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Author Topic: How do you free your life from capitalism?
Michelle
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posted 15 March 2008 04:22 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Dear Ms. Communicate,

As an anti-capitalist feminist, I try to avoid as much as possible participation in the economic system. But, how do you free yourself from the chains of capitalism and globalization in a world that's dictated by economic gain? I try to spend a single day not using anything made in China, but it's impossible!

Concerned Anti-Capitalist


Ms Communicate's answer!


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 15 March 2008 12:41 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Not buy anything new? That is scarcely hygenic. Sorry, I will not wear someone else's bras or panties, and am disinclined to wear used shoes for orthopaedic reasons.
+

From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 15 March 2008 01:25 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
I'm still trying to figure out how not buying anything made in China will reduce poverty and inequality.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
jester
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posted 15 March 2008 01:36 PM      Profile for jester        Edit/Delete Post
I doubt Ms. C is advocating trade in intimate apparel but everyone can reduce their consumption to the point that inequality will be eliminated by reducing everyone,not only the Chinese, to poverty.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
500_Apples
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posted 15 March 2008 01:39 PM      Profile for 500_Apples   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I just try to buy as little as possible. Granted putting money in savings and stocks is probably as or more beneficial to capitalism than consumption, but that's not my point. I don't personally hate capitalism. I do find consumptionism distasteful.

Trade has been around since the start of civilization, and loans and interest for thousands of years. It's not going away.


From: Montreal, Quebec | Registered: Jun 2006  |  IP: Logged
jester
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posted 15 March 2008 01:56 PM      Profile for jester        Edit/Delete Post
More insidious than plastic crap from maomart is the stranglehold a few corporations have on the access to foodstuffs.

They limit choice by restricting access to supermarket shelf space at the consumer end and eliminate choice at the producer end.

Restrictive government regulation prevents competitors levelling the playing field. Citing "health reasons", farmers' markets,small processors and mobile market vendors are harassed into unprofitability.

I love the portable market vendors in Europe who move from town to town each day. This system allows fisherfolk,farmers and various other food merchants as well as myriad other peddlers an opportunity to make a living.

Naturally,in North America, the retail corporate entities lobby their government enablers to stop any threat to their "right" to manipulate the consumer by complaining of inspections at the federal level and unfair competition to property tax payers at the municipal.

Take coffee for example: third world producers are paid 14 cents a kilo for coffee that retails for $20.


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Fidel
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posted 15 March 2008 02:04 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
I'm still trying to figure out how not buying anything made in China will reduce poverty and inequality.

Sure, but our economies are ever so integrated now since the end of the cold war. Asia, Latin America and Africa were slated to produce all the stuff and widgets for consumption in the richest few western countries. Those economies are growing anywhere from five to ten percent while we continue to grow at piddling rates.

Who would feel the pinch more in a global economic slowdown ? Will it be the the poorest in Asia and Latin America who are more used to low consumption and absolute poverty? Or will it be the bottom of the pile in North America who suffer more in a world where consumption combined with increasing numbers of low wage jobs has been the trend?

I think the right and centre-right can maintain this trend for only so long before they lose political capital with voters. Harper doesn't have 24 percent of the eligible vote under him, and Dubya is less popular than Richard Nixon was when the madman was forced to step down.

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 15 March 2008 02:08 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I try to limit my participation in the capitalist system, too, to the extent that is possible. But the really important thing is to overthrow the whole damnable system!!

ETA: Freedom from capitalism isn't a personal project or a lifestyle issue and it's not going to be achieved by "ethical shopping"! Contrary to what we have been told all our lives, we can't shop our way to utopia!

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
torontoprofessor
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posted 15 March 2008 02:31 PM      Profile for torontoprofessor     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
A lot of Ms C's advice looks like pretty good advice, regardless of your attitude towards capitalism.

- Have less stuff, and accumulate less stuff.
- Share
- Reduce, reuse, recycle. Especially the first two!

You can hardly argue with the above advice, even if you're a capitalist yourself. I also tend to agree with

- Don't buy new, ever.
- Buy used.

OK, maybe not for underwear. And, if you have orthopedic issues, maybe not for shoes. But right now, every item of clothing I have on was bought used (in various vintage shops in Kensington Market) except my socks and underwear and T-shirt, but including my boots.

Some of her advice is on the right track, but not perfect. For example,

- Don't go into debt, ever.
- Pay off all your debt as soon as possible.

Problem: unless you're quite wealthy you'll never own a house that way. OK, maybe there's no need to own your own home. But if you want to own one, you'll probably have to go into a fairly large amount of debt. Probably better advice is to make sure that you have a clear way to manage your debt if you decide to take it on. Managing debt appropriately might not mean paying it off "as soon as possible", but simply working out a payment system (e.g., a mortgage) that is workable for you. On the other hand, maybe we just have to face the fact that you can't own your own home without engaging the capitalist machinery. (And renting just puts you one small step away: your landlord is engaging the capitalist machinery and you're aiding that.) You probably should avoid credit-card debt.

As for her positive advice,

- Find paid work at NGOs, non-profits, starting your own business venture or working for a sole-proprietor.

It seems to me that starting your own business is precisely a way to engage the capitalist machinery. Maybe I'm missing something.

- Work for organizations like the public school board, universities, colleges, trade schools, hospitals, community health organizations, community legal organizations.

Some of these organizations themselves are so deeply engaged with the capitalist machinery that it's hard to think of working for them as a disengagement. Most universities, for example, have huge amounts of capital invested in the stock market, and also have pension plans themselves with huge amounts of capital invested in the stock market.

Hmmm.

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: torontoprofessor ]


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Stephen Gordon
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posted 15 March 2008 02:41 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.
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RosaL
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posted 15 March 2008 02:45 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.

In large measure, I agree.

[ 15 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Left Turn
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posted 15 March 2008 05:44 PM      Profile for Left Turn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.

Such measures are also an attempt to achieve personal dignity for those of us opposed to capitalsim. So we can get up in the morning, look ourselves in the mirror, and not feel like a complete hypocrite for the life we are living.


From: Burnaby, BC | Registered: Mar 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 15 March 2008 06:13 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.

If one consumes less than ostensibly one can donate any personal surplus of resources to someone who does not have the basic necessities. Such a donation could be done on a very personal level or investing in community projects, such a donation could be both of surplus capital or labour. Each according to her/his ability...


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 15 March 2008 06:25 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Left Turn:
Such measures are also an attempt to achieve personal dignity for those of us opposed to capitalsim. So we can get up in the morning, look ourselves in the mirror, and not feel like a complete hypocrite for the life we are living.

As I said: points for style.

No-one cares.


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lagatta
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posted 15 March 2008 06:47 PM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No, some of us care very deeply.

I don't believe in "socialism in a single house", but I don't think concern about the working conditions of those who grow my coffee or sew my clothes is merely a matter of style.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 16 March 2008 06:10 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I really don't see any alternative but for each of us to work towards overthrowing the capitalist system.

I have a wonderful friend who has recently opened up a fair trade cafe and while I support such moves (the coffee and music is fantastic)...it seems to distract people from the need to confront and fight.

I have endless ongoing arguments with another friend who wants to get off the grid and organize a commune.

In both instances it all seems so passive and non-threatening - and maybe kinda convenient and easy...

I appreciate this discussion because I'm kind of obsessed with the issue at the moment.


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 16 March 2008 06:42 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sam:
I really don't see any alternative but for each of us to work towards overthrowing the capitalist system.

Sure, let's get rid of capitalism entirely...but first look at and consider the second post in this thread before making that leap.

quote:
Originally posted by Sam:
I have a wonderful friend who has recently opened up a fair trade cafe and while I support such moves (the coffee and music is fantastic)...it seems to distract people from the need to confront and fight.

Opening your own for-profit business is capitalism.

quote:
Originally posted by Sam:
I have endless ongoing arguments with another friend who wants to get off the grid and organize a commune.

I think it's great if people want to get off the grid. But, you're not going to get away from capitalism by doing so, unless you plan to construct your electrical generating devices (not to mention your computer and your Internet connection) from trees, grass, and dirt.

[ 16 March 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 16 March 2008 07:30 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Sure, let's get rid of capitalism entirely...but first look at and consider the second post in this thread before making that leap.

It's nice to see you embracing environmentalism by recycling your tired old arguments. I will recycle my rebuttal as well

quote:
What you seem unable to grasp is that the all the assumptions you are putting forward are "free Market" ideological devoid of any critical analysis in the context of history,social structure or political economy.

Briefly "Markets" are a metaphor there is nothing beyond socially prescribed and agreed upon rules for exchanging goods and services,"Markets" have no power beyond that which is designated by them. Markets have never been "free" they have always been controlled and funded by those with the wealth and power to do so.

Humanity has been on the planet for 100-200.000 yrs Capitalism has been around for about 500, reducing human choice to varieties of meaningless consumption is ridiculous.

As has already been noted your caricature of a centralized economy in which a small elite determines what products are available is actually not far from the reality of corporate capitalism. Presently one could be parachuted into any number of small cities in North America and be faced with indistinquishable cookie cutter suburbs or Condo developments, the strips or fast food and the stores in Malls or Plazas would also be indistinquishable. Variety of consumer goods for the most can be reduced to 150 varieties of shoddily constructed crap, Coke vs. Pepsi, Mcdonald's vs. Burger King,etc. If to you this is the some total of choice that defines your humanity that you might want have a look at that.

As has been pointed out the distinquishing feature of Capitalism is ownership of the means of production by an elite. Socialism does not require Soviet style centralized planning this is part of your McCathyist fantasy. Just because we do away with Capitalism or ownership of a ruling class does not mean people will be unable to produce a variety or diversity of goods, in fact it could result in greater diversity than corporate dictated monoculture. The main point would be that human activity would not revolve around alienated production and meaningless consumption.



From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 16 March 2008 07:31 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

I think it's great if people want to get off the grid. But, you're not going to get away from capitalism by doing so, unless you plan to construct your electrical generating devices


We had publicly-owned power generation and distribution throughout much of the last century. With power deregulation in California, they took a tried and tested system favouring cost minimization and replaced it with one favouring profit maximization. Free-for-all capitalism and electricity markets didn't work very well in dozens of U.S. states, the U.K, or Canada's largest province.

And the internet was made possible by publicly-funded research. The telephone system and central bank financing of infrastruture and social needs were all publicly-funded for many years. It wouldn't be all that difficult to return to what worked. Capitalists don't want us to believe that though.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 16 March 2008 07:40 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
And the internet was made possible by publicly-funded research.

And, for decades, it was stagnant as a limited tool of academics. You can use it in the form in which you now see it thanks to capitalism.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 16 March 2008 07:54 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
Just because we do away with Capitalism or ownership of a ruling class does not mean people will be unable to produce a variety or diversity of goods, in fact it could result in greater diversity than corporate dictated monoculture.

So, in your utopian world, who would decide what "variety and diversity of goods" to produce?

If several people pooled their savings from many years of putting a portion of their earnings aside and wanted to build a small production facility, would they be prohibited from doing so because they would control the means of production (and the capital)? And, what happens if their products are very very successful and they want to build many more (or a few very large production plants), would that be verboten? That is, of course, often how large companies started.

If you don't permit even that from happening (which is capitalism), then you, presumably, leave it to bureaucrats to make the decision. Good luck with that!


