather than a race to the third world and an absolute breakdown of social mobility with no commerce, finance, construction, safety or labor standards?

Not to mention, the regulatory body that shut down your little enterprise was not a government entity. It was a private association that you (or your parents) signed into voluntarily.

 

[superelephant]

Well, we're going to have to let this one go because this is none of your business, frankly.

He made more than I did. Partly because of his seniority and partly because of his extra responsibility.

.... If it's none of my business than why even bring up the example?

I didn't say anything about working for one cent, that was your exaggeration. You should ask an Australian to work for $10 an hour, which is well above the American federal minimum wage. They would say there's no way anyone would get out of bed to work for such wages no matter what the cost of living is like. Your sense of worth is going to change when employers start refusing to pay more than a few dollars an hour when there is a large portion of the workforce willing to work for only a few dollars an hour.

but it doesn't, people will end up doing their jobs poorly, then rationalizing the hell out of it because of the low pay (If there are even enough stupid people to to take such low wages, which I doubt because money is the one thing most people take seriously)

Removing the minimum wage doesn't put power into the hands of the worker to negotiate the price of their labor. There is a surplus of labor. If you won't work for $4 an hour, someone will. It puts power into the hands of the employer to find the laborer with the lowest bid on their labor.

and then power to ruin the business because they have shitty employees who simply don't care because they aren't paid enough.

It would be the equivalent of me walking into Walmart today and demanding $15 an hour and full medical benefits.

What do you think would happen in the scenario of every underpaid employee of any business doing this?

So 34 million people are getting together and collectively making the decision to support Walmart before going out to shop there? No. What's happening is a consequence of unplanned, uncooperative and uncoordinated consumerism.

no, a lot more than 34 million, those are just the tools who are stupid enough publicly declare such decision making.

I'm still not understanding what football has to do with consumer awareness. Lets pretend for a second that every consumer in America is fully aware of the harm Walmart causes right under their noses. Will consumer habits change overnight or will consumers still support Walmart because it's a much cheaper alternative to buying more expensive, more socially responsible products elsewhere?

Not football per se, just the entire culture of lapping up intentionally manufactured distractions. When I ever I try to teach any one something, or bring awareness to something that desperately needs to be known, I literally view their attention dwindle. If I switch topics, to something like basketball, a new product coming out, etc, they are instantly refocused and have thoughts and ideas they would like to share about it. It's like they are brainwashed or something.

So.... why did it occur? Did kids just really enjoy working in coal mines for shits and giggles? Did it provide their parents with endless entertainment?

Maybe the kids thought they would enjoy helping their parents while simultaneously the parents (bad parents) thought only of themselves and how they would take advantage of their kids? honestly, I can see that being the case.

^I'm starting to wonder about the seriousness of your argument here.

It's funny that you take the current unredeemable piece of shit we live in more seriously.

If I understand what you're driving at, a "truly free market" would essentially dismantle the economy as people would stay home raising chickens instead of going to work. Hundreds of millions of people, just growing tomatoes and collecting chicken eggs for a living in their apartments and town-homes. Forget gasoline, cars, clothing, etc. Unless others have somehow figured out a way to gather and produce these things in this post-apocalyptic sounding scenario.

It wouldn't dismantle everything over night, it would just begin to allow employees some negotiating room. (not quite overnight, but not years down the road either) This is desperately needed.

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for self-sustenance. I think urban farming and the self production of energy and food is a great thing. But do you honestly believe that an anarcho-primitive utopia will arise out of dismantling all regulations in the market? Rather than a race to the third world and an absolute breakdown of social mobility with no commerce, finance, construction, safety or labor standards?

This race to the poverty you describe is not something a large number of people would be able or willing to put up with.

Not to mention, the regulatory body that shut down your little enterprise was not a government entity. It was a private association that you (or your parents) signed into voluntarily.

You mean the actual owner of the property, who (while gladly accepted my products as payment, although he did end up requesting I grow a few things that I never got around to as a means to not pay him any money whatsoever.) never quite disclosed what was against the rules and what wasn't. I live with 3 other roommates, no one who gave a shit about the homeowners association. (and we still don't)

 

[superelephant]

superelephant, for someone who pretends to know a bit about economics you don't seem to understand the simple principle of supply and demand, and where this leads.

you're wrong.

Employers are in a position to create demand for work by cutting jobs, and employees in low positions cannot create the same demand for their labor because they have no influence over how many people there are and how many positions are available.

Yes they can, If enough of them began working for themselves then those left in the work force would have some leverage.

