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Topic: Why markets fail
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jrootham
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 838
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posted 21 September 2006 04:31 PM
From Joseph Stiglitz quote: "My research on the economics of information showed that whenever information is imperfect, in particular when there are information asymmetries -- where some individuals know something that others do not (in other words, always) -- the reason that the invisible hand seems invisible is that it is not there. Without appropriate government regulation and intervention, markets do not lead to economic efficiency."
The reference The book What else needs to be said? [ 21 September 2006: Message edited by: jrootham ]
From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001
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Stephen Gordon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4600
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posted 21 September 2006 05:35 PM
Market failures exist. But before the govt intervenes, it should ask itself the following questions:- How big are the efficiency losses generated by these asymetries? - How certain are we that the govt has the information necessary to correct the market failure? - How confident are we that we won't be adding government failure to market failure? The fact that markets aren't perfect doesn't mean that governments can always do better.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003
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N.Beltov
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4140
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posted 21 September 2006 08:49 PM
Here's some more ammo: Railroading Economics: The Creation of the Free Market Mythology, by Michael Perelman. MR Press quote: Most economic theory assumes a pure capitalism of perfect competition. This book is a penetrating critique of the rhetoric and practice of conventional economic theory. It explores how even in the United States—the most capitalist of countries—the market has always been subject to numerous constraints.Perelman examines the way in which these constraints have been defended by such figures as Henry Ford, J. P. Morgan, and Herbert Hoover, and were indeed essential to the expansion of U.S. capitalism. In the process, he rediscovers the critical element in conservative thought that has been lost in the neoliberals present. This important and original historical reconstruction points the way to a discipline of economics freed from the mythology of the market.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003
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jrootham
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 838
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posted 21 September 2006 10:26 PM
quote: Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
- How big are the efficiency losses generated by these asymetries?
This is the wrong question. The real question is what social difficulties are produced by the unregulated market, efficient or not. Social failures are relatively transparent so the effectiveness of intervention measured by that scale is relatively easy to see. The concept of decreasing utility applies to effiency as well as everything else. Fairness resilience and stability are more critical issues for markets in the developed countries now.
From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001
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Stephen Gordon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4600
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posted 22 September 2006 04:05 AM
quote: Originally posted by jrootham: He is not saying that some markets fail. He is saying that ALL markets fail.Your historical position on this board is the opposite. All markets work. Now that may not be your actual academic position, and I understand the pressures of argumentation in an environment polarized against you.
Indeed. If this were a libertarian board, I'd be called a communist for thinking that public health insurance was a good thing, because the informational asymetries in that market are too large to tolerate. But since that subject isn't discussed much here, you wouldn't know that. Market failure isn't a binary phenomenon; the existence of a deviation from the conditions necessary to obtain a perfect market outcome doesn't mean that the market story is irrelevant. If the actual outcome isn't "too far" from the ideal, then there won't be much point in intervening - governments make mistakes, too. And if the govt does decide to intervene, it's almost always best to do so by working to correct the market failure, not to actually dictate outcomes. For example, informational asymetry is an important problem in the stock market: insiders know things that ordinary investors don't. But the solution to that problem is regulations to ensure that information is made publicly available, with penalties for insider trading. It's not perfect (governments aren't perfect), but it's much easier and more effective than trying to calculate the optimal allocation of capital and savings. [ 22 September 2006: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003
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Stephen Gordon
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4600
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posted 22 September 2006 07:22 AM
quote: Originally posted by jrootham: This is the wrong question. The real question is what social difficulties are produced by the unregulated market, efficient or not. Social failures are relatively transparent so the effectiveness of intervention measured by that scale is relatively easy to see.The concept of decreasing utility applies to effiency as well as everything else. Fairness resilience and stability are more critical issues for markets in the developed countries now.
If markets are functioning properly and we still don't like the outcome, the easiest solution is to change the starting points. If inequality is the problem, we'd try for real equality of opportunity; my own wish list includes inheritance taxes, support for low-income students who want to pursue post-secondary education, and a GAI.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 22 September 2006 11:36 AM
quote: Corruption has received a lot of attention from various quarters- especially in the context of developing economies. Anti-corruption strategies have generally been based on the perception, both in academic and policy circles, that market forces through greater competition will lead to low levels of corruption (Rose-Ackerman, 1996; Ades and di Tella, 1999; World Bank, 1997). Therefore it was expected that deregulation, liberalization and large scale entry of private firms3 will deter corruption. The experience of the transition countries and other developing countries, however, show that despite embracing considerable deregulation and liberalization over the last decade, corruption is on the rise (Leiken 1996-97, Kaufman and Siegelbaum 1997).
Dundee-Sheffield Universities pdf And someone will ask, what economic system is not open to corruption ?. In that case, do problems with corruption in any economic system boil down to matters of corruption at political levels ?.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 23 September 2006 09:25 PM
Yes, you know there's something wrong when our garbage is overtaking us. And what about costs?. Wouldn't the cheapest goods be those that don't have to be imported?. With unparalleled raw materials at our disposal, Canada could be a self-sustaining nation with no need to rely on value-added stuff from other countries. We should be telling the U.S. and India to keep their lowly paid call centre jobs while turning our own timber into finished furniture for export and low cost housing for the tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of homeless Canadians who live in the midst of an ocean of timber, natural gas, oil and electrical power generation controlled by foreign corporations in Canada. There are architects who can design low cost housing for Canadians. The problem is, there are more Americans who can afford to buy Canadian lumber at North American market prices than the poorest Canadians are able to. In fact, there are more wealthy Americans who are able to buy up our crown corporations, prime land, cottages on water front properties and valuable resources than Canadians are able to afford. Some of the most scenic parts of Northern Ontario have become the exclusive property rights of wealthy foreigners. The government should step in and build a few apartment complexes and supply what the market has failed to. It's frustrating to have to read about Canadian families dying in firetrap attic and basement apartments. Our newspapers describe these free market tragedies hidden on back pages here and there and usually