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jrootham
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posted 16 March 2008 07:57 PM      Profile for jrootham     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

And, for decades, it was stagnant as a limited tool of academics. You can use it in the form in which you now see it thanks to capitalism.


A meaning of stagnant and limited I was previously unfamiliar with.

Exactly what change to the internet occurred that required capitalism?


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 16 March 2008 08:10 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jrootham:

Exactly what change to the internet occurred that required capitalism?

Did the changes "require" capitalism? No. What is the probability that a non-capitalist system would have developed an internet that would be as widely usable like the internet we know today? Microscopic.

Where did your computer come from through which you are reading this? The Peoples' Computer Works?


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 16 March 2008 08:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

So, in your utopian world, who would decide what "variety and diversity of goods" to produce?


I think if we continue with globalization of "this", then everyone's choices will be increasingly limited in the future. Capitalism doesn't plan for the future. Or at least, the plutocrats and their friends in big business aren't revealing what they do plan for the future very openly or democratically. For instance, we have a right-wing think tank and council of CEO's of major corporations bending the ears of our "elected" officials like never before in Canadian history.

quote:
If several people pooled their savings from many years of putting a portion of their earnings aside and wanted to build a small production facility, would they be prohibited from doing so because they would control the means of production (and the capital)?

Sure, in a socialist workers' society, workers would own the means of production. But predatory transnational corporations would be disallowed from swallowing smaller competition whole. Workers would provide consumer goods as demanded, but not for the sole purpose of making a profit.

Capitalism is at a standstill today. It has used high technology to reduce labour costs and automate manufacturing. This automation of manufacturing and productivity has run its one-dimensional course and is now too focussed on cutting labour costs at the expense of workers. Economic growth came at costs to the environment in what was a closed economic system from a point of view that it didn't regard input from scientists as to what it was doing to the environment. The steering committees for our false economies have dictated the planning of our economies with short-sightedness, month-to-month balance sheets and quarterly projections, but never with future scarcity in mind or the health of the planet which all life depends on. Their only motivation was self-interest manifest as appalling greed. Most people in the world are not driven by appalling greed but by monthly mortage payments, rent, and grocery bills. In some ways, superrich capitalists are not anything like the billions of ordinary people they depend on for labour - a market to sell to - and to skim the cream from our sweat, blood, and tears over the course of our mortal lifetimes.

quote:
If you don't permit even that from happening (which is capitalism), then you, presumably, leave it to bureaucrats to make the decision. Good luck with that!

Capitalism depends on economic growth. A babbler remarked that growth is implicit in the design of capitalism. And we know that the writing is on the wall for growth and debt-driven capitalism. Canadian William Krehm compares the mathematics of exponential growth to that of the atomic bomb.

Socialism or barbarism, Sven? Have the Bush crime family and Republican cabal already chosen a path on behalf of all Americans? And we have willing participants in Ottawa, apparently.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 16 March 2008 08:35 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think that it is a matter of urgency that we come to grips with the fact that the way we have organized ourselves is pathological in the extreme and we need a way out; environmental degradation, economic turmoil, endless wars...

We can do better than this. We have to do better than this.

I could live without the internet...

I'm not wanting to criticize those who open fair trade shops or ponder and plan how to get off the grid - they are not the problem, in my opinion - they are seeking solutions.

The problem, as I see it, are people who do not seem to perceive the urgency or even the need to radically change how we organize ourselves and this, in turn, means that what we are left with is the need to enter into a form of physical combat or class struggle...

"kicking in the doorway til it bleeds daylight"...I think the song goes...

I don't want to fight. I want to build...

I stole this computer.


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 16 March 2008 08:40 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Don't rat on me...
From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
jrootham
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posted 16 March 2008 08:46 PM      Profile for jrootham     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

Did the changes "require" capitalism? No. What is the probability that a non-capitalist system would have developed an internet that would be as widely usable like the internet we know today? Microscopic.


Not microscopic, approximately 1. Almost all of the basic infrastructure design of the internet was done in not for profit institutions. Virtually all of them educational and research institutions, although GNU doesn't really fit that category.

Where did your computer come from through which you are reading this? The Peoples' Computer Works?

This is a bit circular, we live in a world dominated by capitalist production, so therefor almost everything is built under that framework, therefor is is a required framework.

There is an argument there but it's not an absolutist argument (the electricity to power the computer does come from the People's Electrical Power System), and you are making it badly.

It's also not germane to the original point. Which is that some people have become extremely wealthy exploiting work done in the institutions referenced above.

Part of the problem with that is that the obvious solution (patents) is much worse than the disease.

ETA I am also disappointed in your reply. Let me rephrase the question. What change in the internet are you referring to?

[ 16 March 2008: Message edited by: jrootham ]


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 16 March 2008 08:53 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sam:
We can do better than this. We have to do better than this.

I could live without the internet....


Yes we can. But the internet is a good thing. And I think we should give credit where it's due, which is to the publicly-funded researchers in the U.S. at the time it was conceived. Now the internet works better in other countries than it does in the U.S., no thanks to deregulated capitalism.

There was a political battle in the U.S. after the collapse of laissez-faire capitalism in 1929. U.S. conservatives have stated all along that FDR saved them from socialism. But that's a lie. FDR's New Deal socialists saved them from fascism. And a similar battle is being played out again, but this time it's taking place between weak political Liberals and a very powerful right-wing lobby in the U.S.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
CWW
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posted 17 March 2008 07:41 AM      Profile for CWW     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The only way to free yourself from capitalism is to disassociate yourself from the monetary system, and to reduce your earnings to zero.

Anything else is just feel-goodery.


From: Edmonton/ Calgary/Nelson | Registered: Jun 2005  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
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posted 17 March 2008 07:45 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sam:
Don't rat on me...

Of course we wouldn't!

It's nice to see you back, Sam. It's been a while!


From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Catchfire
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posted 17 March 2008 09:53 AM      Profile for Catchfire   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sven, capitalism provides choice without options. Coke or Pepsi? N.R. Kissed pwned you.

Anyway, I tend to agree with Stephen Gordon on this matter, but that doesn't mean I necessarily disagree with torontoprofessor. In fact, most of what s/he suggests characterizes my own strategy for living without capitalism (Lw/oC).

The problem, of course, is that gets us precisely only as far as "points for style." In fact, shopping at vintage shops is part and parcel of the capitalist project: buying an image based on an idea that never actually existed. And, if you avoid trendy vintage shops and buy at charity shops like Goodwill, you are supporting a system based on the lie that the market can take care of it's own problems. In fact, all this thread demonstrates is that it is impossible to live outside the capitalist system, full stop. It's a mug's game.


From: On the heather | Registered: Apr 2003  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 17 March 2008 10:04 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
The other thing about shopping second-hand is that it doesn't work for everyone. It takes time - is hard for parents juggling a job and kids, for example. People who are taller, shorter, fatter than the norm or simply not the "average" shape are unlikely to find clothes that fit well, to say nothing of folks with special needs (such as supportive comfort shoes that don't look dreadful).

It reminds me a bit of my friends in France when they were young and thought the best way of beating the system was to jump over the turnstiles. I did point out that older or disabled people could not save on fares in that way - so it came down to "survival of the fittest"! Gave them pause.


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 17 March 2008 10:04 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Where would we be if full-blown laissez-faire capitalism was in place today?
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 17 March 2008 10:07 AM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I'd be in jail.

Thanks Michelle! It has been a while...

Crazy year: did two months jail time (political not property) and worked for six months with Mexican and Jamaican migrant workers in the fields of South Western Ontario.

That is why this discussion is so very important to me; I see this desperate need for change now and what I see instead is Canada extending our war in Afghanistan, inaction on global warming and economic meltdown every two months or so.

It's like we are in a state of paralysis (the left) and denial (the right).

Those of us (and we are so many!) that do understand the urgency seem unable to come together in a meanningful way and map out a strategy and forge a coherent vision of the future.

I truly believe that we will get there but we must be willing to take huge risks (far beyond points of style) and our capitalist system is merciless when it comes to punishing dissent.


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 17 March 2008 10:42 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I was under the impression that participation in the capitalist markets was pretty well compulsory for anyone. If you're a boss, then you're forced to participate in the market(s) to get all the factors of production, including workers, to run your business; if you're a worker then you have to sell your ass for a certain number of hours a day to live. There's no real way out of it for the majority of people. Markets are not "free"; they are compulsory for most of us. And an escapist solution, for me alone, is in fact still more individualistic crap which is still a capitalistic solution to capitalism. When I wish to "free my own life from capitalism", then, presumably, I would wish the same for others and therefore ought to concern myself with more than my own hide.

I agree with jester's remarks about liking portable market vendors and such, and I certainly support local businesses over chains and larger transnational corporations, but in my view this is still mostly style over substance. The dominant players are even able to slough off certain businesses that are more risky, or require more flexibility than larger entities, and so on, and make things easier for themselves. The development in the 20th century of the science of marketing and advertising has, in fact, prolonged the life of capitalism. It is not just widgits, or consent, that is manufactured. Demand is created for things that no one really "needs". The worst of this is the demand for weapons whose sole purpose is to kill masses of people, whose production creates a mass base for the support of war, and whose ideological pollution threatens life on earth.

I also agree with toronto professor. A lot of what Ms. C has to say is simply good advice regardless of your attitude towards capitalism.

I don't wish to trivialize barter, or conscious decisions to stay away from shopping as a remedy to everything, or trade outside the capitalist markets (this is harder than some people think), or support of smaller vendors, but isn't the solution rather obvious?

You free your life from capitalism by fighting for the kind of society that you'd rather live in. You fight for socialism. Or, if you have some other vision of society, you fight for that. I don't see what's so mysterious about this.

Non-capitalist trade, for example, is being carried out in the relations between Venezuela and Cuba. The Cubans provide doctors and the Venezuelans provide oil. It's not that complicated. This is why the United States of America is in a virtual state of war with both of those countries. The freedom of the Cubans and Venezuelans to carry out trade outside of capitalism arouses the most horrific violence and rage from the self-appointed guardians and leaders of the capitalist world.

Which leads me to my next point. You have to be organized to fight for socialism, or whatever your vision happens to be, because the enemy is well organized and learns from his mistakes.

Every word spoken in favour of a different society, every refusal to support capitalism's horrific and endless wars, every demonstration against the injustices inherent in this society, every decision to live simply so that others may simply live, and so on, all of these are blows to the head of capitalism. It's a fight and the other guy fights dirty and is willing to threaten small children, mother earth, and anything else to save his ass and his exploitive system.

Work. Organize. Show solidarity with the struggles of others. We already know the answer, don't we?

[ 17 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
jester
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posted 17 March 2008 07:16 PM      Profile for jester        Edit/Delete Post
If it were not for capitalism,there would be no great entrepreneurial spirit that brought to the world great inventions such as the electric light,the telephone and squeaky toys in breast implants.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 17 March 2008 08:35 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
And thanks to socializing the costs of electrical power generation and public telephone infrastructures in the beginning, the largest number of people could afford electric lights and telephones. And eventually there was universal access to health care in dozens of first world countries, too.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 17 March 2008 08:36 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
"Every word spoken in favour of a different society, every refusal to support capitalism's horrific and endless wars, every demonstration against the injustices inherent in this society, every decision to live simply so that others may simply live, and so on, all of these are blows to the head of capitalism. It's a fight and the other guy fights dirty and is willing to threaten small children, mother earth, and anything else to save his ass and his exploitive system.