The employer will always have the upper hand unless an external force steps in and forces the employer to be accountable for pay its workers a living wage.

Is common sense an external force? If it is, then I agree with you.

Moreover, it is extremely presumptuous of you to dismiss history, and say that things would be different now. You have no clue.

So much inflation has occurred, that a 'then and now' comparison almost always falls short.

Are you delusional? There are currently people in the US working for less on the black market where there is no minimum wage.

undocumented foreigners (who can't legally get legitimate work) that send money to their family in Costa Rica where it's actually worth something...

None of these things will guarantee that wages would not plummet. People having self worth leads them to do anything to feed themselves and their children.

By anything, I'm guessing you mean "work a job for someone else," right? otherwise this isn't even a counter argument.

Please prove with logic or data why this is a complete fallacy. I'm pretty sure most people call that reality. Income generally does (in this society), but does not have to equal something monetary, it can also be in the form of goods/services. It seems you assume we live in an unlimited environment where everyone will have enough game to hunt and enough land to farm. Fat fucking chance.

It doesn't have to be everyone, just enough to give employees leverage over employers. There is enough land in most front and back yards to farm for a single household and then some. It might require ripping up the grass but there is definitely enough room.

In many instances, A free market means individuals truly have the ability to be free from the market.

 

[Bardeaux]

.... If it's none of my business than why even bring up the example?

I used a broad example. The exact figure on my W2 slip is none of your business.

but it doesn't, people will end up doing their jobs poorly, then rationalizing the hell out of it because of the low pay (If there are even enough stupid people to to take such low wages, which I doubt because money is the one thing most people take seriously)

and then power to ruin the business because they have shitty employees who simply don't care because they aren't paid enough.

But people aren't paid enough NOW. It's not a matter of being "stupid enough" to take such a low paying job, it's a matter of having a job at all. The most exploitative companies out there seem to be doing the best right now, due to having the lowest labor and service costs via paying their workers the bare minimum. If minimum wage were $1, Walmart would have no problem finding people to work for $1, and they would thrive due to paying such low productive costs.

You have to start thinking of labor as a commodity and how commodities work in trade.

What do you think would happen in the scenario of every underpaid employee of any business doing this?

This is pretty much what's happening now. I'm not sure if you're aware, but there is a very large movement brewing to raise the minimum wage. The activists are pushing for $15 and the president is flirting with a $10 minimum wage. Thousands of workers are partaking in strikes all over the country as we speak.

Eliminating the minimum wage is not going to raise the average wage. Period. I'm still waiting on any sort of evidence or economic reasoning whatsoever to suggest that this would be the case.

It's like they are brainwashed or something.

Weird huh? It's like they're a bunch of.....consumers being distracted by useless junk on a market.

You're not in favor of tightening restrictions of what can be sold on the market are you?

This race to the poverty you describe is not something a large number of people would be able or willing to put up with.

Indeed. They might actually start pushing for you know...socialism. I think you're onto something here, sir.

 

[superelephant]

I used a broad example. The exact figure on my W2 slip is none of your business.

Can you share what the other guy made then? I don't actually care by the way.

But people aren't paid enough NOW. It's not a matter of being "stupid enough" to take such a low paying job, it's a matter of having a job at all.

How do people rationalize the work they do if they are not paid enough? Sounds pretty stupid to me. The romanticized notion of "working hard" for someone else is a tedious, culturally laid down way of information processing that's bereft of human spirit, and it is stupid.

The most exploitative companies out there seem to be doing the best right now, due to having the lowest labor and service costs via paying their workers the bare minimum. If minimum wage were $1, Walmart would have no problem finding people to work for $1, and they would thrive due to paying such low productive costs.

This is utterly ridiculous. People couldn't eat, or even make it to work at all. When wages get to low, deindustrialisation occurs. People begin work for themselves. This is what brings wages back up to definitely above $1 an hour. The capacity of the public to work for itself (once it gets it's collected head out of it's ass) is greater than you suppose. Imo companies fear this, which is why they would rather have a minimum wage, so they can manufacture self worth with the sleight of hand maneuver of paying you more than that.

You have to start thinking of labor as a commodity and how commodities work in trade.

But I do, It's a commodity that's worth a lot more than x amount an hour.

This is pretty much what's happening now. I'm not sure if you're aware, but there is a very large movement brewing to raise the minimum wage. The activists are pushing for $15 and the president is flirting with a $10 minimum wage. Thousands of workers are partaking in strikes all over the country as we speak.

Why does it have to be a law? Why can't it just be common sense/knowledge?

