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why the rich get richer, why the poor get poorer

Your mental failing is a lack of common sense due to brainwashing or you'd instantly realise labour is the only productive human behaviour.

How about Accounting, is that not productive? You sure have one crappy cut and dry view of the world...

Oh and common sense is worth next to nothing.

I know the propaganda definition of capitalism that have become popular recently,but I use the old fashioned definition as this system we live in,it is the general definition used by leftists.
I have nothing against completely free exchanges or completely free markets(I was a mutualist/individual free market anarchist.) but to me that is not capitalism,capitalism is this system.

We do not operate under a capitalist system, I wish we did, but this is a mixed economy.

Now we can argue over definitions,but it will get us nowhere

If by arguing you mean your refutation of any commonly accepted definition, you're right.

if you are for completely free markets and realise what that actually means ie corporations would not exist etc,then I have no quarrel with you.

Why would they not exist a free market?
 
I know the propaganda definition of capitalism that have become popular recently,but I use the old fashioned definition as this system we live in,it is the general definition used by leftists.
I have nothing against completely free exchanges or completely free markets(I was a mutualist/individual free market anarchist.) but to me that is not capitalism,capitalism is this system.
Now we can argue over definitions,but it will get us nowhere,if you are for completely free markets and realise what that actually means ie corporations would not exist etc,then I have no quarrel with you.
You keep using terms to slander arguments without actually refuting them. It does not matter if its capitalism to you, what matters is that it employs the same ideas of free exchange and voluntary action. Capitalism essentially works under the same system. We have a mixed economy as any scholar, the Oxford Dictionary of Economics and nearly everyone else will tell you. What logically makes us a completely capitalist system, wherein transactions are voluntary and coercive actions are not commited by any state? Provide logic rather than your labeling.
 
That is a tautology,anarchism is anti-capitalist.

:rofl
Long live utilitarian,exchange oriented economics ay,if we take property distribution as given then say that all choices are free then by definition everyone benefits in capitalism.
Give me a break.
Please cite a society that has actually done this and grown into a society where the quality of life of each succcessive generation is better than the last. You know, littl ethings like clean water, medical advances, wide-spread employment, the availabilty of increasing educational opportunities. My guess is that you can't because your idealistic fantasy world simply cannot provide these benefits. It is, by it's very definition, self-limiting. Great advances and great acheivements are not accomplished by some smelly hippy spinning milkweed into ill-fitting clothes. They are accomplished by people who know how to utilize the efforts of large groups of people to accomplish far more than they could accomplish as individuals. Take something as simple as digging a well. A single person can do this, but it's very risky, very slow and not very effective. However, if someone was willing to pay a group of people out thier own pocket (or excess grain that they've saved up over the last 3 years), they could asemble a team of people who dig that well faster, better and safer. The guy who hired the people to dig the well would then charge for the water since without his contribution, discipline and vision the well would have never existed. The guy could then use the excess grain to hire more guys to dig more wells at neighboring villages, raisingthe quality of life for everyone. In your scenario, everyone just gets together and digs a well, but while they're digging the well, no one's raising the grain. Additionally, there's no motivation to expand the technology you have to other villages. In fact, there's a distinct motivation to do just the opposite. If your neighbor is weaker than you are, then you have an advantage over them that can be used to your advantage. Yeah, I know, in your fantastland scenario, no one actually acts like a real person, they all act like the most and righteous people ever born. But here in the real world, people have other motivations and drives. I'll take those drives pushing the human race ever higher and better over those which would leave society at something only slightly higher than hunter/gatherer.
 
WOW! I'm sorry I missed this thread when it started up.

politicomind said:
Rich people as a group in the United States are self-made.

Evidence?

politicomind said:
70% of the current billionaires were created by themselves within their own lifetime.

You mean, the way that God is supposed to have created itself?

politicomind said:
This means that the rich tend to be more disciplined, less addicted to something or anything, more dedicated to education

1) I know a couple drug dealers that are pretty rich.

2) I hire people with master's degrees from good colleges all day long at ten bucks an hour.

3) I know a guy who graduated with a J.D. from a well-known state university, 3rd in his class, that can barely make ends meet. He's got a good track record as a trial lawyer, but thanks to some nasty politics he unknowingly got involved in, he's simply not ever going to be able to make it practicing law.

4) I know another guy who dropped out of college and who can barely speak english (it's his native language--his IQ's something like 70) that makes a couple million annually working only 9 months out of the year. And he doesn't do anything illegal.

5) IIRC, there are plenty of pretty rich admitted drug users in this country. And not all of them are rock-stars either.

6) In general, it's my experience that education helps, but it isn't the decisive factor. Neither is drug use, personal discipline, or anything else.

politicomind said:
and simply more virtuous.

Virtuous according to whom?

politicomind said:
Now the poor on the other hand, are less intelligent, less disciplined, more likely to be addicted to something, more likely to go to prison, more likely to not invest in education, invest a lower percentage of their income in anything, and tend to have almost twice as many children as wealthy people.

Given that a species not interested in procreation is a species without a future, why would we think it a good arrangement to punish someone for procreation qua procreation?

politicomind said:
Thus, the poor are less disciplined and have more children that they cannot afford, let only barely being able to support themselves, as well they tend to have less healthcare. All of these things tend to make them perpetually poor. A stint in prison would prevent their abiltity to gain high paying jobs, a life long addiction drains their income. Having too many children which saps their time away from getting an education, sap their time away from working overtimes, saps their finances away from investing. All these things make them poorer, which is why they are poor in the first place. They tend to be poor decision makers, more impulsive, and less disciplined and then produced more of themselves, because they cannot resist their sexual impulses, and/or in their drunk cocain stupors they breed with people they never met before, thus producing a child with a father she does not remember so that she cannot get child support from him, let alone even marry him because she doesn't know who he is.

1) How unbelievably arrogant! Plenty of poor people don't use cocaine, have quite a lot of discipline, and use birth control. The infamous "crack whore" does exist, and I've met a few, but they hardly represent all poor people.

2) All of this begs the question of which comes first. I think it's been shown on a number of occasions that if the conditions of poverty are removed, people tend to improve themselves and not drink, use drugs, or have as much sex. I used to live in poverty, and it's damn depressing. A beer is mighty attractive to anyone in that situation. Wasn't Jeff Skilling recently arrested for being pig-eyed drunk at a bar? Surely a man as self-disciplined and unimpulsive as he wouldn't behave that way...

politicomind said:
So the rich have two disciplined children, who study, avoid drugs, avoid jail, abstain from sex, grow up get good jobs and have two kids themselves.

While, the poor, have four undisciplined children, who don't study, experiment with drugs, go to jail, have kids they don't know of, or kids without fathers, struggle to find good jobs because of their criminal record, or struggle to keep jobs because of their drug addictions.

Generation one had two weatlhy and two poor. Generation two has two wealthy but four poor. Generation three has two wealthy, but eight poor.

Wait a minute--you seem to be saying that the rich have rich children who stay rich while the poor have poor children who stay poor. I thought that 70% of the rich people in this country are self made--you said it yourself. If they started out in a family that was wealthy, and there's a clear connection between the circumstances of your birth and the circumstances of your life, that's hardly self-made.