Work. Organize. Show solidarity with the struggles of others. We already know the answer, don't we?"

wow! well put n.beltov!

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sam ]


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 18 March 2008 10:37 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Thanks for the compliment but I don't view my remarks as particularly original. I just figured they needed saying. You could always add my remarks to the babble quote Hall of Fame if you felt that they belonged there. We have an unwritten rule that we don't add our own remarks to the Hall of Fame. [/shameless self-promotion and/or advice to babble neophyte]

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 11:10 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Oftentimes the essence of life and private enterprise jackals have proven to be a bad combination. private water and capitalism in Ireland Thank goodness Canada is only a half-baked experiment in Chicago School lazy-faire.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Farmpunk
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posted 18 March 2008 12:35 PM      Profile for Farmpunk     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Hey, I work with migrant Mexican workers, too. I'm not entirely sure the men I've worked with are really in favour of dumping capitalism. In fact, they seemed quite pleased the past two years with the increase in the Canadian dollar.

How does getting away from capitalism affect agriculture? Do I see any volunteers who want to move to the country and get dirty? Anyone who wants to work for room and board, send me a pm.


From: SW Ontario | Registered: Jul 2006  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 18 March 2008 12:37 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
c'mon man...you stole that from somewhere, no? I'm definitely saving that for a speech someday brother!
From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 18 March 2008 12:56 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No problem. Just make your speech short, especially in light of this thread today, if I'm there or else I will be in the curious position of calling for the hook for someone using my own words! Very embarrassing. Heh.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 03:39 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jrootham:
Not microscopic, approximately 1. Almost all of the basic infrastructure design of the internet was done in not for profit institutions. Virtually all of them educational and research institutions, although GNU doesn't really fit that category.

I agree that the basic infrastructure was created in not-for-profit institutions.

But, who makes the Internet actually useful to the average person? Google for Internet searches; FedEx for tracking packages they are moving; a large number of ISPs to provide a variety of Internet access points; weather.com to provide commercially produced weather information; Apple to provide iTunes, IBM, Compaq, Dell and others to produce the computers through which individuals access the Internet; and several thousand other examples.

Yet, you will say:

quote:
Originally posted by jrootham:
This is a bit circular, we live in a world dominated by capitalist production, so therefor almost everything is built under that framework, therefor is is a required framework.

To that I can only say: Look at economies that are classic examples state-controlled economies (non-capitalist) and give me a long list of useful products they have developed and produced that are used world-wide.

I have an iPod on my desk with about 10,000 songs on it. It’s an incredibly useful device. Compact and portable. I use it to play music on my mini-stereo at work, in my vehicle, at our cottage (it controls the sound system there), and then pretty much anywhere else I am with headphones. I can’t even imagine government bureaucrats developing such a device...or even caring to consider doing it in the first place.

Our company recently submitted a bid to a state government. The bid would result in this particular state saving over $500,000 a year by purchasing from us rather than a competitor and the quality of the products and associated services we provide are demonstrably better than the competitor’s products and services. On top of that, we have been providing products to that state for over twenty years. But, our periodic bid was rejected by a bureaucratic “box checker” because we gave the state two alternatives for each product category for the state to consider rather than just one!! The person rejecting the bid doesn’t give a shit about the consequences to the state. From her perspective, she couldn’t check off all of her little boxes, so the bid gets rejected, even though it’s not in the state’s best interests to do so. This kind of “thinking” is common when dealing with bureaucrats. They just don’t give a shit. In contrast, we have about a half million commercial customers world-wide and one would have to expend a fair amount of time and effort to find someone in a similar position acting as stupid, and so contrary to the interests of the organization they represent, as this state bureaucrat. I deal with a lot of very difficult and demanding commercial representatives but at least I can usually deal with them rationally (they are actually interested in listening to you if you point out that they can save money and get a better product and service than if they purchases from Company X). The bureaucrat? “I don’t care. I can’t check all of my little boxes.”

Yeah, those are exactly the kind of people I want developing and producing everything for me in a non-capitalist society.

No, I’ll take my chances dealing with one of several competing businesses rather than a government monopoly any day.

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 03:46 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Catchfire:
Sven, capitalism provides choice without options. Coke or Pepsi?

If your only beverage choices were Coke, Pepsi, or water, I’d grant you your point.

But, how many beverage choices do you really have? I would estimate that there are hundreds of beverage choices that you have.

Or, is that “choice without options”?

I shudder to think of the kinds of beverage choices you’d have if the government produced all beverages in a capitalist-free world.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 03:46 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by CWW:
The only way to free yourself from capitalism is to disassociate yourself from the monetary system, and to reduce your earnings to zero.

Anything else is just feel-goodery.


I think this is true.

Any takers?


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 03:54 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by lagatta:
The other thing about shopping second-hand is that it doesn't work for everyone. It takes time - is hard for parents juggling a job and kids, for example.

I think this is right. If I wanted to find a used window (say, from a tear-down) to replace a broken window in my house, am I going to spend fifty hours searching for that perfect used window to fit into the space I need it for or am I going to spend five minutes calling “Windows Incorporated” and have one of their people come out and replace my broken window?


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Proaxiom
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posted 18 March 2008 04:08 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by jrootham:
Not microscopic, approximately 1. Almost all of the basic infrastructure design of the internet was done in not for profit institutions. Virtually all of them educational and research institutions, although GNU doesn't really fit that category.

This isn't a fair statement. Certainly not 'virtually all'. To start with, the Internet in its original form was developed by the US military (the Advanced Researched Projects Agency) though this is still technically public funding. And while a huge amount of work was produced by educational institutions, a very large amount also came from private sector institutions like Bell Labs and PARC.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the public and private sectors in research and development, it doesn't serve anyone to try to diminish the role of one or the other. A lot of cutting-edge research comes from educational institutions, which feeds a private sector ecosystem that is able to attract capital to quickly develop the research into useful products.

The private sector also contributes to university research.

Also consider what was happening during all that time when Sven says the Internet was 'limited and stagnant'. Two things had to happen for the Internet to become a tool usable by the general public: hardware had to become powerful and cheap and standards had to be developed. Standards are very clearly a joint effort between public and private entities.

Hardware development is more a private sector effort, though. In the 1970s it was very expensive to connect to the Internet, which is why only large companies, government agencies, and research institutions did so. Since then computers have become small and cheap, as have communications equipment. The exponential increase in computing power combined with a simultaneous decline in cost is due to profit motives of hardware manufacturers: it is very lucrative to develop and patent a useful new hardware technology, and also very lucrative to find a way to manufacture it at lower cost.


From: East of the Sun, West of the Moon | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 18 March 2008 04:11 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I shudder to think

I think that about sums it up.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 04:16 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:

that about


Really? What does "that about" mean?

Com'on. When quoting something, quote it.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 18 March 2008 04:34 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
From Sven:

quote:
Any takers?

I'm pretty well there already Brother!

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sam ]


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 05:25 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

To that I can only say: Look at economies that are classic examples state-controlled economies (non-capitalist) and give me a long list of useful products they have developed and produced that are used world-wide.


For starters, the Soviets were by virtue of revolution, civil war and two world wars fought on their doorsteps, behind several advanced western countries technologically during much of the first half of the last century. Initial starting positions were not comparable with advanced industrialism here in the west. Nor were the number of trading countries in the COMECON block comparable with the west. Western capitalists were able to trade with about two-thirds of the world at the height of Soviet influence.

The launch of Sputnik caught the west somewhat off guard. We shifted emphasis of our math and science curriculums in public education from theoretical to the practical in response. Soviet scientific inventions were classified for the most part and not handed off to private enterprise as was the case in Japan, Germany and the U.S. By the 1980's, the Russians were said to have been behind the U.S.(and all western capitalist nations) by about eight years. And then Yeltsin and bureaucrats witheld investments in Soviet technology and infrastructure which were vital to their industrialized state leading up to the economic crises of the 1970's-80s. The U.S. did invest in science and technology in response to economic-technological challenges from Japan and Germany.

But as for Soviet inventions, there were several. The satellite was one. They shot the first satellite into orbit around the moon. Bolsheviks were supposed to have broadcast political messages wirelessly before Marconi, although that was pre-Soviet. There were adances made in electromagnetic steel ingot production(aluminum beer cans) - nuclear power technology - advanced large pipe welding techniques and which were adopted by western industries - advances in chemistry and physics - radiation-resistant computer chips - a GPS-like navigation system(military), Fedorov eye lens surgury brought to the west etc.

The Soviets worked within constraints of manpower and resources unlike the west, of which economies were constrained by market supply and demand theory. Their's was a much simpler economy especially after the separation of productive labour economy and expanding western world money markets of the 1980's.

Remarkably the Soviet-style "soft budget constraint" was utilized in cold war America through to today in funding DARPA, academic, and other federally funded basic research efforts. Publicly-funded research in the U.S. produced mainly advances in computer technology, computer chips, parallel computing, GUI tech(before Apple), lasers, fiber optics, metallurgical advances, modern oil well drilling techniques(1960's), ARPANet or networked computers TCP/IP and a host of internetworking control protocols etc The U.S. public spends so much more money on basic research every year that it makes Canada appear to be a Chicago School of lazy-faire experiment gone awry considering our widening productivity gap with the U.S since FTA-NAFTA.

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 07:02 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Okay, Fidel.

Name ten products that are widely used in the world today that were developed by the Soviet Union. Just ten.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 18 March 2008 07:07 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Farmpunk wrote:

quote:
"Hey, I work with migrant Mexican workers, too. I'm not entirely sure the men I've worked with are really in favour of dumping capitalism. In fact, they seemed quite pleased the past two years with the increase in the Canadian dollar."

Hey, I missed this until now...

Definitely, the workers I worked with smiled at the increased Canadian dollar. As far as dumping capitalism - they would scoff at such a notion.

At the same time, they work thier butts off for next to nothing and their living conditions are horrible.

I think what the migrant worker program demonstrates is that these workers are desperate to feed their families and own land back home and capitalism has put us in the insane situation whereby we export jobs to poor countries and because we can't export fields, we import Mexican and Jamaican workers to do work Canadians refuse to do for such low pay.

I'm not sure that this in any way makes capitalism fair, reasonable or rational.

In fact this is insane.

Even more of a reason to opt out of this insanity ASAP.

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sam ]


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 18 March 2008 07:26 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Name ten products that are widely used in the world today that were developed by the Soviet Union. Just ten.

Because it is all about products and consumption, right, Sven?

The truth is we can't escape capitalism. It is pervasive. It is in your blood in the form of toxins and chemicals. It is in the food you eat, the water you drink, the air you breathe, the information you consume.

It is a system of exploitation so successful even the exploited think they are benefiting from it - like slaves glad to be shackled because freedom is such a scary concept.

But capitalism is destructive. Because exploitation and greed are at the core of capitalism, there is no depth too deep nor act too depraved.

Consider the subprime fiasco. There is a huge human cost that isn't being reported at all by the corporate, capitaist media. We have bailed out the elite of the elite of the US social and financial classes to the tune of hundreds of billions. Working people are likely to lose their nest eggs, and in the wake of a huge financial swindle in which capitalism has done what capitalism does best - exploit; how many people have been held accountable? Zero.

How do you hold a system accountable when it is doing what it is intended to do?

