In the interest of...

[Guest]

not hijacking the movie thread anymore, let's continue here.

 

We knew you were a libertarian. Because you haven't put forward any actual thesis or argument of your own, just a bunch of rhetorical questions followed up by the assertion that it is everyone else who doesn't understand capitalism. That's Internet Libertarianism 101.

 

There is no such thing as a 'free market' in the magical Libertarian sense as there is always Government regulation of some sort. Essentially so that the capitalist machine doesn't cannibalise itself and because economics as a theory do not take into account the people involved except in terms of their transactions and consumption levels.

 

Additionally, anyone who says their 'belief' is 'superior' is a fucking idiot. In the words of the prophet, "Your beliefs, they're just that. They're nothing. They're how you were taught and raised. That doesn't make them real".

 

I am interested how in your utopia, which has no quantitative easing, stimulus packages or other incentives to incite investment, spending and build consumer trust, your economy would survive in any way shape or form after the free market allowed tens of millions of people to become unemployed when their giant parent company's collapsed and the bottom fell out of the housing market, allowing that 0.1% of the population who are massively wealthy to buy up all the property for a bargain price as well as all means of production.

 

These masses of people, with no food, money or home would do what exactly? Keeping in mind the aim of society is not to allow the smallest group of people to obtain the greatest material wealth but to allow for a certain stability and safety in numbers through people who exist in concordat within a range of acceptable behaviours and rights.

 

OK, first of all you have not established any legitimate arguments in your multiple paragraphs libertarian-bashing.

 

First of all, do you have any valid answers to my questions? And instead of just poisoning the well and saying that I like to say "everyone else who doesn't understand capitalism," why don't you prove me wrong and explain what capitalism is?

 

Next, I never said my belief was superior. I was just asking Erick if he was actually going admit that I MIGHT (keyword MIGHT) understand the topic at hand more than him. And the key point of Libertarianism is NOT forcing your beliefs on others and you are insinuating that I want to force my beliefs of NOT using force on others. And I was raised by neoconservative parents and taught neoconservative ideals. Through research and reason, my views have changed, so my beliefs do not reflect how I was raised. I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, I won't force my beliefs on you as long as you agree not to force your beliefs on me.

 

The rest of your comment is just a huge appeal to consequences that would never happen in a free market. Don't forget, Peter Schiff predicted the collapse of the housing market. What was the collapse due to? Was it due to unregulated free markets? No! It was uber-low interest rates established by the Federal Reserve, and Ben Bernanke praised the housing market right up until the moment it crashed.

[Erik]

Ever heard of quantitative easing? Or the Fed spending virtually endless amounts of money? Or stimulus? Yeah it's happening in America.

 

Even if we neglect the fact that from 2000-2007 American economic policy (you know, the policies that caused the crash) were as far from Keynesian as you could get (in many cases quite literally the reverse of Keynesian policy), if you think current American economic policy is Keynesian you need your head examined (a weak stimulus that would be lucky to offset the cuts in state level spending and the fed printing money does not Keynesian Policy make).

 

 

How is having good credit a bad thing? Keynes's ideas are incompatible with the free market.

 

The first part of this is bogus and displays a non-existent understanding of both Keynesian ideas and history, the second part is true to an extent; but by that token you have to accept that a fully free market will happily implode (with fairly significant human cost) on a fairly regular basis.

[Guest]

Even if we neglect the fact that from 2000-2007 American economic policy (you know, the policies that caused the crash) were as far from Keynesian as you could get (in many cases quite literally the reverse of Keynesian policy), if you think current American economic policy is Keynesian you need your head examined (a weak stimulus that would be lucky to offset the cuts in state level spending and the fed printing money does not Keynesian Policy make).

 

 

 

 

The first part of this is bogus and displays a non-existent understanding of both Keynesian ideas and history, the second part is true to an extent; but by that token you have to accept that a fully free market will happily implode (with fairly significant human cost) on a fairly regular basis.

 

Erick, please give me a link to explain. Have you ever heard of Ben Bernanke? The Federal Reserve is pretty much in charge of U.S. monetary policy Ben Bernanke is a huge Keynesian and he has been the Chairman of the federal reserve. He kept interest rates at rock bottom to maintain aggregate demand in the housing market. Then it crashed.

 

I am interested in how you say that Keynesian theory has not affected U.S. monetary policy.