Furthermore, assuming this generation isn't just a fluke or something, if 70% of the wealthy people in this country are self made (i.e. came from the middle or lower class), the implication would be that the ranks of the wealthy are expanding and the ranks of the non-wealthy are shrinking. Actually, though, it appears to be the other way around.

politicomind said:
If your wondering why you don't have 8 million dollars its because you didn't work hard enough to go to oxford

Not everyone who went to Oxford got rich, though I would admit it's an economic advantage. But from the other end of things, plenty of people work very hard and simply do not have the resources to go to Oxford.

politicomind said:
and if you say your not smart enough, its because you didn't study hard enough or your parents didn't give you bright enough genes.

I think it's rather more to do with luck than anything else.

politicomind said:
So stop boo hoo ing about the rich man keepin you down. Blamd yourself for being dull and undiscplined. And let the rest of us perceive the truth while you languish in squalor and self pity.

This entire two-post harangue sounds near-enough like a plea for feudalism. It was possible for someone in Medieval Europe to improve their station in life, but it was very difficult and not very many did it. Moreover, it was mostly a matter of luck and circumstance; there was no formulaic way to stop being a serf or a churl or whatever. For the most part, this has been the case throughout history in all societies--fairly strict stratification of the population with very limited opportunities to climb the social ladder.

The American Dream is supposed to do away with this arrangement. It is supposed to provide a formulaic way to wealth, or at least financial security. It is supposed to be the case that if you play by the rules, work hard, etc. etc. you improve yourself. But that is simply no longer the reality. We are drifting back more and more to the old stratification that primarily benefits the wealthy. No one (least of all me) is going to argue that you can do what you want and get rich. Hard work and education certainly help, and I'm a believer in personal discipline. But they are not the primary determining factors they once were, and the overall velocity of the economy seems to be making them less so.

There are four other peculiar features of your position:

1) It ignores the fact that wealth tends to create more wealth in a finance-capitalism system. The more money one has, the easier it is to live strictly off of low-risk investments.

2) It assumes a clear causal chain where, if anything, the evidence has shown the reverse to be the case. You are assuming that, for instance, drug use and promiscuity cause poverty. But living in poverty, growing up in poverty, being surrounded by poverty, teaches that behavior to the poor, and thus through no fault of their own they perpetuate that system.

3) It ignores the fact that the rich need the poor. If everyone became a top-flight CEO, CEO's would be cleaning their own toilets and pumping their own gas, and they frankly don't want to do that.

4) It seems to assume that there's some moral dimension to getting wealthy--that the wealthy are in fact more moral than the poor. But as I asked above--more moral according to whom? There is something to be said for someone who recognizes that work is necessary, but is not the all-consuming drive in life. It is important to make friends, to spend some time in contemplation, to have hobbies, to travel and drink good wine, etc. etc. But you seem to emphasize working hard as the primary virtue. There was a study done some years ago by a group of psychologists who studied the behavior of top-flight CEO's and they concluded (unanimously, I might add) that if it weren't for the fact that their behavior was normative, they'd all be classed as sociopaths. Yet, you are grandstanding for a system that rewards that kind of behavior.
 
You keep using terms to slander arguments without actually refuting them. It does not matter if its capitalism to you, what matters is that it employs the same ideas of free exchange and voluntary action. Capitalism essentially works under the same system. We have a mixed economy as any scholar, the Oxford Dictionary of Economics and nearly everyone else will tell you. What logically makes us a completely capitalist system, wherein transactions are voluntary and coercive actions are not commited by any state? Provide logic rather than your labeling.
What are you talking about,I just told you that I use the traditional definition of capitalism rather than some propaganda definition like voluntary exchanges.
Capitalism in the way I and all leftists use it has always been about coercion and is far from a free market.
Now you obviously use capitalism in a different way to me,that shouldn't stop us having a decent conversation if you really are for free markets.
 
Please cite a society that has actually done this and grown into a society where the quality of life of each succcessive generation is better than the last. You know, littl ethings like clean water, medical advances, wide-spread employment, the availabilty of increasing educational opportunities. My guess is that you can't because your idealistic fantasy world simply cannot provide these benefits. It is, by it's very definition, self-limiting. Great advances and great acheivements are not accomplished by some smelly hippy spinning milkweed into ill-fitting clothes. They are accomplished by people who know how to utilize the efforts of large groups of people to accomplish far more than they could accomplish as individuals. Take something as simple as digging a well. A single person can do this, but it's very risky, very slow and not very effective. However, if someone was willing to pay a group of people out thier own pocket (or excess grain that they've saved up over the last 3 years), they could asemble a team of people who dig that well faster, better and safer. The guy who hired the people to dig the well would then charge for the water since without his contribution, discipline and vision the well would have never existed. The guy could then use the excess grain to hire more guys to dig more wells at neighboring villages, raisingthe quality of life for everyone. In your scenario, everyone just gets together and digs a well, but while they're digging the well, no one's raising the grain. Additionally, there's no motivation to expand the technology you have to other villages. In fact, there's a distinct motivation to do just the opposite. If your neighbor is weaker than you are, then you have an advantage over them that can be used to your advantage. Yeah, I know, in your fantastland scenario, no one actually acts like a real person, they all act like the most and righteous people ever born. But here in the real world, people have other motivations and drives. I'll take those drives pushing the human race ever higher and better over those which would leave society at something only slightly higher than hunter/gatherer.
What are you talking about when ever did I mention anything about my "idealistic fantasy world" please actually check your facts before you begin your tirades.
I just pointed out the obvious truism that production is a social process.
 
The value of something is it's marginal market value, due to Globalization the management skills at the top are more useful than ever, combined with free market policies executive pay are much higher than before, and the poor in rich countries are falling towards equilibrium, getting what they deserve on the world market.


Billionaires: Nature, Nurture or Innovation?

60% of America's billionaires are self made according to a report in 2001 by the Calgary Herald


1) I know a couple drug dealers that are pretty rich.

2) I hire people with master's degrees from good colleges all day long at ten bucks an hour.

3) I know a guy who graduated with a J.D. from a well-known state university, 3rd in his class, that can barely make ends meet. He's got a good track record as a trial lawyer, but thanks to some nasty politics he unknowingly got involved in, he's simply not ever going to be able to make it practicing law.

4) I know another guy who dropped out of college and who can barely speak english (it's his native language--his IQ's something like 70) that makes a couple million annually working only 9 months out of the year. And he doesn't do anything illegal.

5) IIRC, there are plenty of pretty rich admitted drug users in this country. And not all of them are rock-stars either.

6) In general, it's my experience that education helps, but it isn't the decisive factor. Neither is drug use, personal discipline, or anything else.
These unsubstantiated anecdotes serve no purpose and are both outlandish and worthless, you should try harder.


Virtuous according to whom?
Virtue measured by their success in an free yet regulated (as in a sense that business contracts are enforced) market.



Given that a species not interested in procreation is a species without a future, why would we think it a good arrangement to punish someone for procreation qua procreation?
I suggest you pick up a book on evolution, it's far more complex than your utterly misconstrued statement.



The American Dream is supposed to do away with this arrangement. It is supposed to provide a formulaic way to wealth, or at least financial security. It is supposed to be the case that if you play by the rules, work hard, etc. etc. you improve yourself. But that is simply no longer the reality. We are drifting back more and more to the old stratification that primarily benefits the wealthy. No one (least of all me) is going to argue that you can do what you want and get rich. Hard work and education certainly help, and I'm a believer in personal discipline. But they are not the primary determining factors they once were, and the overall velocity of the economy seems to be making them less so.


There are four other peculiar features of your position:

1) It ignores the fact that wealth tends to create more wealth in a finance-capitalism system. The more money one has, the easier it is to live strictly off of low-risk investments.