There was a new report on Arctic ice today:

quote:
Despite an unusually cold winter, Arctic sea ice is in worse shape than ever, according to the latest satellite observations.

Perennial sea ice—thicker ice that remains frozen throughout the summer—is now at an all-time low, researchers announced at a NASA press conference today.
National Geographic



Capitalism continue to works its magic. No one from industry, nor government, shall be held accountable for the environmental destruction being unleashed against our earth in the interests of generating capitalist wealth for no purpose other than to further enrich the already perversely rich.

No one, that is, other than your children. But when have capitalists ever cared about anyone's children (except when opposing child labour laws)?

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Martha (but not Stewart)
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posted 18 March 2008 07:41 PM      Profile for Martha (but not Stewart)     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
Name ten products that are widely used in the world today that were developed by the Soviet Union. Just ten.

10. Chicken Kiev
9. The Lada automobile
8. Rubik's cube
7. Tarkovsky movies
6. Faberge eggs
5. Mayakovsky poetry
4. One Beatles song: Back in the USSR
3. Tatu
2. The Soyuz spacecraft
1. Russian Roulette


From: Toronto | Registered: Mar 2006  |  IP: Logged
N.R.KISSED
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posted 18 March 2008 07:41 PM      Profile for N.R.KISSED     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Really? What does "that about" mean?

I was suggesting that thinking causes you such great displeasure as to make you shudder.

quote:
If your only beverage choices were Coke, Pepsi, or water, I’d grant you your point.

But, how many beverage choices do you really have? I would estimate that there are hundreds of beverage choices that you have.


It doesn't really matter if you have a choice of two kinds of crap or two hundred kinds of crap, it doesn't stop it from being crap.

As far as bevereges beyond the carbonated and colourized sugary water drinks and fake juices, ice teas etc. there are endless kinds of crap.

There were and still are plenty of drinks prior to capitalism, i.e. take the juice of an orange or an apple or any kind of fruit, or vegetable and any number of combination, same as innumerable types of tea. Beer, Wine, whiskey all predate capitalism.

What is truly frightening is that the purest and freshest and most life giving of substances clean water will is becoming a scarcity becuase of the pure homicidal idiocy inherent in capitalism. We would turn this refreshing life giver into crap either by adding garbage( sugar and colouring) or by dumping toxic shit into the source. If I had any choice it would be to prevent this ongoing atrocity against this precious resource unfortunately not really a choice because those who think like Sven demand endless supplies of crap.


From: Republic of Parkdale | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
jrootham
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posted 18 March 2008 07:43 PM      Profile for jrootham     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proaxiom:

This isn't a fair statement. Certainly not 'virtually all'. To start with, the Internet in its original form was developed by the US military (the Advanced Researched Projects Agency) though this is still technically public funding. And while a huge amount of work was produced by educational institutions, a very large amount also came from private sector institutions like Bell Labs and PARC.

There is a symbiotic relationship between the public and private sectors in research and development, it doesn't serve anyone to try to diminish the role of one or the other. A lot of cutting-edge research comes from educational institutions, which feeds a private sector ecosystem that is able to attract capital to quickly develop the research into useful products.

The private sector also contributes to university research.

Also consider what was happening during all that time when Sven says the Internet was 'limited and stagnant'. Two things had to happen for the Internet to become a tool usable by the general public: hardware had to become powerful and cheap and standards had to be developed. Standards are very clearly a joint effort between public and private entities.

Hardware development is more a private sector effort, though. In the 1970s it was very expensive to connect to the Internet, which is why only large companies, government agencies, and research institutions did so. Since then computers have become small and cheap, as have communications equipment. The exponential increase in computing power combined with a simultaneous decline in cost is due to profit motives of hardware manufacturers: it is very lucrative to develop and patent a useful new hardware technology, and also very lucrative to find a way to manufacture it at lower cost.


This is actually a pretty good response. It points out the complexity of the issue.

A couple of quibbles. The US military is not a capitalist organization (although it certainly supports them, both by its spending and by its mission). ARPA was a granting agency, it did no work itself but handed out money for others to do work. The vast majority of that money went to educational institutions.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2001  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 07:45 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
Okay, Fidel.

Name ten products that are widely used in the world today that were developed by the Soviet Union. Just ten.


It's hard to point to consumer products invented by the Soviets and used here in the west because their's was not a consumer-driven economy based on consumption. Their approach and our's differed by chance and tended to orient research and development efforts towards military and defence as was the case in the U.S. with military research, Pentagon, and defence industries receiving the lion's share of annual U.S. government spending. But essentially, the U.S. military pursued computer technology while the Soviets pursued nuclear power technologies.

But to be sure, the U.S. dropped the laissez-faire capitalist approach after 1929 and later spared no resource or economic approach during the cold war. Oftentimes the U.S. resorted to American-style socialism in competing with Soviet socialism as far as military advances and technology was concerned. Much of that military technology in the U.S. was handed off to "the market" or private enterprise for profiteering and now the basis for a large part of the high tech sectors of our economies. But tech inventions can almost always be accredited in part or some manner to European scientists and inventors somewhere along historical lines of developement. Apparently the U.S., maker of the bomb, was actually behind Canada wrt nuclear power physics leading up to the second world war. Somewhere along the line the U.S. catapulted ahead of the Canadians, and it was due to an international effort to create the atomic bomb. And that invention is still with us today unfortunately. But where would computers be without Turing and Von Neumann? I think Canadians were capable of developing personal computers here, or at least there were early efforts to do so in the late 1960's and 70's. Here, markets drive consumer demand, which has always been a secondary consideration in the overall economic plan. What we have for home PC's are not the most reliable or the fastest or most efficient computers. The military and publicly-funded researchers still have more use for highest tech computers than ordinary consumers do.

I think we have to realize that inventions like the airplane and telephone happened in the west during times of relative peace and prosperity, at least within our own borders. Russians were busy fighting wars of conquest for the Romanov's leading up to the revolution. The country was in relative states of chaos right up to blitzkreig from 1942 to 45. Meanwhile, our industrialized states were advancing quite nicely in the absence of revolution and world war.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 07:53 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Because it is all about products and consumption, right, Sven?

Of course not.

But, what kind of personal computer do you use? It is a "Произведение в дерьмо компьютер"?

What kind of camera do you use? Is it a "Советский бумагу и карандаш"?

Do you listen to music on anything, such as a "Трава Граммофон"?

How about a Два банок и строка telephone?


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 08:07 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.R.KISSED:
There were and still are plenty of drinks prior to capitalism, i.e. take the juice of an orange or an apple or any kind of fruit, or vegetable and any number of combination, same as innumerable types of tea. Beer, Wine, whiskey all predate capitalism.

Am I correct in concluding that you fall into at least one of the following categories?

1. You personally make all of the beverages you enjoy. Like you said, "Beer, Wine, whiskey all predate capitalism" so one need not necessarily participate in capitalism to enjoy any of those beverages...if you make them yourself (and self-produce all of the necessary ingredients and implements to create said tasty beverages).

2. You buy the beverages that you enjoy. In which case you participate in capitalism.

3. You don't enjoy any beverages?

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 18 March 2008 08:12 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I suppose Sven's remarks are interesting because he's trying to substantiate the claim that capitalism still has some innovative powers to develop the productive forces of society. In general I think he's right about this. However, it's easy enough to provide innumerable examples of private sector horrors that, were it not for public sector oversight, would have been even worse or would have continued to this day.

It's also true that Sven completely ignores the negative aspects of capitalism; these are the seemingly inherent aspects that contribute to, what is now, a SET of global problems any one of which may well cause one horrific catastrophe or another: Peak oil; Resource depletion in general; mass pollution of the biosphere; Destruction of biodiversity; an endless series of interminable wars that spread defoiliants, chemical and radioactive fallout across the planet, not to mention the death and destruction in the wake of these wars; mass unemployment and impoverishment of billions of people; ever new technologies used, not in the service of people as the selective example of computer technology might suggest, but, in the service of the mighty moloch of profit at the expense of human beings. For example: biotechnology that creates mass starvation by replacing crops for food with crops for fuel so rich white people can drive their SUVs throught McDonald's in perpetuity; transgenic and mutagenic foods and substances whose unknown consequences will work themselves out on the entire population of North America; trillions of dollars spend on brainwashing the population into a gorging on an endless bath of consumer dazzlement and idiocy; trillions spend on weapons of mass destruction whose use would signal the end of life on Earth; military spending in general, as a means of enforcement of the "invisible hand", to obscene levels in a world where zillions do not have enough to eat, clean drinking water, a roof over their head, or a future.

Getting back to claims of capitalistic innovation, what we do see is that although it is possible for everyone on earth to have clean drinking water, enough food to eat, and so on, these simple tasks have not been carried out. They will not be carried out as long as capitalism is the dominant socio-economic system on this planet. Who gives a shit whether I have an I-Pod, as opposed to a turntable for LPs when tens of thousands die of Malaria because the availability of cheap, generic drugs contradicts the profit motive for already obscenely rich corporations? Does innovation in the latest new "revolutionary" Chevrolet product, or hairspray really trump the need for doctors in poor countries so that thousands of people will not lose their sight? Capitalism is immorality personified.

The glories of capitalism have a steep price. It's becoming clear to many people, and not just socialists, that that price is too high. God forgive us, because no one else will, if we do not jettison this system before it kills us all. Amen.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 18 March 2008 08:20 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sven buddy...these are big bad nasty things. Do you have anything deep to say about 'em?
From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 08:24 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sven, the telephone is a great invention. I'm glad that Bell invented it, and I'm glad he did his post-secondary studies here in Canada. And he learned to speak Mohawk, according to wiki anyway.

And I'm very glad about owning a PC and just as glad that publicly-funded researchers created the necessary message control protocols which allowed the internet to be conceived in the first place. I don't really think of them as having been federally-employed and funded at the time, or whether markets reduced costs for me to afford the latest consumer model today. If anything, low wages are responsible for people not affording what might have been the very best second-hand military technologies passed on to consumer markets. Maybe it's a quirk of capitalist economics that we have clunky PC's instead of industrial-strength versions, or cars with parts that last two or three times shorter than they could if profit motive wasn't a driving factor.

I just think of them as Americans, some of whom stood on the shoulders of giants who lived before them in creating these wonderful electronic devices and consumer gadgets first as military drawings and prototypes in a federal lab. For the most part, it was people educated by publicly-funded education systems who did the creating moreso than we could praise a stack of money for being the inspiration and source of creativity. It was people, or iow's, living, breathing, analog type human beans who were responsible not rigid, half-baked ideologies.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 08:34 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
N.Beltov, you, of course, raise a lot of good points regarding many of the negatives regarding capitalism (although, I must note that at least a few of the evils you noted, such as military spending, long pre-dated capitalism and has been practiced by every state-controlled economy in recent times as well).

That all being said, I would like to pose the following:

Let's assume a world were there was no capitalism but only the government to produce all goods and services. Also assume that the government was truly democratic. Do you think that people would choose to forgo the very same types of items that capitalism now provides them with?

If someone has an idea (say for an iPod-like device), the technology exists to produce it, and people know it can be produced. Will people say, "Naw, I'd rather listen to grandpa sawin' on the fiddle and slappin' the spoons"?