 

Also, you said yourself that high credit and high buying power was an issue of free-market capitalism. Apparently that's your understanding of Keynesian economics.

[Guest]

accidental double post

[Guest]

Erick, please give me a link to explain. Have you ever heard of Ben Bernanke? The Federal Reserve is pretty much in charge of U.S. monetary policy Ben Bernanke is a huge Keynesian and he has been the Chairman of the federal reserve. He kept interest rates at rock bottom to maintain aggregate demand in the housing market. Then it crashed.

 

I am interested in how you say that Keynesian theory has not affected U.S. monetary policy.

 

Also, you said yourself that high credit and high buying power was an issue of free-market capitalism. Apparently that's your understanding of Keynesian economics.

 

I think you're confusing economic theory with freedom, peace and tolerance I thought we finished Internet Libertarianism 101 already?

 

I am unsure why you would expect The Federal Reserve to NOT be in charge of fiscal policy... either way, the housing bubble has little to no relation to Keynesian or any other economic theory in action.

 

A lack of Federal Reserve regulation, which is what you "Libertarians" are all about, resulted in a financial sector which ignored all best practice in their pursuit of greed and as such common sense in terms of employment and credit histories, credit ratings, income, down payments, etc and so forth were forgotten.

 

If you loan money to someone with no ability to pay it back, you're a fool to be surprised when they can't pay it back... This is common sense, not some deeply philosophical insight into the intertwined nature of micro and macro economics.

 

I am interested in how you say that Keynesian theory has not affected U.S. monetary policy.

 

Also, you said yourself that high credit and high buying power was an issue of free-market capitalism. Apparently that's your understanding of Keynesian economics.

 

I am also interested in how he said that Keynesian theory has not effected U.S. monetary policy. As he hasn't.

 

Keynesian economics is not currently being practised in the United States, nor has it been even close to the case at any point in at least the last 12-15 years, arguably it was never practised except during FDRs third term -- you could make an argument it was somewhat inadvertently practised during the Clinton years, as well as some other times.

 

However, with regard to the latter part of your comment, Keynes ideas with regard to counter cyclical spending were intended to limit economic over stimulation (and thus avoid the excessive supply of credit that comes with it).

 

You're the dude who took me saying Zombieland was a documentary seriosuly, so I am not too sure what to expect here... but taking elements of Keynesian theory and applying it, doesn't mean that the country runs of Keynesian economics.

 

OK, first of all you have not established any legitimate arguments in your multiple paragraphs libertarian-bashing.

 

I did, they were just not about economics. They're in that very post you quoted, let me enumerate them for you:

1. People who claim superiority of belief are fucking idiots, as beliefs are exactly that, what you believe. They are neither objective nor qualitative.
   
2. There is no such thing as a 'free market'. This is a theoretical model and it always shall be. The reasons why are many, but they come down to the psychology of people. There is and always will be some regulation, whether it comes from a Government empowered financial body of a group of pissed off people with with guns.
   
3. Stimulus/intervention has been proven to inspire trust in a market which promotes spending. Spending promotes production, the basis of all economy.
   

First of all, do you have any valid answers to my questions? And instead of just poisoning the well and saying that I like to say "everyone else who doesn't understand capitalism," why don't you prove me wrong and explain what capitalism is?

 

See above for answers to your questions. Free free to ask any other which aren't rhetorical once more.

 

Capitalism, as an economic system, is a system which allows the private ownership of goods and the means of production and allows freedom in deciding what to buy, what to produce, the means of doing so and what prices to set. However, no one is running a purely Capitalist economy, the U.S.A. for example is a mixed economy just like Australia, England and all of the other cool kids, whether this is due to strategic interests, a need for social stability, cultural sensibilities which do not equate profit maximisation with idealism, or other reasons.

 

 

Next, I never said my belief was superior. I was just asking Erick if he was actually going admit that I MIGHT (keyword MIGHT) understand the topic at hand more than him.

Erick, so you aren't even possibly considering that I might have a superior belief to your's?

 

You may be able to see where the confusion on this point arises?

 

And the key point of Libertarianism is NOT forcing your beliefs on others and you are insinuating that I want to force my beliefs of NOT using force on others. And I was raised by neoconservative parents and taught neoconservative ideals. Through research and reason, my views have changed, so my beliefs do not reflect how I was raised. I believe what I believe, you believe what you believe, I won't force my beliefs on you as long as you agree not to force your beliefs on me.

