News Without a centralized, involuntary taxation power be sustainable?

[OrbitalPower]

Many of those monopolies were temporary, the rose and collapsed under their own weight.

The monopolies formed because of free-market policies, they came to an end after government regulation.

This should be put into the perspective of the rural farm life of the time and from which they came. Subsistence farming was a brutal life for most. ALL women and children worked on subsistence farms, all the time. The people who headed for the factories are evidence of this in that they voted with their feet.

These are the same people who provided much of the evidence against their masters to parliament in England (the saddler committee) and in the US.

Saying one form of servitude is better than another really isn't much of a convincing argument.

Every country has 'capitalism' in that sense, even the former Soviet Union. The question is who controls the capital. In the SU the state controlled it all. India did not become a free market capitalist state until the 90's. Prior to that, the capital was mostly under the control of the state, and in that aspect analogous to the Soviet Union.

Ridiculous. There was no private property in the USSR whereas many industries in India were privatized, the government only providing regulation of the industries.

It was nothing like the USSR.

That is not consistent with any common history of, say, the native American peoples as described by the early Columbian era explorers - if that era and place is in keeping with what you mean. Some tribes were extremely well off - well fed, well clothed, rich culture, holding large numbers of slaves, and others were very poor, on the verge of collapse - all well before the Europeans arrived.

It is consistent with it.

Columbus himself was amazed at the cooperation and the share-and-share-alike spirit of the Indians - he even wrote about it in his journals. Las Casas and other historians wrote much of the same thing.

There were tens of millions of Indians by the time Columbus had care in the America - about 80 million according to Encarta. They were wiped out after the Europeans came.

And they certainly did have a balance, they had nothing like the inequality that exists in the world today.

 

[OrbitalPower]

I believe you must mean the human hunter-gatherer period. 'Anarcho-primativism' appears to be a political construct that makes reference to hunter-gatherer societies as part of its model; its not a term of art in anthropology.

David Graeber is a world famous anthropologist, who has done very good work in anthropology, and he often puts anarchism in the perspective of anthropology as well.

Anthropologists and historians often speak of "pre-civilization" which is a time when homo-sapiens lived when there didn't exist much in terms of official records or works, and there certainly wasn't a government.

I don't see why you can't say they were "anarchist" since they had no government.

 

[mheslep]

The monopolies formed because of free-market policies, they came to an end after government regulation.

These are the same people who provided much of the evidence against their masters to parliament in England (the saddler committee) and in the US.

Saying one form of servitude is better than another really isn't much of a convincing argument.

Servitude on the farm? Incoherent and a non-sequitur.

Ridiculous. There was no private property in the USSR whereas many industries in India were privatized, the government only providing regulation of the industries.

It was nothing like the USSR.

Private property? Non sequitur. I said capital. Most of the 'commanding heights', as Lenin called the the heavy industry, was nationalized or utterly controlled by the state in India for decades after its independence.

It is consistent with it.

Columbus himself was amazed at the cooperation and the share-and-share-alike spirit of the Indians - he even wrote about it in his journals. Las Casas and other historians wrote much of the same thing.

There were tens of millions of Indians by the time Columbus had care in the America - about 80 million according to Encarta. They were wiped out after the Europeans came.

And they certainly did have a balance, they had nothing like the inequality that exists in the world today.

An avalanche of non-squiturs Orbital.

 

[OrbitalPower]

How in the world are those non-sequiturs? You said Columbus said they were unbalanced; I haven't heard this.

What we were talking about was if industrialization and trade had always benefitted everyone. I don't see how that is the case when there are more people in poverty today than as Dr. Abraham George notes. Apparently there are "better" forms of poverty.

Read the book 1491 - the Indian populations were flourishing before the Europeans came here in the Americas.

If anything, the destruction of the Native Americans is another argument that "industrialization" and "free-trade" do not always lead to a greater benefit for all, which is what Russ had claimed.

 

[mheslep]

...If anything, the destruction of the Native Americans is another argument that "industrialization" and "free-trade" do not always lead to a greater benefit for all, which is what Russ had claimed.

95% of the loss in native American population was due to the spread of disease, and that 95% does not include intentional bio bombs of British 'pox blankets', if that ever occurred at all.

 

[OrbitalPower]

95% of the loss in native American population was due to the spread of disease, and that 95% does not include intentional bio bombs of British 'pox blankets', if that ever occurred at all.

The figure among historians seems to be "up to 80%" more or less in some areas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#European_explorations

"Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration and sometimes destroyed entire village populations. While precise figures are difficult to determine, some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations died due to European diseases after first contact."

The book is 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus (over 200 reviews on amazon, an average of 4 and 1/2 stars), which provides a culmination of evidence from the social sciences and the humanities and shows that they were actually quite successful, pre-trade.

This perhaps would be a good source to use as to whether they lived out of a balance with the environment, and since they seemed to be me mostly living off of "living sunlight" rather than "dead sunlight" I would say they had a blance.

The historical record is pretty clear: expansionism does not always lead to success. Slavery and Africa. And in the twentieth century, you had America and Britain etc. competing for oil in the middle east, the results of that being Britain carving up the middle east and the US propping up various dictators, even putting down attempts for the societies to democratize, etc.

Furthermore, US intervention in Latin America also led to millions of deaths, failed governments, etc.

So, I don't see how the record is "clear" that trade and industrialization is always a benefit, when it has failed even into the twentieth century.

 

[drankin]

So, I don't see how the record is "clear" that trade and industrialization is always a benefit, when it has failed even into the twentieth century.

Help me out here, what failed?

 

[ultimablah]

Lets just assume the whole world is in anarchy. Who is going to be the person who keeps it that way? In reality at least one nation would form. Then that nation would do as nations have done for thousands of years, conquest and colonize. How would rock throwing self serving anarchists fight off a united military with billions and billions of tax funds?

