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Ha, the place hasn't changed a bit. Hey all.
How is free market capitalism a utopia? Again, it's natural! If there was no government what-so-ever, free market is the only obvious choice of commerce between peoples. If you are trading goods between your neighbor, do you really want the government to come in and take a huge part those goods, and then determine, for YOU, if that trade is in your best interest? Personal responsibility and self-interest is growth! Not Keynesian promises of raising living standards with micro-management and fiat money printing. Keynesianism had done nothing but drive America's economy into the ground. How about Keynes take their hands off the market, stop pumping money into special interests, and allow the free market to solve the problems of limited resources? Running out of fossil fuels? Well, if the govt would stop handing money to the oil companies in the name of 'economic stability', then demand for alternative renewable energy would be able to take effect, and entrepreneurs would get on to things like fuel cell technology. Hydrogen is expensive right now, but if demand was there, an infrastructure could be set up and stream lined; hell, we would even be an industry leader in something again!
But past that, if you are worried about overpopulation and resource depletion, then in your mind, there will be a time where they will run out. Firstly, do you really think that when resources start to run slim, those resources will still be spread evenly in a socialist society? Secondly, when those resources run out, and overpopulation becomes a problem, will the culling be spread around too? And final, if these problems were to happen, they would effect both economic styles, and both policies would have contributed to it. In the end, I would want to be able to look after myself instead of waiting for the government to hand it's scraps down. Further than that, those issues are down to the human nature level, not the government level.
The whole idea you having of holding everyone down to an even and marginal level is and always has been a means of controlling the people. Social policies SOUND good, but it's control in the end. John Maynard Keynes developed the ideas in the early twentieth century, when free market prosperity and freedom in the west was beginning to threaten their power structure. A system was needed for the controllers to be able to run an economy from above. The system of printing and spending OBVIOUSLY doesn't work, as we are running record deficits, over 14 trillion in the hole, and our work force has been reduced to button pushing, public sector cubical occupiers. No incentive, no production, no growth. Sound familiar?
Workers find themselves doing those shoe-making petty jobs for minimal pay because of Keynesian policies! Because of gargantuan unions and policies like selective stimulus and minimum wage. Being a shoe maker in America right now is OBVIOUSLY an uncompetitive thing to do! Sorry, but that shoe making idiot (Al Bundy) needs to be responsible for himself and ask himself why the hell did he accept a job in a field that no American employer can be competitive in. If restrictions were taken off of these businesses, people were able to commerce on their own, and taxes were cut to reasonable levels, entrepreneurs would be able to be competitive in America again; a lot more competitive than having to pay for the goods to be shipped half-way around the world! The whole idea of tax the rich; well who are the people investing money and creating jobs!? If you shrink their nest egg, they aren't going to invest, they're going to save. And production continues to falter. How could a gargantuan social government possibly run like that for an extended period of time?
Good debate btw
That's a lot of points to address, so sorry if something gets neglected.
My first contention is 'natural'. Free market economics is categorically not something that you find in a state of nature, for one - it took us around 6000 years to get from the first human civilisations to the first formulation of free market economics around the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The earliest groups of humans were egalitarian tribal types; with civilisation and the development of currency a trade system developed, but this was within the framework of early society, whose economic base was agricultural and whose political-social structures were absolute, involving (usually) a tight interplay between ruler and religion and complete economic control by the leader. Personal property as a concept doesn't really come along until some way into civilisation. But even if the free market were entirely natural, it being so does not make it a Good Thing. It's natural to die whenever you get a serious illness, but we've acted against nature in developing modern medicine, and I for one think this is a pretty OK development. So the 'natural free market' is a classical liberal myth if anything, the sort of thing that sounds lovely in the 18th century but shouldn't really be taken as a serious statement of fact today any more than, say, Lamarckian evolutionary theory is any more a credible theory of evolution.