 

The rest of your comment is just a huge appeal to consequences that would never happen in a free market. Don't forget, Peter Schiff predicted the collapse of the housing market. What was the collapse due to? Was it due to unregulated free markets? No! It was uber-low interest rates established by the Federal Reserve, and Ben Bernanke praised the housing market right up until the moment it crashed.

 

At the risk of sounding arrogant(er), I seek no approval from you or anyone else on my beliefs and as such do not put them forward. You're welcome to believe whatever you like just as anyone else is welcome to poke fun at, or debate, those beliefs if they wish. I am not sure what saying you were raised Neo-Con but you've changed to Libertarian is meant to prove/disprove... as far as I can tell the only fundamental difference between the two is that the latter leaves out the God part of the "fuck everyone else, I got mine" mentality?

 

As detailed above, Erik's comments suggest that low interest rates at the peak of a business cycle (obviously you don't know its a peak until after, but it was a very healthy period of growth notwithstanding) is against Keynesian theory of countercyclical fiscal policy as it follows fiscal policy being used to actuate production. This shows that Keynesian theory wasn't in use/applicable to this scenario. Additionally, as detailed, it was poor financial institution lending policy, along with an absolute lack of regulation from people who knew better. It seems to me that greed, inertia and conflicts of interest are the main culprits here.

[Erik]

Erick, please give me a link to explain. Have you ever heard of Ben Bernanke? The Federal Reserve is pretty much in charge of U.S. monetary policy Ben Bernanke is a huge Keynesian and he has been the Chairman of the federal reserve. He kept interest rates at rock bottom to maintain aggregate demand in the housing market. Then it crashed.

 

Ignoring for a moment that the housing bubble was built up during the term of Alan Greenspan (who was, and presumably remains, most assuredly not a Keynesian), and that fiscal policies during that time were also vastly out of alignment with Keynesian theory.

 

Bernanke is more parts Monetarist (which largely comes from Freidman and Schwartz) than Keynesian, regardless of what you may be reading in the newspaper.

 

 

I am interested in how you say that Keynesian theory has not affected U.S. monetary policy.

 

Affected? maybe. Actually in action in the intended manner? absolutely not.

 

 

Also, you said yourself that high credit and high buying power was an issue of free-market capitalism. Apparently that's your understanding of Keynesian economics.

 

Not so much high credit as excessive and overly optimistic credit, translating into unsustainable buying power.

[Guest]

OK, if we're actually going to have some sort of intellectual conversation, y'all are going to have to have to stop bombarding me with essays and start speaking in simpler terms.

 

And BTW, all of the mixed economies in the world are seriously about to crash hard.

[Guest]

You're about 6 years behind the times mate.

[Guest]

FREE THE HIPPIES

[Guest]

OK, your whole argument is just a complete fallacy that proves to me you have absolutely no understanding of capitalism or Rand.

 

So what you're saying is that "capitalism" (in this case I'm talking about the kind of laissez-faire free market economy Rand advocated, I am aware that almost every state on Earth has, to a degree, a capitalist system) isn't based on selfishness and that one person's success in those settings isn't tied to another human being's misfortune. Right.

 

And for someone claiming that nobody else has any understanding of capitalism, you sure seem to fall back on the "peace, love and tolerance" argument a lot.

 

And are you saying that it is better to kill an unborn baby instead of a hobo? Why not: don't kill the hobo or baby?

 

So either you're anti-abortion or pro-murder, then. The abortion debate has been done do death, but terminating the pregnancy before the second trimester (which is how most legal abortions happen, barring the mother's life being in danger) isn't even remotely comparable to murdering a living human being. If you consider removing an embryo murder, I assume you also think any kind of sex that won't cause conception is murder as well. Holy shit she swallows, call the cops.

 

Once again, you are proving to me you have absolutely no understanding of capitalism. I'm not an objectivist BTW, your assumptions are actually quite funny. I am a libertarian.

Once again, you appear to have no understanding of capitalism. In the interest of not further hijacking this thread, why don't we start another thread on what capitalism is? It really is quite simple.

 

Libertarians are big dumb dumbs.

 

It might be quite simple, but yet you kept the argument going in the other thread AFTER making this one.