2) It assumes a clear causal chain where, if anything, the evidence has shown the reverse to be the case. You are assuming that, for instance, drug use and promiscuity cause poverty. But living in poverty, growing up in poverty, being surrounded by poverty, teaches that behavior to the poor, and thus through no fault of their own they perpetuate that system.

3) It ignores the fact that the rich need the poor. If everyone became a top-flight CEO, CEO's would be cleaning their own toilets and pumping their own gas, and they frankly don't want to do that.

4) It seems to assume that there's some moral dimension to getting wealthy--that the wealthy are in fact more moral than the poor. But as I asked above--more moral according to whom? There is something to be said for someone who recognizes that work is necessary, but is not the all-consuming drive in life. It is important to make friends, to spend some time in contemplation, to have hobbies, to travel and drink good wine, etc. etc. But you seem to emphasize working hard as the primary virtue. There was a study done some years ago by a group of psychologists who studied the behavior of top-flight CEO's and they concluded (unanimously, I might add) that if it weren't for the fact that their behavior was normative, they'd all be classed as sociopaths. Yet, you are grandstanding for a system that rewards that kind of behavior.
The American Dream is about opportunity yes, but the actions you suggest we must take go directly against it. The gap in the poor and the rich does not suggest there are any less opportunities, without substantial net migration society becomes less volatile as people of different intelligence and other capabilities find their equilibrium in society, The American Dream is about the brilliant "serf" being able to become successful in society, not the retarded "stable boy" who gets to live a comfortable life.

1. And that wealth must fund investments in order to maintain its value, creating more opportunties for society and for other people to get rich.

2. It is a combination of nature(genes) and nurture(including culture and environment). The redneck culture(commonly known as "black" culture today") plays a far more significant factor in determining the success of a child than economic factors, did you know poorer Asian students do better than richer black counterparts? In fact, they do better than richer whites in many areas.

NR Back-to-School Issue September 15, 1997
National Review 1997 said:
Test scores and grades for blacks in integrated urban neighborhoods aren't any better than those in predominantly minority ghetto areas. Some affluent suburbs did no better than nearby urban areas, and even at the best suburban schools blacks on average lagged behind their white classmates. But a bigger secret is that even the poorest Asians tended to get better grades -- if not test scores -- than more affluent whites. Asians from poorer suburbs consistently outscored Euro-Americans in nearby more affluent suburbs. For all the talk about the superiority of schools in Japan or Korea, Asian-Americans are also nearly two years ahead in math, just as far ahead of their classmates as students in their ancestral lands are, even when they go to the same schools that fail other American minorities.

wealth has a very limited role in determine one's social status in American Society today.

3. The poor need the rich far more than the rich need the poor, if we were to separate the top 20% in society from the very beginning of humanity in terms of intelligence, etc, and the bottom 20%, and they lived in isolated areas, let's say the upper in North America and the bottom in Europe, who would benefit more if these two societies joined? The poor have skills that are far less valuable than the rich, that's a fact, it's an issue of scarcity and Marginalism.

4.) I'd like to see that report, and even if that's true, so what? Why must society create a totalitarian system that specifically punishes sociopaths? They've shown themselves to be far more useful to society than the everyday person, is that what we should be striving for? To be average? :lol:

Well as you can see economics is a value-free science.:lol:
Not true at all, there's the field of Utilitarianism and Entitlement Theory that both have strong correlations with the field of economics.
 
Oh suprise suprise, in your series of responses, you failed to address the point that you have not provided a single thing to back up your wild claims. :2wave:

Listen, if you're gonna call my Dad a thief, you're gonna have to give me something more than the claim.
No you have offered nothing but sophistry to try and refute the fact that production.
 
Not true at all, there's the field of Utilitarianism and Entitlement Theory that both have strong correlations with the field of economics.
Utilitarianism is not a subfield it is at the heart of neoclassical(and Austrian.) economics.
 
What are you talking about when ever did I mention anything about my "idealistic fantasy world" please actually check your facts before you begin your tirades.
I just pointed out the obvious truism that production is a social process.
Wrong. You spewed a lot of anti-business agitprop. Such as:
The rich are rich because they steal value from the real producers,thet earn money through gov't protected property rights while most are kept propertyless by past and present state intervention forcing the majority to work for the rich.

Simple property ownership creates nothing,labour harnessing nature is the only productive human behaviour,the rich are a parasitic,idle rentier class and deserve to be treated like the scum,thieves and oppressors they are.
In my example, I clearly counter this argument. The rich in my example vastl improved thier society by providing clean water. He compensated the people who dug his wells according to what they would accept and he could afford. He re-invested his profits to expand the societal improvements to other societies. He stole nothing, he forced no one to work for him and he is far from being a parasite. In fact, his contributions provide vast benefits to his society.


And when started this new company did he design and build it himself?Does he fill all the positions? And when he drives to work or gets the train did he design and build the car or train and the railroad or road system he travelled on? When he writes documents for the comanpy does he make the paper or computer and word processing program himself and did he discover how to make paper or computers and how about the language he uses did he invent the english language? And when he is travelling to a business meeting in other parts of the country or world does he design and build the planes he travels in and did he discover all the laws of flight? And these people who buy insurance off him are they made and controlled by him and the objects they insure,did he make them?
No. Because this forces a very poor production model to exist. One person cannot effectively dig a well, whereas half a dozen can. Cooperative effort, with compensation for that effort provided by someone who has the ability to provide that compensation.


Long live utilitarian,exchange oriented economics ay,if we take property distribution as given then say that all choices are free then by definition everyone benefits in capitalism.
You're 'utilitarian, exchange oriented economics" is a method by which no man profits by any labor other than his own direct effort. It's also called stone-age living.

The very name suggests he has millions of dollors, and unless he invented the concept of money,printed the money after designing and building the mint himself and he had complete control over the system by which he got the money back again,I fail to see how he is self-made.
Again, you try to paint this picture of a place where nothing a man profits from is the result of anything other than his own direct labor.

He owns the means of production because the state has stolen the means of production from most and maintains this situatione centralsing the means of production in the hands of the captialists,hence most must work for less than the value they create.
If my company paid me for the value I create, they'd be out of business in short order. I've saved my employer over $500,000 a year by my efforts. Other people (who's jobs are critical, but create nothing) would be being paid nothing. Even if my employer paid all of us equally, my employer would be braoke in less five years because there would be no reinvestment capital to keep up with the competition. The very same competition that makes production methods faster, more effective, cleaner and more profitable.

But nothing I've typed will ever have any impact on you. You've already been thoroughly indoctrinated and facts, reality and truth are not what you're interested in. So go back to your friends, schedule your next trip to a riot and throw a garbage can through a shop window in support of your ideas.
 
synch said:
The value of something is it's marginal market value

Some have thought so. I disagree to an extent--and I'm not alone in that.

synch said:
due to Globalization the management skills at the top are more useful than ever

This is a bare assertion. I don't believe it's correct, but if you've got some kind of argument for it, please state it.

synch said:
combined with free market policies executive pay are much higher than before, and the poor in rich countries are falling towards equilibrium, getting what they deserve on the world market.

What they deserve? Who decides what someone deserves?

synch said:
Billionaires: Nature, Nurture or Innovation?

60% of America's billionaires are self made according to a report in 2001 by the Calgary Herald

In quasi-technical terms, you're attempting to pass a necessary condition as a sufficient condition. Someone who hadn't studied logic might be confused by the tactic.