mention something about the authorities knowing nothing of the illegal apartment with bad wiring and lack of fire escapes. People should be angry as hell over this bullshit. Of course the feds know what in hell is going on with these rabbit warrens and money-making slums. Because they are the ones who built a couple of million affordable housing units since WWII while a country like England created more than 20 million over the same time period. It's as if Canada was the country that had to endure a blitzkrieg and shortages of every kind for six years and more afterwards. Canada is one large shortage of everything that matters in a land of plenty - the second largest country on the planet with a cornucopia of natural wealth. Imagine our two old line parties having to manage this nation but with a billion people instead of the few million that we do have. There would be riots and chaos in the streets for sure. There are homeless Canadians who would have better luck finding and affording an apartment in Russia and even China, I'm sorry to say. And there are Canadians who would like to go to Alberta to fill job vacancies due to a conspicuous lack of skilled workers across Canada, but they realize there is a severe lack of vacant apartments in Wild Rose County, and new homes are priced out of reach for most of them. If the rest of the world disappeared tomorrow, Japan could not survive on its own because they rely on importing raw materials for their very existence. And yet Japan is a rich country. I think Canadians are being held back by an invisible hand. [ 23 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 25 September 2006 12:38 PM
Did anyone see the one hour anti-globalization on commercial TV recently, the one featuring John Zerzan ?. It was a strange piece that was mostly visual with images of landfill sites with mountains of rubber tires, plastic diapers and worn out widgets. It was an amazing visual for the anti-globalists utilizing the most effective propaganda techniques originally perfected by commercial capitalists themselves.The one thing that caught my eye was the young Cuban girls and men. They were in such fine shape physically that I though they could be used as eye candy in any McDonald's restaurant or ads for clothing stitched together in any of the world's most oppressive sweatshops. In fact, the one Cuban girl had been to Europe and couldn't stop commenting on McDonald's food, it was so delicious, she said. I couldn't help but feel sorry for her knowing that her Cuban diet was rationed out to exactly the number of calories and balanced proportions needed to maintain good health. But there she was, a perfect model of glowing beauty and in perfect proportions herself. The same was obvious for the young Cuban men. Capitalism certainly has made food more available to North Americans prone to recreational eating habits. But is it a good thing? - I thought to myself. And then there was MS CEO Steve Ballmer running around the stage and yelling, I LOVE THIS COMPANY!!! and pumping his fist up and down. He's a visual oxymoron for healthy and happy workers himself. It's as if we are being terrorized to consume! Consume! CONSUME!!! [ 25 September 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490
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posted 05 October 2006 11:42 PM
I hardly think the Cuban girl likes having to deal with food rationing. It's one thing to argue the need for rationing on the grounds of conserving available supplies of food. That's the Cuban reality.It's another to argue that the rationing somehow magically creates a balanced diet. It doesn't necessarily do so, and I doubt the Cubans spent a great deal of time using the Canada Food Guide from 1977. In point of fact, it has been argued on this board that to really eat well it actually takes an income higher than most Cubans see in a year to be able to purchase food in the proportions, quantity and quality desired, in order to eat properly and not suffer nutritional deficiencies. And finally, your gushing about the Cuban youth is a bit bizarre; Russians probably weren't, for the most part, showing dangerous obesity levels prior to the 1990s, but nobody would have called their food situation better than "barely adequate" and I doubt anyone would have held up Soviet youth as the epitome of what eating habits to take up, unless you mean indifferent-tasting bread and so on. [ 05 October 2006: Message edited by: DrConway ]
From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 06 October 2006 12:36 AM
quote: Originally posted by DrConway: And finally, your gushing about the Cuban youth is a bit bizarre; Russians probably weren't, for the most part, showing dangerous obesity levels prior to the 1990s
So during 16 years of perestroika and with the help of Jeffrey Sachs and the best minds in western economics: - unemployment skyrocketed
- numbers living in poverty increased from 2million to 60 million
- GNP was halved
- and life expectancy drops by over 10 years on average
People travelling to Latvia aren't very impressed by what I've read. Drug mafia and organized crime have pretty much taken over Albania. And about 250 people froze to death this past spring in Poland while Lech is thrown out of the union for non-payment of dues. Solidarnosc ?. [ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Cueball
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 4790
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posted 06 October 2006 02:48 AM
Yes, its true, the communists invented prisons, political crimes, torture and work camps. Thankfully other than that human history has been devoid of that and there are no more political prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, or torture, such as at Abu Ghraib, or work camps such as privatized prisons.Thank god all of that is over with, and the nasty communists are put to rest. Let me ask you this Ghlobe, you seem like an intelligent enough fella, are the economic means of a society inextricablly linked to its mode of policing, so much as to say that the Holocaust was a direct result of German capitalism?
From: Out from under the bridge and out for a stroll | Registered: Dec 2003
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 06 October 2006 10:20 AM
I think the USSR never recovered from growing pains. There was massive loss of life from a world war, a civil war, and international efforts to put down the revolution in the 1920's. And then there was more loss of life and wide spread destruction from western aggression against Russia part two. I think now that after Lenin's illness that Stalin may have been trying to implement Marxian ideas for the economy when he ruled that workers be paid according to their worth and bourgeoisie in the party continue enjoying privileges. They knew that inequality destroys democracy, but this is apparently what Marx suggested should happen for a brief time until the state itself melted away in allowing true socialism to develop. The elite preferred to maintain their privileges though, but I think this analysis has meaning only for those who lived there during those times. They knew nothing about real corruption and real privileged elite here in the west amid gross inequality, and this was during a period when workers were winning the most social gains from capitalists because of the threat of the spread of communism. We are losing many of those hard fought-for gains today, slowly but surely.I think Southlaner's comment about a lack of money in the Soviet system toward the end is true. And I believe it was a time of unprecedented cold war embargo waged by the west against Russia. If Nixon ordered the CIA to "make Chile's economy scream", then successive shadow governments in Washington and allies surely tried to suffocate the Soviet economy. The Soviets were experiencing a downturn in the economy in the 1980's, not so unlike the western experience here but with global trade resources at our disposal being a key difference. The Saudi's began dumping oil on world markets and hurting the Soviets major source of revenues. The west said Soviet deficit spending was unsustainable, but I think it never approached the depth and level of corruption and wanton deficit spending in the U.S. under Reagan and not nearly in comparison with Dubya's lethargic economy. News journalists are saying it's a strange sight to observe the Saudi's propping up oil prices today - the opposite of what happened in 1985-86. Some are saying that the steadily rising GDP and overall improvements in Russia today have little to do with free market reforms and more to do with higher world oil prices aided by the Saudi's, and, perhaps, the re-nationalisation of a several important natural resources under Putin.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 06 October 2006 01:03 PM
quote: Indeed. If this were a libertarian board, I'd be called a communist for thinking that public health insurance was a good thing, because the informational asymetries in that market are too large to tolerate.