 

OK, if we're actually going to have some sort of intellectual conversation, y'all are going to have to have to stop bombarding me with essays and start speaking in simpler terms.

 

And BTW, all of the mixed economies in the world are seriously about to crash hard.

 

Are you 5 years old?

 

And nope.

[Guest]

 

 

So what you're saying is that "capitalism" (in this case I'm talking about the kind of laissez-faire free market economy Rand advocated, I am aware that almost every state on Earth has, to a degree, a capitalist system) isn't based on selfishness and that one person's success in those settings isn't tied to another human being's misfortune. Right.

 

And for someone claiming that nobody else has any understanding of capitalism, you sure seem to fall back on the "peace, love and tolerance" argument a lot.

 

 

 

So either you're anti-abortion or pro-murder, then. The abortion debate has been done do death, but terminating the pregnancy before the second trimester (which is how most legal abortions happen, barring the mother's life being in danger) isn't even remotely comparable to murdering a living human being. If you consider removing an embryo murder, I assume you also think any kind of sex that won't cause conception is murder as well. Holy shit she swallows, call the cops.

 

 

 

Libertarians are big dumb dumbs.

 

It might be quite simple, but yet you kept the argument going in the other thread AFTER making this one.

 

 

 

Are you 5 years old?

 

And nope.

 

I'm only going to answer the first question, because the rest is basically name-calling and presents the intelligence of a child who doesn't get what he wants.

 

Selfishness and greed is inevitable. Saying capitalism is based on selfishness is like saying physics is based on gravity, it's just true. If you think that there is sysem that can change the fact that people want things for themselves, you really need to just stop debating.

And capitalism is a system of voluntary exchanges. If you actually believe that capitalism means one person getting rich at someone else's expense, you seriously have no perception of reality.

 

Only the most delusional of people could possibly believe that Bill Gates and Steve Jobs became wealthy at other people's expense. If you think this is true, take your computer and/or phone back to the store and demand your money back... if you decide not to return your computer and/or phone, you obviously find it more beneficial to pay for those devices than to keep your money. Already invalidating the belief that one person's success means another man's failure, but I'll continue to further debunk this belief. Assume Wal-Mart failed early on. That would mean that millions of Americans would have to find employment elsewhere, which would then hurt other people due to the increased job competition.

 

Therefore, one man's success benefit's society as a whole.

[Guest]

Capitalism is only a system of voluntary exchanges when each person has the ability to determine what they produce, how and when.

 

No one is working for the man 9-5 because they want to. The nature of capitalism is that it ravenously consumes and concentrates capital in a smaller and smaller minority of the population as time goes on. Add to this the nature of credit and a Government (which I assume each member of this forum has) that can mandate the selling or handing over of land or resources as it requires ("compensated" or no) then the voluntary aspect gets taken out of your hands.

 

Even if we take it to the extreme and assume that this is the price you pay for the commodities we have learned to depend on (which it likely is!) there is still no escape. You can not just determine you're going to be self sufficient because this takes an incredible amount of capital to make happen and in most cases you're still reliant on the exchange of goods/service to make this transition in the first place. Lock-in effect in action!

 

Of course Bill Gates and Steve Jobs became wealthy at other people's expense. This is a basic tenet of capitalism. They provided some sort of capital, be it wealth, unique knowledge, etc, and in turn created a product people wanted. Capitalism, by its nature, involves taking a certain % of profit and re-investing it as capital, which in turn grows the profit, which in turn adds to the reinvestment, which in turn grows the profit, etc. However there is more to this growth than just monetary capital and plant, property and equipment. Human capital is required to make things happen. The ideas and energy of employees like myself (and probably yourself).

 

Given the nature of market, they will pay me less than I am worth otherwise they would not make a profit and I will not work for less than I require to pay my bills, eat, etc, however I WILL work as I have no choice due to the aforementioned societal lock-in. The argument is not one of whether or not wealth comes at other people's expense, it is a question of how high is that expense.

 

I feel that life is always a win-lose sum to a certain degree, call it karma or yin-yang or whatever you like, but objectively shit happens both good and bad. The difference is that a large amount of braking has been put onto the bad shit and potential for major exploitation (of white people in white people's countries at least) due to Government regulation. Unfettered capitalism would see no controls and a far larger rich-poor divide and social unrest very quickly. People that talk about the 'good old days' of US capitalism forget that the majority of their workforce worked for free as slaves in an example of the exploitation I have mentioned. Marx wrote about similar conditions in England, Germany, Belgium and other parts of Continental Europe.