Anyone who wants to stay free of government tyranny will keep it that way. Nations or governmental bodies can voluntarily form, and they can voluntarily affect the people who agreed to it, but people, due to historical precedent, would realize that, in all likeliness, they would NOT benefit from a large, over-ruling governmental body. So a nation could form, but people would voluntarily fund committees to protect them from that nation should it attempt to conquer them. The government would form voluntarily, but only affect those who entered in it voluntarily(which is exactly what almost all governments today are not). If it started trying to involuntarily affect others, how would individuals protect themselves? Or in other words, how would rock throwing self serving anarchists fight of a united military with billions and billions of tax funds? Well, if a government wants to take over, first, it needs to get those billions and billions of tax funds, and in order to get tax funds, it has to tax, and in order to tax, it has to have the power to tax, and in order to get the power to tax, it first has to take over, which leads to the problem of people giving a government power. How many people would fund that government, knowing it would most likely turn on them and use them (a historical precedent set by every government), lowering the quality of life they could have otherwise gained? Where's the benefit per risk and cost?

And if people were being attacked by an outside government, then wouldn't a governmental body overrun an anarchist society? Well, they'd try their hardest to defend themselves, funding private military projects(but including, of course, requirements that the army cannot then turn on the funders, and limitations on power that would prevent the army from being able to take over after the war finishes). Not to mention, private individuals would have their own weapons(unlike the declawed population of today... if the government decides to attack us, who would defend us against our own military? It certainly would be difficult to defend ourselves).

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Okay, the problem with this is, what about the competition? You're assuming Smith is the only smithy in the world, and has no competition, but the chance that there is no other man who can offer services of the quality of Smith's in a world as large as ours is quite low. And again, as I asked, would you purchase Smith's product if you knew he had a monopoly? There would be an "anti-Smith" market, so to speak, which any entrepreneurial individual could capitalize on.

There are always certain businesses that do better than others either because they have some edge over their competitors or simply got lucky. A company that gains a lead in a market can easily reinvest to expand and increase that lead. This does nto even require any sort of greed or intent for dominion on the part of the company. Mr. Smith may simply like that he is providing a good service protecting people and their businesses and providing so many people with good jobs. In fact a company that has little interest in their own personal gain will theoretically have more capital to reinvest and expand their business.

And Smith needn't compete with everyone in the world only everyone in his general region of the world in order to gain a foot hold there. Why would people necessarily have a problem with a monopoly? If people trust Mr. Smith, believe that he is a good man, like the services he provides, and the jobs he creates why would anyone (save his competitors) have a problem with this? You seem to have this idea that people will instinctively distrust a monopoly. But if you look at the world around you you will see that in most markets there are only a few giants and many much smaller entities, despite even government regulation against monopolies, and primarily because people have "voted" for them by giving them their business.

 

[ultimablah]

Okay, so what, then, is the problem with monopolies? They're still purely voluntary.

Or, are you saying that people wouldn't suddenly become wary if Mr. Smith started hunting down people who denied his service? If Mr. Smith made any part of his company opaque?

In an anarchist society, business would be as close to politics as the system gets. I mean, if one company got a monopoly in physical power, do you think nobody would realize the dangers of such a monopoly?

On both sides, for and against any political system, slippery slope arguments appear en masse.

 

[DropGems]

You pseudo-intellectuals should try reading some Gnome Chomsky before you go spouting off on the intricacies of anarchy.

 

[LightbulbSun]

You pseudo-intellectuals should try reading some Gnome Chomsky before you go spouting off on the intricacies of anarchy.

It's NOAM not Gnome.

 

[mheslep]

It's NOAM not Gnome.

No its http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nim_Chimpsky" .

 

[mheslep]

The figure among historians seems to be "up to 80%" more or less in some areas:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#European_explorations

"Epidemics often immediately followed European exploration and sometimes destroyed entire village populations. While precise figures are difficult to determine, some historians estimate that up to 80% of some Native populations died due to European diseases after first contact."...

My source was UCLA professor Jared Diamond:

...Throughout the Americas, diseases introduced with Europeans spread from tribe to tribe far in advance of the Europeans themselves, killing an estimated 95 percent of the pre-Columbian Native American population...

http://books.google.com/books?id=kL...r&dq=jared&ei=NClRSemcFIPmzASU5rzHBg#PPA78,M1
The main point of contention seems to be the pre-Columbia estimate of population, which varies from 1 or 2 million up to 20 million.

Edit: Jared goes on to answer the question: Why were the native Americans decimated and not the other way around when the Spanish ships returned home carrying American infections? Answer: hunter-gatherer vs agriculture based cultures. Agrarian cultures support 10-100 denser populations (at the time) and they stay on top of their own refuse where as the h-gs move on. The result is the agrarians societies hosted diseases and their populations were forced, over the eons and bouts w/ plagues, to develop immunities; the h-g's never had to. There was an interesting recent study showing that, even today, people demonstrating immunity to AIDS, despite direct contact with the virus, are often direct descendants of 14th century plague survivors in Europe.

 

[shakemyhandbo]

I think this is false in the sense that today I observed heirarchy among ducks. I live at a marina and ducks were on the docks. One pair of the ducks were like the in-crowd, the cool popular ducks, stretching showing good posture, confidence, self-esteem. The other ducks were tucked up napping but they didn't look cool at all. And there is a malard duck that looks different from the others, yesterday it was not accepted, today it was accepted and it was happy. Humans are no different.

I usually find that I reject my friends in favor of people who aren't as kind.

Anarchy is a temporary phenomena. Heirarchy is always formed, even if it's subtle. Even between three friends, a heirarchy is established.