Management of the economy according to Keynesian principles ended in the late 1970s in the US and UK. The Thatcher-Reagan era fulfilled the trend that had been present since the beginning of the oil crisis towards deregulation, privatisation and monetarist economic theory. Thatcher in Britain took as her guide Hayek, who's not really a known Keynesian, in her experiment with neoliberalism. We still live in a neoliberal era, although I will grant you that Keynes has made a little bit of a comeback after the financial crisis with stimulus programmes and the like. Now, I'm aware that the government is still pretty active in the economy, and the rather sickening interplay between big business and governments is a particular issue, but Keynesianism was mostly abandoned years ago... I don't think it can be blamed for every ill we see today.
The alternative to rapacious environmental destruction in a capitalist economic system isn't rapacious environmental destruction in a socialist (using the term loosely) system. It's sustainable development. With a bit of ingenuity and a shift away from the society of the commodity, it is possible to create a system where the vast majority of resource use comes from reuse or recycling. Of course we have to face up to the facts that, at some point, things are going to run out - but a well-organised society would be able to see this coming, arrange alternatives and deal with the matter before it's too late. My fear under the present system is that we keep consuming and consuming and consuming and before we know it we're in this Wall-E-like scenario and everything's gone.
I don't believe in 'holding everyone down to an even and marginal level'. I believe in lifting people up, so they have to opportunity to fulfil their potential.
The shoe factory example wasn't a US analogy but a third-world one, sorry if that was ambiguous - most manufacturing has outsourced to the third world, but blaming unions and the minimum wage for the fact that employers have access in the third world to a cheap, unprotected and mostly compliant labour force is a wee bit like if I cheated on my girlfriend and telling her it's her fault for not being as attractive as the other girl. The solution isn't to lower ourselves to their standards but to bring them up to our standards.
The argument about taxing the rich kind of falls apart when, in the longest sustained period of economic growth in modern economic history (after World War II - under a moderately Keynesian regime, incidentally), the richest were often paying tax rates of up to 90% on their income.
Going back to the human nature issue because it's interesting. I think free-marketeers have a fundamentally negative view of human nature. The free-market is sometimes justified because it is human nature to be selfish, to want to look out for oneself, to prize status etc. Well, maybe, but you know what? People are also kind, communal, altruistic and loving creatures, and insofar as we have an inbuilt 'nature' (which may not be the case!) these qualities shine through just as much - if not more so - than the negative. And I want to build a society in which it is those qualities of love, kindness and altruism which are rewarded, not selfishness, greed and pride. Apart from anything else, I think it is fundamentally more civilised to want to develop these qualities and strive towards heaven than to follow the baser urges and live in hell.
I'm with Whatia on this one. The unnatural greed and egocentricism has led to a major decay in society. How often does somebody hold a door open for you ? Or says "bless you" when you sneeze ? Nobody ever does anymore because people need to use every free second for improving their own lives in disreguard of everyone around them. Thus no time for manners or politeness. Which leads to the said decay. If you start to show manners again you will improve your day and the day of the person being treated nicely. As for economics: capitalism doesn't work.
Ah, my apologies for the CTE. :-s what has become of my flag?
Whatia for the win. I was going to write some stuff, but to be honest I am far too tired of explaining why free markets are full of false assumptions and wishful thinking. You are doing an excellent job my friend!
Hiya Para, nice to see you
Kudos to Whatia for a concise and useful defense of limiting greed as a reasonable part of a sustainable economy.
Kudos to both for intelligent conversation.
For me there is no freedom without responsibility. Would GE have put PCBs in the Hudson if they had any goal other than profit? Goals should include viable drinking water or is that asking too much? Arrow Shirts moved their shirtmaking from Upstate New York to the unionless shops of South Carolina. When the Carolinians could not match the slave and exploited labor prices of China, Malaysia and Nigeria. If Arrow had to answer to a world that understood and worked towards the end of exploitation they would never have left New York! As many personal freedoms as possible but attributing rights and privileges of humans to corporations makes no sense. BP and the Gulf spill? If YOU or I had killed 11 people and ruined the livelihood of thousands we would be persecuted but BP seems to stand above the law , both because of the absurdity of granting a paper fiction rights , but also because BP is more powerful in a greed-dominated world, than the law. Imagine Nigerians complaining about oil company pollution. (they do!). No wealth is flowing to the Niger Delta. Don't they get a voice?