People would still vote for the production of things that brought convenience to their lives (washing machines, personal vehicles, etc., etc., etc.) and entertained them (computers, cameras, music players, etc., etc., etc.) and all that would really change is that the products would be crappier and cost a lot more.

As long as things are technologically possible to make, the only way to put a lid on the desires to have those things of convenience and entertainment would be to force those desires into submission by non-democratic fiat.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 08:39 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
Maybe it's a quirk of capitalist economics that we have...cars with parts that last two or three times shorter than they could if profit motive wasn't a driving factor.

Fidel, you and I are certainly old enough to know what happened before rigorous capitalist competition came to the automotive industry. You'd be lucky to have a vehicle last 100K miles (or 160K km) before it was a rusted out hunk of junk. The Japanese competition was the best thing that ever happened to the auto industry. Ms. Sven's Toyota has nearly 185,000 miles (about 300,000 km) on it and it still runs beautifully and looks great.

But, then, I'm sure Soviet-made vehicles far surpassed what Toyota has done.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 08:47 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
Let's assume a world were there was no capitalism but only the government to produce all goods and services. Also assume that the government was truly democratic.

I once owned a pair of shoes made in communist Poland. They lasted I don't know how many years. They were pig skin with leather soles. I had to throw them away finally because I was embarrassed that my friends kept remarking on how old they were. Same thing with handmade sweaters from England, Czechoslovakia and different countries leading up to the 1980's.

I think there should be more emphasis on making the consumer items we may or may not be able to afford, environmentally speaking, to last as long as possible. Because there are experts saying that we can't afford throw away capitalism as of decades ago, or sometime in the 1950's when U.S. planners and state department officials decided for Americans that their's would be a consumption-based economy, and that no global resources would be spared in order to feed an insatiable lust for marketable consumer products.

I think people around the world would like very much for these decisions to be made democratically by those people chosen to lead not succumb to corporate lobbyists. We, and I mean Americans and Canadians alike, need an electoral system where one person equals one vote, but not this current system where several dollars and meetings behind closed doors equals one vote.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 18 March 2008 09:02 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Sven: I must note that at least a few of the evils you noted, such as military spending, long pre-dated capitalism and has been practiced by every state-controlled economy in recent times as well.

I don't think you would dispute that the arms race with the former socialist countries was the doing of the leading capitalist countries. Would you? Furthermore, the kinds of weapons that exist today, WMDs of a wide and horrific variety, have transformed the nature of war, thanks to that wonderful innovation so characteristic of capitalism I might add, so that the use of these weapons pose a threat to life itself. These new weapons require a new way of living, of thinking - a point that Albert Einstein and Bertrand Russell made 60 years ago - which is frankly incompatible with the imperialist carving up of the world into rival trading blocks.

Even without the competition of the socialist countries - and there are so modest competitors still around, after all - the intra-capitalist conflicts and wars go on endlessly. The USA is now facing a real decline. Our own currency trumps theirs. In this new era, there is a greater and greater danger of a declining power using force to retain its ill-gotten booty . Shall I go on?

....

Canadians, by and large, live in a very wealthy country. We're blessed with a ridiculous amount of natural wealth, a tiny population, relative safety from invasion by some barbarian neighbor (for now), a huge percentage of the world's fresh water supply, and so on. It makes no sense to use Canada as a benchmark by which to evaluate a world standard of living. Were the whole world to live like us pigs in Canada ... the world's resources would be utterly depleted and we'd be fighting over pools of water like wild animals after a dry summer in the Khalahari. Fuggetaboutit.

quote:
As long as things are technologically possible to make, the only way to put a lid on the desires to have those things of convenience and entertainment would be to force those desires into submission by non-democratic fiat.

I think you're going out on a limb here. Just because we CAN do something, even if it is profitable for someone, doesn't carry a necessity that we MUST do something. Especially when the consequences in all their glory are factored in and not externalized onto someone else. Furthermore, if there really was a global "vote" on anything, we'd find ourselves as a tiny privileged minority having to justify our 20x40 swimming pools while the skeletal desert-dwellers look for water so they can eat. A real democracy, covering social and economic aspects of life, for this whole planet, is something necessary.

Russell and Einstein wrote about the peril of nuclear weapons. We now have, 60 years later, a set of perils, each one of which threatens the planet. These perils must be addressed, and sooner rather than later. If capitalism is unable to address these perils - and we only have to look at the utter bankrupcy of our own government in regard to a single one of these perils (global warming) to get an idea of this inability - then it only makes sense to look elsewhere for solutions to these complicated problems.

The Russell Einstein Manifesto

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 09:12 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
The Japanese competition was the best thing that ever happened to the auto industry.

And the big three are actually competing with Japan not Toyota. I think someone mentioned this before that Japan's unionized auto makers don't have the overhead of expensive health insurance premiums for their workers like GM and Ford do. And more CEO's in the States have come out with similar comments and lobbying the feds for universal(socialized) health care for all Americans. If taxpayer-funded health care is good for Republican senators, congressmen and their families, then it should be good for America too.

quote:
But, then, I'm sure Soviet-made vehicles far surpassed what Toyota has done.

Soviet roadways were never as good as the Eisenhower highway system. I mean come on! Then again, the Russians have recently extended trans-Siberian railway by thousands of miles eastward and looking to trade with the Koreas and Pacific Rim countries at some point.

And yes, cars are pretty good for personal, individualized travel. I get a kick out of seeing my 50-something neighbour trucking down the road in his Humvee, because he's it and he knows it. It's the culmination of his life's work - to look like a big shot gassing up at the local and winking at all the pretty young things who couldn't care less what he's driving, because he's not a young man anymore. Or at least he doesn't realize it yet. Three years ago he drove a late model Corvette. He's a good guy though, jts. We see in my example here, it's people who my neighbour considers more important than the stuff he owns, no matter how misplaced or out of time his intentions and desires are. The stuff he strives to own is just a means to an introduction to other living, breathing, alive and well people not a union-made hunk of CO-exhausting metal.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 09:22 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
I think you're going out on a limb here. Just because we CAN do something, even if it is profitable for someone, doesn't carry a necessity that we MUST do something. Especially when the consequences in all their glory are factored in and not externalized onto someone else. Furthermore, if there really was a global "vote" on anything, we'd find ourselves as a tiny privileged minority having to justify our 20x40 swimming pools while the skeletal desert-dwellers look for water so they can eat. A real democracy, covering social and economic aspects of life, for this whole planet, is something necessary.

I think you're going out on limb that's a bit longer than mine: One-world government where everyone gets a vote. Hell, it'll take the Europeans a couple of hundred years to fully integrate their economic and political systems into a single system (if they ever will). Yet, that would look like child's play when compared to integrating China, Tibet, Russia, Afghanistan, the USA, Ethiopia, Iraq, Iran, etc., etc. into a single, one-vote-per-person system.

But, let's say we could. We wouldn't be talking about free college education, livable wages, MRI availability, unionizing workplaces, and all of the other things that rich countries like Canada or the USA can afford to worry about and debate. Instead, we'd be talking about how to take care of the 2.5 billion people living on $2 (or less) per day. And, frankly, we should be more concerned about those unfortunates anyway, rather than wringing our hands about whether the retirement age should change from 65 to 67 or whether a living wage is $12 and hour or $15 an hour or similar "rich country" angst.

ETA: Compare the plight of the American poor with the $2.5 billion poor souls living on $2 a day (or less).

[ 18 March 2008: Message edited by: Sven ]


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 09:42 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
There is a new economy on the horizon according to the experts. It will be based on high tech services in biotech, nanotech, genetic engineering and all those buzzwords we've heard about in different sources. I think this research into future technologies requires the highest risk, highest cost investments. Like cold war era technologies we're finally able to enjoy like surfing the web today, costs for the newest technologies are being borne by taxpayers as usual until the ideas and prototypes are proven to work. At which time the lowest hanging fruit of public R&D will be handed off to that important middling sector of the economy for profit maximization.

It sounds like the Chinese may attempt their own version of public-private partnerships but extending patent rights to public researchers themselves instead of going directly to PPP's as per the U.S.(Bayh-Dole 1980) and Japan. I'm not sure about this though.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 09:56 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
I think this research into future technologies requires the highest risk, highest cost investments. Like cold war era technologies we're finally able to enjoy like surfing the web today, costs for the newest technologies are being borne by taxpayers as usual until the ideas and prototypes are proven to work. At which time the lowest hanging fruit of public R&D will be handed off to that important middling sector of the economy for profit maximization.

Com'on, Fidel. US companies spend about $200 billion per year in R&D. "Proven" products do not come rolling out of universities into the laps of businesses as "low-hanging" fruit. I know from first-hand experience with our company that we will license (unproven) technological concepts from universities and then engage in nearly all of the work to research and develop the technological concept into a product(s) that people are actually interested in buying at a price that will result in a reasonable profit to the company. Our company has about 500 chemists and biologists, from PhDs to engineers to lab techs, doing research and product development for us. This is not unusual.

If, in fact, "proven" products just fall out of universities for us to sell, then I've got a cost-cutting suggestion (elimination of our R&D group) that will save us tens of millions of dollars a year.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sven
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posted 18 March 2008 10:08 PM      Profile for Sven     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:
And the big three are actually competing with Japan not Toyota. I think someone mentioned this before that Japan's unionized auto makers don't have the overhead of expensive health insurance premiums for their workers like GM and Ford do. And more CEO's in the States have come out with similar comments and lobbying the feds for universal(socialized) health care for all Americans.

Actual productivity (the number of hours to produce a vehicle--"HPV") at Toyota (29.92 HPV), Nissan (29.97 HPV) and Honda (31.63 HPV) is significantly better than at GM (32.36 HPV), Ford (35.10 HPV) and Chrysler (32.19 HPV)...although, as this link indicates, that gap is slowly narrowing. On top of that, if you read Consumer Reports, the reliability (quality) of Japanese vehicles, particularly Toyota vehicles, is vastly better than the quality of American-company vehicles (although, there, too, the gap is narrowing). Those are key reasons why the Japanese companies continue to out-perform their American rivals.


From: Eleutherophobics of the World...Unite!!!!! | Registered: Jul 2005  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 10:18 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Well that's fine with me, Sven. I'm just saying that of all the English-speaking capitalist countries, the U.S. spends more in total, as well as a measure of percentage of GDP, on publicly-funded R&D than anyone else. Nanotech is a world-wide effort right now, but the U.S. outspends everyone else still. By what I've read about previous medical discoveries in the U.S., as an example, is that it's not so clear what amounts of private money were directed toward basic fundamental research into new discoveries as opposed to, for example, clinical trials to prove safety for secondary uses for a patented drug that is decades old and oftentimes a drug that was initially discovered by academic or federal researchers. The few reports I've read from Ralph Nader and others say that the highest risk research into genetic engineering, stem cells and nanotech are being borne largely by taxpaying citizens around the world and with the U.S. being the largest source. Big pharma is coasting on past achievements, like Tylenol version 65.1234xx as an exaggeration, by what I've read.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 18 March 2008 10:26 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:

Actual productivity (the number of hours to produce a vehicle--"HPV") at Toyota (29.92 HPV), Nissan (29.97 HPV) and Honda (31.63 HPV) is significantly better than at GM (32.36 HPV), Ford (35.10 HPV) and Chrysler (32.19 HPV)...although, as this link indicates, that gap is slowly narrowing. On top of that, if you read Consumer Reports, the reliability (quality) of Japanese vehicles, particularly Toyota vehicles, is vastly better than the quality of American-company vehicles (although, there, too, the gap is narrowing). Those are key reasons why the Japanese companies continue to out-perform their American rivals.