The heirarchy may rotate depending on the context and moods of everyone, of course. But the simple fact is that some people are more willing to do what they're told and other people are more satisfied telling people what to do. Eventually, an authority is established based on power and will. (If someone has power but no ambition, they easily lose their power to someone who has ambition, but no power, thus making someone with power and ambition.)

If you want to get down to it, heirarchy itself is likely formed out of greed. The rich land-owner and lawmakers of the mercantile age eventually realized that they were suffocating their own coffers by restricting trade. Adams, Hobbes, and Locke all showed how the government could profit from letting people own their stuff and making them feel more secure. So allowing more freedoms may have very well been a product of greed itself.

 

[shakemyhandbo]

The real problem that we have in the world is people who are floaters, interested in doing the minimum to gain social acceptance and status. Say 5% of people really know how to solve problems, useful skills. The rest of people don't contribute in the same way. This is the most intelligent forum I've seen around, you have no concept. It doesn't quite make sense to release the best inventions into society that would only impose more rules on the very same innovator.

 

[Al68]

Would a society without a centralized, involuntary taxation power be sustainable? (eg. an anarchy?) Could people be happy without having to rely on a system that uses force to mandate policies? Would economics work?

You could easily have government, even a republican form, without involuntary taxation. Government could simply engage in business ventures to make money, or donated trusts, or private financing, etc. It would be unlikely that it would be a monstrous gov't like the US, but only a small fraction of federal tax revenue in the US is used to operate gov't itself, build highways, basic law enforcement, etc.

As far as economics, free enterprise only needs basic rule of law to operate at its best, ie, prohibitions against theft, fraud, murder, etc.

It should be noted that the US went from (literally) nothing to the greatest nation in history with no income or payroll tax, with rare (and insignificant) exception. During this time, the US federal gov't as a whole would be considered economically insignificant by today's standards.

 

[Al68]

Of course, in capitalism, there is a profit incentive, and since capitalists don't come up with a very good solution to the tragedy of the commons, the system inevitably led to poor living standards for the masses

Poor living standards for the masses caused by capitalism? Are you joking? You cannot believe that the living standards for the masses are worse than before the rise of capitalism. Unless you grossly, grossly, grossly, overestimate their living standards in the past. In countries with relatively free economies today, most people eat a decent meal almost every day. This situation is virtually unique to capitalism.

In countries that greatly restrict capitalism, there is widespread abject poverty. This situation is obfuscated in the US due to our operational definition of "poverty" including children who have clothing, shelter, eat every day, water that won't kill them, etc. Some people just don't realize how much worse people in economically oppressed countries have it.

There are zero countries with significantly free economies that have such widespread abject poverty. Zero.

 

[misgfool]

It should be noted that the US went from (literally) nothing to the greatest nation in history with no income or payroll tax, with rare (and insignificant) exception.

You may be on to something. I don't think mongols had income or payroll tax either.

Poor living standards for the masses caused by capitalism? Are you joking? You cannot believe that the living standards for the masses are worse than before the rise of capitalism. Unless you grossly, grossly, grossly, overestimate their living standards in the past. In countries with relatively free economies today, most people eat a decent meal almost every day. This situation is virtually unique to capitalism.

It isn't capitalism that brings decent meals. It's technology.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Poor living standards for the masses caused by capitalism? Are you joking? You cannot believe that the living standards for the masses are worse than before the rise of capitalism.

Yes, I believe it is quite clear that capitalism drives down living standards. When it first appeared in Enlgand, more than fifty-seven per cent of the working class children died before the age of thirty-two - they had better living standards under Feudalism. The working conditions in American capitalism were equally deplorable and compared to farm life it was not as self-sustainable as well, not to mention that they also saw a decrease in political power as well.

The roaring 20s and gay 90s (1890s) also experienced extreme poverty and the policies of laissez-faire led right into the Great Depression which again saw a reversal of living standards.

The record is quite clear that capitalism only works with massive government regulation and programs.

The best empirical evidence of pure capitalism is Latin America - numerous countries followed the advice of free-market economists after the 50s and 60s and this led to some of the highest inflation and worst living standards the countries had seen in years, Chile, Argentina, and especially Nicaragua.

Nicaragua became the second poorest region in the hemisphere after the Reagan administration and freedom fighters "liberated it." The Indians in the region that Reagan was supposedly saving only could find work as divers, where a lack of standards had them diving without equipment where there brains would get smashed as it was calculated companies could bring in new workers cheaper than they could have effective living standards.

The record of laissez-faire capitalism is clear: failure after failure after failure - free-market economics has effectively been discredited.

Unless you grossly, grossly, grossly, overestimate their living standards in the past. In countries with relatively free economies today, most people eat a decent meal almost every day. This situation is virtually unique to capitalism.

Actually the clear majority of first world countries with high living standards are those who have "mixed economies" what Republicans here in the US call "socialism."

The extreme in either direction - extreme laissez-faire capitalism or other forms of laissez-faire societies, and extreme totalitarian ones - have generally been failures.

http://economist.com/markets/rankin...ory_id=8908454&CFID=16415879&CFTOKEN=94552766

The US is certainly no stranger to heavily regulated government industries and government programs that stimulate the economy in the first place, however, the regulation tends to be on behalf of industry rather than on behalf of the people.

In countries that greatly restrict capitalism, there is widespread abject poverty.

This is not true. Many countries supposedly "restrict" capitalism to a greater degree than the US does and they do not have abject widespread poverty.

If you look at the U.N. development index the US has gone down on the list whereas social market nordic nations are at the top.

This situation is obfuscated in the US due to our operational definition of "poverty" including children who have clothing, shelter, eat every day, water that won't kill them, etc. Some people just don't realize how much worse people in economically oppressed countries have it.

