A Closer Look at Capitalism.

[Montgomery]

In a true capitalist system there is no need for minimum wage laws. True capitalism has to allow collective bargaining with teeth and that calls for unions with teeth. No honest capitalist would dispute that so it just boils down the the question of which side has the biggest teeth, the employer or the employed. Sometimes that ideal balance can be found but it's never been able to be maintained indefinitely.

And so strong policies of 'social' responsibility by government has to be brought in to interfere with the working of capitalism. That makes the first priority of the governing body the social welfare of the people governed and it's second priority, a good working capitalist system the enriches the country and floats all of the people's boats.

I suspect that China may have found such a system because it answers to both necessities.

However, human greed has the power to pervert even the best of systems of governing and so China's system could fail sometime in the future. For now, it's capitalism is working extremely well to serve the first necessity and it's elevated hundreds of millions of their people up out of poverty.

Will it continue to do so? We can look at Xi and see a very compassionate and super intelligent individual.

Judging their system should be done objectively and that leaves no room for wishful thinking that's based on China being America's biggest competitor.

And of course militarily thinking, the world has M.A.D. and that means that China will have the opportunity to prove it's system, or fail.

------------------------------------------------------------

There is much more to be said about capitalism than what I've said here, that's mostly concerned with China's system of capitalism within a communist system. Hopefully the topic can be discussed calmly and without excess emotion being demonstrated against China.

 

[psikeyhackr]

Notice that neither the Left nor the Right advocate mandatory accounting in the schools.

But Adam Smith wrote about education

"the most essential parts of education, however, to Read, Write, and ACCOUNT, can be acquired at so early a period of life..."

Adam Smith on educating the working classes

www.victorianweb.org

Double entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago. When Smith wrote Wealth of Nations 50% of Brits were illiterate. High school education wasn't expected for everyone in the US until after WWII. We could have had mandatory accounting in high schools since Sputnik. Instead we have 4 years of English literature.

We aren't even told what Adam Smith said about education.

 

[psikeyhackr]

I didn't notice Montgomery was banned.

 

[Ringo Stalin]

"...
the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man’s own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.

Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.

Or do you mean the modern bourgeois private property?

But does wage-labour create any property for the labourer? Not a bit. It creates capital, i.e., that kind of property which exploits wage-labour, and which cannot increase except upon condition of begetting a new supply of wage-labour for fresh exploitation. Property, in its present form, is based on the antagonism of capital and wage labour. Let us examine both sides of this antagonism.

To be a capitalist, is to have not only a purely personal, but a social status in production. Capital is a collective product, and only by the united action of many members, nay, in the last resort, only by the united action of all members of society, can it be set in motion.

Capital is therefore not only personal; it is a social power.

When, therefore, capital is converted into common property, into the property of all members of society, personal property is not thereby transformed into social property. It is only the social character of the property that is changed. It loses its class character.

Let us now take wage-labour.

The average price of wage-labour is the minimum wage, i.e., that quantum of the means of subsistence which is absolutely requisite to keep the labourer in bare existence as a labourer. What, therefore, the wage-labourer appropriates by means of his labour, merely suffices to prolong and reproduce a bare existence. We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.

In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.

In bourgeois society, therefore, the past dominates the present; in Communist society, the present dominates the past. In bourgeois society capital is independent and has individuality, while the living person is dependent and has no individuality.

And the abolition of this state of things is called by the bourgeois, abolition of individuality and freedom! And rightly so. The abolition of bourgeois individuality, bourgeois independence, and bourgeois freedom is undoubtedly aimed at.

By freedom is meant, under the present bourgeois conditions of production, free trade, free selling and buying.

But if selling and buying disappears, free selling and buying disappears also. This talk about free selling and buying, and all the other “brave words” of our bourgeois about freedom in general, have a meaning, if any, only in contrast with restricted selling and buying, with the fettered traders of the Middle Ages, but have no meaning when opposed to the Communistic abolition of buying and selling, of the bourgeois conditions of production, and of the bourgeoisie itself.