If this was “libertarian” board, you would probably have been banned by now. I haven’t had a chance to read Stiglitz’ latest book. I do know from reading some essays he’s written that he offers some good insights into the role of information (or more accurately, the lack of proper information) in decision-making that causes market disruptions. But I also think that like most economists stuck in the corporate capitalist model, he comes up short on some key fundamentals. First, I don’t know how other folks feel here, but I have never been comfortable with this over-used phase “markets fail.” Fundamentally, a market defines any forum or situation where people produce goods and services and trade them with each other. So, despite all the fancy terms and ideologies out there, every economy, no matter how regulated, monopolized, “mixed,” laissez faire, etc., is in fact a market economy. Markets are created by working people producing things that are useful to one another and exchanging them for things they need. That’s been going on forever and will continue forever (or at least as long as people are dependent on resources and physical environment to survive). So, really it isn’t that markets fail. Rather, it is the imposition of various economic policies, value judgments and institutions on the markets that damages them and causes them to fail. Bad or asymmetrical information is often part of bad economic policy and practice. Contrary to the constant BS of “think(less) tanks” like Fraser Institute, Chicago and Harvard business schools and the corporate media, the market is not capitalism. Rather, capitalism is a variation of policies, values and governing institutions imposed on the market (markets long pre-date capitalism of every kind and will be here long after it’s gone). It’s also true, as far as I can tell, that “government,” as in the state, is not separate from the market. Rather, it’s a fundamental part of it, since it involves the setting of the parameters and ground rules for market activity. Even in an ideal communist utopia, where the state and economic classes have been eliminated, people will still have to democratically decide on common guidelines and definitions (in other words information) for all social, economic and ecological relations, including labour, trade, community standards, etc. Second, the lack of asymmetrical information is only one part of the causes of market destruction. The key fundamentals, in various forms of capitalistic framework, is that people need to have sufficient income resulting from economic activity in order to purchase back, in one way or another, the wealth they create via their labour to maintain sufficient wealth recirculation and trade going. The fact is, capital, as in fluid wealth and other fixed assets are accumulated and put under exclusive control (as in ownership) of various undemocratic institutions (privileged individuals, corporate bodies, public traded firms, state bureaucracies, etc.) as they are extracted from the general public as its creates these values via its labour. When that accumulation and ownership grows more rapidly that the incomes of the working and consuming public, or the demands for accumulation forces rising prices faster than incomes, or forces wage cuts or declining re-investment in the public, people’s earning power, and therefore spending power, falls, and thus so does market demand. The result is almost always stagnation, depression, mass poverty and at the worst starvation and massive social decay. That’s more than just a problem of non-asymmetrical information. It’s a huge political and economic flaw. The fact is, we have known about this situation ever since the 1700s and the rise of the Industrial Revolution. Basically since then, we have been floating between these constant crises and contradictions. Since then, we have generally had the ability to produce most of the general basics and a bunch of more recreational goods and services in abundance. Yet most of the world lives in poverty and squalor with few, if any, opportunities for advancement. We can, and often do, produce enough food to affordably feed everyone. Yet millions die of starvation and malnutrition because they can’t afford food, while food rots in silos and warehouses while farmers go broke and farm workers labour under horrid conditions, largely because the prices are too low. The technology is available to not only produce in abundance with minimal ecological impact, but also to create massive economic opportunities by cleaning up and restoring our environment. Yet ecological destruction is the mode. The list goes on. These are clearly far more than just information problems, and solving them requires far more than just state “intervention” in regulating or monopolizing the markets.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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2 ponies
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11096
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posted 06 October 2006 01:39 PM
From Brian White: “What does free market law say? The price tends towards ZERO” Free mkt theory (FMT) states that the profit generated is zero in a perfectly efficient mkt; if profits are negative, inefficient firms leave the plum mkt & there will be fewer producers to share the proceeds. If profits are positive, firms enter the plum mkt & PROFTI drops to zero due to increased competition. If price was zero, no one would produce anything. No where in free mkt economic theory does it state that price should be zero in an efficient mkt.Again, from Brian White: “No, in the free market, private sale is by necessity illegal. If you sell your house, i should be allowed to bid too. When a company goes public why are shares pre sold to financial institutions? Thats unfair and breaks free market rules. I should be allowed to bid too. It aint a free market. And even if it was, it would still fail due to the farming problem. Harvests are unpredictable and therefore price for food is impossible to estimate in a holy free market.” FMT doesn’t dictate that private sales aren’t allowed because FMT advocates private property rights. FMT stipulates no asymmetrical information in any transaction; e.g. the home seller in a private sale can’t withhold vital information from the potential buyer(s) – everyone has to have the same info to ensure an efficient price & transaction. The fact that stock shares, & other securities, are pre-sold isn’t a restriction on the mkt; firms bid to see who will give the best price for the highest # of shares & it’s typically the institutional investors (like pension plans, large brokerages & financial institutions) that have the infrastructure & capital necessary to make the bids & raise the capital for millions of “blue-chip” shares. If you had the ability to buy 5,000,000 shares at $10.00/share for a new IPO or share offering, you would be bidding too. The fact that you & I lack the resources & infrastructure to participate in the wholesale securities mkt does not make it inefficient. We can still get a trading account & bid on smaller lots of stocks. I’m not arguing with the inequality that exists in our society, I’m just saying your claims on FMT aren’t correct. And I’m not trying to be condescending, your points are noted, but they’re based on incorrect information. Brian Wilson said: “It wasnt a spelling error. It is a religion and a pretty stupid one. In the holy free market, I should be able to go into a supermarket and get the crappy looking apples a bit cheaper but I got to wait till the demigods in the management deem it to be less worthy.” Again, a poor example of free mkt economics: I buy a 5 lb bag of apples every week at Superstore for my big-a$$ family of 5 & I pay about $3. I don’t see what’s not cheap about that considering it would cost me about 100 times that to produce them myself because I’d have to plant apple trees, build greenhouses, spend my time doing something I’m inefficient at (growing things), etc. What’s stopping you from going to the farmers’ mkt & haggling with individual producers for their produce? I do it at my local farmers’ mkt. FMT doesn’t claim that the supermarket should be a barter system, it just claims that there should be multiple firms competing to ensure efficiency. If the supermarket doesn’t offer the product you want, at the price you want, you can always go to another firm, like an individual producer at a farmers’ mkt. You can even join a food co-op that is actually operated by the members like the Steephill Food Co-op in Saskatoon & have a say in how pricing is determined & what products are carried. From Vanluke: “Please show me one market which incorporates externalities in prices.” I can’t think of any at the moment b/c if there are any, the # is very small. Most so-called “advocates” of free mkts aren’t really in favour of a free mkt. E.g, Republican Senators who vote against trade liberalization & increase ag subsidies aren’t free mkt adherents, they’re simply voting to protect the rich people (rich ag producers) who fund their election campaigns. Business people who lobby in favour of protectionism & against the free-flow of information aren’t free mkt adherents. I could go on & on with examples, but my post is already too long. Quoting Frustrated Mess: “Essentially the market says put your biosphere & the future of everyone you love into a premise that argues the best form of resource management is the unlimited & uncontrolled consumption of resources. And people think that not only is this sane, but it makes sense. People are stupid.” If the mkt was truly free, then the price of extracting natural resources would be higher. The cost of the externalities produced from the extraction (e.g. pollution from the oil sands) would be incorporated into the price of the natural resource at the point of sale AND the price of those resources would go up, causing consumption to decrease. If we actually paid the true price of synthetic light crude produced from the tar sands, we’d be paying a higher price for a litre of gasoline. If the cap was taken off the price of generating electricity with dirty coal, the price of coal-fired electricity would increase & alternative energy would become more affordable, comparatively speaking any how. There is no free mkt in most, probably all, resource industries. The producers/exploiters of natural resources are subsidized to a significant extent b/c they don’t pay enough for the natural resources whether it’s timber, petroleum, fish, minerals, etc. True free mkt advocates don’t advocate subsidies to businesses in any forms; they don’t advocate lobbying by business groups (like business associations) either b/c it causes mkt distortions. If gov’ts would act in the best interests of everyone, rather than just weak “business people” who lobby for special treatment, then policies like Pigovian Taxes would be implemented on polluting industries & the revenues could be used for environmental reclamation & clean-up & to help those negatively affected by pollution. What happens currently is weak businesses and industries cry, complain & threaten job losses & economic recession if they’re not subsidized or protected in some manner, & the gov’t panics & gives them what they cry for. The only time the gov’t doesn’t panic is when industry A is small enough that the loss of jobs can be picked up by industry B. Quoting Fidel: “The government should step in and build a few apartment complexes and supply what the market has failed to. It's frustrating to have to read about Canadian families dying in firetrap attic and basement apartments.” I’m willing to bet, that the families who need housing can do a good job managing the resources. A family is better at determining what their needs are & how much it should cost to fill those needs than some bureaucrat sitting in a 4’x4’ cubicle in Ottawa, or the Saskatoon CMHC office, or where ever. I’m not saying there isn’t a need for social housing Fidel, I’m saying that any gov’t will do a crappy job at implementing it, but the people who need the housing could do it with the proper resources. A good example of regular people working together where gov’ts & mkts fail is the co-op system: co-ops provide insurance for people & businesses, consumer goods, food products, food production, housing, medical services etc. I would like to see the gov’t develop policies to encourage the development of co-operatives for necessities such as housing. I’m not disagreeing with people that there are huge problems that make the lives of many people unbearable, even in a wealthy country like ours. What I’m disputing is that the gov’t can effectively manage it. I have a lot more faith in like-minded people working together to achieve those things, free from the influence of self-serving lobbyists, apathetic/ineffective bureaucrats & greedy business oligarchs. People can do anything, the problem is that there are too many forces at work that are preventing average people from being free & withholding the resources people need to achieve freedom.