The US is not a free-market economy and hasn't been in decades. Some of its most prosperous times come when it regulated the economy, mostly due to what are called "Keynesian economics."

If anything, the economy is more regulated now than it has ever been. The Reagan adminstration, prior to Bush, was the biggest corporate welfare proponent of all time, bailing out corporations at the estimated amount of 500 billion. Bush has even surpassed this, which is something many people didn't even think was possible.

The current problems the US is facing is clearly the problem of these failed, corporatist policies.

There are zero countries with significantly free economies that have such widespread abject poverty. Zero.

Again this is untrue as Mexico went into its worst recession in its history AFTER they had implemented the policies of trade and the World Bank and many Latin American countries that were free-market had difficulty competing with Cuba when it came to education and health care.

Brazil also is awash in resources but they have problems with extreme poverty with children who spend their lives sniffing glue on the streets and families without homes etc.

All other countries that are supposedly successful "capitalist" stories like Hong Kong or Japan have various measures such as price-controls, oligarchies left over from British colonization, anti-comeptitive practices (numerous companies have been forced out of Hong Kong because of their food cartels), and so on.

 

[OrbitalPower]

It isn't capitalism that brings decent meals. It's technology.

Not only that it's debatable whether Americans receive "decent meals a day" or crap designed to fatten people up with little to no nutrients in them. Go to the poor neighborhoods and see what kinds of foods they are buying: it is likely frozen pizzas. liquid candy, and so on rather than nutricious foods.

Furthermore, in these days when it is well known that corporations are protected by the government I shouldn't even have to point out the numerous farm bills and farm subsidization that American corporations receive:

Processed foods are more "energy dense" than fresh foods: they contain less water and fiber but more added fat and sugar, which makes them both less filling and more fattening. These particular calories also happen to be the least healthful ones in the marketplace, which is why we call the foods that contain them "junk." Drewnowski concluded that the rules of the food game in America are organized in such a way that if you are eating on a budget, the most rational economic strategy is to eat badly — and get fat . . . For the answer, you need look no farther than the farm bill. This resolutely unglamorous and head-hurtingly complicated piece of legislation . . . sets the rules for the American food system — indeed, to a considerable extent, for the world’s food system.

The American government basically supports this fat and unhealthy diet:

For the last several decades — indeed, for about as long as the American waistline has been ballooning — U.S. agricultural policy has been designed in such a way as to promote the overproduction of these five commodities, especially corn and soy . . . The result? A food system awash in added sugars (derived from corn) and added fats (derived mainly from soy), as well as dirt-cheap meat and milk (derived from both). By comparison, the farm bill does almost nothing to support farmers growing fresh produce. A result of these policy choices is on stark display in your supermarket, where the real price of fruits and vegetables between 1985 and 2000 increased by nearly 40 percent while the real price of soft drinks (a k a liquid corn) declined by 23 percent. The reason the least healthful calories in the supermarket are the cheapest is that those are the ones the farm bill encourages farmers to grow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/22/m...3b8480bb7549490b&ex=1177992000&pagewanted=all

This is disguisting. And contrary to free-market fundamentalism, it is not soley the "consumer's fault" that they get stuck with often are the worst choices available to them and it's not just in "agribusiness," it's in electronics and everything. Try and find well made stereos with all high quality parts, can't do it.

This is because corporations generally have an interest in turning out what is most profitable, and what is most profitable doesn't necessarily mean what is best for the consumer or the country.

As usual, this is a policy that began with the corporate Republicans, and not the Democrats, in the 1970s when it was encouraged to overproduce corn with subsidization by the government. The US spends about 19 billion a year in subsidies to agribusiness, and every dollar of profit they make costs the consumers and taxpayers about $10.

Furthermore the child poverty rate in some states is quite high to begin with, necessitating their need to purchase unhealthy foods or no foods at all.

This is more "free-market fascism" that needs to be eliminated as it has been in the countries mentioned on the livability index.

 

[misgfool]

This is more "free-market fascism" that needs to be eliminated as it has been in the countries mentioned on the livability index.

Nordic countries are relatively liberal in economical sense. Iceland was the freest of them all, but I think they hit a little bump in their ride. At the moment established so-called capitalist countries are by default falling to corporatism. Which leads to a new aristocracy. That's one reason why different forms communism are so appealing. And that's why the tree of nations get it's share of the blood of patriots and tyrants. Ironically the toughest communists are also the best capitalists.

So far history has proven that any attempt to put ideologies into full effect leads to different kinds of disasters. Capitalism is an ideology. Not to mention that there are no existing large scale proper implementations of capitalism in the world. No one has even attempted to build one. By proper I mean a capitalist system with no medium known as money/currency/etc for exchanging goods and services. Money combined with capitalism is just evil and bad. Money rips a gap in between supply and demand.

However, only change is certain. Modern day capitalism is a result of social evolution so it's only a small sidestep in the bigger picture. I don't claim to know any better alternatives nor do I claim to know the best way to measure the success of systems, but I would hope that the future belongs to quasi-fascsist mixed technocracies. Reason why I hope this because the alternatives may be a lot worse.

 

[Al68]

Yes, I believe it is quite clear that capitalism drives down living standards. When it first appeared in Enlgand, more than fifty-seven per cent of the working class children died before the age of thirty-two - they had better living standards under Feudalism. The working conditions in American capitalism were equally deplorable and compared to farm life it was not as self-sustainable as well, not to mention that they also saw a decrease in political power as well.

The roaring 20s and gay 90s (1890s) also experienced extreme poverty and the policies of laissez-faire led right into the Great Depression which again saw a reversal of living standards.

The record is quite clear that capitalism only works with massive government regulation and programs.

The best empirical evidence of pure capitalism is Latin America - numerous countries followed the advice of free-market economists after the 50s and 60s and this led to some of the highest inflation and worst living standards the countries had seen in years, Chile, Argentina, and especially Nicaragua.