 

Greed and selfishness is inevitable, giving in to it and letting it run rampart is not a logical progression from this. Death is inevitable but I don't chain smoke cigarettes while I train surf.

[Guest]

KRad is obviously much better at this than I am, so I'll bow out here.

 

I do find it kind of amusing that you whine about "name calling" in the same sentence you tell me I have "the intelligence of a child", and right before launching into a long tirade about me being delusional, though.

[Guest]

Capitalism is only a system of voluntary exchanges when each person has the ability to determine what they produce, how and when.

 

No one is working for the man 9-5 because they want to. The nature of capitalism is that it ravenously consumes and concentrates capital in a smaller and smaller minority of the population as time goes on. Add to this the nature of credit and a Government (which I assume each member of this forum has) that can mandate the selling or handing over of land or resources as it requires ("compensated" or no) then the voluntary aspect gets taken out of your hands.

 

Even if we take it to the extreme and assume that this is the price you pay for the commodities we have learned to depend on (which it likely is!) there is still no escape. You can not just determine you're going to be self sufficient because this takes an incredible amount of capital to make happen and in most cases you're still reliant on the exchange of goods/service to make this transition in the first place. Lock-in effect in action!

 

Of course Bill Gates and Steve Jobs became wealthy at other people's expense. This is a basic tenet of capitalism. They provided some sort of capital, be it wealth, unique knowledge, etc, and in turn created a product people wanted. Capitalism, by its nature, involves taking a certain % of profit and re-investing it as capital, which in turn grows the profit, which in turn adds to the reinvestment, which in turn grows the profit, etc. However there is more to this growth than just monetary capital and plant, property and equipment. Human capital is required to make things happen. The ideas and energy of employees like myself (and probably yourself).

 

Given the nature of market, they will pay me less than I am worth otherwise they would not make a profit and I will not work for less than I require to pay my bills, eat, etc, however I WILL work as I have no choice due to the aforementioned societal lock-in. The argument is not one of whether or not wealth comes at other people's expense, it is a question of how high is that expense.

 

I feel that life is always a win-lose sum to a certain degree, call it karma or yin-yang or whatever you like, but objectively shit happens both good and bad. The difference is that a large amount of braking has been put onto the bad shit and potential for major exploitation (of white people in white people's countries at least) due to Government regulation. Unfettered capitalism would see no controls and a far larger rich-poor divide and social unrest very quickly. People that talk about the 'good old days' of US capitalism forget that the majority of their workforce worked for free as slaves in an example of the exploitation I have mentioned. Marx wrote about similar conditions in England, Germany, Belgium and other parts of Continental Europe.

 

Greed and selfishness is inevitable, giving in to it and letting it run rampart is not a logical progression from this. Death is inevitable but I don't chain smoke cigarettes while I train surf.

 

I'll start with your slave comment. That is completely ignorant to the fact that the North was by far the productive powerhouse of the United States when slavery was illegal. And America was by far the most productive country in the early 20th century. I would prefer not get into the varying beliefs of what caused the Great Depression, but America never returned to the same production,

 

You are incredibly ignorant to reality if you believe that one person's success comes at another person's expense.

Value IS NOT created by labor or worth, that is a Marxist idea (not saying you are, but it is). It is created by how much someone is willing to give up for something. If I can create $25 a day for a company, they cannot pay me $25, if they had to pay me the amount that I netted in for them, they would have no reason to hire me, so then I would have nothing.

And by your logic, we would better off without Windows, without Apple, without cell phones, etc. because they succeeded at our expense. Capitalism is not a zero sum game, government interference and regulation is.

 

And your ending analogy is wildly inaccurate. I can prolong my life, I can do things to keep me healthier, but I cannot convince you to NOT have self-interest. If you suddenly removed self-interest, nobody would have any incentive to work. Forcing people to not be self-interested is like trying to force a fish to swim up a waterfall.

 

And your first statement is actually pro-capitalism, if companies and employers were freed of government regulation, they would have more freedom produce, more freedom and incentives to hire, and you could more easily choose what career path you wanted. And yes, in capitalism, you aren't exactly free to do nothing, but that is the incentive for people to work and contribute to society. In our current system, many people can maintain a decent standard of living just off of welfare, without contributing any.