Or in more simplistic terms, the purported conclusion of this article answers the question of what billionaires did to get their money. It does not address the critical issue, which is whether everyone doing those same things also becomes a billionaire. It seems pretty obvious that this is not the case.

Furthermore, the article itself doesn't seem to support the assertion that hard work, discipline, smarts, and innovation are the reason that rich people are rich.

synch said:
Of the self-made billionaires, some (such as Warren Buffett - a US investor) got on the list because they are astute investors. But the vast majority get there because they pioneered something new and useful, in other words, because they were innovators. Of the ten richest people, eight indisputably got there because of an innovation, a new product or service that met people's needs better then what went before. Three of these were "high tech" - Bill Gates and Paul Allen from Microsoft, and Larry Ellison from Oracle, but interestingly five were from retailing - four members of the Walton family whose wealth came from Wal-Mart, and two brothers who founded the Aldi discount store. The remaining two were Warren Buffet, whose wealth came from investing, and a Saudi Prince who inherited money. The innovators represent all sectors of the economy - and are certainly not just in the "high tech" area. Creative risk takers seem to be rewarded.

1) Doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. Warren Buffett definitely made a lot of money investing, but he came from an affluent family. His father was a stockbroker and U.S. congressman. People born into poverty tend to lack these kinds of connections. Buffet's first firm was financed by seven members of his family who together contributed a fairly substantial amount of money--poor people simply don't have that opportunity.

Bill Gates' family was wealthy and had connections that poor people wouldn't have.

The members of the Walton family are apparently listed by this author as "self-made," but if this is from the 2001 list, they can't mean Sam Walton (who wasn't four members of the Walton family anyway); ergo, they actually inherited their wealth. And so on for the others--all of whom were born with advantages that the poor do not have. That's the whole point!

Calgary Herald said:
The distribution of billionaires around the world seems to reflect the underlying economic, social and cultural characteristics of different countries, rather than a random scattering of exceptional genes. Countries that have a relatively open social structure and that accept and reward enterprising behaviour seem to produce more rich people. So where you happen to be born plays a big part in determining success. Some billionaires recognise this in their more humble moments. Bill Gates was quoted recently as saying that he had been lucky, not in the sense of finding something, but in the sense of being born in a time and place that allowed him to exercise his talents to the full.

This seems to support my point, not yours.

synch said:
These unsubstantiated anecdotes serve no purpose and are both outlandish and worthless, you should try harder.

1) Are you calling me a liar? If so, on what grounds? Do you believe that the people I've described are impossible or something?

2) As to specific points--would you disagree with the statement that there are rich drug dealers? Would you disagree with the statement that there are rich people who use drugs?

3) They certainly do serve a purpose--they're the proverbial white crows that disprove PM's position.

synch said:
Virtue measured by their success in an free yet regulated (as in a sense that business contracts are enforced) market.

So to you, "virtue" is defined by how successful someone is? If so, how is the position you're defending not circular?

synch said:
I suggest you pick up a book on evolution, it's far more complex than your utterly misconstrued statement.

1) I happen to own (and have read) The Origin of Species, The Blind Watchmaker, and The Structure and Function of Evolutionary Theory. I've read, but do not own, a few others. I am reasonably conversant in evolutionary biology. Nothing I've ever read would contradict anything I said.

2) Who "utterly misconstrued" my statement? You? As the author of the statement, it couldn't have been me.

synch said:
The American Dream is about opportunity yes, but the actions you suggest we must take go directly against it.

Did I suggest any actions? I don't think I did.

synch said:
The gap in the poor and the rich does not suggest there are any less opportunities

It does not necessarily suggest it, but I believe in this case it does.

synch said:
without substantial net migration society becomes less volatile as people of different intelligence and other capabilities find their equilibrium in society, The American Dream is about the brilliant "serf" being able to become successful in society, not the retarded "stable boy" who gets to live a comfortable life.

I agree to an extent with your point as stated, but you're hardly answering my argument. Two points:

1) The brilliant serf no longer has the opportunity to improve himself as he once did.

2) The retarded stable boy ought not to be kicked to the ground just because he's retarded. Why set up a system that denies him a comfortable life provided we have the resources to give everyone a comfortable life, and extra to boot for those who work hard?

synch said:
And that wealth must fund investments in order to maintain its value, creating more opportunties for society and for other people to get rich.

Correct to an extent, but also incomplete. The argument isn't about whether wealth should move through an economy, but rather about who has the right and opportunity to move it, and why.

synch said:
It is a combination of nature(genes) and nurture(including culture and environment). The redneck culture(commonly known as "black" culture today") plays a far more significant factor in determining the success of a child than economic factors, did you know poorer Asian students do better than richer black counterparts? In fact, they do better than richer whites in many areas.

I think you're arguing for my position.

synch said:
wealth has a very limited role in determine one's social status in American Society today.

Depends on what you mean by "social status." The way it's typically used, the term refers to how much wealth someone has. But if you're saying that, for instance, a particularly brilliant catholic priest who lives in poverty but writes books illuminating the relationship of God and Man has a type of high social status, then I'd agree.

synch said:
The poor need the rich far more than the rich need the poor

Not correct.

sycnh said:
if we were to separate the top 20% in society from the very beginning of humanity in terms of intelligence, etc, and the bottom 20%, and they lived in isolated areas, let's say the upper in North America and the bottom in Europe, who would benefit more if these two societies joined?

Read Jarred Diamond's "Guns, Germs, and Steel." I would go so far as to say that he proved that the lower 80% living in Europe would do vastly better. This is for a few very simple reasons:

1) The major axis of Eurasia is East West, whereas for all other continents except Australia it is north-south. This means that there are fewer climactic constraints to the free trade of ideas in Eurasia than there are in Africa or the Americas.

2) Eurasia, and Europe particularly, have the vast majority of all the domesticable species on earth, both plant and animal, and therefore develop agriculture with much greater ease.

3) Due to geological peculiarities, valuable minerals such as iron, copper, tin, mercury, and coal were more readily available to the inhabitants of Europe than to the inhabitants of Africa or the Americas. So therefore while the Native Americans had to make due with stone and wood weapons, the Europeans were able to develop superior steel weapons and armor.

Mr. Diamond would point out that there are known reference cases where your gedankenexperiment has been tried, and your implied outcome is completely incorrect. To wit:

1) The people who populated the South Pacific Islands circa 10,000 B.C. were technologically superior to their Near Eastern and European counterparts, but by 3,000 B.C. the people of both the Near East and Europe had surpassed them utterly.

2) The very early native Americans developed the very first writing system, predating those of Mesopotamia and Egypt by a couple thousand years, but when the inheritors of Near Eastern civilization came to America, they were easily able to overwhelm the Americans.

3) The Egyptians had vastly more technical knowledge than did the near eastern civilizations that eventually conquered them, but they were overwhelmed by the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians, due to the superior agricultural conditions in Mesopotamia.

And there are plenty of other examples.

sycnh said:
The poor have skills that are far less valuable than the rich, that's a fact, it's an issue of scarcity and Marginalism.

By your definition of value, this is obviously correct, but it's that definition that I challenge. The way you use it, this simply is the definition. It's not a new conclusion or anything, and if you're trying to say otherwise, you're begging the question.

synch said:
I'd like to see that report, and even if that's true, so what?

I'll see if I can find it.

synch said:
Why must society create a totalitarian system that specifically punishes sociopaths?