Nicaragua became the second poorest region in the hemisphere after the Reagan administration and freedom fighters "liberated it." The Indians in the region that Reagan was supposedly saving only could find work as divers, where a lack of standards had them diving without equipment where there brains would get smashed as it was calculated companies could bring in new workers cheaper than they could have effective living standards.

The record of laissez-faire capitalism is clear: failure after failure after failure - free-market economics has effectively been discredited.
Actually the clear majority of first world countries with high living standards are those who have "mixed economies" what Republicans here in the US call "socialism."

The extreme in either direction - extreme laissez-faire capitalism or other forms of laissez-faire societies, and extreme totalitarian ones - have generally been failures.

http://economist.com/markets/rankin...ory_id=8908454&CFID=16415879&CFTOKEN=94552766

The US is certainly no stranger to heavily regulated government industries and government programs that stimulate the economy in the first place, however, the regulation tends to be on behalf of industry rather than on behalf of the people.

This is not true. Many countries supposedly "restrict" capitalism to a greater degree than the US does and they do not have abject widespread poverty.

If you look at the U.N. development index the US has gone down on the list whereas social market nordic nations are at the top.
The US is not a free-market economy and hasn't been in decades. Some of its most prosperous times come when it regulated the economy, mostly due to what are called "Keynesian economics."

If anything, the economy is more regulated now than it has ever been. The Reagan adminstration, prior to Bush, was the biggest corporate welfare proponent of all time, bailing out corporations at the estimated amount of 500 billion. Bush has even surpassed this, which is something many people didn't even think was possible.

The current problems the US is facing is clearly the problem of these failed, corporatist policies.

Again this is untrue as Mexico went into its worst recession in its history AFTER they had implemented the policies of trade and the World Bank and many Latin American countries that were free-market had difficulty competing with Cuba when it came to education and health care.

Brazil also is awash in resources but they have problems with extreme poverty with children who spend their lives sniffing glue on the streets and families without homes etc.

All other countries that are supposedly successful "capitalist" stories like Hong Kong or Japan have various measures such as price-controls, oligarchies left over from British colonization, anti-comeptitive practices (numerous companies have been forced out of Hong Kong because of their food cartels), and so on.

One thing is clear here, in a mixed economy, socialists always take credit for the benefits of capitalism, and then blame capitalism for the failures caused by socialist policies.

I'm too lazy to address everything you've said that I strongly disagree with, so I'll just point out that there is one thing I agree with, that the most successful economies are mixed. This is just because the extreme on the socialist side just doesn't create enough wealth, and the extreme on the economic freedom side is not politically stable. Something will always fill a power vacuum.

In that sense, laissez-faire capitalism has no significant history, it's never been tolerated to an extent that it could be empirically tested. So comparing mixed economies to the extreme on the oppression side is our only option, and those results are clear.

It seems absurd to credit the success of mixed economies to the oppression instead of to the economic freedom, when we have a mixture.

 

[shakemyhandbo]

Why don't people just build their own houses, cob houses. And garden, that's all you really need. People in poverty don't seem to be motivated, have you noticed. Grad students live under the poverty line frequently. Or are you really talking about cultural differences but you don't want to seem bigoted so you just mention the safe phrase of poverty. Often enough people in poverty don't seem to do much as it seems. It seems they can get food from UNESCO or just wait for some middle class college student to join the Peace Corp. Why does everyone have to intellectualize this topic. It's pretty straight forward.

I'm so tired of discussions of the government and the intrusiveness of the "known world" because if you were out of the ordinary you would have the Guinness Book people in your face.

The topic at hand is really how people treat each other. And in Europe they know how to run a civilized society. I feel isolated because not many people are like me as I'm finding out. There's the potential for different forms of anarchy. Not all anarchy is the same. Because anarchy implies some sort of small close group without leadership (aka bossiness). Some people would be good to lead who never really wanted to. I feel I'm not communicating this in the same way as other people. I sure am getting tired of hearing about the violent societies around the world. While Northern Europe opens the floodgates to them as refugees. I'm tired of African nations running the UN, they ought to solve their own problems. The thing about our society is that you aren't even supposed to trust your own instincts anymore. You aren't supposed to understand the truth. The appropriate path is technological slavery, I mean you have to

Why don't people just grow their own food. If I believe in that I'm a leftist these days, whereas in the past, agrarianism had its roots as patriotic. People look down on growing their own food. Why should food be transported halfway around the globe anyway. This is all about perceptions that we agree upon. It's completely stupid. That's why I want some form of freedom (aka anarchy by my definition.) Let's talk about those 3 square meals a day. It's mostly meat anyway. Adults have more junk in their vacuoles than a Hudson River barge. I take it we're not all the same.

Boil water. Use a solar cooker. It's not that hard to figure out. I'd rather be discussing something tangible like inert polymers and I think some of the brighter people in this forum might want to venture out of the hypothetical where their talents could solve real solutions. Aerogel was invented in the 1930s and it's barely being used. Most of my time was not managed well by trying to make friends with the wrong people.

Indian reservations could be used as technology parks. That's a form of anarchy, doing something different.

Poor living standards for the masses caused by capitalism? Are you joking? You cannot believe that the living standards for the masses are worse than before the rise of capitalism. Unless you grossly, grossly, grossly, overestimate their living standards in the past. In countries with relatively free economies today, most people eat a decent meal almost every day. This situation is virtually unique to capitalism.

There are zero countries with significantly free economies that have such widespread abject poverty. Zero.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Why don't people just build their own houses, cob houses. And garden, that's all you really need.

Not all people know how to build houses and I would say that very few are knowledgeable enough to build a home up to todays standards of livability (heat, AC, insulation, electricity, plumbing, ect).