 

So in conclusion, capitalism encourages both freedom and responsibility. There is no set amount of wealth, there is no concentration of wealth that is held at the expense of others, and one person's success is beneficial to all of us. Case closed.

[Erik]

OK, if we're actually going to have some sort of intellectual conversation, y'all are going to have to have to stop bombarding me with essays and start speaking in simpler terms.

 

If you cannot understand what is being said, perhaps you should educate yourself so you can engage correctly in the "intellectual conversation" you desire.

[Guest]

 

 

If you cannot understand what is being said, perhaps you should educate yourself so you can engage correctly in the "intellectual conversation" you desire.

 

Or perhaps you need to break it down to less obscure terms. You can claim pretty much whatever you like if you coat it with pragraphs of incomprehendable rhetoric. I don't need to further "educate" myself in your abject macroeconomic nonsense. Just beacause you're educated in something doesn't mean you're right.

 

This is yet another fallacy known as appeal to academia.

 

Ever heard the saying "an idea so stupid it could only come from higher education.

[Guest]

I'll start with your slave comment. That is completely ignorant to the fact that the North was by far the productive powerhouse of the United States when slavery was illegal.

 

The slavery comment was an aside, but to put it into perspective. Slavery was not illegal across the North until around 1840. Slavery was not illegal acorss the South until 1865.

 

And America was by far the most productive country in the early 20th century. I would prefer not get into the varying beliefs of what caused the Great Depression, but America never returned to the same production,

 

Throughout the 1800s, this is because the USA had little infrastructure and so forth compared to the rest of the world which had already been developed. It exploited slave labour initially then migrant workers with no alternative, this continued into the early 1900s. It is no coincidence that the first US labour movement began within 4 years of slavery being abolished, or that production (being the making of stuff) dropped once the majority of big stuff was made.

 

The USA was perceived as a land of opportunity (which is definitely can be!) but the reality was that not everyone can be a millionaire because then obviously a million dollars become an insignificant sum of money. Poor conditions drive these workers to band together, revolt, get into politics and otherwise generally get pissed off and put regulations and standards in place to give themselves some rights and acceptable working conditions. No democratic/constitutional Government, ANYWHERE, has ever existed except through the will of its people. It is a response to particular perceived requirements by a majority of people. Your argument puts it forward that everything was great and for no reason this Government magically appeared just to fuck it up for everyone through regulation and legislation.

 

In wartime, the USA was neutral for almost the entirety. Everyone else in the world stopped making shit that wasn't related to waging war and as such the USA filled that gap, unsurprisingly (a trend which continued into WW2 and all the way into Iraq and the Taliban) selling weapons and consumer commodities to both sides. In fact, it was the UK cracking the shits and pressuring the USA to stop selling weapons to the Germans which caused the Hun to get pissed at the USA and go for a German-Mexican alliance, which obviously the USA doesn't dig as half of Mexico is currently Southern US states.

 

You are incredibly ignorant to reality if you believe that one person's success comes at another person's expense.

Value IS NOT created by labor or worth, that is a Marxist idea (not saying you are, but it is). It is created by how much someone is willing to give up for something. If I can create $25 a day for a company, they cannot pay me $25, if they had to pay me the amount that I netted in for them, they would have no reason to hire me, so then I would have nothing.

And by your logic, we would better off without Windows, without Apple, without cell phones, etc. because they succeeded at our expense. Capitalism is not a zero sum game, government interference and regulation is.

 

Could you please clarify how Government regulation/interference is a zero sum game?

 

I don't need to start every rebuttal with calling the other side ignorant, I just present the facts as they exist and clarify when it is my opinion on the topic. If your argument (and opinion) is so weak that you need to go ad hominem then I'll stop putting your toys back in the pram

 

I never said we would be better off without something because it exists at your expense, because I am not 3 years old, I am well aware the world isn't black and white and the majority of the human condition is spent looking at shades of gray. I have said that it just IS, not whether it is good or bad, and I have highlighted the reasoning behind it and the difficulty in escaping it.