From: Sask | Registered: Nov 2005
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 06 October 2006 02:14 PM
OK, interesting scenarios by 2 ponies: quote: FMT stipulates no asymmetrical information in any transaction; e.g. the home seller in a private sale can’t withhold vital information from the potential buyer(s) – everyone has to have the same info to ensure an efficient price & transaction.
This is likely true in principle--that all things being relatively equal, the "invisible hand" will take over and rationalize prices accordingly. But that's only in principle. "Invisible Hand" theory author Adam Smith said this definitely was not the dominant practice of the capitalist economics of his day, and it still isn't today. For example, home sellers often don't disclose all of the vital information to the buyers, or often cloud it in editorially biased promotional hype (better known as advertising) in order to manipulate a buyer into purchasing a house at a higher price than it's actually worth. This is probably the most common form of coercion in a capitalist dominated economy. quote: I buy a 5 lb bag of apples every week at Superstore for my big-a$$ family of 5 & I pay about $3. I don’t see what’s not cheap about that considering it would cost me about 100 times that to produce them myself because I’d have to plant apple trees, build greenhouses, spend my time doing something I’m inefficient at (growing things), etc.
But even this assumes a whole bunch of variables are pre-determined. For example, say you plant an apple tree in ground that happens to be quite fertile. The tree grows with little labour on your part and, in a couple years, begins to produce hundreds of apples every year. You now have access to an over-abundance of apples involve little labour on your part (other than occasional pruning and, of course, picking the apples). Suddenly, the $3 you pay for five apples at the store doesn't seem so cheap any more. quote: FMT doesn’t claim that the supermarket should be a barter system, it just claims that there should be multiple firms competing to ensure efficiency.
But this again is an idea theory, since reality shows that multiple firms competing do not necessarily create efficiency. If competing stores begin to cut corners by picking up slightly past-date food for cheaper and sell it at a regular price, people aren't getting what they pay for. If the competing stores cut their staff, and therefore services will still trying to sell at market price, they are not only over-charging consumers, but creating and artificial scarcity by creating a pool of unemployed workers who can afford to pay market prices for food. And inevitably what happens under capitalism in any sector or industry, if the competing stores are repeatedly forced to lower their prices, the ones with the biggest financial backing and connection will out-last the others, driving them out of business and thus gaining more and more of a monopoly, efficiency flies out the window altogether, as the remaining larger firms use their coercive market influence to raise prices and create more artificial scarcity. quote: You can even join a food co-op that is actually operated by the members like the Steephill Food Co-op in Saskatoon & have a say in how pricing is determined & what products are carried.
This is actually part of a long-term effort to solve such contradictions and the result economic hardships. The practice of democratizing the market and the means of production, like in a co-op, labour-sponsored enterprise or community-based business, actually eliminate, or at least reduces, artificial scarcity created by profiteering firms as they eliminate more and more of their competition and thus gain greater control over markets. By democratically setting pricing and costing policies and returning dividends back to the working and consuming members has shown to reduce the desire for exponential profit and wealth accumulation to a more sustainable desire for long-term prosperity, security and well-being. It also, to some degree, redefines efficiency to how well the market can satisfy human needs and wants rather than subjecting these to wealth accumulation goals.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 06 October 2006 02:55 PM
quote: Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende: I haven’t had a chance to read Stiglitz’ latest book. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have. If you're interested in how information asymetries can screw up markets, you won't find it discussed there. To my mind, the best and most intuitive exposition is George Akerlof's The Market for Lemons.
Interesting take. The Market for Lemons you referred me to seems to apply in a whole lot more sectors than just used cars, computers, dating services, etc. In BC, it seems construction, especially in the residential sector, and real estate fall into this scenario. It's just another say situations where junk beats out quality, and that happens far too much everywhere. It's interesting to hear that Stiglitz, who's well known as a mover and shaker in the whole "Economics of Information" trend, doesn't deal with this in his latest book that talks about the global economy. I can't see why.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 06 October 2006 03:33 PM
quote: Originally posted by 2 ponies:
A family is better at determining what their needs are & how much it should cost to fill those needs than some bureaucrat sitting in a 4’x4’ cubicle in Ottawa, or the Saskatoon CMHC office, or where ever. I’m not saying there isn’t a need for social housing Fidel, I’m saying that any gov’t will do a crappy job at implementing it, but the people who need the housing could do it with the proper resources.
I think markets have done a notoriously bad job of providing housing in North America. Of course, you agree with that but seem to be blaming all governments in kind for doing a bad job. For many decades in N. America, there were no housing standards, and people threw up whatever they felt like building while cutting corners in building tomorrow's fire traps and roach motels. I watched an electrical safety video one time, and they showed one house with electrical extension chord hid beneath the wall boarding and wired up to a receptacle. My sister and her hubby bought a house in Nepean, ON, and the cladding on the wall studding beneath siding on the house was gypsum board. Aluminum wiring throughout made it fire hazard. A lamp caught fire one afternoon while I was visiting. A well known name in Canada was responsible for throwing up a slew of these Jerry-rigged fire traps during the 1970's. The familiy is worth billions of dollars today. Governments do have a role to play in housing, because if left up to private developers and the invisible hand, bad stuff happens. And there probably have never been as many homeless people in the western world as there are today. A home is a basic necessity and a human right. Mixing markets and basic necessities has provided is with mixed results - over-priced housing - urban sprawl - markets in inadequate housing - homelessness. You can rent a dingy apartment in Ottawa for anywhere between $750 and $900 a month, and you can rent a basic apartment in Moscow for $150 to $200 a month, and that would likely include cost of cable TV and internet for the month. If there were injustices under the Soviet system, by and large homelessness was not one of them. We have similar natural wealth here in Canada, and we have a growing homelessness problem as well as tens of thousands of us living in roach-infested, drafty barns and potential tinder boxes leftover from free market experiments in private housing development. So i say, thank goodness for the visible hand of the state. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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Gollygee
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posted 06 October 2006 06:50 PM
quote: Originally posted by Stephen Gordon: Another way of looking at it is that there will soon be (if it isn't already the case) a clandestine market in which those who are willing to pay extra are able to get access to the unfiltered internet, supplied by those who have the smarts/technology/initiative to offer it.In the not-so-distant-future, the Chinese may look upon this era with the same bemused detachment with which we view Prohibition.