Wait a minute...did you just say...? It's usually considered evident that sociopaths are the ones who want to set up totalitarian systems.

sycnh said:
They've shown themselves to be far more useful to society than the everyday person

Only sociopaths think that.

synch said:
is that what we should be striving for? To be average?

Of course not. What does that have to do with anything?
 
Wait a minute...did you just say...? It's usually considered evident that sociopaths are the ones who want to set up totalitarian systems.
[SIZE=2 said:
Antisocial personality disorder:Wikipedia[/SIZE]]
  1. failure to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors as indicated by repeatedly performing acts that are grounds for arrest
  2. deceitfulness, as indicated by repeated lying, use of aliases, or conning others for personal profit or pleasure
  3. impulsivity or failure to plan ahead
  4. irritability and aggressiveness, as indicated by repeated fights or assaults (both physically or mentally)
  5. reckless disregard for safety of self or others
  6. consistent irresponsibility, as indicated by repeated failure to sustain steady work or honor financial obligations
  7. lack of remorse, as indicated by being indifferent to or rationalizing having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another
I'd like to see that report too, it doesn't seem possible how these sociopaths are so successful.




Some have thought so. I disagree to an extent--and I'm not alone in that.
Marx agrees with me and supports an competitive market in reasoning.

Marx said:
For the labor spent on them(commodities) count effectively only insofar as it it spent in a form that is useful to others.

---

Whether that labor is useful for others, and its product consequently capable of satisfying the wants of others, can be proved only by the act of exchange.


---

Suppose that every piece of linen in the market contains no more labortime than is socially necessary. In spite of this, all the pieces taken as a whole may have had superfluous labor-time spent upon them. If the market cannot stomach the whole quantity at the normal price of 2 shillings a yard, this proves that too great a portion of the total labor of the community has been expended in the form of weaving. This is the same as if each weaver had expended more labor-time upon his particular product than is socially necessary.

You should read what he wrote over and over again if you don't understand..


This is a bare assertion. I don't believe it's correct, but if you've got some kind of argument for it, please state it.

In the money | Economist.com

Grasso's big board | Economist.com

Power pay | Economist.com

Better pay for all | Economist.com

Have fun.

What they deserve? Who decides what someone deserves?
A free competitive market of course.

Or in more simplistic terms, the purported conclusion of this article answers the question of what billionaires did to get their money. It does not address the critical issue, which is whether everyone doing those same things also becomes a billionaire. It seems pretty obvious that this is not the case.
It depends on a multitude of factors, too many to list, but if the a person with the same congenital capabilities enters the business world with the same amount of luck the results would be the same.

Furthermore, the article itself doesn't seem to support the assertion that hard work, discipline, smarts, and innovation are the reason that rich people are rich.
They are essential ingredients, just not all of them.

1) Doesn't really get to the heart of the matter. Warren Buffett definitely made a lot of money investing, but he came from an affluent family. His father was a stockbroker and U.S. congressman. People born into poverty tend to lack these kinds of connections. Buffet's first firm was financed by seven members of his family who together contributed a fairly substantial amount of money--poor people simply don't have that opportunity.

Bill Gates' family was wealthy and had connections that poor people wouldn't have.

The members of the Walton family are apparently listed by this author as "self-made," but if this is from the 2001 list, they can't mean Sam Walton (who wasn't four members of the Walton family anyway); ergo, they actually inherited their wealth. And so on for the others--all of whom were born with advantages that the poor do not have. That's the whole point!
It's very rare to go from dirt poor to becoming a billionaire in one generation, Sam Walton did it, his dad was a farmer.

1) Are you calling me a liar? If so, on what grounds? Do you believe that the people I've described are impossible or something?

2) As to specific points--would you disagree with the statement that there are rich drug dealers? Would you disagree with the statement that there are rich people who use drugs?
He said tend to, all your examples were possible, so what? They don't detract validity from his statement.

So to you, "virtue" is defined by how successful someone is? If so, how is the position you're defending not circular?
I didn't read back enough, my mistake.

Virtuous according to Robert Nozick.

1) I happen to own (and have read) The Origin of Species, The Blind Watchmaker, and The Structure and Function of Evolutionary Theory. I've read, but do not own, a few others. I am reasonably conversant in evolutionary biology. Nothing I've ever read would contradict anything I said.

2) Who "utterly misconstrued" my statement? You? As the author of the statement, it couldn't have been me.
If you had indeed read and understood what you've listed you should understand the foolishness of that statement.

It does not necessarily suggest it, but I believe in this case it does.
evidence?

1) The brilliant serf no longer has the opportunity to improve himself as he once did.
Says who?

2) The retarded stable boy ought not to be kicked to the ground just because he's retarded. Why set up a system that denies him a comfortable life provided we have the resources to give everyone a comfortable life, and extra to boot for those who work hard?
Why is he entitled a comfortable life? Why is he entitled the fruits of labors forcibly taken from others? Why must society enslave the most resourceful to appease him?

Correct to an extent, but also incomplete. The argument isn't about whether wealth should move through an economy, but rather about who has the right and opportunity to move it, and why.

I think you're arguing for my position.
I'm an equal opportunist, but you're one sided focus on wealth created the image that you believe wealth is the only factor.

Not correct.
You've misunderstood my point completely, my subsequent 20% example was directly connected with my statement that the rich need the poor less than the other way around.

Let's say that in a society with free market capitalism(Let's say Hong Kong), take the top 20% wealthiest, and put them on Earth 1. Put the bottom 20% in terms of wealth on Earth 2. They're isolated for thousands of years, and must start civilization from scratch, the only thing left of their former selves are their genes. The two worlds meet after a couple of millenniums, which group would benefit more from the junction? Ceteris Paribus, which group?

By your definition of value, this is obviously correct, but it's that definition that I challenge. The way you use it, this simply is the definition. It's not a new conclusion or anything, and if you're trying to say otherwise, you're begging the question.
You disagree with Marginalism?
 
Refute what fact? You're the one making a claim here, that our concept of ownership is wrong, and so I don't need to refute it until you give a ******* reason in need of being refuted!
I meant you have not been able to refute the idea production is a social function.
When you make a chair for example; you use the woodcutting techniques developed by others,you use an axe that was made using the materials and techniques developed and harnessed by others like steel, you use technqies to fashion a chair developed by others even if you add your own improvements to them. You have to eat food,that is either grown by yourself using techniques developed by others or grown by others and if you want to exchange the chairs you need other people who have made other things and possible you use money developed and made by others.
It is impossible for you to say what you really made it is impossible to say this is mine and this is yours,embodied in most things is the labour of millions and generations.If you weren't blinded by rightwing rhetoric you'd realise this obvious truism.

As the great Russian anarchist,Peter Kropotkin said In The conquest of Bread.

THE CONQUEST OF BREAD

Every machine has had the same history--a long record of sleepless nights and of poverty, of disillusions and of joys, of partial improvements discovered by several generations of nameless workers, who have added to the original invention these little nothings, without which the most fertile idea would remain fruitless. More than that: every new invention is a synthesis, the resultant of innumerable inventions which have preceded it in the vast field of mechanics and industry.

Science and industry, knowledge and application, discovery and practical realization leading to new discoveries, cunning of brain and of hand, toil of mind and muscle--all work together. Each discovery, each advance, each increase in the sum of human riches, owes its being to the physical and mental travail of the past and the present.