People in poverty don't seem to be motivated, have you noticed.

Most of the poor people I have met hold multiple jobs. I'm certainly not motivated enough to work more than one job.

Why don't people just grow their own food.

Again there is an issue of 'know how'. Aside from this there is also the issue of whether or not your crops will survive due to bad weather and drought among other things.

 

[Al68]

You may be on to something. I don't think mongols had income or payroll tax either.



It isn't capitalism that brings decent meals. It's technology.

Well, we wouldn't have today's technology without the rise of capitalism. What do you think the driving force is to develop new technology?

If it were not for economic oppression throughout history, Jesus' disciples would have had cell phones. Sounds crazy, but 2000 yrs isn't that long compared to the oppression prior to that.

 

[misgfool]

Well, we wouldn't have today's technology without the rise of capitalism.

True, we could be even more advanced. I'm afraid that the "If" -argument is invalid.

What do you think the driving force is to develop new technology?

Necessity, greed, fame, curiosity, ability to do so, having nothing better to do etc. Capitalism is only a more efficient way of distributing resources than the currently attempted alternatives. Note that it is most likely not the most efficient way and only works better than the attempted alternatives when resources are limited. So technology can make capitalism obsolete.

If it were not for economic oppression throughout history, Jesus' disciples would have had cell phones. Sounds crazy, but 2000 yrs isn't that long compared to the oppression prior to that.

Or they might have been living in savage tribes. Another "If" -argument.

 

[mheslep]

...

This is disguisting. And contrary to free-market fundamentalism, it is not soley the "consumer's fault" that they get stuck with often are the worst choices available to them and it's not just in "agribusiness," ...

I agree, substantial responsibility lies not just with the consumer but with government via the subsidies and corporate welfare you referenced above, in addition to the FDA and other government actors that are biased in favor of big agribuis, thus enabling rivers of corn syrup. As far as I can tell your stated preferences would enable a great deal more of this.

 

[russ_watters]

True, we could be even more advanced. I'm afraid that the "If" -argument is invalid.

Ya know, we have actual examples of capitalist countries and communist, socialist, dictatorships, etc. to draw from to figure out if such "ifs" are true or not. This isn't a guessing game: it's history. We know what happened and we know what works. We know that capitalism leads to prosperity and advancement more than any other system yet tried.

China and India are terrific examples of this. Until the past few decades, real industrialization and capitalism had not touched these countries and now that they have, the meteoric rise in their standard of living has caused a statistical halving of the global poverty rate in the past 20-30 years. The primary cause is the embrace (albeit slow) of capitalism since around 1980.

 

[russ_watters]

Yes, I believe it is quite clear that capitalism drives down living standards. When it first appeared in Enlgand, more than fifty-seven per cent of the working class children died before the age of thirty-two - they had better living standards under Feudalism. The working conditions in American capitalism were equally deplorable and compared to farm life it was not as self-sustainable as well, not to mention that they also saw a decrease in political power as well.

The roaring 20s and gay 90s (1890s) also experienced extreme poverty and the policies of laissez-faire led right into the Great Depression which again saw a reversal of living standards.

The record is quite clear that capitalism only works with massive government regulation and programs.

Can you support any of that with evidence? Certainly it is true that during a recession or depression, the standard of living decreases, but recessions and depressions do not change the fact that overall the standard of living has increased. Ie, sure average life expectancy may have declined during the great depression, but that doesn't change the fact that it has doubled over the past 100 years, even when that period is included.

Here's a snippet of life expectancies throughout history: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
Here's one for the US since 1850, showing we never had a decrease with the inception of industrialization: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0005140.html

You gave some pretty specific numbers: can you provide a source for them please? Ie, I'm willing to accept the possibility of a slight and temporary decrease in life expectancy at the onset of industrialization, but I need to see the numbers and you need to connect them logically to your overall argument. What you are saying appears to be blatant misrepresentation of historical fact.

 

[russ_watters]

The best empirical evidence of pure capitalism is Latin America - numerous countries followed the advice of free-market economists after the 50s and 60s and this led to some of the highest inflation and worst living standards the countries had seen in years, Chile, Argentina, and especially Nicaragua.

Nicaragua became the second poorest region in the hemisphere after the Reagan administration and freedom fighters "liberated it." The Indians in the region that Reagan was supposedly saving only could find work as divers, where a lack of standards had them diving without equipment where there brains would get smashed as it was calculated companies could bring in new workers cheaper than they could have effective living standards.

Unstable, corrupt, and warring regimes are not examples of capitalism, they are examples of what happens when you don't have a properly set up government.

The record of laissez-faire capitalism is clear: failure after failure after failure - free-market economics has effectively been discredited.

United States of America.

Actually the clear majority of first world countries with high living standards are those who have "mixed economies" what Republicans here in the US call "socialism."

And when, exactly, did they get that socialism? How did countries that went very socialistic do after they got it? (ie, Sweden?). http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/16/20070616-080932-5740r/

Europe has seen an improvement due to the power of the Euro, but prior to that, the US economy grew faster longer than most major countries in Europe. This is largely due to the stifiling influence of European socialism. http://www.heritage.org/Research/Economy/wm601.cfm

Again, this is wrong information you are spreading.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Of course if you change your standards around in every argument you can make any system seem successful.

First of all, the Latin American economies implemented the advice of the "Chicago boys" led by Milton Friedman, a group of Libertarians who suggested that they follow rigid "free-market" doctrine, far more free-market than the US. They knew that they could not turn to the people to implement free-market reforms because that never works, even in first world countries, and easier to get one leader to liberalize the market than it is to do it democratically. We know that they weren't even allowed to model their society off of the new deal - when Juan José Arévalo tried to model Guetemala after Roosevelet's policies the US overthrew him. Numerous other democratic attempts were also prevented by the US, including in Chile and Nicaragua. Only recent have they gone back to social democracy.