 

Your $25 example is exactly what I already said, adding a bold text conclusion which doesn't follow from the original example doesn't strengthen your argument. They will not pay you what you're worth but you MUST work to survive. Societal lock-in. You have the option to try to start your own business, but that involves the capital to get hold of the means of production or its equivalent. Then of course, the incumbent competitors to your new business can just sit down together and agree to work together to keep you out of the market. Oh that's right, that's illegal. The "Big Competitor has All" vs. "Emerging competitor has Nothing" zero sum is avoided.

 

Capitalism, by its nature, works towards a monopoly market. Competition is good for the consumer and this is why regulation exists (apart from safety aspects ensuring there's no lead paint in those toy soldiers you put in your mouth as a kid).

 

And your ending analogy is wildly inaccurate. I can prolong my life, I can do things to keep me healthier, but I cannot convince you to NOT have self-interest. If you suddenly removed self-interest, nobody would have any incentive to work. Forcing people to not be self-interested is like trying to force a fish to swim up a waterfall.

 

No argument here, all I am saying is that what the actual incentive is has changed and there's very little wiggle room for difference in incentive now. It basically consists of "work 9 hours a day 5 days a week so one day I can have enough money to not do this for a few years before I die". Again, it's an example based on observation (obviously people work different hours) not a judgement.

 

And your first statement is actually pro-capitalism, if companies and employers were freed of government regulation, they would have more freedom produce, more freedom and incentives to hire, and you could more easily choose what career path you wanted. And yes, in capitalism, you aren't exactly free to do nothing, but that is the incentive for people to work and contribute to society. In our current system, many people can maintain a decent standard of living just off of welfare, without contributing any.

 

So in conclusion, capitalism encourages both freedom and responsibility. There is no set amount of wealth, there is no concentration of wealth that is held at the expense of others, and one person's success is beneficial to all of us. Case closed.

 

Again, your conclusion doesn't follow from your premise.

 

I am pro-capitalist, I enjoy my standard of living and I believe that innovation, creativity and opportunity flow from a healthy level of competition. The key word here being healthy. Capitalism left unchecked means that whoever has the most capital today is able to continue to expand it, crush any emerging competition through their financial strength and leverage over suppliers, distributors, etc (and suppliers, distributors, etc, are doing the same thing to their competition) until you have nothing but monopoly left.

 

Then there is no longer competition and no option in terms of prices, career and/or study opportunities, product/service range and quality and so forth. It would be foolishly naive to think we would end up with a benevolent monopoly in the same way it is foolish to think a nation would end up with a benevolent dictator.

 

Finally, and I mean this without insult or disrespect, discussion on topics which influence, and are influenced by, every single facet of existence (each person, each company, the weather, state to state culture and buying patterns, geopolitical relationships and wars, the environment, international trade treaties and organisations, changing perspectives on quality requirements, fashion, etc) are highly intellectual. This doesn't mean you need to be a dictionary to partake in them but there is an entire lexicon of terminology which is invented purely to apply to these topics by dudes like Smith, Marx, Keynes, etc and which has nothing to do with Higher Education/Academia.

 

I feel that I put across my arguments fairly clearly and logically, whether they're correct (and whether in a lot of cases there is one "correct" answer) is another story, but in the same way I can understand how a house is built, if I am going to discuss the details of it I would be expected to know the names of the various tools and the terminology involved or at the very least to be able to clearly describe my intent if I don't know. It is not that carpenters, tilers, bricklayers, concreters, electricians and master builders are 'so stupid they come from Higher Education', it is because they are knowledge in a specific field and have created a language to allow them to communicate effectively about this field.

[Erik]

Or perhaps you need to break it down to less obscure terms. You can claim pretty much whatever you like if you coat it with pragraphs of incomprehendable rhetoric. I don't need to further "educate" myself in your abject macroeconomic nonsense. Just beacause you're educated in something doesn't mean you're right.

 

Nothing I said was incomprehensible to anyone not suffering from a chronic case of "head lodged in arse". Also you don't get to call something you know absolutely nothing about "nonsense", that would be like a lifelong Vegan claiming steak tastes bad.

 

 

This is yet another fallacy known as appeal to academia.

 

An appeal to academia would be "I HAVE DEGREE YOU DON'T THEREFORE YOU ARE WRONG", nothing of that nature was said, however trying to discuss a serious topic in more than platitudes requires us to learn the necessary language.

 

 

Ever heard the saying "an idea so stupid it could only come from higher education.

 

Yeah, and 99 times out of 100 it's said by people for whom the point of a study flew right the fuck over their heads.