You are horrified at our intending to do away with private property. But in your existing society, private property is already done away with for nine-tenths of the population; its existence for the few is solely due to its non-existence in the hands of those nine-tenths. You reproach us, therefore, with intending to do away with a form of property, the necessary condition for whose existence is the non-existence of any property for the immense majority of society.

In one word, you reproach us with intending to do away with your property. Precisely so; that is just what we intend."

Manifesto of the Communist Party: Chapter 2

 

[Ringo Stalin]

Billionaire Has a New Goal for His 17,000 Workers: Learn to Code

Less than a decade after stunning workers at his Japanese tech giant with an edict to learn English, billionaire Hiroshi Mikitani wants to do the same with computer programming.

www.bloomberg.com

And here are the first bells. "The Japanese billionaire has set a task for his 17,000 employees - everyone, including the secretaries, must be able to program."
The battle of man and machine under capitalism will be fierce. The human will inevitably lose.
And the Capital will face the question: "Why do I need so many useless people?..."
The pillar road of 21st-century capitalism is getting rid of all "unnecessary expenses", minimizing any obligations to society. Therefore, with capitalism will inevitably come:
- creation of rigid caste societies at a new technical level
- depopulation (euthanasia, the dominance of "rainbow" crowd)

 

[Ringo Stalin]

Lately, I've been thinking more and more about Marx's astounding vision. Not even so, Marx is the Newton of political economy. He has developed laws that make it possible to predict the behavior of capitalism and its actors even after 150 years. He created at a time when the world was ecstatically anticipating the fruits of "progress".
For a time, capitalism mimicked the socialist camp for the struggle with it. But today, capital is once again acquiring the familiar features of Marx's time - direct inhumanity and infernality.

 

[I'm Supposn]

In a true capitalist system there is no need for minimum wage laws. ...

Montgomery, in a true capitalist or any other type of economic systems which entail employees, there's a need for a minimum wage law, or some provision similar to, or performs the functions of minimum wage rate laws in the USA. That's why, regardless of their governments' economic policies, there exist such provisions within the economic laws and practices of all our world's major nations.

To the extent of its purchasing power and enforcement within labor markets, minimum wage rate reduces poverty among wage earners and their dependents.
They do not bolster all jobs' rates equally. Their effects upon jobs' wage rates are proportional and inversely related to the difference between the minimum and the job's wage rate.; they have greater effects upon lower, and lesser effects upon higher wage rates.
Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Lafayette]

COMPARATIVE POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLING COSTS (US AND EUROPE)

In a true capitalist system there is no need for minimum wage laws. True capitalism has to allow collective bargaining with teeth and that calls for unions with teeth. No honest capitalist would dispute that so it just boils down the the question of which side has the biggest teeth, the employer or the employed. Sometimes that ideal balance can be found but it's never been able to be maintained indefinitely.

Collective bargaining existed in the US once-upon-a-time when the US had a solid Manufacturing Industry - but all that is long gone. Manufacturing in America today creates jobs for around only 12% of the American population.

The major part of the American economy are the Services Industries, of which the cornerstone necessity (for a good job) is a Post-secondary Education. Ie, the Services-industries jobs that exist are looking for people with a higher educational-accomplishment.

And what might be the average state-schooling post-secondary cost be today? This from here: How Much Does it Cost to Study in the US?

According to College Board, published tuition fees for 2018/19 at state colleges are an average of US$10,230 for state residents, and $26,290 for everyone else. This compares to an average of $35,830 at private non-profit colleges.

Now, YOU ask yourself the question, When a family is located at or around the Poverty Threshold (of $26K a year income for a family of four), where do they find the funding to put their kids into a post-secondary degree schooling that will pull them out of poverty?

Where ... ?

PS: I live in France, and like the rest of the European Union, a post-secondary schooling cost me around $1500 (in Euros) a year to send my kids to university! That can vary a little-but-not-much from country to country.

 

[aociswundumho]

Now, YOU ask yourself the question, When a family is located at or around the Poverty Threshold (of $26K a year income for a family of four), where do they find the funding to put their kids into a post-secondary degree schooling that will pull them out of poverty?

Where ... ?