China is such a large player in the history of man that your prediction may not only come true but is probably even an understatement. Hundreds of millions of Chinese seniors may one day bounce their grandchildren on their knees and exchange stories with eachother of how they surfed the Internet in some clandestine manner. The kids will stand around and giggle at the stories that 'ideas' and 'words' were deemed dangerous. Come the 2008 Olympics,it'll be interesting what image of China we see. I look forward to on the street interviews and real profiles of life in China. Hopefully not everyone in Beijing will be shopping at Walmart. [ 06 October 2006: Message edited by: Gollygee ]
From: Creston, BC | Registered: Sep 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 06 October 2006 08:15 PM
Well, this is of course a great discussion with lots of perspectives and insights. Glass of House Red for all participants.But I would like to hammer home a couple points here. First, in this post, I think it’s important for activists to point to the fundamental difference between the market and capitalism in its various forms. quote: One can also take the position that markets work too well.. at drawing down non-renewable resources, using renewable resources unsustainably, and producing waste at rates far in excess of what can be assimilated by the environment.
quote: And markets are also very good at increasing inequality as they create monetary wealth.
Policywonk quote: Yes, you know there's something wrong when our garbage is overtaking us.
Dr. Conway quote: It is a religion and a pretty stupid one. In the holy free market, I should be able to go into a supermarket and get the crappy looking apples a bit cheaper but I got to wait till the demigods in the management deem it to be less worthy.”
Brian White These quotes are quite correct, except they talk about the market, or free market, doing these rotten things, when in fact it is various forms of capitalist economics that are applied, or are accurately imposed, on markets that causes these things. Markets, as I said before, are forums or situations where people create goods and services and exchange them with each other. Many socialist economists, including Karl Marx in the Critique of Political Economy and Kapital, that if the market was to be truly free, capitalism could not exist, since there would be no way for anyone to coercively force others to work for them and make money off of what they do. The fact is, capitalists, bureaucrats, commercial property holders and bankers exist and hold so much power over and exploit everyone else is because of their economic link to and influence over the political state. When they talk about “free markets,” “free trade” or “free enterprise,” they mean these strictly for themselves to use their state-protected dictatorial prerogative to move the capital and businesses around and operate them as they see fit to advance their wealth accumulating and market controlling agendas. The rest of us are simply “employees,” “consumers” or “human resources” to be used and discarded like any other commodity. In fact, this was something that even Adam Smith condemned, both in his book Wealth of Nations and Essays in Ethics. So it isn’t markets we should be condemning. Rather, it’s the destructive and oppressive economic policies and values of capitalist thinking.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 06 October 2006 09:18 PM
quote: Most economic theory assumes a pure capitalism of perfect competition.
That depends on who’s doing the theorizing. Historically, this hasn’t been the case. Of course, competition plays a key role in any capitalist framework. But the fundamental values are clearly monopoly control over markets and dictatorial rule over labour, the environment and people, which are all seen as commodities to be traded by capitalist institutions. Competition is more a process of elimination on the road to monopoly. Obviously, there is no shortage of definitions and descriptions of what we mean by “capitalism.” There is mercantile colonialism, laissez faire, state capitalism, corporate monopoly capitalism, welfare state/mixed economy, etc, and various combinations of all these. But, it seems to me, looking at a general cross-spectrum of capitalist critiques over the last couple hundred years, a general rough consensus of what it is comes down to five points: Any system or series of varying practices that are primarily based on: 1) Separation of the bulk of the means of production and economic activity from the working/consuming/trading population and placing them into select privileged or unaccountable or undemocratic institutions (privileged individuals, corporate bodies, public traded firms, state bureaucracies, etc.)—as in various forms of private or privileged property 2) as a result, this includes the separation of the bulk of the fluid transferable wealth (i.e. capital) and its associated fixed assets from the working/consuming/trading population and placed under the exclusive control of similar institutions—as in again some form of select property 3) the capital wealth and the value of its fixed assets is created by extracting it from the trade value of useful goods and services created by the labour of people (i.e., the exploitation of labour) and is accumulated by these similar institutions 4) That the desire for accumulation is simply more accumulation, not just to satisfy a particular need or desire. The idea of exponential growth is in fact exponential accumulation. Being rich isn’t enough. Continuing to accumulate indefinitely is the drive 5) that because of this drive, the goal of capitalist economic activity is to monopolize and control markets as much as possible, thereby providing security for greater accumulation by fewer institutions 6) These capitalist institutions adopt various forms of both confrontation and coercion against each other, and conspiracy and pacts to achieve these goals, depending on market conditions. These range from competition for market share to hostile take-overs and court action to open warfare, or, in the other hand, joint investments, mergers and acquisitions, trade cartels and political lobbies and supporting state dictatorships and authoritarian regimes (especially against the population) 7) everything, alive or dead, physical or abstract, human made or natural, past, present or future, has only an assigned monetary value for trade, therefore making everything a commodity to be used or discarded. No other value is recognized 8) these assigned monetary values fluctuate depending on the degree of interest in acquiring them by various institutions, or on the basis of affordability and need on the part of the population (as in pitting demand against supply) 9) These values or prices are kept above the cost of the labour and resources involved in creating, mass producing or preserving them by these various institutions creating artificial scarcity or taking advantage of natural scarcity, or using their coercive influence to obtain subsidies from other sources (usually the state) 10) The political and cultural ideologies resulting from these practices, values and institutions on the public are those of obedience to undemocratic authority, loyalty to those in charge of top-down organizations, competition and, in many cases, various forms of bigotry and open hostility between working people and the general public, sacrifice of personal well-being and interest to satisfy the goals of these institutions Obviously, these are generalities in describing and definition for capitalism over the last 400 years, since it became the dominant economic practice in the world. And they are not absolute, nor are they pure in practice. Obviously, no economy or society could exist based on this economic order alone. People, thankfully, just don’t work that way.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 07 October 2006 12:27 AM
Now, let’s once again take on the age-old crap about state capitalism being misrepresented and “socialism” or “communism.” quote: Yes, its true, the communists invented prisons, political crimes, torture and work camps. Thankfully other than that human history has been devoid of that and there are no more political prisons such as Guantanamo Bay, or torture, such as at Abu Ghraib, or work camps such as privatized prisons.