By what right then can any one whatever appropriate the least morsel of this immense whole and say--This is mine, not yours?


If you want to know exactly what I mean read this chapter.

THE CONQUEST OF BREAD: CHAPTER 1 -- Our Riches
 
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in response to the reading added after my response, he makes some good points, but the conclusions are nonsense, in that they are based on the exact same mistakes that socialism has always been built on, which is the mistake of believing that your labor is still yours after you choose to sell it. Everyone likes to believe that they're underpaid, but the reality is that if you were genuinely underpaid, you wouldn't work. If you are working, you are acknowledging that the price of sale is acceptable, considering the supply and demand curves.
Ah but you are missing the crux of the socialist argument,that the state using force,coercion and violence has centralised the means of production in the hands of a few,the capitalist classes, and maintains this situation.
So the average worker finds no fields to till,no machines to use unless he agrees to work for a capitalist.
 
synch said:
I'd like to see that report too, it doesn't seem possible how these sociopaths are so successful.

The reference I need is in a book in my apartment in Tulsa (I think) and I'm going to be there tomorrow, so I'll look it up then. In the meantime, I did find this rather interesting article:

Is Your Boss a Psychopath?

The situation is a very simple one. Sociopaths are a certain kind of antisocial person that have no conscience. They have no ability to empathize with others, never have, and so see other people as simply tools they can use to get what they want--other people are about as morally important as, say, a wrench or a chair. Such people therefore think nothing of, say, firing a whole bunch of people and doubling the work load of the people who remain, thus cutting costs. Sociopaths are often smart, charming, and manipulative, and so they are able to get those people to stay and work the extra long hours. Or pick your own example--you should be able to think of plenty after reading the article. I will come back and post the reference to the study in a couple of days.

synch said:
Marx agrees with me and supports an competitive market in reasoning.

you should read what he wrote over and over again if you don't understand.

I understand the concept of marginal value. I think, however, it's simply incorrect--or perhaps better put, incomplete. Several factors conspire to make it so:

1) A certain amount of whimsy goes into almost any purchase. People aren't really able to value a commodity precisely. One day, I might be willing to pay a hundred dollars for a clock, another day only fifty. The notion that, in aggregate, the individual valuations arrive at a real value seems flawed.

2) Worse, some commodities don't really have much marginal value. What other use for food am I going to make besides eating it? Am I going to be willing to do without food to purchase a car?

3) Especially with regard to labor, people can be conditioned to accept less than what their labor might be worth. Consider this example:

Suppose a wealthy business owner pays 5 dollars an hour to his workers. One day, they all strike and he is unable to hire anyone who has the skills they possessed. So he negotiates a pay raise to ten dollars an hour, and they come back to work doing exactly the same jobs as before.

The idea of marginal value where labor is concerned would say that during the time before the strike, the value of the workers' labor was 5 dollars an hour. Afterwards, it was ten dollars an hour. But it seems clear that, even assuming the threat of strike was not clear to the factory owner and the possibility was not clear to the workers, ten dollars an hour was always the correct valuation.

synch said:
Have fun.

Not one of those links provided any kind of argument for the proposition that "due to Globalization the management skills at the top are more useful than ever." They all seemed to say that top execs are making more money because they're ostensibly providing more value to their shareholders, but that does nothing to show that top management skills are more useful than at any time in the past thanks to Globalization. If you've got an argument that shows exactly that, state it, or if you think I've missed it among the articles you posted, please summarize.

sycnh said:
A free competitive market of course.

How does a free competitive market decide what someone deserves? In light of the article I posted above, it appears to go quite awry in that regard.

Also, surely you don't think we actually have a free competetive market?

synch said:
It depends on a multitude of factors, too many to list, but if the a person with the same congenital capabilities enters the business world with the same amount of luck the results would be the same.

For your position to be correct, you cannot invoke luck. I agree that luck is the deciding factor, and that's why the present system is unfair. Most wealthy people are extraordinarily lucky; plenty of other people entered the marketplace with just as much ability but did not do as well thanks to luck.

synch said:
They are essential ingredients, just not all of them.

That is one of my premises. From this, we can conclude that positions such as politicomind's (that poor people deserve their lot because they're all lazy addicted sex-crazed retards) are untenable. We can also conclude that programs which offer prejudicial help to the poor (with enough oversight to prevent abuse) are a means of leveling the playing field.

synch said:
It's very rare to go from dirt poor to becoming a billionaire in one generation, Sam Walton did it, his dad was a farmer.

Yet just a post ago you were implying that a majority of billionaires are self-made. I reiterate that this is clearly not correct. The wealthy overwhelmingly tend to be born with advantages that make all the difference.

synch said:
He said tend to, all your examples were possible, so what? They don't detract validity from his statement.

I was using them to point out the flaw in his reasoning--he starts out with "tend to" and concludes with "so if you're poor, it's because you're a dumbass."

synch said:
I didn't read back enough, my mistake.

Virtuous according to Robert Nozick.

I'm only moderately familiar with Nozick. What is his definition of virtue?

synch said:
If you had indeed read and understood what you've listed you should understand the foolishness of that statement.

Of what statement? Nothing I've said is contradicted by any evolutionary theory I've ever read. If you've got some kind of substantive objection, please be kind enough to state it plainly. Until then, the argument can only be about meta-objects.


synch said:
evidence?

http://www.suttontrust.com/reports/IntergenerationalMobility.pdf

Log Cabin to White House? Not Any More

http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/hertz_mobility_analysis.pdf

synch said:
Why is he entitled a comfortable life?

If anyone is so entitled, then everyone is so entitled. The basis of any society is that people choose to cooperate with each other (though within that framework and to a degree, competition is also encouraged). A king without any people is a pauper. The CEO of McDonalds make a lot of money (or so I assume), but he would lose it if all his burger-flippers quit tomorrow, though if he quit tomorrow, the burger-flippers would still have a job. But the disparity in their relative income does not reflect this fact.

Now, if the enterprise of civilization is found lacking, once all accounts are added up, then the stable boy does not deserve a comfortable life any more than anyone else.

synch said:
Why is he entitled the fruits of labors forcibly taken from others? Why must society enslave the most resourceful to appease him?

Forcibly? I think that the basis for having a society in the first place is that we all agree, within a certain set of rules, to share the fruits of our labor. The basic story for how societies came about to begin with entails this.

Now, this is not a plea for communism. I think people ought to be able to own things, and ought not have them taken away under any normal circumstance.

The issue is that the rules of ownership, and the parameters of the market, have lately been hijacked.

synch said:
I'm an equal opportunist, but you're one sided focus on wealth created the image that you believe wealth is the only factor.

I think I understand what you're saying...I think they go hand in hand. If you give a million dollars to someone who is used to never having more than a hundred, they'll often quickly blow it. But that person can be taught what to do with the money, and so improve themselves. However, if they didn't grow up in a culture that will teach them what to do, they are not initially equipped with those skills.

People can change, but often need help.

synch said:
Let's say that in a society with free market capitalism(Let's say Hong Kong), take the top 20% wealthiest, and put them on Earth 1. Put the bottom 20% in terms of wealth on Earth 2. They're isolated for thousands of years, and must start civilization from scratch, the only thing left of their former selves are their genes. The two worlds meet after a couple of millenniums, which group would benefit more from the junction? Ceteris Paribus, which group?

In answer to your question: who knows? It may be that the wealthy have too long been accustomed to a relatively less rigorous life than have the poor, and would die out in one generation. It may also be that the wealthy prosper well beyond what the poor do.