PS: I live in France, and like the rest of the European Union, a post-secondary schooling cost me around $1500 (in Euros) a year to send my kids to university! That can vary a little-but-not-much from country to country.

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

 

[Lafayette]

BLINDED EYES WITH A BLINDED BRAIN

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

No it DOESN'T because those "results" are measured in economic "degrees-of-freedom" that would scare any well-informed economist.

People like you just DON'T WANT to accept the economic factual evidence that exists since a Donky's Age, which goes like this: The US is a developed-economy with one of the most unfair distributions of income on this planet ... !

And, who is suffering most with this quirky evolution of family income growth? Most certainly NOT those in the Middle-to-Top-fifth of American families ... !

 

[Peter]

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

View attachment 67348669

Are you seriously trying to tell me you think Americas poorest people live better lives than doctors in France or the UK?
People who can barely afford rent and have zero savings in the US are better off than professionals in Europe?

Have you ever been to Europe?

 

[I'm Supposn]

Notice that neither the Left nor the Right advocate mandatory accounting in the schools.

But Adam Smith wrote about education

"the most essential parts of education, however, to Read, Write, and ACCOUNT, can be acquired at so early a period of life..."

Adam Smith on educating the working classes

www.victorianweb.org

Double entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago. When Smith wrote Wealth of Nations 50% of Brits were illiterate. High school education wasn't expected for everyone in the US until after WWII. We could have had mandatory accounting in high schools since Sputnik. Instead we have 4 years of English literature.

We aren't even told what Adam Smith said about education.

Psikeyhackr, I suppose Adam Smith was a proponent of education, but I don't recall anything within his book that so specifically mentions accounting.
I suspect you're quoting other peoples' opinions of what they believe may have been Adam Smith's thoughts.

Perhaps you can cite the chapter of his book that you're referring to? Respectfully, Supposn

 

[Lafayette]

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

Better off, you say?

Then why is my lifespan in France 3-years longer than yours in the US?!?

Because knotheads like you are NOT getting the free National Healthcare that we get throughout Europe ... !

 

[Peter]

Knotheads?

There's an insult you don't hear often.
I assume you think he has a terrible hairstyle or is a bit loopy? Maybe I'm just stupid and it's a common word.

 

[soylentgreen]

Notice that neither the Left nor the Right advocate mandatory accounting in the schools.

But Adam Smith wrote about education

"the most essential parts of education, however, to Read, Write, and ACCOUNT, can be acquired at so early a period of life..."

Adam Smith on educating the working classes

www.victorianweb.org

Double entry accounting was invented in Italy 700 years ago. When Smith wrote Wealth of Nations 50% of Brits were illiterate. High school education wasn't expected for everyone in the US until after WWII. We could have had mandatory accounting in high schools since Sputnik. Instead we have 4 years of English literature.

We aren't even told what Adam Smith said about education.

That is amusing that you think smith meant book keeping when he said account.
If you read the whole link instead of just the headlines it becomes obvious that smith was simply using an old term for the word we now use as maths. His statement these days would read that a child should learn reading, writing and mathematics. .

If, in those little schools, the books by which the children are taught to read, were a little more instructive than they commonly are; and if, instead of a little smattering in Latin, which the children of the common people are sometimes taught there, and which can scarce ever be of any use to them, they were instructed in the elementary parts of geometry and mechanics; the literary education of this rank of people would, perhaps, be as complete as can be. There is scarce a common trade, which does not afford some opportunities of applying to it the principles of geometry and mechanics, and which would not, therefore, gradually exercise and improve the common people in those principles, the necessary introduction to the most sublime, as well as to the most useful sciences.

 

[soylentgreen]

In a true capitalist system

The only person who believes in their being such a thing as true capitalism is a true scotsman.

 

[soylentgreen]

COMPARATIVE POST-SECONDARY SCHOOLING COSTS (US AND EUROPE)



Collective bargaining existed in the US once-upon-a-time when the US had a solid Manufacturing Industry - but all that is long gone. Manufacturing in America today creates jobs for around only 12% of the American population.