No, it’s not true. Ghlobe doesn’t get it. While communists and socialists have often ended up in prisons and tortured in work camps, they never created any to my knowledge. The fact is in the early 20th century, with the growing success of the labour and cooperative and socialistic political movements in Europe, it became fancy for many forces and trends to adopt terms like “socialist” or “communist” to advance their political agendas, even though they didn’t even come close to representing what those terms historically meant. The first was in the late 19th century Germany, where Kaiser Bismarck, after making a career of killing and imprisoning socialists, declared himself to be one, after massive strikes and uprisings forced him to allow some degree of electoral democracy (where the socialist and social democratic parties got control of), ease up on persecution and enact the world’s first public health insurance plan. The socialists weren’t fooled for a second, as economists like Marx, Engels, Lassalle, Proudhon, etc, condemned many of his national enterprises as state capitalism. The next big one was in post-1917 Russia, when after the Bolsheviks were rocketed into power over a destroyed economy and an injured fractured and disorganized population, their leader Lenin and his government developed the New Economic Policy based on state capitalism, as it was outlined in Lenin’s State Capitalism During the Transition to Socialism, a comprehensive business plan that formed the foundations of the Soviet economy that still, in fragmented form, still exists today. This involved nationalizing most of the larger business enterprises in most sectors, reorganizing them as state-owned corporations and re-appointing capitalists and managers deposed in the revolution as the top executives, complete with huge salaries and production bonuses (i.e. profits), foreign investments and bank accounts, etc. He called it “taking one step backward to go two steps forward.” Sadly, over time, these types, not surprisingly, consolidated more power over the state and eventually backed Joseph Stalin in his 1929 coup. The one step backward stayed in place. Then we had the rise of the bogus “National Socialism,” a twisted mix of both corporate and state capitalism resulting from the merger of the whacky pseudo-populist German Aryan Labour Party and the wealthy conservative corporate-backed German National Party. Hitler’s book Mien Kamf outlines numerous business plans for the German economy on a purely capitalist basis. One quote that sticks is, “We, as National Socialists, unlike the social democrats and the communists, do not seek to replace the capitalist system or its enterprises. Rather, we seek to harness their potential and guide it for the development of the German national interest.” What was the “national interest? Building a war machine, conquering Europe and enslaving everyone and kill them when they could no longer work. A similar development took place in post-1949 China, where the new president Mao Ze Dong, in the Documents of the National Conference on Financial and Economic Work , “The present-day capitalist economy in China is a capitalist economy which for the most part is under the control of the People's Government. It is not an ordinary but a particular kind of capitalist economy, namely, a state-capitalist economy of a new type. It exists chiefly to make profits for the capitalists but also to meet the needs of the people and the state.” It wasn’t until the US government/Corporate America really cranked up the Cold War that these terms fell out of favour. Sadly, they didn’t just fall out of favour with the various corporate con artists and nut bars, they also fell out of favour with people who were legitimately socialist/communist minded and they paid the price for it. So, again, as activists, we should be aware that terms like “socialism” and “communism” get thrown around and misused every bit as much as “liberty,” or “democracy” or “free market,” etc. We should never be shy about exposing the corporate institutions that misuse these terms and distort them for their own agendas as what they really are, not what they say they are.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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ghlobe
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posted 07 October 2006 07:24 AM
quote: Originally posted by Steppenwolf Allende:
No, it’s not true. Ghlobe doesn’t get it. While communists and socialists have often ended up in prisons and tortured in work camps, they never created any to my knowledge.
That's one heck of creative thinking. So your response to the fact that millions were killed, jailed and tortured under almost every government that call themselves "communist", is that they were not true communists. But then the answer to this response is pretty simple. If that's the case, then why should I or anybody else now lend my support to any group that call itself "communist"? They may end up doing the same horrible things and at the end we hear again: "Sorry, our mistake, they weren't real communists"! This is the same as Islamists. In Iran every time a positive thing is done, it is attributed to the greatness of Islamic government, and every time there is a problem, the excuse is that the system is not Islamic enough! Communists did not invent torture, prison, killings etc. But it is a fact that so far we have not yet seen a single example of a successful communist country where people are not trying to flee from it. I am not communist or capitalist, so I would like to keep an open mind. Based on teh examples given in the above, I would like to see a truly successful communist state before supporting the idea. Is this asking too much?
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006
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Fidel
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Babbler # 5594
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posted 07 October 2006 08:04 AM
quote: Originally posted by ghlobe:
Communists did not invent torture, prison, killings etc. But it is a fact that so far we have not yet seen a single example of a successful communist country where people are not trying to flee from it.
During the cold war, people defected from just about every country in the world. Propaganda was a part of the cold war, and people wanting to leave certain countries was blown out of proportion by the opposing side. For example, in socialist Cuba today, more is made of people wanting to leave the island than neighboring countries, like democratic capitalist Haiti or Dominican Republic. In fact, more Cuban's fled Batista's Cuba on average than they do today. It's an island, and people are, by nature, curious. This sense of adventure is likely to make anyone want to venture off an island to see the world at some point in their lives regardless of what kind of government exists. The truth of the matter is that money is the determining factor for most people wanting to move to where the grass is greener around the world. It's easier to apply for and obtain a travel permit in Cuba if you are an unskilled worker. But like anywhere else in the world, unskilled workers tend to be poorly paid. How many poor Canadians and Americans can't afford a GreyHound bus ticket to the next province or state let alone travel to another country ?. Former Alberta premier Ralph Klein admitted that there were plenty of Albertan's who fit that description when he gave a number of them one-way bus tickets to anywhere else but Alberta several years ago. And the tens of millions living in American poverty never seem to go down according to U.S. statistics. In fact, America has more of its citizens siting in private and publicly-funded gulags than any other country in the world. There are more prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay's gulags for torture than Castro's prisons. It seems that U.S. prisons for torture represent the biggest threat to human rights, not just on the island of Cuba, but just about every place else in the world. Meet the Friendly dictators - 36 of the western world's most embarassing allies. I wonder how long before Hamid Karzai makes number 37?. Of course, there are other candidates waiting in the wings. quote: And to make myself clear, I am talking about communism, not socialist democratic states such as those in Europe that are in essence economically capitalist
Laissez-faire capitalism died around the western world in the 1930's. It was an economic experiment that lasted 30 years. By comparison, Soviet communism lasted 70 years. What we have around the so called democratic capitalist first world are a series of mixed market economies with governments intervening in economies. The largest example of government interventionism is in developing China, one of the fastest growing economies in the world where all corporations doing business in the country cedes either controlling interest, or large minority share to the Chinese state. China has followed a post-laissez faire capitalist model which economists during the cold war might have described as communism and doomed to failure. By comparison, market socialist economies in Scandinavia are plowing as much as a third of GDP's back into social programs and still ranking as some of the most economically competitive nations in the world and way in front of over a hundred democratic capitalist third world nations where social spending is nil next to non-existent. And, of course, U.S. capitalists take note of their economic success compared to what's not working very well in the U.S. today(ie. shovelling more of the national income to the richest few) and have stated recently that Scandinavian market socialism is unsustainable. They choose not to comment on the bankrupting of their own country though. James Galbraith commented a year or two ago that the world seems to wrongly believe that free market capitalism is a driver for wealth creation in the U.S. itself. The truth is that since New Deal socialism saved capitalism from itself in the U.S., taxpayer-funded government programs are at the heart of a third of the world's wealth creation in the U.S. and that have nothing to do with free market capitalism. These programs are federal spending on services and amenities to serve the middle class: health care, education, social housing and social security. And public spending on the military is another form of government spending that has a perverse but positive effect on U.S. GDP figures. There is a political movement to return to laissez-faire capitalism by far right politicians and capitalist friends, but they actually have no real model for success to point to in aiding their cause for a return to the past. They point to examples of so called laissez-faire in Hong Kong, or the Chilean experiment in unbridled capitalism from 1973 to 1989, but the rest of the world isn't convinced. So they are having to attempt this return to laissez-faire capitalism today on the quiet , by forcing corporate-friendly trade deals through government legislation before unpopular governments are rewarded for their betrayal of workers in elections. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: Fidel ]
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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ghlobe
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posted 07 October 2006 08:58 AM
quote: Originally posted by Fidel: For example, in socialist Cuba today, more is made of people wanting to leave the island than neighboring countries, like democratic capitalist Haiti or Dominican Republic. In fact, more Cuban's fled Batista's Cuba on average than they do today. ...It's an island, and people are, by nature, curious. This sense of adventure is likely to make anyone want to venture off an island
No doubt many fled from other countries too. However one could argue that few of those fled TO a communist country, and there were many non-communist countries that nobody fled from. Travel restrictions in most communist countries of those era also supports this fact. Also, curiosity as a reason for hundreds of thousands of people fleeing? Come on. quote:
The truth of the matter is that money is the determining factor for most people wanting to move to where the grass is greener around the world. ...China has followed a post-laissez faire capitalist model which economists during the cold war might have described as communism and doomed to failure.