Forgive the rambling and sloppy punctuation. I am Bare Pause after all.
Sustainability includes a triple bottom line-people, planet , profit.
One of the major common causes of market failures is a de-coupling of actions with consequences.
This can happen through time; through space; and through limited liability. A small coal mining operation in West Virginia can cause a mess that will cost far more than their cash assets to clean up; they'll just go bankrupt, wages and dividends having been paid out in the years before the EPA can come down on them like a ton of bricks. A crooked executive might assume that by the time the negative consequences of his creative short-term cuts come home to roost, he'll be off working at another company.
Few if any major corporations pay the long-term cost of their carbon footprint. Major polluters in most eras have not had to deal with their own airborne or waterborne pollutants; winds and currents carry them elsewhere. Market structures can be highly useful; but without adequate framing to insure that people actually pay the costs they incur, you end up with massive social inefficiencies as the market seeks illusory efficiencies.
I haven't dropped out yet, just a little busy at the moment. I'll have a reply coming this weekend.
Good points
Still waiting for the reply..
Are you too busy consuming?
The Asian Carp invade your rivers and desecrate your eco system!
What do you do?
(I am promoting the issue of Asian carp with this nation)
Asian Carp?
Seems the best thing to do is encourage chefs to develop tasty dishes based on this invasive species , or pass the whole thing over to MacDonalds, who doubtless will introduce a MacCarp burger and sponsor factory fishing of this species
A quick check has shown that the US government is trying to do this already.
Carp is not probably the nicest tasting fish, but apparently Asian Carp has a similar taste to cod and is regarded as a delicacy in China
The US Government is trying to promote this fish as "Siverfin" or "Kentucky Tuna", it seems
But the point remains that this species arrived because of the irresponsible acts of the capitalist shipping companies who seem to feel they are "above the law" and can take on and dump water whenever they please and damn the consequences.
Throughout the world there are ecosystems that are suffering irreparable damage because of this kind of corporate greed
What is needed is fiscal responsibility by corporations wherever they may act. Strip mining in Chili. PCBs in the Hudson River. Losses of the Louisiana shellfish industry. Amazon deforestation. If corporations profit from their activities why should the taxpayer pick up the cost of remediation? Make the corporations responsible citizens.
Unfortunately 'making corporations responsible citizens' is rather difficult when a publicly-traded corporation has one singular duty: to maximise profit for its shareholders. So far is this the case that a corporation that doesn't attempt to maximise profit can actually be sued by shareholders. Making corporations responsible would require one or more of strong interventionist government action, ripping up every single corporate charter and replacing it with a new one prioritising social good and responsibility as the aims of a corporation (an elegant solution removing the need for a lot of regulation, but rather unrealistic) or, more radically, a rejection of the current profit-centred economic paradigm in favour of a human-well-being-centred system.
Corporations in the U.S. were always considered subservient to the sovereign will of the people until the 1870s. Prior to that activist era in the courts, corporate charters were always strictly time-delineated and for a single purpose-build a bridge, build a canal, build a road. The corporation then ceased to exist when it had filled the public purpose for which it had been created. We could return to that by limiting corporate political influence. The recent supreme court ruling that corporations had the human right to free speech. is absurd, obscene and needs to redressed. The fact that corporations with a single-minded profit motive and resources that extend beyond national borders are the greatest threat to our personal freedoms and the health of our planet. We'll always have greedy people. They should not have tools that trump the electoral process and subvert the will of the people.
I've been so busy lately... want some more poetry?
Your poetry is always a welcome distraction
And now for something completely different! ...or at least, rather unlike Poe.
The Purist
by Ogden Nash
I give you now Professor Twist,
A conscientious scientist,
Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"
And sent him off to distant jungles.
Camped on a tropic riverside,
One day he missed his loving bride.
She had, the guide informed him later,
Been eaten by an alligator.
Professor Twist could not but smile.
"You mean," he said, "a crocodile."
i must say im not expert in the art of poetry but that is a great poem i enjoyed it throughly.
William Butler Yeats (1865-1939)
THE SECOND COMING
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: a waste of desert sand;
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Wind shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
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