The major part of the American economy are the Services Industries, of which the cornerstone necessity (for a good job) is a Post-secondary Education. Ie, the Services-industries jobs that exist are looking for people with a higher educational-accomplishment.

And what might be the average state-schooling post-secondary cost be today? This from here: How Much Does it Cost to Study in the US?


Now, YOU ask yourself the question, When a family is located at or around the Poverty Threshold (of $26K a year income for a family of four), where do they find the funding to put their kids into a post-secondary degree schooling that will pull them out of poverty?

Where ... ?

PS: I live in France, and like the rest of the European Union, a post-secondary schooling cost me around $1500 (in Euros) a year to send my kids to university! That can vary a little-but-not-much from country to country.

When was this time exactly? Considering america has one of the worse records for suppression of workers rights and violence towards workers who fought for their right to fair conditions. As this link gives a good example of:
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/theminewars-labor-wars-us/

As the pace of industrialization quickened, and profits accumulated in the hands of a few, some workers began to organize and advocate for unionization. The workers wanted more safety regulations, better wages, fewer hours, and freedom of speech and assembly. But most companies vigorously opposed the union, arguing for the right to control their private property, and to conduct business without intervention. Industrialists hired guards to maintain surveillance over the workers, and they blacklisted known unionists. Learn more about events from the West Virginia Mine Wars within a national context during a period that was punctuated by violent struggle between labor and management.

And still america has a poor record of workers rights compared to many other countries.

 

[soylentgreen]

"...
the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property.

A quote from churchil. Anything that can be put into a nutshell should stay there.

 

[Lafayette]

YET AGAIN ABOUT POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION

When was this time exactly? Considering america has one of the worse records for suppression of workers rights and violence towards workers who fought for their right to fair conditions.

And still america has a poor record of workers rights compared to many other countries.

Workers rights were formulated when most worked in Manufacturing Industries, which could be dangerous places given the machinery with which so many worked.

As I never tire of saying, we are way beyond that type of work. Yes, we still manufacture some products. But, I suspect they are mostly the high-tech products the innards of which may indeed be highly sophisticated but manufactured in cheaper-cost countries. All people need do is look-after the machines because "manpower" is no longer the key element of "production".

Yes, we still manufacture four-wheeled vehicles and even if they are "high-tech" electric-cars, they are basic machines. Their electric-engines are high-tech now but that's about all. A car is a car is a car. With four wheels. And so is a truck.

The US has become very, very largely a higher-skilled country that requires both trained and educated personnel in an economy that is mostly services-oriented. We've gone to China to have products produced, even though they were designed in the US. But, of course, the Chinese are not fools - they are now doing the same. They are developing both standard and advanced products AND building them for sale to the rest of the world! And "the world" seems unable to get enough of them!

Which leaves what for America? The Services-industries provide both low and higher-cost acts/performances in many different ways. But these industries require a higher caliber of worker, one that is highly educated.

Which is why America must start providing post-secondary education at an acceptably very low cost - and not the 4-year degree that costs around $10K a year. Which is far too costly for families that are making only 25-to-50K$ a year!

And these families amount to more than a third (37%) of all workers in the US. See US income-distribution graphic here.

 

[I'm Supposn]

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

View attachment 67348669

Aociswundumho, what I read and otherwise encountered, has lead me to believe it's unpleasant to be poor in whatever is a person's nation of residence; but persons of incomes no greater than their nation's median income do better within most western European nations, rather than those in the USA.
I have no doubt a middle-income Frenchmen's living standards are superior to those of middle-income citizens in USA's Mississippi or Alabama.

Regarding the wealthy, my only concern is their ability to affect political elections. Respectfully, Supposn

 

[soylentgreen]

YET AGAIN ABOUT POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION


Workers rights were formulated when most worked in Manufacturing Industries, which could be dangerous places given the machinery with which so many worked.

As I never tire of saying, we are way beyond that type of work. Yes, we still manufacture some products. But, I suspect they are mostly the high-tech products the innards of which may indeed be highly sophisticated but manufactured in cheaper-cost countries. All people need do is look-after the machines because "manpower" is no longer the key element of "production".