And I did provide sources. The UN report from 1996 from UNITED NATIONS POPULATION INFORMATION NETWORK clearly states that these countries are worse off than they were 40 years ago with millions of more people in poverty. I agree that many are now on the right track again, but largely this is the result of social democracy, not free-market reforms. Many of these countries also show there was a rise in GDP. A rise in GDP does not necessarily equate to pulling people out of poverty.

I don't know where you get this idea that the US is "laissez-faire." Maybe between 1870 to 1929 or so a case can be made that the US experimented with laissez-faire capitalism but "capitalism" doesn't even come into existence until the late 1800s and after it failed the US had moved to other forms of economics.

Our economics is more on the Keynesian, or regulatory side with an emphasis on corporatism. Keynes was explicity not laissez-faire, and he even questioned capitalism, saying: "Capitalism is the extraordinary belief that the nastiness of man, for the nastiest of reasons, will somehow work to the benefit of us all."

Given that FDRs policies reversed the depression whereas free-market policies did I would say that Keynes was right to question the foundation of capitalism.

And weren't you and Jimmy claiming Obama's tax policies were "socialist" in nature because they put a burden on the rich? By that standard even Thomas Paine, Adam Smith, and numerous other classical thinkers would be considered "socialist" as they supported land taxes and higher taxes on the rich in some cases. So, it's important to state what kind of standards you're using as you're not making much sense.

Also, if we attribute the regulation and Keynesian economics to the "success of capitalism," which was an increase in regulation, why wouldn't attribute the failures of capitalism in Latin America, India, Russia, and the UK after thatcher, which were decreases in regulation of the market?

It makes absolutely no sense. I'm not saying that the countries that constantly beat out America in living standards and longevity rates, and infant mortality etc. etc. are socialist nations. I'm saying that they are democratic-capitalist nations; the amount of socialism they have is next to nothing if we use socialism to mean worker controlled factories. However, by Libertarian-Republican standards, they would all be socialist, and the US as well would of course be socialist. This is a ridiculous standard that only Libertarians on the internet use, it is not a standard used in any of the social sciences.

If even what half of what you're saying is accurate a majority of historians and economists would support Laissez-Faire, Milton Friendman economics. They don't. Here it should be noted your arguments were similar to McCain's, about the benefits of the "free-market," and they were also even rejected by the American people in addition to academics as well.

 

[OrbitalPower]

I agree, substantial responsibility lies not just with the consumer but with government via the subsidies and corporate welfare you referenced above, in addition to the FDA and other government actors that are biased in favor of big agribuis, thus enabling rivers of corn syrup. As far as I can tell your stated preferences would enable a great deal more of this.

I'm not saying the government should completely remove itself from agribusiness, this is true. However, I am saying that if their policies ultimiately encourage an unhealthy diet, then they should be reexamined and their focus should be somewhere else, perhaps out of the "corporate welfare" business altogether.

I'm not one who beliefs HFCS is any worse for you than sugar in the first place, but forcing people to pay for an industry so certain companies can make an enormous profit off of unhealthy foods is wrong.

 

[Evo]

Orbital Power, do not post here again until you have provided the information requested, not your interpretation of the information.

 

[OrbitalPower]

Nordic countries are relatively liberal in economical sense. Iceland was the freest of them all, but I think they hit a little bump in their ride. At the moment established so-called capitalist countries are by default falling to corporatism. Which leads to a new aristocracy. That's one reason why different forms communism are so appealing. And that's why the tree of nations get it's share of the blood of patriots and tyrants. Ironically the toughest communists are also the best capitalists.

They implement UHC and free education to the University level, and numerous other "No-Nos" according to the standards of free-market fundamentalists.

However, you make a good point. That is to say that most European countries, because they don't have the amount of corporatism and corporate favortism that the US has, can be said in a way to be more "free" economically in the liberal sense than the US. They have across the board regulation, regulation intended to affect everybody equally, and not corporatism.

Furthermore, they not only have better records when it comes to longevity, infant mortality, etc., they also have more social freedoms, such as elimination of the death penalty, gay enlistnment in the military, access to a wider variety of information, decriminalized drugs and prostitution in some cases, and so on. These things, supposedly "Libertarian" in nature, are found in economies that engage in heavy taxation etc.

So far history has proven that any attempt to put ideologies into full effect leads to different kinds of disasters. Capitalism is an ideology. Not to mention that there are no existing large scale proper implementations of capitalism in the world. No one has even attempted to build one. By proper I mean a capitalist system with no medium known as money/currency/etc for exchanging goods and services. Money combined with capitalism is just evil and bad. Money rips a gap in between supply and demand.

The Chicago boys did attempt to construct free-market paradises in Latin America, and it failed, as it failed in the early industrial revolution (keep in mind Britain addressed some of the problems of the IR very early on, in contrast to the US where a lot of the problems went on up until the 1920s). These countries did not move to control capitalism and it led to totalitarianism.

Contrary to what conservatives may claim, never in history has a country gone from democratic-capitalism (or social-markets, or "mixed economics", what have you) to totalitarianism, as long as they work under the auspices of a democracy.

Free-market socieities and weak states often turn into "failed states," or they slip into totalitarianism.

That is to say, totaltiarian does not come from taxing the rich or corporations, but giving the corporations too much power to the point where they become the government or start favoring governments that are only beholden to them, or what have you.

However, only change is certain. Modern day capitalism is a result of social evolution so it's only a small sidestep in the bigger picture. I don't claim to know any better alternatives nor do I claim to know the best way to measure the success of systems, but I would hope that the future belongs to quasi-fascsist mixed technocracies. Reason why I hope this because the alternatives may be a lot worse.