I've lived in poor neighborhoods before, and have also lived in wealthy neighborhoods and known lots of both poor and rich people. If I were a betting man, I would bet on the poor, but not at very long odds. Poverty tends to make one quite resourceful. Moreover, in my experience wealth can, but does not always, lead to clumsiness. There are quite a few wealthy people that are sharp as tacks and driven not to give up for anything, but there are also quite a few that depend on a vast support system to keep them going, and would be utterly undone by the prospect of starting anew.

But this is a moot point, because your example now assumes the same environmental starting place for both. It is my contention that environment--the luck of the birth lottery--is a far greater determinant of wealth than anything else. Examples that do not take this into account miss the point.

synch said:
You disagree with Marginalism?

I disagree that, in praxis, it accurately describes real value.
 
Originally Posted by politicomind
This means that the rich tend to be more disciplined, less addicted to something or anything, more dedicated to education, and simply more virtuous.

Only skimmed after I read this gem.

Disciplined, yes. Sometimes. Sometimes they are not, but I am not sure you can fathom that concept.

Less Addicted to something? They are addicted to a number or things, mainly keeping and/or making more money. Power is another that they are addicted to, even if it is only in their own pool.

Dedicated to education? Nope. Interested in eduacting themselves to the point that they can use that knowledge to make money. You never met my family. Millions upon millions of dollars just handed down from generation to generation. Continue a good thing and offer nothing of your own. Educated in the field that they have to be to keep the money train rolling. Never give any out that you don't have to.

Virtuous? :rofl What planet are you from kid?? Some are, of course. But you are claiming that the rich are more virtuous by the mere fact that it is within their character of being a rich person? This discounts a number of important factors regarding human behavior that I won't bore you with, since I am fairly certain you won't be able to understand.

Yeah, I just read some more. What a waste of time. You are either a Reactionist or flat-out...ahh what's the point? See ya.
 
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We are all capitalist classes. Since all classes other than those who contribute nothing and live solely on welfare participate in the system of barter with a monetary system in order to allow ease in trade (which is capitalism), we are all capitalist classes. Have you ever held a job? That was taking part in capitalism. Ever sold or bought anything? Also capitalism.
No those are utilitarian fairy tales.
Capitalism is the system we live in,which is a market,commody producing system,where the state has centralised the means of production in the hands of a minority class and keeps it that way.

The average worker does not own fields or machines to till by himself because he hasn't done anything to merit owning the fields or machines, and instead of earning the capital neccesary to buy fields and machines, which is something anyone CAN do (considering that knowledge is in the public domain, and anyone can get a library card), but it's a lot of work that most aren't willing to do (but as it is something that we need as a society, the reward for doing the work neccesary to own fields and machines is relatively large). So your average worker, instead of doing this work, decides to instead sell his labor to someone who has done this work, in a mutually beneficial transaction.
Again that is the utilitarian myth,given the current property distirubtion(and a few other variables.) then all gain by free exchange,but if you actually look at the reasons for property distribution,particularly why a few are rich and many are not,you see nothing but state coercion,violence,force and fraud.

Tell me which of these is wrong
Farm land is available for purchase
Machines to aid in farming land is available for purchase
The VAST majority of people are born without having everything they'll ever need to survive already
And why aren't they?


Can you give me your explanation of why a few have productive property and most have known,why so men are forced to sell themselves to the lucking owners of capital?
It only take a glance at history to see what Marx saw when he said.

....These new freedmen became sellers of themselves only after they had been robbed of all their own means of production, and of all the guarantees of existence afforded by the old feudal arrangements. And the history of this, their expropriation, is written in the annals of mankind in letters of blood and fire.

Here's a great overview of capitalist primitive accumulation.

Chapter Four--Primitive Accumulation and the Rise of Capitalism

The start sums up your trouble.

In the Introduction to Part Two, we referred to the "nursery school tale" of primitive accumulation, which has long served the capitalists as a legitimizing myth. In fact, capitalist apologists seldom even address the issue, if they can avoid it. More often, they take the existing distribution of property and economic power as a given. Their most dumbed-down line of argument, typically, simply starts with the unquestioned fact that some people just happen to own the means of production, and that others need access to these means and advances to live on while they work. From this it follows that, if the owners of capital are kind enough to "provide" this "factor of production" for the use of labor, they are entitled to a fair recompense for their "service" or "abstinence."

The inadequacy of this approach should be clear from even the most cursory consideration. An apologist for state socialism might just as easily say, to a free market advocate in a state-owned economy, that he wouldn't have a job if the state didn't "provide" it. An apologist for the manorial economy could likewise admonish the ungrateful peasant that all his labor would avail him nothing without the access to the land that the feudal landlord graciously "provided." The question remains: how did those who control access to the means of production come to be in this position? As Oppenheimer pointed out in his criticism of Marshall, no discussion of the laws governing the distribution of product can be meaningful without first considering the "primal distribution of the agents (factors) of production...."
 
No those are utilitarian fairy tales.
Capitalism is the system we live in,which is a market,commody producing system,where the state has centralised the means of production in the hands of a minority class and keeps it that way.
[/B][/I]

If this is so, if its an inmovable minority class, then why are there examples, like Oprah, who move to the very top of society despite starting in the lower rungs of society? If this class is actively opressing everyone else why do we see near guaranteed economic growth in capitalist economies? Furthermore, you are supposing that this "class" keeps capital to themselves, that they do not share it with others. This is not true, there is no incentive for that class to keep their capital, rather they benefit when they put it to use and let others employ it and make it even more profitable. If this class were really trying to hold us all down, why would they open up factories that provide employment and a means for survival for millions? They know that by employing the capital of others with their own, they can be better off and the workers are better off as well. If they were really out to get you and me how would the state have allowed the formation of unions? The simple answer is despite the rhetoric, this "class" has every incentive to share their capital so they can become even richer. But the point here, is that economics is a positive sum game. True or false, Americans are better off after years of captialism? Tell me one example where the poorest of the poor are doing as bad as they were in the 1800's.
 
Marxism doesn't apply anymore. Marx achieved his desires.



When Marx wrote, it was common to have the following

16 hour work days

16 hours work days with over time til some died from exhaustion

Often, no breaks but only enough time to eat

Child labor where children were injured

No compensation for worker's injuries

No disability for worker's injuries

No one was allowed to Unionize. Physical harm often came to people who conceived of the notion.

No realistic way to sue a company for negligence of workplace accidents, the employer would merely blame the employee for being clumsy, incompetent, or disobedient, and thus claimed it was the employees fault.

Women could not work

Minorities could not hold but the lowest positions

I am indeed explaining that these were American conditions

It was a law in the midwest until 1910 that women could not work for more than six hours a day because that amount of standing may encourage the failure of their reproductive systems, cause athritis in their hips, and damage their frail structures.


The only people that could get ahead were the very intelligent. I don't mean bright, meaning they could figure things out and read. I mean they were geniuses, how could invent new machines and engineering processes quickly. They were picked out of the groups of workers and promoted to managers and eventually part owners, but this was only very few, some of which became the authors of our first management text books in the United States.


Now looking back, we no longer have the sixteen hour work day ... in some plants now the work day is only six hours long.

There is no possible way that someone would be forced to work until they die from exhaustion

The concept of allowing more frequent breaks was established by one of the managers who rose through the ranks, who realized that if you gave a work a 15 minute break, when he came back to work his productive rose in such a way that the 15 minute break was erased by his increased work load.