Have a good look at an Asian and American car side-by-side some time. You'll notice something right away, and that's that the Asian car tends to be smaller overall. Of course it will take fewer hours to assemble the Asian car.

As far as capitalism is concerned, time is money. And so are excessively high health care premiums said to be tacking on $1500 bucks to the price of an oversized GM truck or minivan, and which fewer of us want to buy because we can't afford to fill the tanks on them anymore. Or maybe we just don't want to fill them as often because we feel so guilty about it.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 19 March 2008 05:20 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
OK, Sven, I'm going to take your reply as indicating that the set of global problems, some of which I've briefly outlined, don't really merit your attention as important criticisms of capitalism. Perhaps you're of the view that ignoring problems will make them go away.

The one thing you've mentioned, the terrible global disparity of wealth, actually supports my argument since this disparity can be shown to be the result of normal development under capitalism - what's called "uneven development" and so on.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
torontoprofessor
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posted 19 March 2008 07:22 AM      Profile for torontoprofessor     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.

Having less stuff is personally beneficial, regardless of the appropriateness of capitalism and regardless of whether one person's having less stuff will reduce another person's poverty or inequality. Moreover, the personal benefits of having less stuff go beyond whatever points for style one might thereby accumulate.


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged
torontoprofessor
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posted 19 March 2008 07:36 AM      Profile for torontoprofessor     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Sven:
I think this is right. If I wanted to find a used window (say, from a tear-down) to replace a broken window in my house, am I going to spend fifty hours searching for that perfect used window to fit into the space I need it for or am I going to spend five minutes calling “Windows Incorporated” and have one of their people come out and replace my broken window?

Obviously, some things are way easier to buy second-hand than others. Windows that fit your house are typically hard to get second-hand. Sweaters that fit your body are typically extremely easy to get second-hand.

Things that are easy to get second-hand (if you're in a big city, anyway): clothes (excluding socks, underwear, and footwear),omputers,furniture (try Craig's List),cars,CDs,bicycles, houses (most houses on the market are used).


From: Toronto | Registered: Jun 2007  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 19 March 2008 07:40 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Yabbut some people love that new car smell and are willing to fork over huge sums of money to get it. Having never bought a new car, I'm immune.
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 19 March 2008 10:00 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think if more people could afford fuel efficient cars, we could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by significant amounts in the here and now. A friend of mine contemplated buying a Toyota or VW, compared prices, and then bought a used older model Cadillac for real cheap. His lower income job demands that he get to work on time but doing so within his means.

We need more choices for travel, and we need cities designed to provide those choices that people are demanding. We can't afford new infrastruture though since the remainder of money creation was handed over to a private banking cabal in the 1990's. We can't afford vital infrastructure and green economy, because debt-driven capitalism and unelected money speculators dictate that we cannot. Or at least we are supposed to believe that elected officials are impotent to do anything within their power toward affecting change that's needed so badly.


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
lagatta
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posted 19 March 2008 10:13 AM      Profile for lagatta     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions doesn't mean more efficient cars in urban areas - it means no private cars, and radically improved urban design (more pedestrian and bicycle friendly, shorter commutes) and adequate public transport.

As for Humvee drivers, they should be shot (there, that was my inner Stalin).


From: Se non ora, quando? | Registered: Apr 2002  |  IP: Logged
Fidel
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posted 19 March 2008 10:45 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by lagatta:
As for Humvee drivers, they should be shot (there, that was my inner Stalin).

... or volunteered for the nearest blood-for-oil war of conquest?


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 05:07 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Ever since John Perkins wrote Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, there have been a few books released that might be described as "Everything you wanted to know about how imperialism works". The most recent contribution in this trend, A Game as Old as Empire: The Secret World of Economic Hit Men and the Web of Global Corruption is reviewed over at Monthly Review here.

There are some serious weaknesses in the book, according to the reviewers: mainly an historical myopia and a rather primitive economic analysis. These weaknesses emerge particularly in regard to the discussion of remedies or counter-strategies to imperialism. Having mentioned the critiques, I should add the reviewers make clear that the book is well worth reading.

quote:
Eduardo Galeano: ... in systems organized upside down, when the economy grows, social injustice grows with it.

There's an astonishingly prescient quotation from Karl Marx that I cannot help but reproduce here.

quote:
Marx: The national debt, i.e. the alienation [by sale] of the state—whether the state is despotic, constitutional or republican—marked the capitalist era with its stamp. The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possession of a modern nation is—the national debt. (Capital, vol. 1, 919)

Private wealth and public debt? Sound familiar?

This guy just keeps looking more brilliant the further away from him we get.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 08:13 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:

There are some serious weaknesses in the book, according to the reviewers: mainly an historical myopia and a rather primitive economic analysis. These weaknesses emerge particularly in regard to the discussion of remedies or counter-strategies to imperialism. Having mentioned the critiques, I should add the reviewers make clear that the book is well worth reading.
[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man as well as the sequel - I forget the title - had those same weaknesses, I thought: they're very useful as a description of "things that are happening" but the theoretical presuppositions seem to be weak. He seems to believe that "a nicer capitalism is possible". Good books to read, though, and I plan to read the new one, too.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 08:29 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
There are some who have criticized Naomi Kline's most recent effort in much the same way. In the past, Chomsky has been the subject of similar criticism.

I have to admit that I prefer theory that is a guide to action rather than theory that is a guide to inaction. It's not always easy to disentangle these two approaches (especially if they exist side by side in the same author) but it's a worthwhile undertaking.

Of course, it's entirely academically respectable to critique a viewpoint while providing zero in the way of a coherent alternative. And where socialists are effectively silenced it's sometimes prudent to take such an approach. I sympathize with US (socialist) academics who must sometimes feel they are surrounded by Nazis who have just heard the word "culture" and have clicked the safety on their Browning. Nevertheless, it's a kind of political failure to stop just short of outlining coherent alternative(s) and failing to really learn from history.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 08:37 AM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Of course, it's entirely academically respectable to critique a viewpoint while providing zero in the way of a coherent alternative.

Irony, right?


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 10:16 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
No, no irony intended. Perhaps I might have typed,

"it's entirely intellectually respectable to critique a viewpoint while providing zero in the way of a coherent alternative"

... but that didn't feel quite right. Whose respectability, after all? I was thinking to myself, "Now where do such views originate?", as a socialist bear like me is inclined to, and I couldn't come up with anything other than the academic institutions that are charged with, in general, establishing "acceptable" views on complicated questions of social science. It's not just "good science" that leads virtually every single political science department, or economics department, or Xxx department, not to conclude that capitalism has all these insolvable contradictions and therefore ought to be replaced sooner rather than later.

I think you know that I generally try to defend a viewpoint where a)ideas are a guide to action, and b) I don't support some sort of Chinese Wall between forming social/political conclusions and taking action based on those conclusions. I don't think it's unfair to characterize academia, on the other hand, as having such a Chinese Wall. Hence my remark.

Am I wrong?


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Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 10:23 AM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
I would certainly take issue with the assertion that any idea must necessarily have been produced at the behest of some other group of people.
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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 10:37 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Fair enough. To me, all ideas have some sort of social origin. And yet I'm even willing to sometimes use the expression "a gift from God" for some ideas that I have no clue of their origin but simply wish to convey my approval of those ideas.

It would be a caricature of my views to suppose that I mean that academics "take orders" or something like that in regards to the conclusions they come to. It's just a question of how the whole thing works, and, importantly, if all ideas have some source, other than in the tranquil minds of some critically thinking critics or as a gift from God, then what is that source?

Karl Marx became Karl Marx in the 1840's by, in part, mercilessly unraveling the critical critics who criticize and elaborating a new view of the origin of ideas (especially ideas about society). You'd understand my view a whole lot better if you held your nose and read some of this. I realize it's very polemical but you've got a thick hide. You're an Economist, after all?

Edited to add: What am I saying? My hero, Georgi Plekhanov, does an admirable job dealing with at least part of this question in The Monist View of History.

Georgi outlines how Marx brought coherence to what was incoherent by explaining how, using his new found theoretical viewpoint, society comes to change. Marx faced other thinkers who viewed social change as originating in the ideas of critical thinkers (they had rejected Hegel's view of the Absolute Idea being responsible here) who simply needed to utter their pearls of wisdom and the world would be a better place.

I can't think of the best text off the top of my head but I suppose the search would itself be a useful activity.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 10:43 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I think that the world has operated on a guiding principle that says the most militant states will dominate the rest economically and culturally. I think this is what Margaret Thatcher and "dries" Tories meant by TINA. It's a false dilemma, and there are thousands of alternatives. There have to be, or we're all dead in the long run.
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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 10:49 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Fidel, TINA is a key plank of the ideological battle for those who argue for the permanence of capitalism. Thatcher was just ahead of her time in that regard.

Needless to say, TINA goes along with helicopter gunships and bombing runs and, in general, the iron fist than is sometimes described as an invisible hand. There is no alternative if every alternative is bombed to smithereens, economically strangled, or politically demonized.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 10:52 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
There are some who have criticized Naomi Kline's most recent effort in much the same way.

I among them. But I also read her book and appreciated many things about it, it as I did Perkin's books.

quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
I have to admit that I prefer theory that is a guide to action rather than theory that is a guide to inaction. It's not always easy to disentangle these two approaches (especially if they exist side by side in the same author) but it's a worthwhile undertaking.

Yeah. Sometimes I think it's pretty clear, though! I'm tempted to give examples, but I don't think I will. heh. But I think poor theory that is a guide to action is also "a bad thing". I'm stating the obvious, of course, but then people frequently do

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


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Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 10:54 AM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
Indeed; there are lots of alternatives. But pretty much all the ones we know about are worse.

You are invited to have a go at the Beer and Pizza problem.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 11:08 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
There is no alternative if every alternative is bombed to smithereens, economically strangled, or politically demonized.

Yes, it's like, "Never mind the 70 years we tried invading Russia with 25 armies - funded a blitzkrieg - and then recruited resources of two-thirds of the world in waging cold war on a "closed" society trying hard to exist side-by-side with an aggressive nuclear-powered, vicious empire. Because it's implied in this thread even that a much simpler alternative failed all on its own in spite of the trillions of taxpayer dollars spent on a cold war.

William Krehm had something interesting comments about economic history, from domineering "physiocrats" to casino market grifters today.


quote:
To better understand economics, it is necessary to clarify that it is not some mysterious set of perfect mathematical equations over which we have no control. Today, the Marketplace is often alluded to in almost Godlike terms, as if it were some all-pervasive, self-correcting, immutable Presence. To criticize operations of 'the Marketplace' smacks of blasphemy. But, believe it or not, economic spokespersons do not carry about with them some secretive, inner knowledge of the way in which the world works!

A fundamental concept which aids us in bringing economics down-to-earth is the very important notion of dominant revenue economics: from it, we see that dominant interests devise an 'economics' which serves their exclusive monetary and economic interests, rather than the interests of all, or of the Earth.



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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 11:24 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
A very simple point about capitalism is that it has a history. It has a beginning.