Eliminating the minimum wage is not going to raise the average wage. Period. I'm still waiting on any sort of evidence or economic reasoning whatsoever to suggest that this would be the case.

It would make it harder to manufacture self worth when wages for other jobs are comparably high, and they are.

Weird huh? It's like they're a bunch of.....consumers being distracted by useless junk on a market.

You're not in favor of tightening restrictions of what can be sold on the market are you?

It's not even about the market though, it's more like people are cultural pushed from birth to embrace stupidity.

Indeed. They might actually start pushing for you know...socialism. I think you're onto something here, sir.

We live in socialism, the whole subsidized cost privatized profit thing is socialism. Whether it favors people or is corporate socialism, it's still socialism.

 

[cashfl0w_d0nkey]

For several reasons, this proposal is insufficient to check pathologies that develop as capitalism is set in motion:
1. Negative externalities lead businesses to save production costs in ways that cause harm outside of those factors affecting price and quantity sold.
2. Because processes of production are de-linked from processes of sale and consumption (in terms of time, space, and people involved), consumers usually lack the awareness necessary to use collective behavior to place a check on negative externalities.
3. As markets mature, ownership of capital tends toward oligopoly, reducing the efficacy of competition in curtailing harms caused by large firms.
4. With circulation of mass-media, firms play a key role in the construction of the very desires and identities of consumers, leading again to production and consumption that might otherwise be regarded as harmful.
5. Most consumers work under severe financial constraint, limiting their ability to amass and consolidate collective power.
6. Oligopolic firms use economic power to influence the regulatory framework under which they operate, leading to further injustices.

You're absolutely right that this describes the current situation. Coordinated buying can occur despite not having happened yet however. All it would take is tanking one business like Wal-Mart's operations within the US and other businesses would all jump on the social responsibility bandwagon. I agree that there would be serious attempts to thwart the effort but if it caught on, the result would be that all businesses suddenly care much more about appearing socially responsible.

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

Most of this has been addressed. And shooting at people who are hunting probably isn't going to work so well, (if you know anything about hunting) I'd say those who are doing the hunting would probably be in a better position to shoot those would be defenders of the land...

Actually, I don't think you addressed any of it because you would have problems doing so.

Except that I know and am friendly with the local hunters and fishers because my family has leased our land to them for the past generation or two. These guys now get to use the land in exchange for protecting and feeding my family. Same with the farmers who have been leasing the land for a generation or two. Notice I said without explicit permission, and no superelephant as it stands you would not get permission.

 

[Droppersneck]

I will say that socialism isnt all bad. At least now with the exchange we all have an equal shot at quality coverage.

 

[Bardeaux]

We live in socialism, the whole subsidized cost privatized profit thing is socialism. Whether it favors people or is corporate socialism, it's still socialism.

I will say that socialism isnt all bad. At least now with the exchange we all have an equal shot at quality coverage.

Spaghetti will now be called napalm as far as I'm concerned.

And pencils will now be called fire engines.

As long as we're making up definitions for pre-existing words and applying them to anything we want, I'm going to have some fun with it.

 

[Droppersneck]

Spaghetti will now be called napalm as far as I'm concerned.

And pencils will now be called fire engines.

As long as we're making up definitions for pre-existing words and applying them to anything we want, I'm going to have some fun with it.

Well yo u must concede obama should have just gone for single payer instead of this non sense

 

[ebola?]

And Droppers just leaned to the left of the entire spectrum of viable party politics in the US.

ebola

 

[Bardeaux]

^Lol

Well yo u must concede obama should have just gone for single payer instead of this non sense

I can certainly agree. Although a single payer bill never made it to his desk, I can agree with the sentiment.

 

[Droppersneck]

well no one would have been on board with single payer so I fail to your pont

 

[Bardeaux]

Well, there was a 2009 poll showing that 73% of Americans supported a single payer system, with 57% in favor of paying higher taxes to support it.

Congress however, was less enthused.

My point being, I agree with you.

 

[ebola?]

Yes, I think of those instances in the real-world-examples of why practical implementation would be ...difficult, to say the least. For all the problems the current mixed economies have with corruption at the top, socialist systems seem to be custom-made for concentrating power;

To reiterate, you're criticizing centralized administration via hierarchical command, not socialism in general.

it's a manner of concentrating political power that businesses could only hope to achieve via business/$ in a mixed/capitalist economy.

A key facet of capitalism's functional dynamics is the tendency of the capitalist class to exert influence over policy in pursuit of its interest (sometimes in terms of more widely shared or longer term interests than any individual capitalist or apolitical organization thereof would pursue) over and against those of other socio-economic classes. Because market competition so often leads to monopolization of resources in the long term, we should expect capitalist privilege in the economic sphere to be buttressed by political power.