I agree that technocracy would be better than laissez-faire capitalism or outright totalitarianism, etc., but those are both very low hurdles. One of the best definitions of "criminal" for modern times comes from a technocrat:

A criminal is a person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation." - Howard Scott, technolcracy supporter.

I would say though that we saw the beginnings of a quasi-fascist corporate system under the Reagan administration who sold off billions of dollars of public R&D to the corporations and since it was not under democratic control, it led to further inequality and inequity.

I agree that capitalism, when properly reformed, does a good job at getting people most of their basic needs and is fairly free when accompanied with democracy.

But if we admit that capitalism must work with other systems, then we must admit pure capitalism is "flawed" and that there must be something in the other systems (democracy, socialism, whatever) that are supposedly "good." And why would we want to build off of a system that is inherently flawed anyway?

Conservatives don't want to do this which is why they have to revise history to make their case.

I disagree that capitalism is "the end of history" in terms of economics systems.

 

[Al68]

But if we admit that capitalism must work with other systems, then we must admit pure capitalism is "flawed" and that there must be something in the other systems (democracy, socialism, whatever) that are supposedly "good." And why would we want to build off of a system that is inherently flawed anyway?

There is waaaaay to much to take the time to dispute, but Libertarians generally don't define capitalism the way you do. Capitalism is not corporatism. Capitalism isn't an economic system of government at all. Capitalism is something people engage in when they are free to do so. It exists to some extent in every country, even in the USSR there was black market capitalism.

Regardless of the degree to which government limits economic freedom, some capitalism exists and creates wealth.

So, if you have some other word you would use to describe the economic decisions people make for themselves instead of what government chooses for them, then substitute that word for capitalism whenever it is used by a libertarian, and at least we would be speaking the same language.

 

[shakemyhandbo]

I think places like this DO exist, most people don't know about them, for these exact reasons previously mentioned.


This discussion could be focused on creating such a society, like ocean colonies for instance. Instead it's being junked up with predictable idealogy. I wouldn't want to be in the same anarchist colony with such a tyrannt, who just hasn't become a ty rant yet.

Humor me.

 

[misgfool]

Ya know, we have actual examples of capitalist countries and communist, socialist, dictatorships, etc. to draw from to figure out if such "ifs" are true or not. This isn't a guessing game: it's history.

And you are saying this while the US is in the midst of a few trillion dollar bailout? Isn't that kind of a violation to the rules of capitalism? I don't deny the fact that capitalism works better than the attempted centrally planned economies. But I don't see why it should be the climax of economic systems at least in it's present implemented form.

We know what happened and we know what works. We know that capitalism leads to prosperity and advancement more than any other system yet tried.

Capitalism seems to work better in totalitarian countries. GDP growth is much higher there. If you set that as your goal, wouldn't it make sense to abandon democracy and go back to totalitarism?

 

[Al68]

But I don't see why it should be the climax of economic systems at least in it's present implemented form.

I think freedom should ultimately be the goal, and free people will engage in capitalism. The only way to stop them is to oppress them. Capitalism isn't something government has to force people to engage in.

People talk about capitalism like it's an economic system in the same way socialism and communism are economic systems. It would be more accurate to say that (free market) capitalism is the result of a lack of an economic system.

Proponents of capitalism don't believe it should be imposed by gov't, they just believe no economic system should be imposed by gov't.

Socialists on the other hand want it to be imposed by gov't, assuming we're not talking about voluntary socialism as practiced by the Amish for example.

 

[misgfool]

How did countries that went very socialistic do after they got it? (ie, Sweden?). http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2007/jun/16/20070616-080932-5740r/

So Sweden took the socialistic track 77 years ago and ended up as one of the wealthiest, healthiest and happiest nations on the planet. Now they are following the current trend of reforming their system in many cases because EU requires it. What's your point?

Europe has seen an improvement due to the power of the Euro, but prior to that, the US economy grew faster longer than most major countries in Europe. This is largely due to the stifiling influence of European socialism.

Maybe goal of Europe wasn't the maximal GDP growth but the welfare of the population. Euro brings stability to currency and removes some trade barriers inside the eurozone. Europe is an export based economic region. At the moment strong euro is what is stifling the growth.

 

[misgfool]

I think freedom should ultimately be the goal, and free people will engage in capitalism. The only way to stop them is to oppress them.

So you would support anarcho-capitalism? How would they get food in a capitalist system without engaging in it? I agree that freedom is important but there has to be a balance between freedom and the general welfare of the public. That's why we have the democratic feedback system. Some freedoms are more important than others.

People talk about capitalism like it's an economic system in the same way socialism and communism are economic systems. It would be more accurate to say that (free market) capitalism is the result of a lack of an economic system.

Not the perfect source, but:

Capitalism is an economic system in which wealth, and the means of producing wealth, are privately owned and controlled rather than publicly or state-owned and controlled.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

 

[Al68]

So you would support anarcho-capitalism? How would they get food in a capitalist system without engaging in it?

They could engage in voluntary socialism if they choose. Like the Amish in US.

Not the perfect source, but:



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism

Yeah, I know. That's what makes it difficult to discuss the issue. But I'm not in favor of gov't choosing capitalism over socialism. I'm in favor of gov't not making the choice at all.

It's hard for me to think of the gov't just leaving people alone as a "system". And no, I'm not an anarcho-capitalist, I believe it's a legitimate role of gov't to protect liberty, law and order, outlaw theft, murder, fraud, assault, etc.

What do we call a situation in which the gov't doesn't try to assume "ownership" of each individual's labor at all, and each person owns their own labor, and can use it, sell it, trade it as they see fit?

Maybe capitalism is the wrong word to use, but it's the word others (perhaps incorrectly?) use to describe a lack of economic oppression.