Now, I realize that many prevailing approaches to the history of capitalism try to convey it as a system which was always present and, thanks to the removal of some obstacles, it developed into its current "wonderful" state, but, frankly, such primitive metaphysical views of history are better suited for small children. There's much more that can be said here, of course, and I recommend E.M. Wood's The Origin of Capitalism in this regard, but the point I wish to lead to is this: if capitalism had a beginning then it has an end. Furthermore, becoming more knowledgeable about that beginning helps us to imagine and visualize a post-capitalist world. Then we can imagine non-capitalist trade, freedom from compulsory markets, and so on, rather than imagining pizza and beer problems which will only make us hungry and thirsty for a market solution.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 11:34 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
A very simple point about capitalism is that it has a history. It has a beginning.

Well, that's the thing about these "thought experiments". They're quintessentially liberal in the sense that they're ahistorical: they take the historically particular for the universal. At least, that's my experience of that tradition (a historical tradition that denies it's a historical tradition).

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: RosaL ]


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 11:42 AM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Beer and pizza problems, for me anyway, are a win-win situation given endless supplies of wheat, flour and hops and barley. Markets are no doubt prolific and effective at distributing goods and services.

But as Krehm points out, there have been pressing issues arise wrt the environment and scarcity of vital resources world-wide since the energy crises of the 1970's. The privatization of the remainder of the money supply was essentially a bailout for not just Canadian banks but all those western countries adhering to monetarism. Our democratically elected governments, and that's an abuse of the term, willingly ceded sovereign control of our money supply to bankers and money speculators who are never elected any country.

As someone pointed out in another thread, they are ill and don't have a regular family doctor there on the East Coast. Krehm states that:

quote:
"The crisis of modern-day economics springs from a quixotic attempt to understand a mixed economy in which profit is no longer the dominant revenue- in terms of a theory based on the assumption that it is."

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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 11:43 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
RosaL: Yea, the other thing is that you can wind up with an inexplicable craving for beer and pizza that can't be controlled. Heheh.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 11:44 AM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
What's the difference between a capitalist and a free-market economy?

When I see someone talk about "freedom of compulsory markets" as an objective for those who don't like capitalism, I realize I'm not current in my definitions.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 11:50 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
The boys of Capital, they also chortle in their martinis about the death of socialism. The word hasbeen banned from polite conversation. And they hope that no one will notice that every socialist experiment of any significance in the twentieth century -- without exception -- has either been crushed, overthrown, or invaded, or corrupted, perverted, subverted, or destabilized, or otherwise had life made impossible for it, by the United States. Not one socialist government or movement -- from the Russian Revolution to the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, from Communist China to the FMLN in Salvador -- not one was permitted to rise or fall solely on its own merits; not one was left secure enough to drop its guard against the all-powerful enemy abroad and freely and fully relax control at home.

It's as if the Wright brothers' first experiments with flying machines all failed because the
automobile interests sabotaged each test flight. And then the good and god-fearing folk of the world looked upon this, took notice of the consequences, nodded their collective heads wisely, and intoned solemnly: Man [sic] shall never fly.


William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions since World War II


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 11:51 AM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Proaxiom: When I see someone talk about "freedom of compulsory markets" as an objective for those who don't like capitalism, I realize I'm not current in my definitions.

I think that's "freedom from compulsory markets" as an objection to capitalism. Sorry for being a spelling zealot and all, but let's be precise. I think, earlier in this thread, I tried to briefly outline that capitalism can be characterized by markets that are compulsory. In particular, it doesn't matter whether you run a firm, and need raw materials, workers, and capital assets (factories, plants, etc.) or if you're just selling your own hide, you're still obliged to participate in the markets for these things. You can't get away from them.

It's also pretty important to explain how it is that it came about that some people had nothing but themselves to sell and came to be obliged to sell themselves to the factory owners in exchange for a wage.

Again, this is history, not a thought experiment.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 11:51 AM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
RosaL: Yea, the other thing is that you can wind up with an inexplicable craving for beer and pizza that can't be controlled. Heheh.


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 12:01 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
I think that's "freedom from compulsory markets" as an objection to capitalism. Sorry for being a spelling zealot and all, but let's be precise.

Sorry, typo.

quote:
I think, earlier in this thread, I tried to briefly outline that capitalism can be characterized by markets that are compulsory.

It seems like any economic system is compulsory, then. Generally speaking, the choice seems to be between total self-sufficiency (fending for yourself without any sort of economic interaction with others), or cooperation in whatever system society around you uses.

quote:
It's also pretty important to explain how it is that it came about that some people had nothing but themselves to sell and came to be obliged to sell themselves to the factory owners in exchange for a wage.

Is this a necessary fact of capitalism, or a historical artifact from an earlier state of the system?

I still would like to know what is the difference between capitalist and free market economies.


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 12:02 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proaxiom:
What's the difference between a capitalist and a free-market economy?

A truly free market economy would necessitate a balancing of power between workers and employers with a democratically-elected government acting as referee or iow's, free labour markets as opposed to captive labour markets where governments are really hirelings of big business and tipping the balance in favour of employers and capital.

I believe free markets can't exist where big business monpolies are the rule. If they become too big, they might as well be nationalised along with the profits for all the competition they've eliminated through predatory practices.

And there are some areas of our mixed economies(since the 1930's) which are natural monopolies and competition cannot exist or probably should not exist, like electricial power generation and distribution, water and sewers, education, health care, and several more areas important to vital functioning of civilized society.


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 12:12 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
I don't share Fidel's views as expressed here very much at all. This idea of the state as a neutral arbiter of conflicting social classes is, to my mind, a fairy tale which is, unfortunately, subscribed to by masses of people.

I take the view that, with the possible exception of periods of transition and such, the state is an instrument of class rule. The class that I want to see "rule" is the working class. Period. No "balance" of interests or anything like that. This is quite different from Fidel's view.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 12:18 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Fidel:

A truly free market economy would necessitate a balancing of power between workers and employers with a democratically-elected government acting as referee or iow's, free labour markets as opposed to captive labour markets where governments are really hirelings of big business and tipping the balance in favour of employers and capital.


The very existence of "workers" and "employer" is the problem as far as I'm concerned. I don't see how their power can be balanced or how labour markets can be free as long as you have these two classes. And I object to the notion of a "labour market".

But, then again, as people have pointed out, I'm unfashionable and I dress funny


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 12:19 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
It's a contradiction to say state involvement is necessary for a free market, because the state can only constrain people's economic choices, which is the opposite of any normal definition of 'free'.

What are capitalism and free markets to you, N.Beltov?


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 12:21 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proaxiom:
It's a contradiction to say state involvement is necessary for a free market, because the state can only constrain people's economic choices, which is the opposite of any normal definition of 'free'.

You don't think capitalism constrains people's economic choices?


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 12:28 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by RosaL:
You don't think capitalism constrains people's economic choices?

I didn't say that.

Everybody has constraints to their choices; we can't choose not to eat, for instance.

But 'free' in this sense tends to mean free of coercion by other actors. It seems that any system designed around a coercive entity -- even a benevolent one -- can't accurately be termed 'free'. I didn't say anything about capitalism except asking for a clarification of how it differs as an economic system from a free market economy.


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RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 12:32 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Proaxiom:

But 'free' in this sense tends to mean free of coercion by other actors. It seems that any system designed around a coercive entity -- even a benevolent one -- can't accurately be termed 'free'. I didn't say anything about capitalism except asking for a clarification of how it differs as an economic system from a free market economy.

Yes, I took it in that sense. But if you don't want to clarify your presuppositions, I'm not going to try to coerce you!


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 12:38 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Proaxiom: What are capitalism and free markets to you, N.Beltov?

Capitalism can be used in a number of ways. I would say that characterizing it as a socio-economic system, one of the main such systems in human history, is probably the most important way to describe it.

I would just add that Marxist definitions of capital differ from how the term in defined in orthodox economics. A fundamental difference in this regard, that can hardly be over-emphasized, is that Marxists view capital as a social relation and not simply as a "thing". For example, owning a plant makes no sense unless I can command some workers to work at that plant. This ability to direct "free" labourers (i.e., workers that have to find some job somewhere) is a social power over others. This aspect of the definition is completely lacking in orthodox defintions of capital; the social power is assumed and taken for granted.

My remarks about capital, capitalism also apply to remarks about free markets. There are also ideological aspects to talk of "free" markets. Markets became capitalist when they became compulsory (in the view I am defending).

A "market society" is a society in which the dictates of the capitalist market regulate not only economic transactions but social relations in general. Everything is mediated through the market. The market is not "free" ... it's compulsory. And that's one way to describe capitalism itself.

The world market, says one Marxist text, was responsible for the triumph of the capitalist mode of production (socio-economic system in my terminology; these things aren't identical, however).

Although old Soviet era books made use of terms like 'socialist market', I'm not entirely convinced that this sort of usage is theoretically sound. You'll have to do your own homework on that.

Anyway, the term "free market" is what I would call an ideological term. It hides as much as it reveals. To borrow a quote from Eduardo Galeano ... "People were in jail so that prices could be free." It's an upside down world we live in.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 12:45 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
A fundamental difference in this regard, that can hardly be over-emphasized, is that Marxists view capital as a social relation and not simply as a "thing". For example, owning a plant makes no sense unless I can command some workers to work at that plant. This ability to direct "free" labourers (i.e., workers that have to find some job somewhere) is a social power over others. This aspect of the definition is completely lacking in orthodox defintions of capital; the social power is assumed and taken for granted.

I'm not sure the social power is necessarily coupled with the economic mechanism. It exists so long as labour is abundant relative to capital, but if you reverse that -- so that there are a lot of factory owners, and not enough workers to work in them -- then the workers would indeed have power over the factory owners.

quote:
Markets became capitalist when they became compulsory (in the view I am defending).

Again, is this in contrast to earlier 'opt-out' economic systems? Can you give an example of such?


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 12:57 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Proaxiom: Again, is this in contrast to earlier 'opt-out' economic systems? Can you give an example of such?

I think you're misunderstanding "market" dominance of social life here. Or perhaps you're assuming that capitalism, and capitalist markets, always existed. I dunno. Pre-capitalist agricultural workers were required to provide their "protector" or Lord with a percentage of the crop, perhaps a tithe to the church as well, in "exchange" for which they had certain "rights" like access to the land, common land as well, to grow crops and tend to their animals. It's not "opt out" or "opt in" at all; the markets does not dominate social life and does not mediate all social interactions between people. Perhaps you find it difficult to imagine.

Anyway, in summary, "free" markets are what brought capitalism into being. So these things are inextricably tied together, even if they are not identical. You can do your own homework and look up how the terms are used by orthodox economics.

Perhaps socialists should have a slogan something like, "Destroy the markets!" Heh. It's an interesting concept.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


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Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 01:05 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Perhaps socialists should have a slogan something like, "Destroy the markets!" Heh. It's an interesting concept.

Then what?


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 01:08 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Why, non-capitalist trade, of course. It's already being done, say, in regard to Cuban Doctors and Venezuelan oil. There's a thought experiment for ya.
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Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 01:15 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
Trade between governments is okay, but not between people?
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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 01:19 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:

I think you're misunderstanding "market" dominance of social life here. Or perhaps you're assuming that capitalism, and capitalist markets, always existed. I dunno. Pre-capitalist agricultural workers were required to provide their "protector" or Lord with a percentage of the crop, perhaps a tithe to the church as well, in "exchange" for which they had certain "rights" like access to the land, common land as well, to grow crops and tend to their animals. It's not "opt out" or "opt in" at all; the markets does not dominate social life and does not mediate all social interactions between people. Perhaps you find it difficult to imagine.