Where does all of this collaborative harmony come from, in socialist setups? Maybe it's the ppl i've met through life, but most aren't worth a shit and w/o $ to motivate them I shudder to think how unproductive they'd be.. If people aren't motivated by acquisition of goods (money/food/etc), what makes them get up and go to their socialist coop?

Wow. This has not been my experience at all. I think that as a general trend, people tend to be "okay". In most game-theoretic experiments, people will engage in benefit of the doubt tit-for-tat strategies--that is, acting toward one another with reciprocal parity while extending willingness to make the first good natured move. I think this provides a firm enough basis for sufficient productivity in cooperative endeavors in the absence of price-motivators, assuming sufficient intensity of relations.

This gets more a % of the population working productively than capitalism?

In some sense, capitalism produces this problem in the first place, leading us to view ourselves as atomized individuals set in trading relations or competition, ignoring the social ties that produce the framework in which such individuals appear.

But more concretely, are people very productive when working a job they dislike, making a product they have no stake in, subject to arbitrary control of their working activity by command? It seems like motivating work via wage alone wouldn't be too efficient.

The current allocation is functioning...not so great. IMO this is an indictment of our state-run banking system though, not of private bankers.

How so? What would cultivate a more adaptively appropriate banking system?

On what base(s) can we conclude crony capitalism isn't the norm of business in america? Am I missing a joke or something?

Maybe I stated this confusingly. I meant to declare that 'crony capitalism' is the current norm in the us, one that's systemically unsurprising.

ebola

 

[paranoid android]

Well yo u must concede obama should have just gone for single payer instead of this non sense

Holy jesus fucking mary up the ass . I think i just shit and pissed myself when i read that. It's not often i agree with you but you are dead on the mark there me lad . I always said why not just nationalize the entire health care system and kick out the insurance companies altogether. The uninformed (which unfortunately comprises of most people) would no doubt bitch about the awful raising of taxes once the politicians pulled that trick out of their ass. Even though US health care would most likely be much cheaper when nationalized as much of the cash today goes towards private industry where as with nationalized health care the insurance companies would be null and void. Not to mention the reactionaries who think that the government administering any half decent service that helps the people is letting big government control their lives 8)

 

[ebola?]

You're absolutely right that this describes the current situation. Coordinated buying can occur despite not having happened yet however. All it would take is tanking one business like Wal-Mart's operations within the US and other businesses would all jump on the social responsibility bandwagon. I agree that there would be serious attempts to thwart the effort but if it caught on, the result would be that all businesses suddenly care much more about appearing socially responsible.

I wish I could share in your optimism. Taking Wal-Mart as an emblematic example, many people operate under severe monetary constraints that make 1-stop bargain purchasing nearly indispensable. And then Wal-Mart's oligopolization of retail has eliminated viable alternatives while also leading other retailers to adopt similar practices to the firm. These trends are generally representative of contemporary capitalism commerce

But just empirically, consumer boycott has a really poor track-record of effecting firms' capitulation in such politicized matters.

ebola

 

[superelephant]

Actually, I don't think you addressed any of it because you would have problems doing so.

Except that I know and am friendly with the local hunters and fishers because my family has leased our land to them for the past generation or two. These guys now get to use the land in exchange for protecting and feeding my family. Same with the farmers who have been leasing the land for a generation or two. Notice I said without explicit permission, and no superelephant as it stands you would not get permission.

I edited the original response.

 

[superelephant]

Spaghetti will now be called napalm as far as I'm concerned.

And pencils will now be called fire engines.

As long as we're making up definitions for pre-existing words and applying them to anything we want, I'm going to have some fun with it.

Isn't welfare (food stamps etc)a socialistic program? Is it not beneficial to mega-corps?

 

[Shimmer.Fade]

I edited the original response.

I'll get to it when I'm off, for now here is another shining beacon of capitalism. Doin' it right boys. Roo Raa Sis Boom Baa

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/mcfail-mcdonalds-debt-advice-employees-return-purchases-skip-takeout-2D11638179

suggest workers visit thrift stores instead of the mall, use stale bread and bruised apples rather than throwing them out, and “quit complaining” as a way to reduce stress.

I agree people in general should be more thrifty, but this just goes to show how out of touch those against raising the minimum wage are.

Anthony Carnevale, director of the Center on Education and the Workforce at Georgetown University,

“What we have here is one more situation where workers are fairly powerless,” he said. “It raises issues about living wage and minimum wage.”