The previous poster rejected the concept of state capitalism as against the communism. So based on his argument, the current Chinese economic model is not communist and cannot be used as an example of communism success story. As you said, the problem is that the grass does not seem to be greener in any communist country. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: ghlobe ]
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006
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ghlobe
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posted 07 October 2006 09:23 AM
quote: Originally posted by Fidel: No doubt, and it's not my job to convince you of anything. But I am satisfied with my general explanation as to why pure laissez-faire capitalism doesn't exist anymore. It's why capitalists today say there is far too much socialism in the world. And it's why socialists will say there's far too much capitalism in the world. The struggle for democracy continues.
I agree with you on this point. Socialism contributed greatly to the current economic model that most successful societies are implementing now, even in the United States. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: ghlobe ]
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 07 October 2006 11:18 AM
Well, it’s sad so many folks out there are so misled by the misinformation of governments and the corporate media. This is why we really do need a democratic labour/public interest media to counter this. Two posts here: quote: As you said, the problem is that the grass does not seem to be greener in any communist country.
If we’re going to get anywhere on this, let’s start by dumping this idea of “communist” or “socialist” countries. There have never been any. These aren’t just things that get established by some law or proclamation. Rather, they are the results of long-term democratic struggle and social evolution. Ever since the 1500s, the dominant order over the economies of the world has been, and continues to be, various forms of capitalism. What governments may call themselves is largely irrelevant. It’s what they are made of and what they do that counts. And notice I said capitalism is DOMINANT—not absolute. There has never been an economy anywhere that I know of that is based on absolutes. So far, despite large numbers or brilliant successes in local and regional economies around the globe, socialist/communist economics have not yet become the dominant practice in any country as far as I can tell. quote: That's one heck of creative thinking. So your response to the fact that millions were killed, jailed and tortured under almost every government that call themselves "communist", is that they were not true communists.
No, it’s one hack of established fact. The sources I quoted are real, and they are not just proclamations, but part of comprehensive national business plans based fundamentally on variations of capitalist economics. It isn’t me who invented the idea of state capitalism. It’s an historic fact, including what developed under those regimes by their own admission, and I simply tell people this because it’s the TRUTH. Get it? The truth—not some BS PR campaign. TRUTH—as in verified indisputable FACT. That’s something the corporate media doesn’t believe when it comes to covering political and business issues. quote: But then the answer to this response is pretty simple. If that's the case, then why should I or anybody else now lend my support to any group that call itself "communist"? They may end up doing the same horrible things and at the end we hear again: "Sorry, our mistake, they weren't real communists"!
Hey. In case you missed what I just said, here it is again: what a group, or party, or government, or business enterprise or organization of any kind calls itself is largely irrelevant. It’s how they are structured, their operating principles and what they do with them that determine what they really are. You know that in any capitalist economy, one important factor in anything is how well you sell yourself—and that how well you do that, sadly, does not necessarily mean selling yourself as what you really are. I end up laughing at many so-called “radical” left groups out there who hurl out these great sounding slogans and terms without really understanding what they even mean, let alone whether they can implement them. That’s why I stick with the NDP, as imperfect as it is, since its practical CCF legacy isn’t one of just talking, but doing, and proving that its ideals work, just like the European socialist/communist cooperative and labour movements have done for centuries.
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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ghlobe
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posted 07 October 2006 12:22 PM
Very good. So to sum up your point: communism has never been implemented, there has never been a communist country, and groups who call themselves communists have no idea what they are talking about.An idea with no proof, that has never been implemented, and nobody represents it in true form. Just like a religion. That's why many (and IMHO correctly) call communism a religion. A man-made one. Something that you gotta have faith to believe in, because most real facts and evidences go against it. Thanks. I'd rather keep my foot firmly on the ground and follow proven methods. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: ghlobe ]
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006
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Steppenwolf Allende
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posted 07 October 2006 03:27 PM
Well, that’s a pretty disrespectful move on your part, ghlobe: ignore half of what I say and then dismiss everything as an “unworkable ideal” or a “religion.”You said in your last post: quote: I would like to see a truly successful communist state before supporting the idea. Is this asking too much?
I gave you some general examples. Now I’ll give you a few specific ones that are closer than you think. First, let’s drop the idea of “communist state.” It’s an oxymoron. Communism, by historic definition, calls for a stateless classless society with a democratic socialist economy. I can provide you with links to successful democratic sustainable regional community developments that are clear, albeit restricted, examples of socialism or communism in action. But, guess what, ghlobe. You don’t have to go much further than your own neighbourhood to see examples of socialistic/communist economics in practice. Have ever heard of a financial cooperative business known as a credit union? Have you ever heard of a co-op store or network? Have ever seen a housing co-op or strata-council? Or how about investing in a labour-sponsored venture capital fund, with a democratically elected board and a sustainable mandate that calls for long-term steady and secure low-profit returns. (That’s what makes then such a hit for capital-starved small business and new economic sectors, as well as for workers who don’t have lots of savings to play with). Or how about employee-owned firms where everyone is an equal partner? Do you know of the many successful union buy-outs of businesses of every variety across the country, including saw and pulp mill and even Algoma Steel in Ontario? Or other union-sponsored co-op businesses like insurance, health benefits and accounting plans? What about all those non-profit community service associations? Most of all these were started by New Democrats or similar minded socialists. Hey globe, do you know where our local civic type system of government, complete with direct democracy and referenda, town hall meetings and local decision-making came from? From socialists and communists. That’s right, ghlobe. "Communism" comes from the word "commune," which defines the numerous cooperative democratically self-reliant townships throughout central Europe, and the Communist Manifesto was written to advocate this form of democratic economy and government on a global scale (i.e.; socialism).