In the feudal system people were compelled to either grow their own food, build their own houses, and make their own clothes, or if they chose not to, then they had to provide some other good or service and trade for those things. Is this any different from today's economy, other than that today very few people choose self-sufficiency?

I don't think the market mediates all social interactions.


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 01:28 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
I don't share Fidel's views as expressed here very much at all. This idea of the state as a neutral arbiter of conflicting social classes is, to my mind, a fairy tale which is, unfortunately, subscribed to by masses of people.

Oh I think it's a fairy tale, too. I was just trying to provide an answer to Proaxiom's question.

At the end of a sixteen year-long experiment in nouveau Liberal capitalism in 180's Chile, his peers said Milton Friedman's economics and democracy are incompatible. And further, bombing Iraq and then writing Iraqi energy policies in Houston Texas is neither democratic nor free and fair. Shock doctrinaire capitalism or socialism? Nouveau mafia supplies the muscle and neoLiberalizers the moxy, hand-in-glove.


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 01:28 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Prof Gordon: Not sure what you mean. I've only given a single example. People interact with each other, outside of the market, and do things for each other all the time. There's barter, of course. I think you know all this.

I'm not as good a student of non-capitalist trade practices as I would like. I still have to find a way to pay for my pizza and beer, which takes quite a bit of my time.

As I mentioned in my remarks to Proaxiom, some talk about "socialist markets". I'm not entirely clear what the hell is meant by that. My gut analysis tells me that markets need to be abolished, not transformed, for socialism to come about. Then you get into chicken and egg debates, much like capitalism and "free" markets in regard to the origin of capitalism itself. Which came first? and so on.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: N.Beltov ]


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N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 01:37 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Proaxiom: In the feudal system people were compelled to either grow their own food, build their own houses, and make their own clothes, or if they chose not to, then they had to provide some other good or service and trade for those things. Is this any different from today's economy, other than that today very few people choose self-sufficiency?

This is a misreading of history. The peasant didn't provide the lord with a cash payment; he provided corn, say, or a portion of a crop. The bulk of economic activity went on outside the market altogether. Capitalism required the development of markets.

quote:
P: I don't think the market mediates all social interactions.

The most important activity of people is how they make "a living". That's mediated by the labour market. In order to live, people have to live somewhere. That's mediated by the housing market, the real estate market. Then they have to feed themselves.

Shall I go on? The market dominates social life as in no other society. It is compulsory. Think of the market as the Borg.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 01:45 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
How about thinking of the market as a decentralised, consensual mechanism for arriving at collective decisions?

eta: Oh, and barter economies are also market economies. Just not very efficient ones.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: Stephen Gordon ]


From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 01:52 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Stephen Gordon: How about thinking of the market as a decentralised, consensual mechanism for arriving at collective decisions?

I dunno. One dollar one vote doesn't seem very consensual to me. And we really seem to have so many Global problems that, with the present system, we seem to be rushing headlong to a planetary precipice. I opt for door number 2 even if I'm not completely sure what's behind it.

Time for pizza and beer.


From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 01:55 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
Time for pizza and beer.

Way ahead (okay, one hour) of you...

TTFN, and cheers.


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Fidel
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posted 20 March 2008 01:56 PM      Profile for Fidel     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by N.Beltov:
As I mentioned in my remarks to Proaxiom, some talk about "socialist markets". I'm not entirely clear what the hell is meant by that. My gut analysis tells me that markets need to be abolished, not transformed, for socialism to come about. Then you get into chicken and egg debates, much like capitalism and "free" markets in regard to the origin of capitalism itself. Which came first? and so on.

I think markets existed long before Smith and Hume and Locke. Market socialists and socialist intellectuals like Polanyi pointed out how unscientific the model for Liberal capitalism really was back then.

And I think that our choices within any future socialist society have become fewer and fewer with global warming and the overall effect of a globalizing economy organized around corporate balance sheets and short-sightedness of leave it to the market capitalism. Things should have progressed long before they did in the last century. The revolutions should have begun centuries sooner. We would be so much further ahead today if it wasn't for lingering imperialism and now predatory capitalism. We have to ditch this globalized lie that middle class consumerism is attainable for the other 85% of humanity.

I think that as it was during the cold war, socialism's appeal is to deliver the basics to as many people as possible: universal health care - universal education through post-secondary - access to decent housing - the dignity of having a job and participating in the economy. As simple and unremarkable as those things appear to be for some people, the U.S. CIA and Pentagon capitalists knew that those basics couldn't be allowed to get a toe-hold in Latin America and elsewhere out of fear for an idea. They did not want poor people to have the choice between basic socialism and a total lie that promised free markets but delivered cash crop, thirdworld capitalism in reality.

Contrary to popular claims, I think NeoLiberal capitalism has worked to deliver the opposites of those socialist goals, which has been to degrade Canada's socialized health care - create bubble economies and shortages of what we used to take for granted, like enough doctors to go around - increase isolation of people and increasing loneliness, especially for the elderly. Education has become increasingly a right of the well off and those who can afford to pay. We've never really had full-blown laissez-faire capitalism. But it hasn't stopped ideologues from trying it on wherever democracy was overthrown or natural disasters paved the way. The only viable answer to fending off nouveau capitalism is democracy, because they know that people will not choose it knowingly if put to a fair vote or referendum. Ideologues still rely on paternalistic fake demcocracy and one nuclear-powered vicious empire to push their agendas to the forefront. Without the necessary military muscle to enforce their version of free markets, it withers. Capitalism is not a very natural state of affairs if it requires force and a very outdated electoral system to prop it up.

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: Fidel ]


From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004  |  IP: Logged
RosaL
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posted 20 March 2008 02:10 PM      Profile for RosaL     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
How about thinking of the market as a decentralised, consensual mechanism for arriving at collective decisions?

I propose we think about slave societies in the same way. I'll even propose a slight modification to make it a more palatable: we'll allow slaves to move from master to master. The only proviso is that without a master, they starve.


From: the underclass | Registered: Mar 2007  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 02:50 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
That's an astonishingly feeble and deeply insulting dodge.

Next time you try that sort of crap on me, I'll feel free to respond in kind.


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martin dufresne
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posted 20 March 2008 02:59 PM      Profile for martin dufresne   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Just what I need for Easter: a WWF economics sneering match. (Does Stephen Gordon have inkling of how ridiculous he sounds? Just wondering...)

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: martin dufresne ]


From: "Words Matter" (Mackinnon) | Registered: Dec 2005  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 03:23 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
martin, do go fuck yourself; there's a good troll.
From: . | Registered: Oct 2003  |  IP: Logged
Lard Tunderin' Jeezus
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posted 20 March 2008 03:36 PM      Profile for Lard Tunderin' Jeezus   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
You're still getting away with that ignorant shit. Mindboggling.
From: ... | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
Stephen Gordon
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posted 20 March 2008 03:40 PM      Profile for Stephen Gordon        Edit/Delete Post
And for the umpteenth time, LTJ decides to participate in a thread for no other reason than to bitch about me.

Colour me surprised.


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Proaxiom
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posted 20 March 2008 03:41 PM      Profile for Proaxiom     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
By N.Beltov:
This is a misreading of history. The peasant didn't provide the lord with a cash payment; he provided corn, say, or a portion of a crop. The bulk of economic activity went on outside the market altogether. Capitalism requires the development of markets.

I don't know what you think markets are. Markets occur whenever free actors come together to trade goods or services. In an earlier post you implied that bartering isn't participating in a market, but it is. Money isn't necessary to participate in a market, though it makes it easier.

The feudal system had plenty of barter and monetary trade, too. There were plenty of artisans. If the peasants weren't engaging in a market when they traded food (or money) for permission to work the land, it's only because they had no choice, because they weren't legally allowed to move.

Actually you can see market dynamics in work in feudal systems, such as when the black plague reduced the supply of labour, but not demand for labour (since the amount of land didn't change), causing a sort of wage inflation in many areas. Nobles reacted by pushing for laws to halt migration of peasants to work under nobles offering better terms -- anti-labour laws, caused by nobles acting as a collectivist to prevent competition.


From: East of the Sun, West of the Moon | Registered: Jun 2004  |  IP: Logged
Frustrated Mess
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posted 20 March 2008 07:23 PM      Profile for Frustrated Mess   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
I propose we think about slave societies in the same way. I'll even propose a slight modification to make it a more palatable: we'll allow slaves to move from master to master. The only proviso is that without a master, they starve.

Quite accurate except that capitalism has been quite effective at convincing slaves they are free.


From: doom without the gloom | Registered: Feb 2005  |  IP: Logged
Sam
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posted 20 March 2008 09:43 PM      Profile for Sam   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sorry Brother...

[ 20 March 2008: Message edited by: Sam ]


From: Belleville | Registered: Nov 2003  |  IP: Logged
N.Beltov
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posted 20 March 2008 10:24 PM      Profile for N.Beltov   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Sam, you're giving too much to the class enemy. Shut the hell up. And delete that last post, will you?
From: Vancouver Island | Registered: May 2003  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 20 March 2008 11:44 PM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
How about thinking of the market as a decentralised, consensual mechanism for arriving at collective decisions?

Because that would be contrary to how it operates in the real world. The belief that there's any symmetry between economic 'actors' is based on nothing but blind faith, and without that symmetry the whole model collapses. Its almost criminal how companies have been allowed to buy up the competition to artifically inflate their values and downsize workforces further (efficiency) while most economists have blathered on blindly about competition between equals. It probably is criminal how the banks are once again being bailed out from their own gross incompetence and corruption rather than letting the markets do what they're supposed to, but that too will probably pass unnoticed.

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]


From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
Erik Redburn
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posted 21 March 2008 12:38 AM      Profile for Erik Redburn     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
quote:
Originally posted by Stephen Gordon:
Until I see anything that suggests that these measures will actually reduce poverty and inequality, I'm going to dismiss all of the above as a sterile attempt to obtain points for style.


And since this was derailed by your usual disingenuous questions, I'll give you the usual social democratic answer. We don't want to buy too much from countries where the price scales are so vastly different we can't compete against them wage wise. Especially not for items we can produce ourselves. We might pay ten percent more per item but the average shmoe should start asking their politicians how much a ten percent savings on t-shirts or I-pods are worth compared to a ten to one hundred percent loss in wages. In the end it won't help the Chinese either if noone on either side of the ocean can afford them. That wouldn't be far from what Marx predicted, before Keynes stalled the process, except worker solidarity will be harder to build across oceans and nationalities.

That's a longer term struggle though, re the question, I could only say not to worry as much about what to buy if the choices just aren't there, but more about what we can do to change the overall dynamic. Then maybe there'll be better choices for everyone down the road.

[ 21 March 2008: Message edited by: Erik Redburn ]


From: Broke but not bent. | Registered: Feb 2004  |  IP: Logged
bigcitygal
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posted 21 March 2008 03:28 AM      Profile for bigcitygal     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post
Holy extreme thread length, bat-people! Please start a part two if anyone wants to continue the discussion.
From: It's difficult to work in a group when you're omnipotent - Q | Registered: Apr 2005  |  IP: Logged

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