[Manfred]

All this talk of the economic collapse and no one mentions Glass-Steagal? It's only what kept banking in check for nearly 70 years after the Great Depression and was repealed by Bill Clinton.

 

The removal of the wall between investment and commercial banking caused the housing crash more than any single other factor.

[Erik]

All this talk of the economic collapse and no one mentions Glass-Steagal? It's only what kept banking in check for nearly 70 years after the Great Depression and was repealed by Bill Clinton.

 

The removal of the wall between investment and commercial banking caused the housing crash more than any single other factor.

 

While true, there have been quite significant housing bubbles prior to the repeal. Clinton really did sign on to a lot of utter shit in 1998/1999 though.

[Guest]

I feel like most of the arguments on here (admittedly including my own) have been mostly falacious so I think it 's best that we drop it at least for now. In regards to your comment about studies going over people's heads, though, I do want to point out that there are many studies out there that are just simply wrong, so if you understand that something is inherently incorret, than you don't have to "get" the rest of it to know that it's wrong.

 

Take slavery for example. Assume that slavery was legal today and there were college classes about "The Ethics of Slavery" which taught the proper care, protection, and customs for owning slaves. You could fully understand the philosophy of the class, but you would slll be wrong because slavery is inherently unethical, therfore any class that taught the theory of the ethical treatment of slaves would be wrong because it had the premise that slavery could be ethical. This sounds bad and unrealistic today, but these beliefs were normal at one tiime in history.

 

This isn't debatable, this is basic logical reality that some studies are bulls*** and therefore someone who understands it on the smll scale is more correct than the person who studies it on the large scale.

[Guest]

If something is inherently incorrect it should be that much easier to demonstrate why it is and thus inform others of this.

 

Again, your saying something isn't debatable doesn't make it so. The rest of that sentence... I am not sure what it means.

 

Arguing about ethics in general, and especially about anything inherent within them, puts us firmly into philosophical territory. I subscribe to Nietzsche's perspective that there is no such thing as inherently good/evil, it is subjective and changes with time based on the lens it is being viewed through and is subject to the result of the action (the last bit throws in some Machiavelli for good measure).

 

You might say, "killing another person for no reason is inherently bad". I'd agree with you because that is how I was raised and taught and it is the acceptable social condition at this point at time. Outside of these reasons though, I'd ask you, "why is it?".

[Guest]

If something is inherently incorrect it should be that much easier to demonstrate why it is and thus inform others of this.

 

Again, your saying something isn't debatable doesn't make it so. The rest of that sentence... I am not sure what it means.

 

Arguing about ethics in general, and especially about anything inherent within them, puts us firmly into philosophical territory. I subscribe to Nietzsche's perspective that there is no such thing as inherently good/evil, it is subjective and changes with time based on the lens it is being viewed through and is subject to the result of the action (the last bit throws in some Machiavelli for good measure).

 

You might say, "killing another person for no reason is inherently bad". I'd agree with you because that is how I was raised and taught and it is the acceptable social condition at this point at time. Outside of these reasons though, I'd ask you, "why is it?".

 

In a way you're kind of agreeing with me

Nietzche's ideas are inherently flawed. Nietzche's belief that good/evil is subjective is somewhat right, but that only reinforces Lockean philosophy. If different people have different views on good/evil than we cannot possibly force others to conform to our beliefs. For that reason, as soon as your perspective of good/evil affects others against their will (be it theft, murder, rape, etc.) it becomes evil and/or immoral.

 

For that reason moral relitivism and Nietchean phiolosophy is dangerous and, dare I say it, could only be held by people with higher education

[Guest]

Everything in Nietzschean philosophy boils down to the dominant "will to power" in that particular era. This also applies for ethics. This doesn't mean that all ideas are equal, though! Nietzsche himself lashed out against Christianity (in particular) because he found the subjugation and supression of people inherent in that and the other Abrahamic, monotheistic religions to be damaging and restricting to the way a person lives his or her life. I'm sorry if this is poorly worded, I've only ever learned (and read) about this in Norwegian.

[Guest]

I don't really see how Nietzsche reinforces Locke?

 

Locke was about equality of man and their natural state of freedom whereas Nietzsche was saying this natural state of complacency and mediocrity was something to strive against. Nietzsche was never about good/evil being about YOUR perspective but that of the society you exist in at large.