[URL] http://latter-rain.com/general/commu.htm[/URL] [URL] http://www.communism.org/#comments[/URL] [URL] http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/11/prin-com.htm[/URL] Communes were set up largely by Christian Socialist groups, like the Quakers, Icarians, Phalanx movements, and the secular Home Colony and New Jerusalem movements, and also by many trade and craft guilds (pre-industrial style trade unions), as well as anarchist farmer groups, like the Gleaners and the Diggers, throughout the Middle Ages and the Industrial Revolution. Ghlobe, guess who wrote most of the Bill of Rights for the US Constitution? The Quakers (Ben Franklin was one). Communists. If it had been left up to George Washington & Co., the US would like degenerated into a Napoleon-like regime, like what happened in France, after the corporate parties got control of the directorate. So next time you’re in Vancouver or Thunder Bay and notice all those big grain terminals on the waterfront that say “IGG’ or “Wheat Pool” on them, think about the fact that these are farmers’ co-ops, set up by the CCF, then tell me it’s a “unworkable ideal” or a “religion.”
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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ghlobe
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posted 07 October 2006 05:39 PM
Thanks for all the info. I am quite familiar with the co-ops. However your examples fail to show how communism could be used in any practical way to manage affairs of a nation. Allow me to explain.You are claiming that the whole idea behind communism is to create a stateless, classless society. Yet the examples you provide have not done so. Each one of those co-ops (credit unions, housings etc) are only supplementary to a huge market-based system already in work. If your definition of communism does not include a "state", then you should come up with example of a nation or a society that has been able to manage its affairs entirely in the stateless communist way. It is one thing to be able to set up a mill or a credit union in that way, but the question is that whether this could be extended to a nation in any feasible way. As you clearly point out, all examples of what you call true communist experiments ended up in a state tyranny. Would not that be another evidence that the idea is not workable at any large scale level? Otherwise, for instance, the Amish can claim that a nation can be managed in the Amish way because they have been able to maintain a few small community in Pennsylvania for a couple of hundreds of years (quite longer than any communist community!). BTW The web site that you referred me to, speaks about "workers rule". To me,"rule" and "state" are synanymous. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: ghlobe ]
From: Ottawa | Registered: Jun 2006
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Gollygee
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posted 07 October 2006 06:28 PM
quote: Originally posted by ghlobe: Very good. So to sum up your point: communism has never been implemented, there has never been a communist country, and groups who call themselves communists have no idea what they are talking about.An idea with no proof, that has never been implemented, and nobody represents it in true form. Just like a religion. That's why many (and IMHO correctly) call communism a religion. A man-made one. Something that you gotta have faith to believe in, because most real facts and evidences go against it. Thanks. I'd rather keep my foot firmly on the ground and follow proven methods. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: ghlobe ]
So true and right to the point. The 'religion' reference reflects an irony. Marx called religion 'the opiate of the masses' and communism, when it takes on blind religious allegience, is indeed itself an opiate of the masses. Communism had some positives and some negatives. It wasn't so much right and wrong as much as did it reflect the type of society that most people want to live in. Some did but many didn't. It's not for me but each to their own.
From: Creston, BC | Registered: Sep 2006
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Erik Redburn
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posted 07 October 2006 07:15 PM
"Originally posted by ghlobe: An idea with no proof, that has never been implemented, and nobody represents it in true form. Just like a religion."Gee, for a moment I thought you were talking about capitalism there, that mighta been interesting. But no, just another pointless Rabble thread dedicated to bashing Cuban communism, gosh, hope ya win the coldwar guys. Cuba is still a better place to live for Most than its more Americanized Latin neighbours, fewer refugees too, and if we're talking socialism in general we can point to cases where the (limited) application of its principles have helped capitalism itself survive, for example the state economy of a republic called the United States. [ 07 October 2006: Message edited by: EriKtheHalfaRed ]
From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004
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Steppenwolf Allende
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 13076
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posted 08 October 2006 01:49 PM
Hello again, Ghlobe, quote: You are claiming that the whole idea behind communism is to create a stateless, classless society. Yet the examples you provide have not done so. Each one of those co-ops (credit unions, housings etc) are only supplementary to a huge market-based system already in work
What I said is that the communist philosophy calls for a stateless, classless society based on a fully democratic socialist economy. Thatis its ultimate ideal--not something that just happens with a change in government or a series of reforms. It's a long-term evolutionary process. Even the Communist Manifesto, which is considered one of the most revolutionary communist documents, recognizes a social democratic evolutionary process. It calls, for example, as an elementary stage, for a democratic constitution and nationalized key economic sectors run by democratic workers associations of varying kinds that will continue the economic democratization process until the ideal is reached. Has this ever been tried of a national scale? No, not yet as far as I can tell. Has this ideal been reached anywhere yet? Not to my knowledge. However, has this worked at regional and local levels? Yes, legions of places around the globe. Has this had a significant positive impact on the larger economy and nations around the globe? Yes it has, to varying degrees and in various ways, everywhere. SO, it's not about whether the ideal has been reached yet. It's about whether the concepts and values and the efforts to implement them have made a positive difference. The answer is yes. Remember that, as with so many other things, even if we never reach the ideal, the struggle and efforts themselves clearly reap their own rewards for us all. quote: As you clearly point out, all examples of what you call true communist experiments ended up in a state tyranny.
No, I never said this at all. I clearly pointed out that what you and some other here refer to as “communist experiments” were in fact, by the acknowledgement and admission of those very regimes, not that at all. They were in fact varying forms of capitalism, as their leaders and chief economists pointed out, as well as being recognized by economists all over the globe, and that is why they were and continue to be state tyrannies. I also pointed out that actual communist experiments throughout the world and throughout history, while having their successes and failures, have never ended up in any kind of tyranny, but, as said, have proven to be overall successful and an improvement in overall well-being and freedom, as well as having a strong positive influence on the larger economies and nations of the world, to varying degrees, and in varying ways. quote: Otherwise, for instance, the Amish can claim that a nation can be managed in the Amish way because they have been able to maintain a few small community in Pennsylvania for a couple of hundreds of years (quite longer than any communist community!).
Actually, the Amish and the Quakers are two of the type of organizations I referred to in my last post that set up numerous successful socialistic ventures and cooperative democratic communes in Europe and North America. Pennsylvania itself was named after William Penn, the elected leader of the Quakers in the UK, who agreed to lead an exodus of Quakers from there to the new colony set up by the king as a human dump for all the socialists, communists, anarchists and trade unionists who were fighting his totalitarian reign (and being murdered and jailed by the thousands). Philadelphia and Pittsburg, as well as numerous other cities there started off as communes, and the whole US system of local governance is based on this communistic model. In fact, as already said, the US owes what little democracy it actually does have (which ain’t much) to the Quakers and similar socialist-minded revolutionaries who wrote the Bill of Rights and forced it to be accepted, against the resistance of the capitalist and banker merchants. Obviously, they couldn’t overpower the dominant capitalist forces and thus have remained, as you put it, “supplemental” to the larger capitalist economy. But no one can deny they have had a huge positive impact on the development of the US, which is otherwise a very sad and negative history. Can the whole country run the Amish and Quaker way? Not exactly, since they are specific groups with specific beliefs on a large number of issues. Can the US, or anywhere else for that matter, run on the basis of sustainability and democratic control of the means of production? Why not? Since it has been proven successful in various regions and in specific businesses all across globe, why can’t it be done everywhere? BTW: I would like to know more about your experiences with co-ops, unions and other democratic enterprises. You can communicate with me off list if you don’t want to discuss this in public (I know many folks are justifiable leery about putting too much of their personal lives on public display on the Internet).
From: goes far, flies near, to the stars away from here | Registered: Aug 2006
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