Yes, we still manufacture four-wheeled vehicles and even if they are "high-tech" electric-cars, they are basic machines. Their electric-engines are high-tech now but that's about all. A car is a car is a car. With four wheels. And so is a truck.

The US has become very, very largely a higher-skilled country that requires both trained and educated personnel in an economy that is mostly services-oriented. We've gone to China to have products produced, even though they were designed in the US. But, of course, the Chinese are not fools - they are now doing the same. They are developing both standard and advanced products AND building them for sale to the rest of the world! And "the world" seems unable to get enough of them!

Which leaves what for America? The Services-industries provide both low and higher-cost acts/performances in many different ways. But these industries require a higher caliber of worker, one that is highly educated.

Which is why America must start providing post-secondary education at an acceptably very low cost - and not the 4-year degree that costs around $10K a year. Which is far too costly for families that are making only 25-to-50K$ a year!

And these families amount to more than a third (37%) of all workers in the US. See US income-distribution graphic here.

All very nice and completely ignores the question I asked.

 

[Lafayette]

WE THE EARTHLINGS

I have no doubt a middle-income Frenchmen's living standards are superior to those of middle-income citizens in USA's Mississippi or Alabama.

Let's face it, most Americans do not "get around" to see the world and how it has developed. WW2 is long, long gone from Europe. For the "kids" coming of age and assuming political-leadership in Europe, WW2 is just an historical reference. There is not the slightest indication that it ever happened here. (Except in the numerous graveyards.)

Moreso, one side venu was that the latest generations understand far better than their forebears ever did the necessity to have European Union "unity". Some are even seeking work beyond their borders in order to "get around" and obtain a work-context that has changed enormously. And, as a result, a lot of companies are adopting English as the common work-language.

It's only the US that stagnates in its notion that "Uncle Sam's the World's Best!" Because "best" has become a common attribute of success in many eyes. When, in fact, Uncle Sam has not understood the meaning of what happened in the 1990s.

When manufacturing started exiting the US and moving to lower cost countries. That movement is now complete - and Uncle Sam is lucky that its employment-ratio has not suffered terribly. But, I am also quite sure that average-wages have likely stagnated. Whyzzat?

Because the economy demands more higher-educated people than ever before, which has left many "oldies" unemployed in their 50s and 60s. The jobs that once employed them have long since gone. And they aint comin' back.

Such is life's evolution and it is inescapable. Europe never did recover the majority in manufacturing agricultural goods when America invented the "tractor" in the 19th century. And this sort of evolution in mankind is a constant - except it happened over longer periods of time than presently.

Which is why many do not see the longer term evolution. But, that is what we should be looking at! For instance, "space". What is it going to do to "labor output"?

Because, boyz-'n-girlz, that is long-term where we-the-earthlings inevitably are going ... !

 

[Lafayette]

Knotheads? There's an insult you don't hear often.
I assume you think he has a terrible hairstyle or is a bit loopy? Maybe I'm just stupid and it's a common word.

This is a debate-forum. (Supposedly.)

Anyone in a real debate who emitted one-liners would be thrown out in quick fashion.

Being called a knothead* is a lot better than being thrown out of a debate. Methinks ...

*Definition of knothead here.

 

[Peter]

This is a debate-forum. (Supposedly.)

Anyone in a real debate who emitted one-liners would be thrown out in quick fashion.

Being called a knothead* is a lot better than being thrown out of a debate. Methinks ...

*Definition of knothead here.

I have no problem with you using the word it just isn't one I've heard used a lot.

 

[I'm Supposn]

What matters is results, and the result is that France is a shithole country. America's bottom 10% is better off than France's middle class:

View attachment 67348669

Lafayette & Aociswundumho, I have no doubt a middle-income Frenchmen's living standards are superior to those of middle-income citizens in USA's Mississippi or Alabama. I believe persons of incomes no greater than their nation's median income do better within most western European nations.
USA has been squandering our wealth while many other nations have been advancing at comparatively quicker and greater extents of improvements. If this trend continues, cases of immigration from the USA will increase both in numbers and proportions to people from nations of poorer living standards continuance of seeking to enter the USA.
Respectfully, Supposn