Children don't have to work until they are 18

Workmen compensation laws are extreme liberal now in comparison to their former ways. A man who was asided to go out of state on business and who had to stay in a hotel, accidentally fell asleep with a cigarette in his hand, which burned up his room and part of his own hand... because he was asigned to work out of state, even being in the hotel room, was apart of his work duty and he won workman's comp for his hand until it healed and he could return to work. Technically, if a company assigns you to go to another state and stay in a hotel... anything that you do between leaving your home and returning back home is on the liability of the company, the drive, where you eat, the hotel, even if you burn your own hand with a cigarette because you fell asleep the company has to pay for your medical, your pain and suffering and allow you time off to get better, and then you still keep your position.

Today, a company can be sued for outlandish things which don't even seem realistic. Simply, not providing a warning even if a warning seems apparent opens the company to a liability, or if the warning is to small, or if the warning is not expressed convincingly enough, or if a commercial contradicts the warning. Things such as off road four wheelers that do not warn the user that they can flip --- lawsuit. Hot coffee being hot --- lawsuit. A warning on the side of cigarette's being contradicted by a commerical that makes the cigarette look cool and fun --- lawsuit. Bikes which place the bar in a way where a boy could fall on his groin --- lawsuit. Male bikes now don't have the bar in the middle, but female bikes still do. An airline that gets hijacked because the bush administration didn't take control of stopping the hijackers --- lawsuit. In Marx's time these things were unheard of. No one was able to sue a company for such things. In Japan, though they are capitalistic and have a similar democracy, lawsuits like this are extremely rare, because the Japanese few their companies as being paternal protectors who want to give them good life long jobs with good benefits.

Unions are now legal, and the only unions that are legal, are those which are imperative to life and death matters, like police officers and hospital workers, in some states, transportation workers.

As for women and minorities. Women can now sue in the work place because men tell jokes to each other. Before women, men told dirty jokes all day, suddenly, women show up and men can't tell humourous stories not even to each other because women may over hear the jokes and become offended.

Black males as a group make more money than white females as a group.

Marx achieved almost everyone of his goals... but oddly it is not because of Marx that these things were achieved, because many immoral corporate practices still exist in other countries, rather, it was efficiency, high productivity, and the average americans ability to patent inventions that achieved the freedom of the people and the ease of their oppression. Once invention made each worker approximately ten to fifteen times more productive, once the average american got enough education to develop some of his own ideas and then patent them, productivity, excess and enough to go around liberated the worker. It is only because we have super productive factories, that we don't have to work sixteen hours a day, it is only because factories make a fortune that our legal system allows us to sue, them. If factories as in other countries were often just skirting by, the legal system would not allow huge lawsuits which would then close down the factory and cause massive amounts of unemployment. It was alot edisons, alot of fords, alot of wright brothers, alot of middle income inventors that contributed great inventions, which created great amounts of productivity that freed the worker. Marx just wrote a philosophic complaint letter of their plight. One of the people who should truly be creditted with the liberation of the American worker is George Washington, who conceived the concept of the patent, which encourage the middle incomers to create things, which they could legally guard and then make a profit off of for twenty years, which the US congress has reduced to 17 years. Prior, to this Washington grant of American freedom if any one invented something it could easily be stolen by an existing manufacturer. Prior to Washington, no nation granted this right to its individuals. So don't thank Marx thanks our first good ole George for inspiring edison, gates, dell, ford. Of course, no one seems to put this together because it almost sounds contrived to credit once again George Washington with the success of the nation, but if he had not gave americans the right to patent, no one would have wasted the time to develop an idea. For example, ford used to spend countless nights in his garage working on perfecting the car engine. A truth which his wife would remark to guest on her husbands habits. "He's in that garage making something." If he didn't have the freedom to patent he may not have spent even one night in that garage making something.

So rather than thank Marx, thank Washington. And also, thank Adam Smith, I'll explain Smith later, but Smith wrote his wealth of nations and published it in a famous year ....... 1776. Again, almost everything Marx wanted fixed in his day has been fixed. Marx is currently outdated. I know people today think they are savvy or unique to quote marx and espouse his ideas, but to follow the pretenses of Marx is dusty. Marx is currently irrelevant. To use Marx's theories as applied today's concerns is like using the civil war method of standing and fighting upright in war ... it just doesn't make sense anymore.
 
If this is so, if its an inmovable minority class, then why are there examples, like Oprah, who move to the very top of society despite starting in the lower rungs of society? If this class is actively opressing everyone else why do we see near guaranteed economic growth in capitalist economies? Furthermore, you are supposing that this "class" keeps capital to themselves, that they do not share it with others. This is not true, there is no incentive for that class to keep their capital, rather they benefit when they put it to use and let others employ it and make it even more profitable. If this class were really trying to hold us all down, why would they open up factories that provide employment and a means for survival for millions? They know that by employing the capital of others with their own, they can be better off and the workers are better off as well. If they were really out to get you and me how would the state have allowed the formation of unions? The simple answer is despite the rhetoric, this "class" has every incentive to share their capital so they can become even richer. But the point here, is that economics is a positive sum game.
You are confusing a caste and class,I never said they are immovable,that it one of thier weaknesses,however they try and limit it, they are susceptible to competition.

True or false, Americans are better off after years of captialism? Tell me one example where the poorest of the poor are doing as bad as they were in the 1800's.
 
And galenrox most of your points will be answered in the debate me and politicomind are having.

But I loved the way you dodged primitive accumulation completely,I have no idea how politicomind can deal with it, accept in the same way you did.
 
You are confusing a caste and class,I never said they are immovable,that it one of thier weaknesses,however they try and limit it, they are susceptible to competition.

Exactly, and that prevents them from using their larger amounts of capital to oppress others or to not share their capital. Also, what in your system would prevent the concentration of wealth by a monopoly power? What court system would protect patents? Lastly, even if we debate capitalism "as it is" then has that not proved to be an extremely successful system, what country with a per capita income of over 20,000 does not have some form of "capitalism as it is".
 
Exactly, and that prevents them from using their larger amounts of capital to oppress others or to not share their capital.
No it doesn't and of course they try and limit competition as much as possible.

Also, what in your system would prevent the concentration of wealth by a monopoly power?
In the commune it would, outside it would not.

What court system would protect patents?
Of course not, these are state interventions, I find it hard to see why a free marketeer like yourself would bring them up.
Lastly, even if we debate capitalism "as it is" then has that not proved to be an extremely successful system, what country with a per capita income of over 20,000 does not have some form of "capitalism as it is".
What country doesn't have some form of capitalism? Or at least another kind of class system.
And who says an anarcho-communist or free market society would not create similar growth?
 
No it doesn't and of course they try and limit competition as much as possible.
How do they use their capital to limit competition? Did big box retailers come in vogue because they supressed everyone else or because people choose to give them their money for their very cheap products?
In the commune it would, outside it would not.
What incentive is there for a highly skilled worker to work for another man. As was mentioned earlier, is that not also a form of exploitation?
Of course not, these are state interventions, I find it hard to see why a free marketeer like yourself would bring them up.

So should we or should we not have patents?
What country doesn't have some form of capitalism? Or at least another kind of class system.
And who says an anarcho-communist or free market society would not create similar growth?

The fact that a system with absolutely no regulation has a serious threat of concentrations of power like trusts forming and setting the rules of the game so they do not have to compete with one another.
 
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